Happy Pentecost!  That doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as Merry Christmas or Happy Easter, does it?  I don’t know why that is – but Pentecost just hasn’t caught on like the birth story or the life-after-death story.  Pentecost is a story about breath and wind – about inspiration, about passion, about being set on fire – it’s hard to come up with a mascot like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny for those things!  It’s hard to talk about the power of breath and of wind, of inspiration and passion, about fire in the belly. 

      According to the Book of Acts, nearly two thousand years ago, devout Jews from every nation under heaven were living in Jerusalem.  And others from near and far were arriving in Jerusalem for the great celebration of Pentecost – the ancient Hebrew holiday where the first fruits of the harvest were offered to God – fifty days after Passover.  The Jewish Pentecost holiday (Shavu’ot) commemorates the giving of the law on Mount Sinai.  It was in thanksgiving for the gift of the law of God, that people joyfully set aside time and wealth to give back to God from the first takings of the harvest – not from the leftovers.  Maybe Pentecost hasn’t caught on like Christmas and Easter because it is also (and I am not making this up) a story about stewardship.

      The city was bustling with Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Judeans, Cappadocians, folks from Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and my favorite, Pamphylia, from Egypt and Libya, Rome.  Imagine the cacophony!  Well you don’t have to imagine too hard, because you just heard something like a piece of it.  I was in the Old City in Jerusalem last year for the Christian celebration of Pentecost.  Walking through the narrow streets, everywhere we went, people were talking and praying loudly in different languages and they weren’t taking turns!  They were all talking at the same time.  We went to church at St. George’s Cathedral where words to familiar hymn tunes were sung in several languages simultaneously.

      In our story from Acts, the followers of Jesus, all together in one place, hiding because of their fear, were suddenly so filled with the Holy Spirit, they were suddenly so brave, suddenly so energized, that they came out of hiding and began to speak about God’s deeds of power in all different languages.  Here is another great coming out story!

      And those who were in the city to offer the first fruits of their harvests, actually received the first fruits of the Spirit after Jesus had said goodbye for what felt like the very last time.  And so often it is with God, just when we set aside some of our time and treasure to give to God in thanksgiving for what we have been given, we find that God’s giving wildly exceeds our expectations.

      Of course the Holy Spirit was not absent from the world before this particular day of Pentecost any more than the Holy Spirit is absent from our world now.  There were editing decisions that led to the word spirit being capitalized in the Gospel of John – since there were no capital letters in the earliest Greek copies.  There were theological decisions that led to the claim that certain inspiration was lacking before Jesus was glorified – that is, honored or praised.  Someone at the Bible study earlier in the week suggested that perhaps this would be another good Sunday to bring out the red editing pencils that I invited you to use on my first Sunday with you.  Today, however, I don’t want you to focus on the red ink.  I want you to focus on this day being a celebration of noticing something that’s been there all along, that just knocks your sandals off your feet when you let it fill you up.

      So I want to back up a little bit and offer some reflections about what these lessons tell us about how the Holy Spirit of God communicates.  It’s simple, really, so simple, that I think it often gets missed.  What scripture tells us again and again is that the Holy Spirit of God makes God known through our senses.  The Bible is overflowing with sensory reports.

      There are many stories in Eastertide about seeing the risen Lord – about how often the risen Lord does not appear in ways that Jesus’ followers then or now easily recognize.  Seeing is so important to us – seeing is believing – is the way the old adage goes.  Often the way one signals understanding is to say, “I see.”  In fact, we rely very heavily in church on the sense of sight.  But today we have a lesson about the Holy Spirit engaging the other senses:  touch – the feel of the rush of wind, the heat of flame, the sound of that wind, the sound of many languages being spoken at once, the taste of the drink of one Spirit.  It’s not explicit in these stories, but take a moment and imagine the smells – the smell of wind, the smell of fire, the smell of breath, the smell of the first fruits of the harvest.

      Roger Ferlo has written a wonderful book called Sensing Scripture, in which he argues that “the very subject matter of scripture – human contact with the Divine – makes irresistible demands upon each of our senses if we are to understand anything at all about God.”1  If encountering the risen Lord is primarily a matter of seeing, experiencing the Holy Spirit of God is primarily a matter of hearing, touching,tasting and smelling.

      What are the smells that you associate with the experience of the Holy Spirit?  Or put another way, what are the smells that you associate with Inspiration? – capital I.  What is your earliest memory of smell that you associate with the Divine?  There might be some churchy smells, but think outside the church.  The story of Pentecost, after all, is a story that takes place outside of the worship place.  Worship is what we do to give thanks and pray for what takes place outside of worship.

      For me, the earliest smell that I associated with the Divine was the smell of the honey-suckle outside of my grandma’s house on hot summer days when I was 3 or 4 years old.  I can’t tell you why – I only know that the smell was so beautiful that it seemed like it must have had something to do with God.  What smells do you associate with God’s Spirit? 

      What touch do you associate with the experience of the Holy Spirit? 

      What tastes? 

      What sounds?

      Augustine of Hippo, wrote in about the year 400 c.e., a prose-poem to God, called The Confessions.  Addressing God, Augustine wrote, “You called and cried aloud and shattered my deafness….You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath, and now pant after you.  I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you.  You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.”  Pentecost is the story of being set on fire with the love of God.

      In closing, I want to tell you a story from the desert – of a disciple who goes to the spiritual leader named Abba Joseph.  The disciple’s name was Abba Lot.  He went to see Abba Joseph and said to him:  Abba, as much as I am able I practice a small rule, a little fasting, some prayer and meditation, and remain quiet and as much as possible I keep my thoughts clean.  What else should I do?  Abba Joseph stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven, and his fingers became like ten torches of flame and the old man said to Abba Lot:  If you wish, you can become all flame.

      Happy Pentecost.