RELIGION TODAY - Published Saturday May 30th, 2009
Last year I wrote an article on Pentecost in which I transferred the scene to an outdoor café here in Moncton.
To refresh your memory, here is a central paragraph from that article:
'A fair chunk of time after the believers had last heard a message from God they were having coffee together at Timothy's. It was a beautiful day and they were sitting out on the street side café.
Suddenly, inspired by what could only be called a spirit of truth, they began to talk about their faith to each other.
Now it happened that there were people from all kinds of faiths and all varieties of Christianity living in Moncton and as the people moved along the sidewalk and overheard this heated conversation each of them recognized something tugging at their own hearts.
Whether they were Baptist or Jewish, Roman Catholic or Islamic, Presbyterian or Buddhist, United Church, Wesleyan or Baha'i, each of them heard this small band of believers talking about what they themselves believed.
And it shocked them.
'What if,' they ended up saying to each other, 'what if God is bigger than we thought? What if God speaks to all these other people too and we are not as different as we always thought?'
Believe it or not, this one paragraph stirred up quite a few responses.
So here we are one year later and the Festival of Pentecost is rolling around again.
Perhaps some background is in order.
According to legend, 50 days after Moses led the people out of captivity in Egypt God dictated a set of rules for the community which became known as the Ten Commandments.
Historically and symbolically, this was related to the Jewish harvest festival of Shavuot. It was a celebration of thanksgiving for the guidelines that united the community of followers.
Now, in an equivalent story, 50 days after the events of Easter, the Holy Spirit comes to the disciples who were gathered in Jerusalem and gives them words to say -- in every known language -- that would define what it means to be a Christian.
Moses says, I will not always be with you, but don't forget the rules that bind us together.
Jesus says, I will not always be with you, but don't forget the philosophy that binds us together.
There is another historical way this fits into the theology of the church.
Thousands of years before any of this happened, so the story goes, everyone spoke one language.
They decided to build a tower to show how great they were, that they could do anything.
And it was quite the tower.
In fact, it got God's attention (or perhaps the attention of the gods, go look it up, there is a lot of dialogue between different heavenly beings that is curious in the book of Genesis).
God decided that we should not be that powerful, so 'confounded' our language, making it impossible for us to understand each other or work together in any meaningful way.
But now, eons later, The Holy Spirit reverses this, by making it possible for everyone and anyone to understand Jesus's message on that first festival of Pentecost.
Just so you know, Jesus made it really simple: Love everyone. And yes, that includes loving yourself.
I think that is what always riles everybody up.
Pentecost really is about breaking through the artificial barriers we put in place that keep us thinking we are 'better than them.'
When you retell the story in any given context, we see people who we just don't want to believe we are supposed to love.
In your own family it means loving crazy Uncle Harry and that cousin twice removed who looks kinda creepy.
At your workplace it means loving the gal who can't stop complaining about everything and the person who refuses to stop eating garlic.
On your street it includes the dog that won't stop barking and the neighbour who refuses to mow his or her lawn.
And in the world at large it means everybody; everybody, every race, colour and creed; every religion, philosophy and stigma.
As long as we refuse to follow this simple teaching, the spirit is not aflame within us. It is as simple as that.
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