One Spirit

Scriptures:     Acts 2:1-21, Psalm 104:24-35,   I Corinthians 12:3-13,   John 20:19-23




At various times I’ve lived in large apartment complexes.  In such places,  it was hard to get to know my neighbors, the people in the apartment next to me, even though we were separated by just a wall or a floor or a ceiling – and sometimes that wall or floor or ceiling wasn’t enough to block out the sound from the next apartment.   And sometimes it’s not just sounds that come from the neighboring apartment.  I remember a number of years back, I had gone home from work and walked in the front door and to the refrigerator to get something to eat – only to find a large puddle of water on the kitchen floor. I checked under the kitchen sink – no, no leak there.  And then I looked up….and I saw water dripping from the kitchen ceiling.  I called the maintenance guy to tell him that something was going on in the apartment above me that was causing water to come into my apartment, and could he please check it out.  In the meantime, I was feeling kind of grossed out.  Was the water coming from the kitchen of the apartment above me?  From their bathtub?   And of course, there are worse possibilities.  It actually took several calls over several days until the problem was finally solved; part of the problem was plumbing, but part of the problem was that the upstairs neighbor didn’t know – or care – that their activities were causing water to drip into my kitchen.  And the way the apartments were laid out, I couldn’t even necessarily tell which neighbor.  It was a helpless feeling, having water from another apartment coming into my kitchen, and not being able to do anything about it.
Today is Pentecost, when Christians celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Pentecost takes place 50 days after Easter.  Remember that we’re told that for forty days after his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples at various times, teaching and reminding him of what he had previously taught them.  Just before his Ascension, Jesus told the disciples that they would receive the Holy Spirit not many days from then.  And now, on Pentecost, the day has arrived.
Pentecost was originally a Jewish festival, and is still celebrated under the name of Shavuot.  In the Old Testament book of Leviticus (Leviticus 23:15-21), Shavuot or Pentecost (the latter comes from the number 50, representing 50 days from Passover) is a festival connected with the first fruits of the wheat harvest. Later this festival was connected with the giving of the law. As Christians, we can perhaps see Pentecost as the first fruits of the coming of the Holy Spirit, who writes within our hearts the new law of love.
We remember that according to the account in Acts, the Holy Spirit came with the sound of rushing wind and the tongues of fire on the disciples heads - sound effects and a light show, perhaps the closest a written account could come to the Sensurround side effects of a modern movie theatre.  And we remember that today – our altar is draped in red, and I’m wearing a red clerical shirt.  In some churches, the members are asked to wear red on Pentecost – all symbolic of the tongues of fire seen that day.  Since our fans are running, perhaps they can remind us of the sound of rushing wind.  I’ve never heard of churches doing that…..maybe because the symbolism connected to Pentecost came into being long before electricity was discovered.
 It's important, though, that the sound of rushing wind and the tongues of flame weren’t just there so that those gathered could ooh and aah.  Behind the attention getting sounds and sights was a purpose - to bring people together. The writer of Acts (who also wrote Luke's gospel, by the way) tells us that there were people from all over the known world gathered in one place, all speaking many different languages - but with the coming of the spirit, they could understand one another.  As we read about those gathered speaking in many tongues, yet being able to understand one another, we might remember the story of the Tower of Babel, when some of the first humans gathered in one place to build a tower with the intent that they could climb up into heaven and look around.  We  may remember how the story ended:  God confused the language of those who were building so that they could not understand one another, and they left off building the tower.  And since then, communication between people of different languages has been difficult.  But at Pentecost, it was God’s intent, at least in that moment, to undo what happened at the Tower of Babel and allow people of different languages to achieve mutual understanding.  Remember in our reading from last week, Jesus prayed that all his of his followers would be one.  The sending of the Holy Spirit was the way in which Jesus would bring this about.   According to our reading from I Corinthians, the one Spirit would equip the church with many gifts – wisdom, faith, gifts of healing, miraculous powers, prophetic gifts, discernment, the ability to speak in and understand unknown tongues.  Many gifts, but one purpose – to build up the church.
We live in a time of great divisions, and we need the spirit’s gifts today to build mutual understanding.   People often don’t know their neighbors, and that can be the case whether we live in a small apartment in a large, anonymous apartment complex or in a McMansion in a gated community.  Here in Bridesburg, I do have to say that neighbors know one another better than in many communities – it’s one of the strengths of this neighborhood, a sense of connectedness.  But beyond our immediate neighbors, we may not see how our actions affect others far away – and yet our lives are connected, especially as we consider climate change and various environmental hazards, because we all share the same planet.  Having water from a neighbor’s apartment dripping into my kitchen made me feel angry and helpless.   Now imagine living in a low-lying area threatened by rising sea levels.  Human activities are contributing to the problem, but it’s not like they can call the landlord and get somebody to stop running water.  In Pennsylvania and New Jersey, construction of pipelines to transport oil has threatened individual properties and entire communities – and so the gasoline we use to fuel our cars and the oil we use to heat our homes may come at the price of people having to move off land they’ve held for generations.   And here in Bridesburg, industrial activity benefitting millions across the country has left a legacy of health problems in this neighborhood.  In the apartment complex where I lived, as I said, I didn’t know my neighbors, and yet be living in the same large building, our lives were connected.  Similarly, though we don’t know our neighbors, by virtue of sharing the same planet, our lives are connected with every other life on the planet.  Just as on Pentecost the Holy Spirit enabled persons of many languages to understand one another, the Spirit continues to call us beyond ourselves and our own little lives to care for our neighbors, those next door to us and those on the other side of the globe.   We need the Spirit to open our eyes and ears and hearts to the ways in which our lives are connected to our neighbors down the street, and our neighbors around the globe.
Paul wrote:   “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”  May the Spirit open our eyes to the ways in which we are connected to one another here at Emanuel Church, and to our sisters and brothers in Christ across the country and around the globe. Amen.