Getting Back to Better*

Pentecost 2021 - Year B

Acts 2:1-21

A long time ago I went on a women’s retreat in Ferdinand, Indiana

And even now after…well over 20 years 

I remember a sort of mantra from the weekend

Sr Maria Tasso used it as a kind of grounding backdrop for the retreat:

It was: Welcome…Welcome…Welcome!                                                           

 

On this glorious Sunday                                                                          

The Feast of Pentecost…the Sunday that begins the season of Pentecost              

When we are gathering…Or re-gathering…                                                      

from a pandemic that Scattered us in isolation…

That. Theme. Resonates!

Welcome…Welcome…Welcome!

 

And so let’s pray together

With a heart full of WELCOME:

 

V. Come Holy Spirit…                                                                                   

Fill the hearts of your faithful

R. And kindle in us the fire of your love

V. Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created

R. And you will renew the face of the earth.

 

 

On that women’s retreat

What Sr. Maria Tasso was trying to help us see and understand

Was that the Holy Spirit is always there…just waiting to be welcomed

This doesn’t mean that pain and adversity will cease

No…its not magic                                                                                           

 

But by welcoming the Holy Spirit

We admit that we believe…and even EXPECT her to “show up”!

Why? SO THAT we can be equipped                                                                

with what we need to say:

         Welcome, welcome, welcome

So that we can welcome life…

in all its beauty and all its difficulty

 

My bet is that all of us have stories…recollections…memories           

That when we call them to mind                                                               

When we reflect back

We might say… “that was such a God thing”                                             

 

take a moment

To call to mind such a time

[Perhaps a time during this pandemic]

Recall a time when in the midst of confusion, or despair even

---a time when you couldn’t see a way out or a way through

And yet…now…you can see it as “such a God thing”

 

The funny thing is that we can only see clearly when we reflect back

Only in retrospect that we see the whole unfolding

 

This experience

This time…when…in retrospect, we can say “that was such a God thing”

What happened? 

What made it a God-thing?

 

My guess is that 

You had no plan

You were out of answers or solutions

Maybe you had nowhere else to turn

 

And So…Maybe that’s what happens…we let go

And in that letting go we can then say “Welcome…Welcome…Welcome!”

To the Holy Spirit

In those times we may not have known what we were doing

…but she knew!

And as we welcomed the Holy Spirt

We were able to welcome life…all of it

Because we knew that we were not alone

 

It isn’t magic---our cooperation is needed

And no doubt…for many of us

There have been many stubborn months, years, mybe even decades 

When…whether by pride, ego, or sheer folly

We just couldn’t let go enough to Welcome…Welcome…Welcome! the companionship 

of Holy Spirit.

 

 

In my work in the hospital

I frequently encountered what I sense is a universal opportunity

An opportunity that most of us have or will encounter

…To welcome the Holy Spirit

When a person is dying family and friends gather

That is just what we do

And rarely is this a perfectly holy situation

It is almost always accompanied by 

…whether conscious or unconscious 

some amount of regret, estrangement, and unreconciled hurts…

 

One of two things can happen

Some Families…in my experience most families…find a way to gather 

And some families scatter
…in refusal and pride they squander the opportunity

 

Re-gathering, coming clean, letting go of past hurts,

         putting things into perspective…

This is the FREEING work of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit invited and welcomed

Works toward healing and reconciliation…She works to GATHER

 

Welcome…Welcome…Welcome!

We welcome the Holy Spirit

We believe that she is always ready to “show up”

SO THAT

We can welcome, welcome, welcome all that life throws our way

 

I love this portrait of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit as invited companion, comforter and guide resonates with the word used in

         John’s Gospel: Paraclete

We don’t know how to translate it very well so often it is transliterated, Paraclete

It literally means called alongside

The word has courtroom overtones

As a kind of lawyer for the defense…somebody on your side!

 

But in the story of the Pentecost event 
as told in the Acts of the Apostles

There seems to be a bit more to the Holy Spirit 

 

The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles are best read as one book with two parts

The story of Jesus and

The story of the Church

And they often mirror each other very deliberately

 

Jesus says in Ch 11 of Luke’s Gospel

Whoever does not gather with me scatters

Gathering and scattering…

Scttering and gathering 

it is a particularly Lukan theme

and it seems to me to be a Pentecost movement

Like the hospital scene I described

The Pentecost event gathers those who have been scattered…

In our story it is the scattered people of Israel

“devout Jews from every nation under heaven”

Scattered and over time…rendered strangers 

…they are unable to communicate at the level of language

 

But more important than the dramatic hearing described in the Acts story

The power of the invited Holy Spirit allows for

A new common language

A language of the heart

A language of forgiveness and healing

 

This, my friends,

Is the only language that is capable of carrying the Gospel

To the ends of the earth

A language of the heart

A language of reconciliation

A universal language that heals and gathers

 

Important to the gathering at Pentecost 

Is that there are no casualties

This is so KEY

The unity experienced is at the expense of no one

 

I couldn’t help think about Israel and Palestine

So prevelant in the news this week

This conflict has lasted my whole lifetime

How can it ever work out?

Will there ever be a post-conflict time?

 

The establishment of a Jewish homeland

Completely understandable in the wake of the atrocities of WWII

Has been fraught with perennial conflict and bloodshed

 

How can peace prevail when the original price was paid by an unsuspecting people?

People whose land was offered without their say?

The gathering of Israel made causalities of a people…a very resilient people.

I fear it will never end.

By contrast

When the Holy Spirit gathers there is never collateral damage

It is gathering without scattering

It is gathering in order to be sent

 

We, the people of St Stephen’s

are in the process of re-gathering

I have been hearing the phrase “getting back to normal” lately…and with longing

 

Here is where the Holy Spirit will discomfort us and challenge us

I feel certain she is hoping for more than “getting back to normal”

She is hoping for better

 

As we, the people of St. Stephen’s

Begin our regathering

Let’s keep asking the Pentecost question of verse 12

“What Does This Mean?”

 

What does our regathering mean?

After such a challenging, emotional, painful pandemic

It must mean something more for us than “getting back to normal”

 

Accompanied by the Holy Spirit

We can do better than “getting back to normal”

We can “get back to better”

 

Because we are 

Strengthened by the memories of the Holy Spirit acting alongside us

Giving us the courage to Welcome, Welcome, Welcome

 

Because we are 

Strengthened by each others’ presence…in the power of the Holy Spirit

 

Because we are 

strengthened by the Eucharist that in the sharing makes of us the body of Christ 

for the life of the world.

 

Because of all this…

We, on this Pentecost Sunday, are getting back to better!