Let Him Breathe
Let Him Breathe:
Praising God with the Fullness of our Lives.
Sermon preached on Whitsunday (Pentecost) on 31st May Anno Domini 2020
at 7:00 PM service of Evening Prayer over Facebook Live.
καὶ γὰρ ἐν ἑνὶ Πνεύματι ἡμεῖς πάντες εἰς ἓν σῶμα ἐβαπτίσθημεν, εἴτε Ἰουδαῖοι εἴτε Ἕλληνες, εἴτε δοῦλοι εἴτε ἐλεύθεροι. καὶ πάντες ἓν Πνεῦμα ἐποτίσθημεν.
For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12.13
The day is Pentecost; the place is Jerusalem. The day is Pentecost, the place is Jerusalem, and a group of ragged worn, but ultimately joyful women and men have gathered in one place; from their various occupations they have come here, to occupy this place – Jerusalem – and to fill this house with their very human presence. We begin with all the elements that make up a story; a time, a place, and a people. We begin, not in the beginning, but in media res – in the midst of things – the way we always find ourselves in life coming alongside a group of people who have been waiting for something to happen for some time.
These people – the disciples – will be described later in the passage from two different perspectives – all of them and each of them. They are a group of people who are united in purpose and in heart – all of them together – but they are also singular and unique persons with specific strengths and weaknesses. They are the disciples of Jesus – a motley crew, but they do have this in common – they are devout Jews and they have been loved by a man named Jesus – a carpenter who had been brutally murdered by state officials, while those who were supposed to serve and protect stood by and did nothing; thereby implicitly and explicitly condoning an act of state-sanctioned murder. It is dangerous to be a disciple of Jesus, sometimes, and the act of the disciples gathering in Jerusalem at this time is an act of courage for which the disciples are to be commended.
These same disciples who are our Ancestors in the faith, but also our contemporaries in the great communion of saints which transcends time and space. We face the same trials; the trials of having our love and loyalty tested by the ravages of time and nature, by the callousness of a world grown cold, loveless, and indifferent to human suffering, and by the sins which beset each of us, which we often do not want to mention, let alone confront. We will hear Peter, in his first sermon, articulate a vision of a truly just society which rejects policies and attitudes based on protecting privileged status, based on racism, based on discrimination. I would encourage each of you to read that sermon in its fullness in Acts 2.14-36. In one, fairly daring, passage Peter condemns the Roman authorities who killed Jesus as illegitimate – those outside the law. - ‘This man ... you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law.’ ~ Acts 2.23. The Roman and Roman-backed authorities who presided over the killing of Jesus – Pontius Pilate and Herod – are implicity identified as being outside the covenant law – the Torah - revealed by God to the Assembly of Israel on Mt. Sinai.
Peter’s first sermon, which is often called the first sermon of the Church, is a sermon which identifies the unjust laws and practices of the time and place in which it was preached. This focus on law, as will hopefully become clear, is not foreign to the celebration of Pentecost. It is worth examining, in some detail, the time in which this story takes place.
The lives of these early disciples unfold, as our lives do as well, in time. The passage teaches us this in its very first words. “When the day of Pentecost had come.” The King James version of the Bible translates this passage as “When the day of Pentecost had fully come,” in an effort to retain the original sense that the day was full, heavy, and ripe for the spiritual harvest that was to occur. There is a resonance in the original Greek text between the fullness of the day, and the way in which the Holy Spirit filled the house and the disciples – the same root word is used for each of the words. This resonance, unfortunately, is difficult to convey in the English tongue. The sense of the passage, which I would like you to appreciate, is that the day of Pentecost had fully come, had come in its fullness, and that this is a significant moment in the lives of the followers of Jesus.
Now, those of you who heard my sermon last week may be saying to yourselves, “Hang on a blessed minute, Joshua, didn’t you tell us last week that Jesus told us not to concern ourselves with times and moments? Why, then, the sudden focus on the fullness of time? Shouldn’t we simply concern ourselves with living into the spiritual blessings of the power and wisdom which we receive through the Holy Spirit, and bearing faithful witness to Christ at all times and in all places?
