Our failure to fully live out Pentecost

Frances writes on next Sundays’s Feast of Pentecost:- Pentecost was one of the great Jewish festivals, celebrating the wheat harvest, and therefore critical for life in a world where the majority lived on bread. It followed on 50 days after Passover, being the link between the Exodus and the great covenant with God at Sinai and the giving of the law. Jerusalem would once again have been full of pilgrims celebrating their commitment to a time of justice and righteousness, or obedience to God. We must therefore try to imagine the impact of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon those early Jewish-Christians and their followers, as they became aware of God’s great final act of self-revelation through Jesus. (Acts 2:1-11). Read in Greek it becomes clearer that this divine revelation comes at the end of the festival, thereby definitively setting God’s seal on the whole series of events and, as Luke presents it.

Most people in the Eastern Mediterranean and into the Middle East at this time spoke and even wrote in some form of Aramaic, and had done for over a millennia. Those in the major cities spoke Greek. What is significant about the Spirit’s giving of the gift of languages to the apostles which enabled them to communicate with Jewish pilgrims from the many far flung parts of the Roman Empire and even beyond would appear to be the sense of courtesy, the graciousness of God’s method of communication. The individual language or dialect of a place serves to mark you off from others; indeed, there can be times when communications can be quite difficult. I guess that Jews from Mesopotamia, descendants of those taken into exile by the Babylonians in the 6^th Century BCE may not have found any great fluidity in speaking to those of Italy or the uplands of Cappadocia though no doubt they all made efforts. Moreover, their different accents, dress and style might well have marked out some as inferior. Those of the Greco-Roman Empire were notoriously snobby to those considered ‘barbarian’. What this particular gift of the Spirit ensured, and made very clear, was the equality of all the recipients. None were marked out as different or inferior, and any traveller knows precisely the joy and relief when we meet up with someone with whom we can communicate effortlessly. Luke, who wrote his Gospel and Acts for his patron, a rich and powerful convert from paganism, who knew a thing or two about class division and status, would immediately have picked up the innuendoes here.

Certainly by the time Paul was writing to his convert Christian congregations in Corinth around 54CE, he too wanted to stress this sense of oneness, solidarity under Christ. (1Cor 12:3-7.12-13) Corinthians were notoriously divisive as Paul discovered. Some following his version of Jesus, others that of Peter, and yet others that of Apollos. He was horrified and with good reason, for it seemed as though the faith was to become divided and divisive, with different groups shaping Jesus after their own tastes and for their own needs. He reminds them of the wholeness of the human body, in which all the different parts working together form a whole, eyes, hands, feet etc, each playing their appropriate part for the benefit of the whole organism, and so it is with the Christian message.

No doubt this is why in our Gospel (Luke 20:19-23) Jesus is shown identifying himself by the marks of his wounds – a vivid even livid reminder of the central fact of the Christian faith. Jesus, God the Son, died by crucifixion to restore the entire humanity to its proper relationship with the Father. Once we forget this, we easily begin to make Christ after our own image, nicely domesticating him or reducing him to some supernatural figure, devoid of reality and incapable of suffering. It was something the early church had to work to press home, as we see in Paul’s correspondence. Only when he is identified in this way does Jesus breathe the Holy Spirit, his Spirit and abiding presence, upon the disciples with their power to forgive or retain sin. In other words, we all know precisely who we are worshipping and what his purposes for us are, we, like the apostles are not free to go off and do our own thing. Perhaps, if anything, Pentecost serves to remind us of the scandal of Christian disunity and what that implies. We cannot say we did not know or had not been told, and we modern Christians, like those of ancient Corinth live in the shadow of our constant failure to live out the message of Pentecost.

 

 

 

What does Corpus Christi celebrate?

Last week I wrote of the three wonderful ways in which God is present for us. In the beauty of the Universe – Yes. In Jesus alive in a new way for us – Yes. In the depths of our being giving us love and courage as the Holy Spirit – yes. But Jesus in his wisdom gives us one very special yet simple way in which God is present, but which also brings us together as a people. What is it? We take bread and wine, because he told us to, for he said that in some mysterious way he would be present as we do this in memory of him. This is what we celebrate in the great feast of Corpus Christi which simply means “The Body of Christ”.

Our Readings today explain why Jesus chose bread. There were other foods on the table. He could well have chosen Lamb, because he is the sacrificial Lamb of God who died for us, but he chose bread. I guess one reason for that was practical. He clearly wanted us to do this regularly as his disciples did right from the beginning, as we hear in Acts (2:42)  “They devoted themselves to the teaching and..  to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” You can’t roast lamb and serve it every day, but you can eat bread; and that is why every Catholic priest like me, aims to do this every day, just as the apostles did, hoping that some people will gather with him, (as they usually do) but still doing it even if no-one comes, doing it for God.

This is why we think that every Christian should be present for this great celebration every Sunday if that is possible. In some places (as in a prison) Sunday has to be on another day! At Campsfield we do this on a Monday. Indeed that is why I say to people, that if they really cannot get to Mass on Sunday, perhaps because of their work, then they should find a weekday Mass that suits them, and make that their Sunday Mass.

