· It’s really good to be here with you today – not that I ever expected (when Olivia and I first arranged it) that it’d be under these circumstances and via Zoom! I look forward to meeting you all in person at some point, too, I hope.
· Let’s start with a prayer:
Living Lord,
Open our eyes to behold your presence.
Open our ears to hear your voice
and open our hearts and minds to the knowledge of your glory
and to the truth and wonder of your love. Amen.
· Well, today’s the 69th day since the country officially ‘locked down’. And even if things are beginning to ease a bit, things are still far from the way they were, aren’t they?
· Today’s the 10th Sunday of having to meet differently, use our imaginations, try new things…
· It’s a long time…For me, there’s something almost ‘BCE’ (Before Covid Era) and ‘CE’ (Covid Era) about it – such a massive, radical interruption of life as we knew it.
· There’s even a new language emerging: ‘the language of lockdown’ (1).
· Just a few months ago, ‘lockdown’ was used mainly in prisons as a way of controlling inmates…quarantine was something your pets went into when you went abroad…. but that’s all changing.
· Now we have ‘WFH’ (work from home); ‘Zoom fatigue’ (from so many virtual meetings); we ‘self-isolate’ to try and ‘flatten the curve’ or avoid ‘doomscrolling’ through the daily updates of figures for deaths and new cases.
· In Germany some people are ‘hamsterning’ (from the German ‘Hamstern; hoarding or buying food like anxious little hamsters with pouched-out cheeks.
· In Holland, a ‘tooviroloog’ is someone who spreads false/unverified information about the virus, while a ‘coronahufter’ is someone who doesn’t maintain the required social distance in a public space.
· Another new invention is ‘hoestschaamte’: ‘cough-shame’ (I’ve seen that one, haven’t you? People edging away and giving a dirty look if someone starts to cough)
· Or in Japan, ‘jishuku’ – someone showing ‘self-restraint’ or ‘discipline’ in relation to coronavirus – or (for those who’re fed up of that, and start to go out again), ‘gasu nuki’ – ‘out of gas.’
· But perhaps the most evocative word to emerge from the pandemic so far is the Dutch ‘huidhonger’ – ‘skin hunger’- the aching longing for human contact we feel whilst still in isolation or having to maintain social distance.
· There’s a huge amount of change and uncertainty: it’s still very early days in terms of discovering quite what it will all mean.
· I wonder if it was a bit like that for the disciples, too…. When their world was turned upside-down by another radical event and interruption to life: Jesus’ death.
· Both today’s readings are about that strange ‘in- between time’ shortly afterwards – and both are about different ways in which the Holy Spirit was given as they waited and wondered, not knowing if anything would ever be quite the same again…
· The first one is very ‘quiet’.
· It’s the first day of the week: the day when Mary’s gone to the tomb where Jesus is buried to pay her respects, but found the tombstone rolled away…
· And the beautifully tender moment when, soon after (in the shock and bewilderment of her tears and grief), she mistakes Jesus for a gardener, and suddenly hears Jesus’ voice: “Mary!” ‘It’s me! Go and tell the others!’
· Now it’s evening: the disciples are gathered together… And despite having locked the doors, suddenly, Jesus is there. The Greek says ‘Jesus came and stood into the middle of them’ – right at the heart of who and where they are.
· He says simply, ‘Peace: I’m here! Look – see my hands and side - I did die on a cross– but now I’m here and everything is going to be OK… Peace be with you.
· As my Father sent me to share his love, now I’m sending you….’ You no longer need be afraid. I’m with you – I’ll always be with you: whatever happens.
· “Receive the Holy Spirit: my breath of life in you…. The life that has gone to the depths and overcome them. Suffering and death do not have the last word: you have absolutely nothing to fear.’
· I don’t for a minute think that God wants suffering and pandemics to happen, but because his kingdom is still in the process of being fulfilled – we’re still part of this life – things do and will go wrong.
· But when they do, Jesus is there in the midst of them with us – his Spirit groaning – with sighs too deep for words- encouraging us, bringing new opportunities and hope out of them.
· Lockdown has certainly faced us with ourselves, hasn’t it? Like any wilderness experience – and showed up our weaknesses, as well as our many strengths. It’s a time when many have had to face up to some of their deepest fears; be met by Jesus in them to be set free. It’s an ongoing journey, isn’t it - that deep healing and liberation?