The answer to that question is, “Yes, of course, we should bear witness to Christ at all times and in all places, or rather, we should bear faithful witness in each of the times and each of the places to which the Lord has called us.” Our lives unfold in a time and in a place, and the gospel of Christ demands that we fully inhabit the time and place in which we live, without losing the distinctive character of what makes us disciples and followers of Jesus. The disciples of Jesus were in Jerusalem for at least two reasons. The first was that Jesus had told them to wait there, but we are also told that they were there to celebrate a particular feast – the feast of Pentecost.
Pentecost comes from the Greek word for fifty; and it is a translation onto the Greco-Roman calendar of a Hebrew liturgical festival known as Shavuot. Shavuot means weeks and so this festival is also known as the Feast of Weeks, as it occurs seven weeks (a week of weeks) after the Passover. This is a reference to Deuteronomy 16.19-12 which identifies Shavuot or Pentecost as one of 3 major celebrations of the assembly of Israel:
“You shall count off seven weeks; start to count the seven weeks when the sickle is first put to the standing grain. Then you shall observe the Feast of Weeks for the LORD your God, offering your freewill contribution according as the LORD you God has blessed you. You shall rejoice before the LORD your God with your son and daughter, your male and female slave, the Levite in your communities, and the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow in your midst, at the place where the LORD your God will choose to establish His name. Bear in mind that you were slaves in Egypt, and take care to obey these laws.”
Within the Jewish tradition shavuot, or pentecost, has a double significance. It is an agricultural festival which involves the giving of the first-fruits of the harvest to God, and it commemorates the giving of the Torah – the law of God – to the assembly of Israel on Mt. Sinai. The Jewish community today began their celebration of Shavuot on the evening of Thursday May 28, 2020 and concluded on the evening of Saturday May 30. One of the customs of the Jewish community and households of today is to stay up all night on that first evening of Shavuot to learn Torah. In some Jewish communities this will be followed by a service in the synagogue which opens with a liturgical poem, called the Akdamut, consisting of praise for God, his Torah, and his people.
Understanding this background to Pentecost can, I think, help us appreciate a bit more what is going on, and why the passage describes the day as having fully come. It is dawn, it is morning and the disciples have, very likely, been engaged in a practice not that different from Jewish people today. They have gathered together in one place, and they were either up all night or got up very early. When Peter gives his speech it is only the third hour after dawn (what we might call nine o’clock) and by that time the indwelling of the Holy Spirit has already occurred and the crowd of devout Jews from every nation under heaven has gathered to hear the mysterious sound of rough Galilean accents proclaiming God’s deeds of power. What are God’s deeds of power? Well, creating the , world, making a covenant with Abraham, liberating the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, and giving the Law on Mt. Sinai. Also, for the followers of Jesus, raising Jesus from the dead. It seems, though, that in this early part of the passage they are rehearsing the deeds of power that are commonly known to those who hear them. The devout Jews who gather “at this sound,” express surprise not at the content of the message, but at who is delivering the message, and how they are speaking in the native language of each. “Are not all who are speaking Galileans?”
Now, unfortunately, we do not know a lot about the socio-economic status of Galileans in 1st century Palestine. We do know that a man named Judas the Galilean had led a revolt against the Roman imperial authorities around the year 6. The 1st century Jewish historian Josephus blames that particular Galilean for
introducing the ideology of revolution which will eventually end with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70. During the time in which the scene in the book of Acts is set Judea, Samaria, and Galilee are separate political entities. There is also some evidence that Galileans spoke Aramaic quite differently from their counterparts in Judea – hence the scene in Matthew 26:73 where Peter is identified as a follower of Jesus - “Surely you are one of them,’ they said, ‘for your accent gives you away.”
