One wishes the old New Yorker feature, "BLOCK THAT METAPHOR," might be invoked in the studies and workrooms of homilists as they prepare their presentations for this coming Sunday, known in most Christian denominations as "Pentecost." The first problem is the impossibility of accounting for such a thing as a "spirit," which is inaccessible, save by inference, to the senses -- sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Luke's tongues of fire and mighty rushing wind are old stuff, thus the homilist may be tempted to overreach in an effort to think up something new. In the process, few clich�s are likely to be left unuttered, and the English language is liable to be strained to the breaking point with inapt and inept analogies.
Yet, Pentecost is the homilist's delicious morsel. He or she is able to tell us that said spirit, vaporous as it is, constitutes the binding force of the church and its faith, and, what's more, is conferred, along with accompanying authority, upon initiates at their baptisms, upon priests and bishops at their ordinations. This "spirit" is imperceptible by any direct means, and its fruits may be wanting as those so empowered sometimes disappoint as preachers, pastors and sometimes as just plain human beings.
It is fairly clear that the report of pyrotechnics, meteorological disturbances and the verbal melee of speaking in tongues depicted in Acts chapter 2 is either a description of mass hysteria verging on the psychotic or an early attempt at surreal fiction.
If a more left-brained, rational approach to the themes of Pentecost appeals, try the gospel portion appointed for today.
The John 14 passage is an apt choice for the Feast of Pentecost as it employs a form of the words παρακλητος ("advocate") and the phrase πνευμα της αληθεις ("Spirit of truth or disclosure)," both primary concepts the church has used to depict what it has perceived as the unseen presence of the divine in its life and in the life of the world at large. During the farewell discourse (13:31-17:26), Philip is depicted as saying to Jesus, "Lord, show us the Father and we shall be satisfied" (14:8). "Lord" is the term the church used of the Jesus it proclaimed as resurrected. Philip's wish, then, is to see the Father in Jesus? Surely that must have been a constant problem in John's time as the Jesus communities struggled to legitimize the physically absent Jesus.
John puts on Jesus' lips an almost plaintive reply: "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me . . . He who has seen me has seen the Father . . ." (14:9) Philip's innocent request is the ideal platform for John to have Jesus account for his own identity. Philip, though, is not asked to take Jesus' word for it (14:10b): "The words I say to you, I do not speak as my own . . ." Philip's intervention has come on the heels of Thomas' inquiry depicted earlier in ch. 14 when Thomas asks how he and his confreres are supposed to know the way to that place of many rooms. Jesus indicates that he himself is the way. Moreover, Jesus is given to say that the Father is visible in him.
Patiently, Jesus is depicted as going over it again, but this time points to the Father's works: "The Father who dwells in me does his works." Works are evidence that the Philips and the Thomases are asked to accept as signs of Jesus' legitimacy. There is an almost desperate quality to the conclusion of Jesus' argument: "Or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves." Are these works the ones depicted at John 2: 1-11, 5: 1-12, 6: 4-14, 9: 1-17, 11: 17-44? Is it finally for John, what Jesus did that made him the Christ in fact and therefore, according to the Johannine scheme, one with the Father?
And there is more, if Philip is willing to listen. Of very truth, John's Jesus is made to say, the ones who believe in him can and will perceive his true self, will be empowered to do the works he himself has done (14:12). Such believers are necessary, the text says, "Because I go to the Father." What we may have here is late first century proto-church leadership admonishing Jesus Jews to carry on Jesus' work of meeting human need (Cana), of making whole the unwhole (Pool of Siloam), of feeding the hungry when they're hungry and where (the grassy hillside) and offering life rather than death (Lazarus).
So comes the promise to do anything the apostolic community asks (14:13): "If you ask anything in my name (i.e. according to the nature and purpose of Jesus exhibited in the aforementioned works), it will be given "that the Father may be glorified (revealed for what he is) in the Son," i.e. in the community of believer and doers united in and by that nature and purpose.
Jesus is depicted as challenging the community to show its love for him by keeping his commandments (14:15), presumably including the "new commandment" of 13:34 to love each other as he loves them. Meanwhile, Jesus will petition the Father to send another is his place to maintain the advocacy, i.e. the standing by and with the community. This advocate by his advocacy will be the "Spirit of truth," that is to say, the disclosure of what is real and right, the light in the darkness
In the reading from Acts, Luke makes the point that, even though people at the Pentecostal gathering were of varying tongues, each understood the other. An appealing thought in the day of simultaneous translation at the United Nations and the studied inability to comprehend what one's adversary is speaking, despite the translation. The Babel that the United States Congress has become -- Foghorn Leghorns bloviating past each other -- makes one doubtful that sides may ever come to terms.
Reading or hearing the verse about all at Pentecost being able to understand the other, despite the their various geographical origins, always brings to mind the memorable day I visited a refugee camp of "boat people" in Southeast Asia. I understood no one except the Red Cross workers there and my driver, and him but barely. I wanted, however, to speak to one of the refugees who seemed to be (and was, as it turned out) the father of quite a considerable family. My mission was to extract him and his family from the horrors of that camp and bring them to the United States under the sponsorship of the newspaper for which I was then reporting.
Nothsiri Chuuy could only guess at what I was saying, and seemed naturally wary. Finally, I reached into my backpack for several granola bars -- stowed there against the possibility of not being willing or able to ingest what I might be offered in the outback of Thailand. I opened one, took a bite, smacked my lips in pleasure and then passed out as many of the bars as I had to Mr. Nothsiri and his family. Echoes of John 14: 11b: "Believe me because of the works themselves."
They took, they ate, they smiled. Then one by one they approached me, hands together in the Asian gesture of respect, and bowed. I reached out to embrace every one of them.
Thus did we understand each other pretty well. I was acting almost reflexively out of what I believed I, as a fellow human being, should do. "Acting" is the operative word here. I could have preached a most eloquent sermon worthy of John Chrysostom or Phillips Brooks, and its well-turned phrases and exquisite theology would have wafted away on the sodden winds of that hot summer's day.
On that occasion, the granola bars and the embraces in return for the bows served as the tongues of fire and mighty rushing wind. If there is such an entity as "the holy spirit," it was present in those moments. A gospel of a kind was preached and heard -- though I am not sure to this day who was doing the preaching and who the hearing.
