Jun 12 | “Breaking down doors,” (Homily, June 12th 2019)

This homily was preached at St. Mary’s Senior’s Eucharist, which occurs semi-quarterly. Residents of the care home where I serve as chaplain are always welcomed by the St. Mary’s community along with residents of other care homes and shut-ins, and included in the service and the wonderful tea served afterward.

 

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. ⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ ¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’

Acts 2:1-12

 

Two years ago, I had the great privilege of traveling to the Holy Land with a group of students and clergy in their first five years of ordained ministry. We stayed at St. George’s College, the Anglican Cathedral in East Jerusalem. Our group was diverse – a third of us carefully selected from the global South: English, Americans, Canadians, Sri Lankans, Africans, New Zealanders, Australians, and Filipinos. The staff of the college was similarly diverse.

Every day, we and several staff members at the small college would gather for Morning and Evening prayer, and often we would gather in the small stone chapel. One evening, however, we gathered in the Cathedral itself, a beautiful old-fashioned Gothic building with great acoustics, dark wood paneling, and a lot of stone and marble.

As we gathered, my friend Ernest stood before us to teach us a Tanzanian song from his homeland. I still remember how it goes:

Hakuna mungu kama wewe

Hakuna mungu kama we

Hakuna mungu kama wewe

Hakuna na hatakuwepo

It means, “There’s no one, no one like Jesus / There’s no one, no one like him.”

Susan, the associate dean of the college, had officiated that night, and was dressed in full black cassock. She had spent three years living alongside these three, and remembered the song well. All three of them started to dance as we sang, big smiles on their faces.

I remember thinking, as I stood in this English style church in the Middle East, watched this white American dancing with black Tanzanians, and sang a Swahili song alongside folks from nine different countries, that this was the best of the Anglican experience, and indeed the best of the church. No matter who or where we were, we could come together to worship.

And indeed, this is the true experience of Pentecost.

The Holy Spirit is about the business of blowing down doors, making fuel of our old assumptions, and setting our hearts ablaze. She is about drawing us in, no matter our colour, no matter our language, no matter our gender, no matter our orientation or ability – she wants us to be a part of the world God is creating.

Where Jesus gathered his disciples together in one small room and gifted them the Holy Spirit, telling them to love one another, the Holy Spirit blew open the doors to spread out across the world, far and wide, letting nothing stand in her way.

So too have we been drawn together today, from so many languages, peoples, and nations, to praise the one who breaks the darkness with a liberating light.

So too are we called to go out into the world, crowned with fire, witnessing to the beauty, joy, and love we see springing up all around us.

It is a simple thing – but it is the most important thing.