Reflections...

A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 30 May 2004, by David Gill. The scripture readings that day were Acts 2:1-21, Romans 8:14-17 and St John 14:8-17.



Today – the day of Pentecost – is the birthday of the Church.

As with most births, the birth of the Church was an experience of joy through trauma. Deep trauma. For put yourself in the shoes of those early Christians.

Their leader had left them. Yes, there had been those dramatic resurrection appearances, reinforcing their conviction that what Jesus had embodied was stronger than all the forces that had been pitted against him, stronger even than death. But now the appearances had stopped.

Apparently, it was all over. The curtain had been rung down on the last act. Jesus, on whom they had staked everything, was gone – ascended into heaven, or something, but certainly gone. The God they had glimpsed in him was now as far away as ever. The Word that had become flesh and dwelt among them had become, once again, silence.

Of course they met together, they prayed, they talked over what had happened, they even elected a successor to Judas among the twelve. But still … silence. The aching silence of the bereaved. The despairing silence of those for whom all doors to the future had been slammed shut -- locked, barred and bolted.

Then it happened. Exactly what happened we do not know, but we do know it had decisive significance for those early Christians and for all who were to follow after. Certainly the Acts of the Apostles dresses the event up with vivid symbolism – noises in the heavens, tongues of fire touching everyone present, a crowd gathering, excitement spreading, all of them bursting into a babel of languages to talk about what God was doing, the amazed question: what does this mean? Then an excited sermon from Peter and, finally, the baptism of about 3000 people.

The grim silence had been broken. Their desolation was ended. The door to the future was open. They had discovered that God was with them yet – making Christ known to those who had never met him, giving meaning to the tumultuous events of those days, renewing the faith of demoralized believers, empowering them to face a frightening world, binding them together in a great new family of faith that transcended all human divisions. With that discovery, driven by a power beyond itself, the Church began its long march out across the nations and down through the centuries.


The Church Today

We are heirs to that great discovery. For on this day of Pentecost we do not simply remember something that was, long ago. We rejoice in something that is, now, and will be, to the end. We celebrate the miracle that God is with us yet – opening our eyes to the glory of Christ, giving meaning to the bewildering events of these days, renewing the faith of our demoralized churches, empowering us to face a frightening world, binding us together in the great family of faith that transcends our human divisions.

There are several special days in the Christian calendar. One or two of them, notably Christmas, touch the lives of people not only within the Christian Church but far beyond it. And that’s great.

But Pentecost is very specifically the festival of the Church. Not of individuals. Not of denominations. Not of one local congregation or another. But of the whole Church – that weird and wonderful crowd of people in just about every country on the face of the earth, speaking every language known to the anthropologists, embracing a dazzling variety of cultures and skin textures and lifestyles, organized in many different ways and worshipping according to many different traditions. A vast crowd, the limits of which are known to God alone, the center of which is Jesus Christ its Lord, the life-giving power of which is the Holy Spirit that came upon it at Pentecost.

This day reminds us whose the Church is, what the Church is for, and where lies the Church’s hope.


Whose it is

The Church is not a comfortable club of likeminded people, but a frequently discomforting fellowship of the unlikeminded. Not a group of people pursuing their own interests, but a community drawn by God’s grace into a mission that is determined by his interest. Not the tame servant of any party, ideology or government, but a rebel against all parties, ideologies and governments that stand in the way of God’s life-giving purpose for the world.

How often have you heard Christians talk about the Church’s life, witness and worship in terms of what “I prefer” or “I would like”? The question is irrelevant. What matters is not what you or I would like, but what God’s mission in Christ dictates – which may be a very different matter indeed!

The pentecost-al Church is not ours. It belongs solely to the Lord and takes its marching orders from him alone.


What it is for

Yes, Pentecost is the festival of the Church. But not in any narrow, introverted sense. Only in the context of the world for which Christ lived and died – the world in which human life is built up and broken down, the world where prisoners are tortured and young people commit suicide, the world of young babies crying in their hunger and old men crying in their loneliness.

For the Spirit who empowers the Church is one with the Father who rules the world and the Son who died for it. The God who draws you into the community of faith is the God who draws you further, to share in his self-giving love for all creation.

Some years ago, traveling for the World Council of Churches, I attended a baptism in a remote village north of Chiengmai, in Thailand. The lay leader of the congregation explained that they’d had some serious local problems -- “bad spirits,” as he put it, were affecting the village well and stirring up conflict among the people. Pray, he asked us, that the Holy Spirit may come to cast out the bad spirits and to heal us. His request for prayer was actually an important statement of faith. The well? That was the realm of economics. And village conflict? That had to do with politics. The promise of God’s presence, he saw, had implications for both. It’s not just a matter of what happens within the walls of the church.


Where lies its hope

Five centuries ago, when the movement for reform was sweeping the Church in Europe, the then king of France, Henry of Navarre, was a very worried man. He threatened the reformers with punishment if they refused to fall into line with his wishes. One of their leaders, Theodore de Beze, responded in words that echo even in our own day. “Sire,” he said. “It belongs in truth to the Church of God … to receive blows and not to give them, but … remember that the Church is an anvil that has worn out many a hammer”.

This point seems to have escaped the governments that in our time have been hammering upon the Church, seeking either its conformity or its extinction. For in my lifetime, from Moscow to Seoul to Capetown to Santiago de Chile, Christians have rediscovered that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church”.

Where lies the Church’s hope? Not with the approval of governments or public opinion, that’s for sure. Not with the likes of you and me, that’s even more sure. But with the One whose we are and to whose service we are called. The One against whose saving love the gates of hell cannot prevail. He is our hope.


My friends, remember. It is precisely at those moments when we feel abandoned by God – that He bursts forth among us. It is precisely when the silence is deepest – that He speaks. It is precisely when the future seems hopelessly closed – that He shows us the way. It is precisely when we feel most appallingly alone – that we discover He is indeed with us, to the end.

He is our hope. For Pentecost is forever. And the empowering gift of God’s presence is a gift that bears our names.


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