Pentecost Sunday

Today's Mass Readings

Last Tuesday evening I was invited to a banquet organized by the National Youth Advocate Program, where I was to speak to foster parents of children who need critical care. There was a small group of wonderful people who in an act of overwhelming generosity take into their homes children who otherwise no one would want. They take in juvenile sex-offenders, critically ill children, and even children with serious psychological problems. While my talk was addressed to the foster parents I was totally unaware of who I was actually reaching. Two days later, I received a phone call that one of the staff at the Program was returning to mass after fifteen years. The Holy Spirit of God is still alive and working in our midst. The Holy Spirit works in ways we can never imagine. On this the feast of the Pentecost I believe the Spirit is truly alive in our midst. Let me offer three ways in which the Holy Spirit works in the world today.

1. Pentecost is not a New Testament feast as far its origin is concerned. In the Old Testament, Pentecost, (meaning “fiftieth), was celebrated as "a feast of harvest of the first fruits" (Exodus 23:16). But it was not a mere feast of nature, even though for an agricultural population of Israel it made perfect sense to offer to Yahweh the first fruits of its new harvest. Pentecost also was celebrated as a commemoration of the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai, which according to Exodus 19:1 took place fifty days after departure from Egypt. Pentecost brought to conclusion both the harvest festival and the Passover season. As opposed to the unleavened bread eaten during the Passover, every devout Jew was obliged to offer two loaves of leavened bread from the new wheat.

Let us apply this to the Christian context and to our own individual lives. Just as God gave the Law to the Israelites, God now gives the Holy Spirit to the “new Israel.” The new Israel is not led by a prophet but Jesus, the Son of the Father. The new Israel is not purified by animal offering but by the blood of the Lamb of God- Jesus. Just as the priests accepted the first fruits from the people and offered it to God, Jesus, the eternal high priest, now offers to his Father the first fruits of his own sacrifice. The only difference is that the first fruit is not loaves of bread – but a people, the church. We are the first fruits that Jesus brings to the Father.

What does this mean for us? In the kind of secular society that we live in Pentecost reminds us to keep God right in the midst of our lives. Unlike the Israelites or Jesus, our world keeps leftovers for God instead of first fruits. For example, sometimes I find myself too busy to spend time with God in prayer. Sometimes people miss Sunday worship because they are too busy. Often we only give to God what is leftover after we have paid all our bills and provided all our needs and our wants. Pentecost teaches us to offer “first fruits” not leftovers to God. Pentecost teaches us to put God not first or second in our lives but at the center of all our activities. And this is only possible with the help of the Holy Spirit. As Paul says in the letter to the Corinthians we cannot even say “Jesus is Lord” without the help of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12: 3).

2. Pentecost is a reversal of the Babel story. In Genesis 11 we hear how a single language became a variety of languages. The message or the language of human pride could never be heard because of it was nothing but a tower of babble. Pentecost reverses babble into meaning. Pentecost makes us realize that pride, arrogance, and self service only creates confusion. Rather the Holy Spirit at Pentecost made everyone, even foreigners, understand each other. The Holy Spirit is teaching us that we are one with every other person on the face of the earth who seeks God and seeks to live in love. Pentecost teaches us to think as “we” when most of us think of ourselves us “I”. Pentecost teaches us that the Spirit hangs out where there is community. Our first reading tells us that on that day there were one hundred and twenty people gathered together. The gospel reading tells us that Jesus spoke to a small group of eleven apostles and said “Just as the Father sent me, I send you.” Those eleven apostles along with the hundred and twenty in the upper room made all the difference in the world. They took the message of love, the message of reconciliation, the message of peace, and the message of hope to the entire world.

Today there are four hundred people in this church. What if we let the Spirit of God transform and change us? What if we took the same message to our world? This world needs love, hope, reconciliation and peace. Just as the Father sent Jesus, the Father sends us!

3. Pentecost is the new breath of God in the here and now. There are many reasons we can propose that Jesus breathed on the disciples. One explanation is that Jesus breathing on the apostles was a new creation story in the same way the God had begun creation by breathing life into the Adam and Eve nostrils. But on a more human level, sharing breath is a sign of intimacy. Husband and wife share breath in their moments of intimacy; a mother who holds her baby close to her breast shares her breath too. It is an intimacy that defies explanation. Sometimes we give breath to an unconscious person. Such intimacy is always life giving. If God breathes upon us it means that God’s own breath, God’s life, God’s intimate presence is in us.

What does this mean for us? We have life because of God’s breath. We are not just biological life. We carry within ourselves the breath of God. That makes us holy. That makes the people sitting around us holy. That gives every person in this world, black, white, yellow and brown, prisoners and free, believers and non-believers, good and bad, born and unborn a special dignity. If a person is alive, that person is the breath of God. Can we recognize that today?

We are here at this Eucharist today in the same way that the disciples gathered in that upper room. Soon God will breathe upon this bread and wine and it will become the holy body and blood of Jesus. Through the body and blood of Jesus God will breathe upon us once again. Let us allow the Holy Spirit - the breath of God to come into our lives. Let God breathe upon us and transform us. Amen.

- Fr. Satish