But our Readings point to another more important reason why Jesus chose bread. Deep in the history of his people is their experience of leaving their slavery in Egypt and travelling to the Promised Land. That journey was one of many years of struggle, trying to survive with their sheep and goats in the desert lands of that part of the world. They had first had a narrow escape from Egypt, when death passed over them and they ran for their lives. But as they did so they carried with them bread for the journey, and then when that ran out, they manged to find a different kind of bread that they called “manna”

This is what we hear about in our First Reading. (Deut 8:2-3.14-16) The writer is telling them never to forget how God supported them through this tough time; a time when they were often in despair, with no idea where they were going, or whether they would ever find a settled home again.  The manna, the bread they had to eat, should be for them a reminder now they have plenty, that everything that gives them life comes from God, and that without God, they are nothing.

We Christians believe that this is what life is like now. It is a journey towards heaven, towards the promised land, towards eternal life. It is for this reason that Jesus deliberately chooses bread as the way he would be present for us, as the way he would support us on our journey, however hard that journey may be. Thus we heard him say in the Gospel (John 6:51-58)  ‘I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever” and then a little further on, “This is the bread come down from heaven; not like the bread our ancestors ate: they are dead. But anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.”

We do not need to ask how God can be present for us in a small piece of bread. We simply trust what Jesus said, that as we do this in memory of him, he is present. God is present within. But we should note that the word “memory” or “Memorial” actually does not mean what we mean by it. We think of it as a way we remember the past, a past loved one perhaps, but in the Bible, it means the way the past is brought into the present. So as we take the bread and break it, all that Jesus did for us, in his life, in his teaching, and finally in his sacrificial suffering and death, is made present. We do not simply remember the past, but know that the powerful loving action of God in Jesus is present for us now, to support us on our Christian journey, whatever that may be, and bring us eventually to eternal life with him.

As the Hymn says, so we pray “Guide me O thou great Redeemer, pilgrim through this barren land.. Bread of heaven…. Feed me till I want no more.”

 

 

On how the Trinity can help our faith

When I first became a Christian, as a teenager, I certainly believed in Jesus, and wanted to follow him, but I’m not sure that I believed that Jesus was God, and I wasn’t at all sure that the God I thought Christians believed in actually existed. Given the words at the end of the Gospel today (John 3:16-18) was I therefore “condemned”? Well the answer is No, and for two good reasons.

First, the Christian/Catholic faith is not based on quoting this or that text from the Bible. In another place (Acts 17:22-24) St Paul tells non-Christians in Athens that they are already worshiping the one true God, even though they do not know Jesus. It is precisely because the Bible expresses all sorts of views within its pages in different ways, that we must rely on how Church teaches the Christian faith, based on the Bible as a whole, rather than on this or that Biblical text. And the Church teaches, that although the best way, the most assured way, to reach salvation, to reach heaven, is by believing in Our Lord Jesus Christ, and being a member of his Church, it also teaches that those who do not have this full belief are not necessarily excluded from the love of God. (Catechism Para 847)

People may think they have rejected Christianity for all sorts of mistaken reasons. Many years ago I went to visit a man in hospital, and as soon as he saw a priest coming towards him he told me with very strong language to “Beep beep off”. For some reason, guided by God I now think, I said that I was beep beep going to visit him whether he liked it or not. It worked! He was, I suppose, so astonished that he stopped rejecting God and the Church and asked me to take his funeral! We must never assume that those who say they have rejected Jesus, or think they have rejected God, actually mean what they say, or even understand what it is that they think they have rejected.

And this gets us on to God as Trinity, the great truth about God that we celebrate today. People quite often have said to me “I don’t believe in God, I believe in the power of love and goodness in me and between me and others.” “Ah” I say “We call that God the Holy Spirit.”  Or they say, “I don’t feel close to God in Church, I meet God when I look at the trees and the sky on a beautiful day.” “Ah yes,” I say “That is what we mean by God the Father, not an old man sitting on a cloud, but the power that we sense in the trees and the sky.”

So, as a teenager, when I began by following Jesus, even though I wasn’t quite sure that I believed in God, I was meeting God in Trinity whether I believed or not. Jesus said “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9), or as the great St Augustine said “Walk in the man  and you will arrive at God.” The idea that we have to have our belief in our heads all sorted out in order to be a faithful Christian is just plain rubbish. The wonder of the doctrine that God can be met in three distinct ways – as the power underlying the Universe – that we call God the Father – as God in a wonderful man called Jesus – whom we call God the Son – and as a presence of love and strength in and around us – that we call God the Holy Spirit – that doctrine – God as Trinity – actually takes us beyond our individual approach to God, whatever that may be. It shows us that God is greater than any image or thought of him that we can conjure up in our brain. Thus it gives us a freedom to meet and to understand God in many different ways. To me that is just wonderful!

