In the Day of Pentecost, we engage with an idea of work, responsibility, and commitment that reminds us of what really is ours.
For Sunday
Day of Pentecost: Whitsunday
Collect
Almighty God, on this day you opened the way of eternal life to every race and nation by the promised gift of your Holy Spirit: Shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Reading
From John 14:8-17 (25-27)
“Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do”
Reflection
Each Sunday toward the beginning of the service of Holy Eucharist (or toward the end of Morning Prayer) we pray The Collect of the Day. A collect is a kind of prayer. And
this week we get a choice between two collects. And it is kind of fitting.
The first one, which I’ve included above is a prayer about the world and the Holy Spirit’s agency in it.
The second option is to speak of the Spirit coming to the disciples to empower them.
As a priest and leader of worship, I often lean toward the latter option. It fits with the sense we have of this day and of the distinctness of our calling. But this year, I felt a different nudge. Not to focus on the specialness of following Jesus or the particular power we are granted to be the children of God. But to the work itself.
There’s something about the idea of being empowered by the Spirit that really resonates with me. Especially as so much in life makes me feel so disempowered.
But we also receive so many messages from our culture that suggest we hold on to our power, that we are somehow threatened to lose it. And therefore we must protect it.
Nothing could be further from the gospel than this.
Our specialness is found in the Kin-dom of God, not in the kingdom of Earth, in the United States of America and the great state of Indiana. We aren’t made special in the eyes of the (state) law. But in the eyes of God.
The profoundness of the Pentecost event is not that disciples could suddenly speak in many tongues, but in that every person present could understand. The Spirit didn’t come to make the followers special, but to make the grace of God known by all.
It is our privilege to share this message. To be the way others may receive grace in the form of love, peace, and hope.
This is our work. And it is, indeed, work.
It is also the work through which God will be made known.
Our doing the work of Jesus is how people encounter Jesus. Which is our honor. And their opportunity.
The Problem in the Text
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