· That’s the first description of how the Spirit comes: it’s about going deeper into the mystery of who Jesus is: deeper into our identity and purpose in him.
· It’s about discovering the meaning and joy of the resurrection more and more fully – and savouring it together: growing together in love; being released from all that is locked up or locked in or down in us… in preparation for being sent out to love the world.
· When Jesus says ‘you’ here it’s always in the plural. It’s an invitation to discover and rejoice and grow in God together. In community.
· The second one has a quite different tone: it’s the ‘noisy’ one:
· The Holy Spirit comes through violent wind, flames of fire; an inspired outburst of speech -in all sorts of different voices and tongues…
· ‘These are people from Galilee speaking, aren’t they? Then how could it be that we recognise them speaking in the languages of all the different races and countries we come from? About God and the ways he can transform everything!’
· Their initial sense of wonder and amazed astonishment, soon turns into bewilderment and perplexity as they try to make sense of it:
· ‘What on earth’s going on?! How can this be?! (it reminds me of the many other incredulous responses to God’s presence and initiative throughout the Bible).
· And the same old human response to anything new and mysterious: some people are able to stay open to it, whilst others think they know better and try to write it off: ‘they’re just drunk.’
· But Peter gives them categories within which to interpret it.
· He says simply: ‘This is exactly what was spoken about in the Jewish scriptures! It’s what God promised! And it’s happening! All that was promised was – and is - true! God is fulfilling his kingdom in our midst!’
· We can trust God – God knows what he is doing!
· The resurrection has happened: ‘a laugh has been set free for ever and ever.’ (2)
· That’s the second account: the noisier, more public one.
· But what both have in common - however the Holy Spirit comes (whether it’s ‘quiet and hidden’ or ‘noisy and public’) – is that it’s sudden and unprecedented. Never known or done before.
· No-one could have predicted or anticipated or imagined it.
· Even when it has been promised and given, the Spirit is utterly free: the Spirit that ‘blows where it wills’: the YHWH who says “I am who I am and I shall be who I shall be.”
· The Spirit who’s always prompting and bringing new and good things and possibilities into being: new light out of darkness; new meaning out of chaos; new hope out of disappointment; new purpose out of bewilderment; and new life out of death and destruction.
· The Spirit who inspires us to have visions and dream dreams….to participate in God’s recreative work and learn new languages and ways to let the whole world know the beautiful, tender mercy and relief of God’s compassion and love.
· (pause) So I wonder what the Holy Spirit might be speaking to you as a church through and beyond Covid-19?
· There’s a beautiful little phrase in the Greek in the Acts reading.
· It’s translated here - in response to the outburst of tongues - as ‘What does this mean?’ (2:12)
· But the Greek is literally: “What does this wish to be?”
· ‘Where’s it leading? What does it desire? It’s an opening into the future.
· The Holy Spirit who comes ‘quietly’, inviting us to centre on Jesus and go deeper together into the mystery and wonder of His father’s love. Leading us deeper into the fulness of the truth we can’t yet bear…
· And the Holy Spirit who comes ‘noisily’, inviting us to stretch further and to reach out and find new ways to communicate and let all creation know about life in all its fulness.
· It’s not easy to talk about God in today’s culture of privatised faith, professionalisation and ‘political correctness’, is it? It makes us nervous. But the Holy Spirit longs for us to find new ways and tongues and will inspire our speech if we risk and trust it.
· If we can create a language for Covid, of course we can do it for God! God longs for us to share our experiences and knowledge of his love – just as Jesus did – especially when so many people have baggage about him and the church.
· How else are they going to find out about his love?
· As Isaiah urges: "Enlarge the site of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide…do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes! (Is 54:2)
· And as Jesus says (to Mary) “Don’t hold on to me…” ‘Let me be bigger than your heart can hold…There’s so much still to come!’
(and to the disciples) ‘There are so many things I still want to say to you… But when the Spirit comes, he will guide you into all truth and he will tell you what is yet to come… you will do even greater things…that the whole world will know of my glory.”
So let’s pray as we close:
Holy Spirit, sent by the Father,
ignite in us your holy fire;
strengthen your children with the gift of faith,
revive your Church with the breath of love,
and renew the face of the earth,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
[1] Nilanjana Roy ‘The Language of Lockdown: Reading the World’ in the Financial Times (May 16th 2020). [2] Patrick Kavanagh
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