This is a day we remember that the Holy Spirit is alive and active in all the world, in all God’s creatures, and bringing life to all, outside our control (thank goodness) and renewing the creation.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Day of Pentecost, year A
Texts: Numbers 11:24-30; Psalm 104:24-34, 35b; Acts 2:1-21; John 7:37-39
Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
There’s a worrying glitch in today’s Pentecost-like moment from the book of Numbers.
Moses is exhausted from leading the people and God, who called Moses to this leadership, offers a solution. Moses will choose seventy trusted elders and gather them, and then, God says, “I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them.” (11:17).
Great, but a problem emerges. Two of the seventy either missed the memo about gathering at the tent of meeting, or were having a leisurely breakfast, and stayed in the camp. But the Holy Spirit followed the list, and breathed into Eldad and Medad just as into the other sixty-eight, and they also prophesied. But . . . in the camp. A breathless runner told Moses, and Joshua indignantly said Moses should shut them down.
Moses wisely knows two things. First, God’s Spirit is above his pay grade. If the Holy Spirit has breathed on these two, Moses can’t control that. And Moses also realizes he’s not threatened by this. This sending of the Spirit was meant to help Moses, and he expansively says, “would that all God’s people were prophets, and that God’s spirit would be put on them!”
But there is something strange in this episode.
It almost sounds like the Holy Spirit is a limited commodity. Moses has a full share of the Spirit. Now some of that Spirit will be taken from him and given to others. So there’s only so much Spirit of God to go around?
There’s other evidence of this in Scripture. Elisha, the successor of Elijah, strangely asks for a “double portion” of the Spirit of God Elijah had, so he can inherit Elijah’s role. (2 Kings 2) And the Hebrews did see some people as clearly having God’s Spirit, but not everyone. Kings, prophets, are regularly described as having the Spirit of God, or, as in Saul’s case, even having the Spirit taken from them.
And then our Gospel seems to imply a limited presence of the Spirit, too: Jesus has the Spirit, but here John says the others don’t yet. Luke is similar. In his Gospel, Jesus is filled with the Spirit to do all he does. In Acts the parallel is now it’s the believers who’ve received the Spirit and do amazing things.
So, on this Day of Pentecost, are we to believe that either the Spirit is in limited supply, or that until somehow a person is given the Spirit, they are Spirit-free?
Not in the least. Since we read the whole of Scripture, we know better.
We know that in Genesis 1 God’s Spirit is already there, filling the creation, blowing over the face of the water. In the Pentecost story, Peter quotes the prophet Joel that God will pour out the Spirit on all people of all kinds. Other prophets say similar things.
Jesus himself, in John 3, speaks to Nicodemus of the Holy Spirit as a present reality. Like the wind, Jesus says, you can’t see the Spirit directly but you can see where she’s been. And Jesus invites Nicodemus to be born of water and the Spirit. There’s no limited commodity here for Jesus. Air and wind are everywhere, and so is the Holy Spirit. And if the Spirit is everywhere, you’re never not in the Spirit’s presence.
So today we celebrate the “coming” of the Spirit.
But, given the witness of Scripture, Pentecost is not the first arrival of the Holy Spirit among the believers. It is a critical moment when they saw evidence of her (and Luke says they literally heard wind!) In this moment they had undeniable evidence of the Spirit in their lives, through language, fire, sound of wind. But the Spirit was always with them, even before.
So, when I lay hands on someone’s head at their baptism and pray that they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, I’m not arrogantly claiming that until this moment this child of God wasn’t filled with the Spirit. I’m simply naming the promise, calling on the Triune God to keep that promise, and asking directly that the Holy Spirit fill and sustain this beloved one. Even though the Spirit already and always has been filling and sustaining them. Even though there was never a time they weren’t God’s child.
But there’s one more thing about the Spirit the Scriptures are clear about.
Not only is God’s Spirit moving in all everywhere, we have no control over the Spirit in any way.
Moses taught us this. The Holy Spirit is way above our pay grade. And sorry, Joshua, but no amount of indignation is going to help. The Spirit will and does move among all God’s children wherever and whenever she wants. Jesus has invited us to look for the evidence, and says we’ll be able to see it. And Pentecost reminds us that we can ask for the Spirit to come as a way of claiming the same promise and filling that happened in those first believers on this amazing day.
What we do today, and all days, is name the Spirit when we see her working, and rejoice.
We rejoice in this spectacular moment in the early Church.
We rejoice for this day when we do see the Spirit at work among us, in Elena and Lucy, and in our midst, reminding us that the world is not abandoned. That even as we see the Spirit here today, feel her breath, the joy of God in this service, we know she is moving throughout the world for healing and hope.
We rejoice in the psalmist’s promise, joining Joel, Moses, and Jesus, that, as we sang, all creatures look to God for life and sustenance and God sends forth the Spirit, and all are created anew, and the face of the earth is renewed.
And we rejoice, you rejoice, that you are never alone in this world. No one is. God’s Spirit is as near to you as your heart, as near to the world as the hearts of all God’s beloved children.
So let us pray.
Come, Holy Spirit. Even though we know you are always here, still we say, Come, Holy Spirit. Fill our hearts and lives with your strength, your courage, your joy, and give us faith, that we might be your flame of hope in the shadows of this world, until all is made new. In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