The biblical scholar Geza Vermes notes that part of this accent consisted in the Galileans not distinguishing between guttural sounds – dropping their h’s to use an English equivalent – which gave rise to the trope of the stupid, uneducated Galilean who became the butt of Judean jokes. So, the surprise of others at Galileans – who had a tough time communicating in regular, everyday, Aramaic, is doubled. In fact, it is expressed twice in the biblical passage. Some express a sense of wonder at this new experience - ‘how can this be?” Others double down on the stereotype of the Galilean as a rough, bumbling, and quite possibly criminal person. - “They are filled with new wine.”
Peter, that Galilean of Galileans, stands up and begins to proclaim what has happened. He begins by refuting the snide remarks about drunkenness, by appealing to the sense of decency and what is ritually appropriate that would be shared by Galileans and Judeans. These are not drunk as you suppose, for it is only the third hour. It is the third hour of a day when everyone has been engaged in a period of fasting, prayer, and study. Peter’s remark, which may seem like a weak defence, is actually a subtle reminder to those who are mocking him that they are being malicious, uncharitable, and thoughtless. It is as if to say, “Yes, I am a Galilean, I have a strange accent and I am rough around the edges, but I, too, have the Spirit of God upon me. God is bring us together, and creating a new kind of intimacy, and this is the beginning of that intimacy and togetherness.”
Unfortunately, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have seen a rise in racial slurs, anti-Semitism, and acts of racially charged violence. The Holy Spirit, which moved Peter the Galilean to take a stand and say, “Look, you’re wrong. You’re wrong to discriminate against people on the basis of how they speak. You’re wrong to call us drunkards because we’re Galilean; you’re wrong to hate us because of where we come from.”
He doesn’t waste a lot of time, though, refuting the mockers. The mockery is stupid, and either they’ll realize that they are being stupid and shameful and shut-up, or they won’t. Peter goes on to address, in more detail, the question posed by those who are actually interested in understanding this moment – What is happening?
He draws on the prophet Joel to answer. Peter the Galilean, we see, has been studying his bible. “In these last days... the Spirit of God will be poured out on all people. Even on my slaves, male and female.’
As we see from that speech, the boundaries between peoples; the social categories and hostilities that divide us are being broken down. The spirit of God is for everyone, it unites us all, and it calls us to move beyond old prejudices. This is a new moment; these are the last days, and a new envisioning is required of us. No longer can we continue to support the lawless structures that allow men and women to be brutalized and killed. We can’t do that anymore – these are the last days. The fullness of the harvest has begun, and God has called us to be witnesses in this world.
Peter’s speech also hearkens back to the original intent of the festival of Shavuot – of Pentecost – remember that you were slaves in Egypt. Remember that the way you order and organize your society; the things you value and the way you treat people is important. God has commanded us to take care of the fatherless, the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the slaves – the men and women whom our world often casts down on the ground and tramples and crushes.
Give people space to breath. Give people a place in which to draw a deep and grateful breath of life and of God’s Holy Spirit.
Each person is a temple of the Holy Spirit.
Remember that. The spirit of God rested upon each one of that motley crew of disciples.
Each person breathes the breath of God into their bodies, and has done so since the dawn of Creation. St. Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians tells the disciples –
“Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies,but test everything; hold fast what is good.”
Suddenly from heaven there came a sound, like the sound of a violent, rushing wind.
The sound of violence has been echoing across our airwaves for many days. What we see in Acts is not an avoidance of that reality – of the reality that unfolds across the human space and time – but a confrontation of it through the deeper spiritual regeneration that happens. The sound of the spirit is like the sound of a violent, rushing wind – but the spirit of God is neither violent, nor does it rush us. The Holy Spirit arrives, at precisely the right time – the fullness of time – and fills us with a breath that is deep and true so that we can speak truly, in the language of the one who is listening, but in an accent that is deeply our own.
Let him breathe. Let him speak.
We are all baptized into one body. We all drink from the same Spirit – the same breath of life.