Sermon Pentecost

Sunday of Pentecost 2024 19.05.24

Acts 2. 1-21 day of Pentecost

Psalm 104. 26-36, 37

Romans 8. 22-27

John 15. 26-27, 16.14b sending down the advocate

Today we celebrate Pentecost, the Holy Spirit coming upon us. He talks about an advocate that he will send from the Father, which is fundamentally why he must go back to the Father. Jesus is saying this is the only way the advocate can intercede for us all on earth. He has died for our sins, but it is his teaching and the words from scripture that will help us live a life of righteousness and joy. For us to continue Jesus’ work on earth today, means listening and responding to the Holy Spirit’s work on earth.

Sometimes I feel concerned about how the work of the Holy Spirit could be interpreted. For me I think about her working through us to bring the Kingdom of God closer to the world. One of the things this means is fighting against injustice and on the side of the oppressed. However, what happen’s if you believe you are oppressed? For example, groups such as the Ku Klux Klan profess to being Christian and that their way of life is being undermined. Yet their racist beliefs and violence, do not cohere with the values and teachings of Jesus. This is an extreme example, but it shows the dangers of how people can manipulate our faith towards their own ends, and this is something we need to be aware of.

So how can we discern the work of the Holy Spirit? As Christians when we think about the work of the spirit it always must come back to Christ. The Holy Spirit is not a random spirit or a new god. It is the Spirit of Christ. Jesus says he will send the Spirit from the Father when he goes. Therefore, we should expect the work of the spirit to be consistent with the things Jesus did and said in his earthly ministry. The Holy Spirit is Christ’s work in the world. As we heard from our reading from Romans, ‘that very spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the spirit, because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.’

Therefore, we should have confidence that the only things that are the will of God will happen through the work of the spirit. If there is something we feel called to do by God, then we should pray about it, we should read scripture, we should talk to fellow Christian’s about it and we should have a one-to-one conversation with someone who is long in the faith. This is how we discern that what we believe God is calling us to, is the work of the Spirit. If through all these conversations, we receive affirmation of our belief, then we can feel confident that the spirit is working within us. Jesus says, ‘When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guid you into all truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and will declare to you the things that are to come.’

But we might want to ask why do we find it difficult to confidently discern the work of the Spirit in the first place? If the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ and we know Jesus, why isn’t it easy to be clear about the work of his Spirit. The answer to this is a fundamental truth about our faith and that is, the Spirit doesn’t just repeat what Jesus did, and nor do we. We don’t live in 1^st century Palestine. What the Spirit does is new and fresh work, which is consistent with Jesus’ ministry in today’s context. If this weren’t the case Christians would be a historical reenactment society. But we’re not, we’re a living and breathing work of the Spirit.

But the newness and freshness of the Spirit can also be surprising and challenging. The civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 60’s, challenged many Christians’ way of life, because fundamentally it was about making changes to institutions that were racist and oppressive. Many white Christian’s in America couldn’t see how the institutions they lived under were being oppressive, because to put it bluntly they weren’t black. It took the Civil Rights Movement to bring the oppression into the forefront of peoples minds and it was the power of the Holy Spirit that gave that movement the strength to make real and lasting change. In his book Questions of Life, Nicky Gumbel tells a story about MLK and the Holy Spirit. Gumbel writes that in 1955, King was arrested on a petty speeding charge in his hometown of Montgomery, Alabama, where he was organizing a boycott to end segregation on city buses. After continued harassment by the local police force and even death threats, King was pushed into utter despair. He began to pray, and he heard a voice telling him to call on the power “that can make a way out of no way.” As the divine presence filled him with courage and purpose, “my uncertainty disappeared,” King said. “I was ready to face anything.” (Ministrymatter.com).

Today the work of the Civil Rights movement still continues and much of it’s work has been taken on by the Black Lives Matter movement. Just like in the 1950’s, people have felt uncomfortable with some of the protests the BLM have held and their call to defund the police. Yet, like the Holy Spirit, these movements are about bringing injustice out of darkness and working to bring change. Throughout Jesus ministry, he challenged the laws and the rules that he believed oppressed people. The Spirit listens to the voice of the oppressed, the marginalised, the down hearted and downtrodden. It knows the voice of truth and works alongside the righteous to help bring justice and freedom out of darkness.

So, on this Pentecost Sunday the question we need to ask ourselves is, where is the Spirit moving us as a community of Faith today? Is the Spirit calling you, as a disciple of Christ to bring righteousness into the world?

Amen.