Sunday Sermon - 8 June
This morning I am going to pick up from where I left off last week, on Ascension Sunday. A quick recap: I spoke about Jesus' ascension into heaven not as an abandonment or departure but a transformation to being exalted, to reign. Jesus’ earthly mission is complete, scripture has been fulfilled and, as He is exalted, He tells His disciples to wait - for soon they will be “clothed with power from on high.” That is how we left things last week. Waiting, prayerfully on pause.
Today we are on pause no longer, the wait is over, the fires of Pentecost are upon us.
The word ‘Pentecost’ means fiftieth. Today is celebrated as the fiftieth day after Easter and it began not as a Christian festival but as a day of celebration in the Jewish tradition.
On the fiftieth day after Passover there was a day of expressing thanksgiving for the harvest. It was also a time of pilgrimage to the Temple to give offerings and this is why there were so many different people from different countries in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples.
Pentecost for the Jews was also a day of honouring the covenant God made with Noah as we know from Genesis 9:17 - God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.” A little later on, after the temple was destroyed and offerings couldn’t be given, the fiftieth day after Passover became a day to celebrate and give thanks for the reception of Jewish Scripture, the Torah.
This was an historic festival day that predated the Christian story. God chose this already established feast day to descend as the Holy Spirit upon His disciples for all to witness the power of the new covenant.
That’s a bit of the history, at a really high level overview, but Pentecost is a living festival that isn’t trapped in the bonds of historical context. Pentecost isn’t a moment in history, it is a movement as relevant and powerful for today as it was back then. Pentecost is the day when the angels tell us to stop looking up into the sky and get to work!
Pentecost is the day that the church is born. We are no longer waiting for God to act - God is waiting for us to witness. We celebrate the feast of Pentecost every year for the reminder, for the spiritual rejuvenation to not withdraw from the evils of our world but to engage against them, courageously, truthfully and compassionately.
Today’s readings tell us exactly how we can engage. In Acts the Holy Spirit calls us to speak truth across barriers. The disciples were given the ability to speak languages that were not their own and a miracle of mutual understanding occurred. There were people from all over who understood what the disciples were saying in their own tongue, the barriers of national, ethnic and linguistic boundaries were broken.
Today, we are called to speak up for truth, inclusion, and reconciliation. The Holy Spirit descends upon us to advocate across divisions, to speak out against racism, xenophobia, and systemic injustice.
As a community, we are living out this call in meaningful ways—by supporting Ezat in bringing his family to the safety of Canada and by deepening our understanding of Indigenous and First Nations peoples and the impact of settler arrival. On June 21, we’ll host the Mapping the Ground workshop, followed by worship on June 22 as we honour National Indigenous Awareness Sunday together. Though these events may seem relatively small amidst the issues our world faces, these acts and experiences teach us to better understand the cultures, the suffering, and the resistance in others lives. Through these experiences we gain clarity and we learn compassion.
Our Romans reading empowers our identity and strengthens our solidarity as Christians. Paul declares that we are children of God, not slaves to fear. As children of God, as adopted heirs of Christ, we are to courageously stand up for the injustices we see in the world. We are to stand up for the marginalized. When we do we may get pushed back, challenged, and offended but we do not balk or give up. We push on, perhaps sharing in Christ’s suffering, for at the end we will celebrate in His glory.
It’s important to note that, as Christians, we don’t do God’s work as self-righteous heroes, looking for glory. That’s not it at all. We do God’s work, we enter the place of those who are suffering, because these fellow humans on the margins of life, the ostracized and outcast, the homeless and desperate, are our siblings, our brothers and our sisters. We are all God’s children and we all belong in this family of love.
Our ministry with the Foodbank is a good example of this. The Foodbank is not just a time for people to pull up outside the church and get a few bags of groceries. The Foodbank fosters relationships - the recipients with each other, the volunteers with the recipients, the volunteers with each other. Every Tuesday morning it is clear that, in those couple of hours, everyone belongs, everyone matters and is loved.
Today, on Pentecost, we are reminded to go out into the margins of life, not just to stop and give a couple of bucks to the panhandler on the street, and feel good about our charitable deed, but to stop, look them in the eye, truly ‘see them’ as fellow human beings. Speak, have a bit of a conversation, share your story, show you care, show them that they belong, that they matter, and are worthy of our love and care.
And lastly, we have our Gospel, John 14. Today we are commissioned, the Spirit sends us out with peace and power - peace and power. It’s important to note that we aren’t sent out with just peace, but with the force of power. Jesus promises that the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will guide us in truth, giving a peace not as the world knows it, but a peace with the power to still our hearts and the hearts of others amid the chaos of life.
Our call to action from the Gospel is to be peacemakers and truth-tellers in this age of disinformation, misinformation, and division.
The news earlier this week was a quite fascinating statement on society. On many Canadian news stations the lead story was the break up of Trump and Musk and their resultant Twitter/X posts battle. You know, the stuff that trashy reality TV is made of. Meanwhile, the next story - on Canadian news, I remind you - was that the Canadian Federal Government had unanimously passed an internal provincial trade bill. This is huge! Not just that the federal government was working together constructively, but the provinces are prepared to as well. Now, it's just the beginning, and the actual legislation needs to be passed but it is proof that we can and should be working together for the good and betterment of all. It’s a sign of hope. My point with this example is that the world and perhaps human nature, feeds off of and maybe even is addicted to following, watching, reading, listening to the trash and train wrecks of other people’s lives. The Trump and Musk conflict story (which is just petty and stupid, quite frankly) actually got the lead on Canadian news over our feds and provinces working together to change provincial trade as we know it. That’s just another sad statement of where things are at today and how much work we have cut out for us.
In this age of fake news, polarization, digital hostility, and online abuse, the Church (us) is called to embody a trustworthy, Spirit-led presence. We are called to bring “a non-anxious presence” to our anxiety riddled world. We are called to bring calm to the stormy lives of others. How do we bring calm? Not by being silent. Christian peacemaking isn’t silence, it’s active nonviolence, truth speaking, and bridge-building. Saying nothing is doing nothing. As Christians, we are called to be a trustworthy guide for others, peace bearers in a world of fear, speaking up against the continued rise of anti-semitism, islamophobia and religious, or more specifically, Christian nationalism - a bastardized manipulation of Christianity to gain superior political power and social control.
Being a peace-bearer doesn’t mean engaging in conflict, verbal or otherwise. Being a peace-bearer means showing up with integrity in the midst of conflict. A peace-bearer tells the truth with love and seeks justice without vengeance.
Today, on this historic day of Pentecost, the day that is celebrated as the birth of God’s Church, we are commissioned by the Holy Spirit to go out into the world to bring love and peace and to calm the chaos. Standing up and showing up as Christians takes courage and is for the strong of heart. But we are here and we are strong, forged in the fire of Pentecost - together.
And so I pray:
"Come, Holy Spirit—set our hearts on fire, our feet on the move, and our voices to speak love in the languages our world most needs to hear."
Amen.