Pentecost, 19 May 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz
- Acts 2:1-21. All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”.
- Romans 8:22-27. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?
- John 15: 26-27, 16:4b-15. You also are to testify.
O God, the eternal flame, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
Happy Pentecost! It 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 for Episcopalians anyway, Pentecost just hasn’t caught on like the birth story or the life-after-death story. Maybe it’s because Pentecost is a story about breath and wind – about inspiration that is intoxicating, about passion that burns. 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, for those of us socialized to sit quietly, sing softly, and not call attention to ourselves or our faith. But I would argue that one way to talk about Pentecost is to talk about the facts of life.
When I was young, perhaps when you were young too, “the facts of life” was a euphemism for the talk that sometimes parents, sometimes older siblings or cousins or friends gave to the uninitiated about how babies are made. “The facts of life” phrase, for me, also conjures up a time in my adult life when all the wheels were falling off the cart of my life at the same time. I didn’t know what to do or where to turn, and my friends told me that I needed a lawyer. Specifically, they told me, I needed the best divorce lawyer in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. That seemed dramatic, even hyperbolic to me. (But it wasn’t.) I told them I would think about it. After about a month of nagging, my friends told me they would sit in my office at work and wouldn’t leave until I called. Heaving a big sigh, I dialed the number of the best divorce lawyer in the city. When I reached her, I said timidly that I wasn’t sure I even needed a lawyer, but would like some information from her. She said, “If you’d like to meet with me, I will explain to you the facts of divorce, and, if necessary, the facts of life.” “yes, Ma-am,” I said, and I scheduled an appointment. What she taught me and how she advocated for me changed my life so much for the better. She was my champion of integrity and truth.
I thought about her this past week as I prayed with our passage from the Gospel of John. It is another passage from the extensive farewell discourse in the Gospel of John, delivered by Jesus as he gathered with his followers for the last time before he was arrested. We’ve been hearing various parts of it throughout Eastertide because it speaks to the experience of Jesus’ followers in need of consolation and encouragement in the face of scandalous ideological crisis and physical danger. It speaks words of consolation and encouragement to folks who are embarrassed or downright frightened about being Jesus followers. This is not the same as being self-conscious or shy about being religious. Lives were at stake. Jesus offers words of assurance that the Spirit of integrity, the Spirit of truth, which comes from God, will be with Jesus followers as their advocate.
Comforter is how the word advocate was translated in the King James translation of the Bible. Most Biblical scholars agree that comforter is not a good translation, but they can’t agree on what a better translation would be. Advocate is used in the translation we read in church – or it could be translated legal counselor, helper, character witness, defender,[1] or even better still, champion. [2] I like champion the best. The spirit of the holy one – the Holy Spirit – the spirit of truth, Jesus says, is in us and all around us and it is our champion and God’s/Love’s champion — champion in the sense of one who stands up for us and who stands up for the divine – and even better, one who defends and supports us and the divine in and around us.
Jesus was assuring the ones who love him that they’re going to have help. Jesus knew that they were going to need help. In fact, we know that by the time this Gospel was written, synagogues were splitting over conflicts about what was acceptable behavior and what wasn’t. (Synagogue literally means gathering or congregation.) I put the missing verses in your bulletins because it seems highly ironic to leave verses out of a lesson about integrity and truth! We know that what was being debated could be a matter of life and death in the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, Jesus was saying, according to John, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” It can also be translated, when you love me or, whenever you love me, you will hold my instructions dear – you will consider them important. [3] And what are Jesus’ instructions in the Gospel of John? Love one another. Love one another. Love one another. In other words, always take or get back to the high road. Jesus was reminding his followers of the most central passage in the central book in the Torah – the whole point of it all.
Love one another. That’s it? Yes. That’s it. That’s the most central fact of life. That’s all there is to it – and it can be extremely hard work. It’s especially hard work because Jesus is not talking about love as a feeling. Jesus is talking about love as action: love as compassionate action when it’s not that convenient; love as compassionate action when you are the one who has been hurt or you are the one who is vulnerable or your family or your people have been hurt or are vulnerable; love as compassionate action when you disagree; love as compassionate action when you do not believe that it’s your job; love as compassionate action when it’s expensive – when the price paid is high — Love as integrity and truth.
Love as compassionate action is about extending actions of concern for the world – the world beyond yourself, the world beyond your own community, which requires being a person of compassion and participating in a community of compassion because it is way too hard to sustain if you’re going it alone. That’s what being in community is about – supporting and encouraging one another. That’s what this Gospel is about. Whenever you engage in love as compassionate action, Jesus is saying, the spirit of the Holy One will be your champion, cheering you on all the way, helping to support and encourage you. That champion spirit of the Holy One will be inside of you and all around you – like air, like wind. You can’t see it but you can feel the animating effects when you breathe in and breathe out!
It’s not a coincidence that the words for spirit and breath and wind and inspiration and breeze and influence and soul and life itself are all related in our scripture. It is also not a coincidence that when we find it most challenging to engage in love as compassionate action, remembering to breathe deeply is the best place to begin. It occurs to me that the message of Pentecost is the shift from “look out” (that is, duck and cover, or run and hide) to “look out” (that is, outside yourself, look out to your wider community). Receive the integrity and truth of Torah with joy – receive the integrity and truth of Spirit with joy – and go spread it around!
Emmanuel, we are called to continue doing audacious and risky ministries for the sake of the Gospel, audacious and risky enough to make more sensible people ask: What’s going on here? Are they drunk? (People ask that about us, you know.) No, we are taking compassionate action for the Love of God, and we are equipped to do it in languages that everyone will understand, sometimes the best language of all uses no words. We are being called to once again prove the world wrong about sin and about righteousness and about judgment by engaging in restorative and reparative justice, by being in right-relationship with our neighbors, and by practicing extending forgiveness and the grace of God to the extent that we are able and then stretching to extend more. We are called Emmanuel, which means God is With Us.
Jesus says we are to bear witness – to testify with our words, sure, but more importantly, with our whole lives. We are called to live with and in integrity and truth. Listen to this beautiful poem by Irish poet, Padraig O Tuama called “The Facts of Life.” [4]
That you were born
and you will die.
That you will sometimes love enough
and sometimes not.
That you will lie
if only to yourself.
That you will get tired.
That you will learn most from the situations
you did not choose.
That there will be some things that move you
more than you can say.
That you will live
that you must be loved.
That you will avoid questions most urgently in need of
your attention.
That you began as the fusion of a sperm and an egg
of two people who once were strangers
and may well still be.
That life isn’t fair.
That life is sometimes good
and sometimes better than good.
That life is often not so good.
That life is real
and if you can survive it, well,
survive it well
with love
and art
and meaning given
where meaning’s scarce.
That you will learn to live with regret.
That you will learn to live with respect.
That the structures that constrict you
may not be permanently constricting.
That you will probably be okay.
That you must accept change
before you die
but you will die anyway.
So you might as well live
and you might as well love.
You might as well love.
You might as well love.
- W. Hall Harris, III
- Chris Haslam
- Brian Stoffregan
- Pádraig Ó Tuama, “The Facts of Life,” in Sorry for Your Troubles (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2013), available online.