I must add however, that whatever our way of coming close to God is, our duty is to share it, to bring our relationship with God with us to Church/to Mass so that our presence supports others, as hopefully their presence supports us. Those who say “I don’t need Church, because I meet God in nature, or in my friends”, are actually missing the point. We do not come to Church/ to Mass for ourselves, we come so that together we are the family, the people of God ; and that God is God in Trinity who is always greater than any one individual’s understanding.

 

 

 

 

 

The Holy Spirit comes to all in our diversity

Frances writes on the Readings for Pentecost:- As we approach yet another General Election, in a Britain traumatised by a recent spate of terror attacks, I find the message of Pentecost both challenging and heart-warming. The Romans had many faults, they were appallingly sexist, classist and status conscious to a fault, and lovers of violence, but racist they never were. The simple reason for this was that they had built, by the time of the late Republic, a powerful and widespread empire, made up of men and women from all over their state and beyond, and once one became a citizen of this huge landmass you were an equal of your fellows regardless of colour, racial group and origins. Indeed, Rome sucked in foreigners from the remotest parts. There were those of Far Eastern origin in Italy, and even a woman with Far Eastern origins in Britain. Traders on the Wall in Northern Britain even hailed from Palmyra and the landscape was literally stuffed with foreigners.

When Luke wrote Acts (2:1-11) he reflects this multi-cultural and diverse society, as he records the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and as he recites the power of the communication of the Good News of Salvation to the many gathered ostensibly in Jerusalem. Writing as he did from either Antioch in Northern Syria or Ephesus, both great seaports, he would undoubtedly have rubbed shoulders on a daily basis with the many foreigners and peoples of the empire. He would have known of the great empires to the East, Parthia that formidable and ancient enemy of Rome and the source of so many disasters for its armies. He would have known of the Medes and Elamites just to the Northeast, and the territories in what we now know of as Turkey and North Africa and, most likely due to the trade routes, he would have seen their rich potential as converts to Christianity.

Enemies of Rome many of these might once have been, yet there was always a lively interchange of gods and ideas between these diverse nations, and some of Rome’s newest major gods came from the East, Cybele from Asia Minor, Mithras from Mesopotamia, Isis from Egypt; and all of these deities found a home in the Empire and in Rome itself, and made a major contribution to its religious life. I am quite sure that Luke and the rest of the Church understood the power of this system, and exploited it for the benefit of Christianity.

What is significant is his description of the coming of the Spirit in very bodily terms. Just as the Church insisted that Jesus the Son of God became a real human being for our redemption, so too the Spirit takes on a real and powerful identity, affecting the daily lives of men and women. Ancient religions were all rooted in the myths of the gods who were not fundamentally concerned with human beings at all. Christianity, as demonstrated by Jesus, was totally given-over to helping suffering humanity and incorporating them into God’s life, and this is surely why the first action of the very physical Spirit is to enable all these disparate peoples to receive the Gospel by being able to understand it in their own languages, thereby showing a respect for the person previously unknown.

When we meet the Church in Corinth, (1 Cor 12:3-7.12-13) we meet a situation in which all this diversity needs to be controlled. Corinth was a city of two ports and international outreach to the Mediterranean, so a melting pot for foreign interaction. It was also a nouveau-riche city, only a hundred years or so old, and lacking aristocrats – a community of freed, slaves and ex army. There was fierce competition between the members, for power, for status and for being thought the top of the tree. We know that the divisions there amongst the Christians drove Paul to distraction, as they cheated, killed, seduced and ripped each other off in the climb up the social scale. This is why he appeals to their unity in the faith, comparing it to the very different parts of the human body with its many and varied purposes, pointing out that some bits of us are not superior to others, but form and shape the whole, making us a unity, capable of functioning properly. With this in mind he appeals to their mutual respect and co operation for the good thriving of the whole. “In the one Spirit we were all baptised, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as citizens, and one Spirit was given to us all to drink”. This was very unusual in Roman society in which ideas of equality and social concern were not writ large. Becoming a Christian in Corinth demanded radical rethinking of one’s entire life and thought patterns.

So it is significant that in John’s Gospel (Jn 20:19-23) the risen Lord Jesus – who has defied and beaten death, that ultimate evil – stands before the disciples and “showed them his hands and his side”. This victor over death retains his wounded body, being vulnerable is part of what he is a sign of, his glory, and not to be forgotten. It is this man, with this body ‘marred beyond human semblance’ who gives over the Holy Spirit and with it to the apostles the power of forgiving or retaining sins, a living demonstration of what belonging to Christ, of what community in the Spirit, is all about. Once again there is physicality here, as he ‘breathes’ the Spirit upon them, his own breath, pushed into their lungs and being for their outreach to all, the physical presence of the risen Lord in the Spirit.

 

As we all deliberate on which political party to vote for on the 8^th June, I suggest that the issues raised by the Pentecost accounts can truly help each of us to consider what is really at stake in our society today, and help us choose who to vote for. Pentecost is about human solidarity in Christ. It is a responsibility we cannot shirk, for it is of the essence of our belonging to Jesus who has left us under the power of his Holy Spirit to deal with the sin of the world, and to share his life with all the millions his love has redeemed.