Pentecost Sunday May 23, 2010 Reflections on Acts 2:1-11 Psalm 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 24 I Corinthians 12:3B - 7, 12-13 John 14: 15-16, 23b-26 by Sister Patricia Crowley, OSB.

I. Introduction

This past week I spent time driving between cities and sites in Colorado.

i) Before I had left home, I had printed out directions and maps from either Googlemaps or from Mapquest. Sunday afternoon, I suddenly needed to drive somewhere for which I had not pulled a map. My nephew, Bryan, offered to program his GPS (a little magical box that tells you exactly where you are – according to some satellite a great distance away…). It got me where I needed to go (to the house of the Benedictine Sisters in Littleton….).
ii) All worked fine until I was leaving Canon City (now, I have figured out the way from our house there to our house in Pueblo….but I thought I would see if the GPS was going to take me a different way once I reached Pueblo). It seems that the address in Pueblo is also an address in Canon so the voice in the box kept telling me to turn when I knew that I had to stay on Highway 50 to get to Pueblo.
iii) I finally pulled over and muted the voice that kept telling me to go a way I knew was not correct (…..if I wanted to get to Pueblo).
iv) Maps and GPS gadgets are great…..sometimes!

Today we celebrate a feast of what it means to become “church”! Wouldn’t we love to have a working GPS box for that?

The question of where we are going as Church today is currently the subject of so many news analysts and columns….

i) …as we grapple with the insipid reality of sexual abuse and pedophilia that seem so prevalent in many places in the world ( Germany, Ireland, Africa, here, etc. etc.).
ii) …as we hear news reports of the excommunication of women seeking ways to be full partners in ministry and others making agonizing decisions about life and death,
iii) ….as we reflect on the puzzling process Rome has launched to look at our lives as women religious, etc.,
iv) …..we look to the scriptures and listen to the Spirit in our midst

The Pentecost experience was described in the first reading and responded to in several languages here in our midst. The reading from Acts is one of a group “becoming Church” - moving out of closed quarters to communicate the good news of Jesus Christ to others outside of their closed circle……

Those who all met in one room. Suddenly they experienced a strong wind….something appeared like tongues of fire…..they left the room and went outside where crowds were gathered….They began to speak to the crowds about the marvelous good news in the person of Jesus Christ….and each person heard what they had to say in his or her own language….. All, who heard, were bewildered…..

The apostles gathered in that room may have been longing for a map, a guide, (a GPS?) so they would know what might come next,

It is clear that they were open to new experiences for they stepped out of that room and acted on what the Pentecost experience was for them.

In the selection from I Corinthians, Paul says that we will not be able to say that “Jesus is Lord” if we are not open to new experiences in life, if we are not open to the Spirit.

I chose this passage (of the two recommended) because I wanted to probe its meaning. As you know “Lord” is not a title for God that I use easily!

What is Paul saying? What might he mean? I recognize (and commentaries confirm) that he is using imagery and language that was crystal clear to his audience. They knew that Zeus (and others) were called “Lord” by so many. They knew, only too well, that the emperor in Rome was called “Lord”. They also used the term “Lord” at times for the male head of a household (the pater familia).

Paul is saying - “Let go of that use of “Lord” for anything in your life except when you are talking about the God revealed by Jesus. Be open to a new way and a new time. Be open to the Spirit that is present in our very being and in our world. Only if you are open to that Spirit, will you be able to express that, indeed, Jesus is the divine reality in human life.

It is Jesus, and he alone, who is Lord in this sense!

John’s gospel passage takes this idea a step further and translates the reality of Jesus strong presence in human life as “Love”! There it is – the gospel’s GPS box that will help us truly to become Church and to get where we want to go.

John says – allow the Spirit to teach you everything and to remind you of all that Jesus spoke / taught. Don’t get distracted by other voices that don’t bespeak Jesus’ life and teachings.

Like my experience with the GPS gadget as I left Canon, sometimes it is necessary to mute some voices (even some loud and persistent ones) that we hear because we know (in the openness of our own hearts and minds) that they are leading us somewhere other than where we really want to go.
Sometimes we need to listen to the Spirit within us and trust that voice alone.

Conclusion

We are Church here gathered together! We are the Body of Christ in the world!

That Church, that Body, is gradually becoming “universal” (that’s what “catholic” means!). We are becoming a world church. We are struggling to become what we describe in our documents (especially those of Vatican II). We are moving – oh, so slowly and oh, so haltingly – toward a new way of being Church. The Roman, the hierarchical model, based on the Roman Empire, is not being transformed easily but it is happening. Little by little we are learning to love all, to welcome all, to reverence each one’s uniqueness.

Abbe Pierre, the French priest who worked with those who were homeless throughout France and died just before my last visit to France in 2007, describes the essence of that emerging Church in his book Mon Dieu, pourquoi….. by saying

“Christianity is the meeting of one person with another person. This is the gospel which lives on in us. There is nothing else!”

In our relationships with others, in our relationship with ourselves, we learn to listen and to “allow the spirit to teach us and remind us of all that Jesus spoke and did” (John).

As we travel this road together, we might feel we know it only too well. We might long for a clear map or for the sometimes assuring voice of the GPS gadget.

…and we know that we can only truly listen to the Spirit, when we mute some voices within and without that might keep us from following the Spirit into ways of being church, ways we never imagined possible.

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