St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, May 11, 2008

A Message for Pentecost – John Duggan

Acts 2: 1-21 John 20: 19-23

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“He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them….’” John 20:22-23

We know that the Holy Spirit is in us when we are forgiving people. Recall that Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 assures us that “Love is patient, love is kind ….” Jesus breathes the “Holy Spirit” on his disciples and they become capable of forgiveness that makes a difference, forgiveness that is effective, forgiveness that creates a community. Cathy has a favourite author, Alexander McCall Smith, who, among his other creative efforts, writes a very popular series of books about the “No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency”. The Lady Detective at the centre of these tales is a wonderfully compassionate African woman, a citizen of Botswana. Mma Ramotswe is a very clever detective but also quite kind. More often than not, she reconciles criminal and victim, blessing both. The other day, instead of preparing my sermon, I spent my time reading the novel “In the Company of Cheerful Ladies.”

Mma Ramotswe has an old white van that her husband, a master mechanic, keeps on the road. It happens that while driving, Mma Ramotswe becomes distracted, swerves the van into oncoming traffic, and forces a man on a bicycle off the road. The bicycle is damaged and so she undertakes to have it repaired at her husband’s garage. She learns from the rider of the bicycle, Mr. Polopetsi, that he has been unable to obtain work and is beginning to be in desperate need. His problem is that when he informs potential employers that he has recently come out of prison, they don’t want to hire him. Mma Ramotswe decides to take the risk and to give the man employment. He assists her husband in the garage and does occasional work with her detective agency. He proves to be a very honest and capable man, a perfect fit for the work that she and her husband need help with.

This is a simple story. While society has scapegoated and excluded this man, Mma Ramotswe has followed her gut feeling (the Holy Spirit I would say). She lifts the curse and brings Mr. Polopetsi back into the community. Her forgiving attitude has a dramatic impact on the life of this man.

The author, Alexander McCall Smith, who was a Law Professor at the University of Botswana and the University of Edinburgh, has a sensibility informed by faith. A heart informed by faith is capable of recognizing good in the most terrible of situations. This is not a foolishly optimistic attitude but the deep knowledge born of faith that recognizes the desire of the Creator to bring life and not death. God wills the salvation of all (1 Timothy 2:4) – God’s universal salvific will is one of the most significant themes of contemporary theology. People of faith anticipate that God will be at work in the world. Faith gives us the capacity to recognize the Holy Spirit forgiving, healing, enabling, and bringing to life people caught in desperate situations.

Whether it is the account of Pentecost at Acts or the Resurrection appearance in the Gospel of John, the Spirit is connected intimately with forgiveness. The accounts as we have received them bear the stamp of authentic memory. In the writings of the New Testament, the Christian community recalls that the disciples behaved badly and had to experience forgiveness. The disciples are portrayed as having failed Jesus, abandoned him to his fate, and then gathered together in fear of the authorities. They, and especially the men, were guilty people. The appearance of the Risen Jesus among them and the power of the Spirit descending on them, frees them from their closed rooms, fills them with peace and makes them capable of communicating deep joy to other people. Themselves forgiven, they are transformed into forgiving people.

“Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). We are aware of the horrors of evil that have been occurring in various regions of our world. In the present political climate fostered by terrorism and the war on terrorism, violence and revenge have spiralled out of control in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine. Genocidal wars in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur are only the most recent instances of total solutions that prove not to be the solution at all. The solution to violence and counter-violence is forgiveness. That capacity to forgive is a gift. It is the gift given when the Holy Divine enters us, when the Spirit is given in our hearts (see Romans 5:5). This is why Bishop Tutu, Nelson Mandela and others of South Africa have become models for many of us. The Truth and Reconciliation response to evil is also what we recognize as the authentically Christian response. There are many Spirit filled people like Mma Ramotse, not only in Africa, but right here in this congregation and on the streets of Bowmanville. As we come to know more and more people outside the Christian tradition, people like the Dalai Lama, we begin to recognize the working of the Holy Spirit in their lives as well.

The Holy Spirit, the Spirit that was from the beginning, is the Spirit of Jesus the Christ. We know from the book of Genesis, Chapter 1, verse 2, that “a wind from God swept over the face of the waters” of Creation. We hold that the Spirit inspired the Prophets of Israel. We believe that the Spirit came upon Mary, the mother of Jesus (Luke 1:35). This knowledge informs how we have come to understand the Pentecost event. The Holy Spirit was not absent in the life of Jesus and his disciples. The Holy Spirit is present before Pentecost. However, Pentecost is the time of a crucial release of the Holy Spirit. It is the moment when the disciples as a community declared their love for God through Jesus Christ.

What is the rationale for being a Christian when the Holy Spirit is given before explicit commitment to Jesus? Let me leave you with an analogy that may point toward an answer to this question. It is an analogy that I have been pondering for the last while. It is the analogy of Pentecost to the experience of declaring one’s love, of committing to marriage. Falling in love is a wonderful experience. I love her or I love him and my world changes. I hear the song of the birds; I experience the freshness of future possibilities. However, when a couple who love one another, declare their love for one another, and commit to marriage, there is a crucial release of that love. Love declared transforms the life of the lovers and changes the community around them. After Pentecost the community of Christians together strive to live in the Spirit of Jesus the Christ. No longer solitary individuals, we are committed together to be people characterized by the forgiving love of Jesus the Christ. This love is effective and changes the world we live in. At Pentecost we celebrate forgiving love that makes a difference.