The great feast of Pentecost, yes, it’s a mystery. So, what to do with it?
It seems to me that all great Christian feasts, those we really do try to celebrate, still tend to remain "just a mystery" to us. And if we are honest about it, a mystery will always tend to raise more questions than resolve doubts or silence debates. Sure, it's good to want to understand more, but a mystery is not that rational! Not unlike the Mystery of our salvation (we proclaim it at every Eucharist-- Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!). Mysteries are both central to our faith journey and also really tough to explain, (perhaps to explain away?) even with nice, clearly stated dogmas. I think that we are meant to soak up the mystery, to enter into it with trust and openness, to let the mysterious event grab hold of us… The Virgin birth (Immaculate Conception), Christmas, Easter, the Ascension, and now Pentecost, each is such a mystery. With these we do better when we're able to sit with them, to be more contemplative, mystical about what they mean, no?
So, what about this mystery, the feast of Pentecost, the birthday of Jesus’ Church? What are we celebrating, or at least wanting to celebrate?
Some may discount the Scriptural narrative or even dismiss it as “non-historical” (who knows exactly what happened, especially two millennia ago?) but that misses the point of mystery anyway. (Note: their time is not chronological, not really.) Like the other events we celebrate annually as Jesus’ disciples, Pentecost can provide a lens through which we might recognize God is working among us today, now. A great deal depends on how we interpret the narrative, of course.
Fr. Ron Rolheiser (in The Restless Heart, p. 78) says that Acts 2, the first reading today, parallels the story of the Tower of Babel, a wisdom story easily and often misinterpreted. Instead of being about sinful pride and its downfall, the Tower of Babel is a story about the causes of human loneliness. These people were not arrogantly defying or challenging God; they just wanted to make an impression on others – ‘let’s make a name for ourselves.’ The evil here is refusing to be vulnerable before others, and choosing instead to build an edifice to impress them. Rolheiser reminds us that it’s only when we are vulnerable with each other that we “provide space” for meeting each other and find ourselves "speaking the same language." (Do not today’s twelve-step groups and some faith sharing groups already experience that very same intimacy and togetherness? ) In this case it is highly significant that Luke’s account in Acts 2 describes the reversal of the damage done at Babel:
They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak foreign languages as the Spirit gave them the gift of speech.
It’s for this very reason that the Spirit came in the first place, to heal the chasm between us.
If living outside of my native country, and struggling to enter into another’s culture and learning a new language has taught me anything over the past years, it is that the Tower of Babel continues today. It might well be considered today's context out of which the Church must spring to life. Indeed, our so called Information Age has successfully facilitated the very things we are warned away from in that wisdom story: appearances meant only to impress others and bring the individual advantage, our propensity to measure and rate ourselves economically and often at the expense of each other (or nation versus nation). Such things must be important -- they always show up somewhere in our international headlines. Meanwhile, in our busy societies, joy and gratitude are too often fleeting, missed, or just not that interesting.
Simon Peter, James, John and the rest of them -- they had learned much from Jesus. They also knew themselves to be sinners; weak, shadowy creatures who had always had Jesus around to pick them up, joke with them, forgive them, love them... and believe in them. Now, facing deep longing and frightening emptiness, a fearful condition that could have shut them down, they realized they could not long endure such a life after Jesus’ Ascension. This was not what Jesus had promised them, but rather His mysterious Paraclete -- their Advocate and Consoler. And then something, Someone wonderful happened along, like a great wind and inexhaustible flames!
So, the mystery of Pentecost, that event brought on by our very own Advocate, happened just when the early followers were most vulnerable; only then could they be enabled to celebrate and live as free men and women. Now, that truly was a new day, a fresh beginning!
Just as Pentecost gave birth to the living Body of Christ for our ancestors in faith some two millenia ago, may it be the same for us today!
Veni, creator Spiritus!
DPB
