Pentecost - the great feast of communication - a sermon by Stephen Brown

Pentecost - the great feast of communication
Stephen Brown, meditation at the Ecumenical Centre, 25 May 2010

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked '… How is it that we hear, each of us in our own native language? In our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power?'

When I heard last week that there was not yet a preacher for today, I jumped - maybe rashly - at the opportunity to offer a meditation this morning. For since I was very young, this has been one of my favourite texts from the Bible. I've never quite worked out why, maybe it is because of the action-packed nature of the story that the writer of Acts describes. Not a moment is lost in setting the scene. "When the day of Pentecost came, they were altogether in one place". Immediately there is the rushing noise of a violent wind, the tongues, 'as of fire' appearing among the disciples. And there is the transformation of the speech of the disciples so that those gathered from every nation under heaven can hear of God's deeds of power in their own language. And then, the wry comment by those that hear the disciples that they are "filled with new wine".

For some one, like me, who is involved in communication, this text speaks of communication in its most profound sense - and communication that involves all the senses. Here we encounter the physicality of the Holy Spirit: the sound and the touch of the wind, the appearance of the tongues of fire that take on physical form, resting on each of the disciples. In his book, The Spirit of Life, Jürgen Moltmann describes how the Pentecost narrative needs to be seen against the background of the Hebrew Scriptures, where God's Spirit Ruach has quite a different meaning from the western tradition of thinking about the Spirit. God's Ruach is not something supernatural or immaterial but is "a tempest, a storm, a force in body and soul, humanity and nature". Ruach, says Moltmann, is the "breath of God's voice". (1) So, Pentecost is about communication of all the senses. It is this breath of God's voice that enables God's deeds of power to be heard by each in their own language. Pentecost is the great feast of communication.

Pentecost is sometimes described as the counterpoint to the account of the building of the Tower of Babel. The story in Genesis describes how at the beginning the whole earth had one language and the same words. Then the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from Babel "scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth". At Babel, so it goes, the nations were scattered, at Pentecost they are gathered together. Yet, look closer at the text. The tongues of flame do not create a single language; it does not mean that those in Jerusalem are speaking in one language. Instead, each person hears in their own speech. God's Spirit breaks down the barriers between nations, the barriers of culture, and the barriers of language. Being drawn together, being one, does not mean being identical. It means transcending the barriers that separate us, holding together our diversity in the power of the "breath of God's voice". This is a pronounced and profound experience of communication. And it is through this great "communicative act" that the disciples are able to communicate "God's deeds of power".

Still, if Pentecost is a profoundly "communicative" experience, it is also a profoundly "ecumenical" experience. At Pentecost in Jerusalem, representatives are gathered from "every nation under heaven", in other words, from the whole inhabited world, or, in Greek, from the oikoumene. It is at Pentecost that God's Spirit descends upon the oikoumene, gathered at this great ecumenical assembly in Jerusalem. So, Pentecost as the foundational event of the church is both communicative and ecumenical. Through God's embracing and inclusive Spirit we can comprehend the oikoumene in all its fullness, one in which that which was scattered is gathered together in a unity that transcends the economic and political divisions of the world.

In our spirit-filled ecumenical existence, communication is at the very heart. It is through communication that we can become one - not despite our diversity, but in our diversity; not as an end in itself, but to speak about God's deeds of power. Communication in the oikoumene - ecumenical communication in its deepest sense - has this two fold character: the holding together of the oikoumene, and recounting God's deeds of power in Jesus Christ.

What does this mean for us as people drawn from many nations under heaven, for those of us gathered in this Ecumenical Centre? What does it mean for our calling as God's sign of communication in the world?

Firstly, communication is not something that is added on to our programmes or activities. It is not (only) about the technical tools we use to communicate. Communication is at the centre of our ecumenical existence. As Philip Potter, once general secretary of the World Council of Churches, puts it, "The kingdom of God, and koinonia, community, a common life, communication, are one reality" (2). We need to find ways in which this becomes a reality in our life in the oikoumene, not as a task only for communication professionals, but in which we mediate the flow of communication within the fellowship of churches (3).

But, secondly, this communicative existence of the oikoumene is not something that stands in an either/or relationship with the task of professional communication and relating to the public media. The communicative act of understanding at Pentecost was precisely to make known God's deeds of power. In our globalised world, we need to use all means at our disposal, with all their ambiguity, to make known God's deeds of power. We need, as the hymn we are to sing puts it, "to find our tongue [and] tell the world what God has done" - whether using the Internet, or Facebook, or Twitter … news stories, interviews, speeches, or even sermons!

There is, however, also a "third way" - maybe the most profound way - in which communication is at the heart of our spirit-filled ecumenical existence. Later in the passage from Acts we can read how the disciples continued to break bread together. Communication is also to communicate, to share together in the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper, united in the oikoumene in space and in time, transcending the divisions of the world. Here we are called together by the love that unites that which has been divided. At this meal, even the inadequate disciples are accepted. This is the meal of the suffering Lord who is in solidarity with the oppressed, and the meal of the one who has risen, who sends us to renewed action (4). Yet it is also here, that our own divisions in the oikoumene become most apparent and most painful. Our communication together at the Lord's Supper is incomplete, is only a partial sign of the unity to which the breath of God's voice has called us.

At Pentecost, let us therefore listen to God's renewing Spirit who calls us to prayer and to action that this meal may no longer be a sign of our division, but a symbol of the unity that God intends for the whole inhabited world - a sign that that which has been scattered has been brought together in Christ. At this feast of communication, let us revel therefore in the gift of God's Spirit, who goes before us, making whole that which is broken, calling us to be God's Pentecost people, in word, in bread, in wine.

And to God’s name be the praise and the glory.

1. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A universal affirmation, London: SCM Press Ltd, 1992, pp. 40-40.
2. Quoted in "Communicating with Conviction", Issue Paper VIII, Discussion papers arising out of the life and work of the World Council of Churches in Preparation for its Sixth Assembly, Vancouver, Canada, July 24 to August 10, 1983. Geneva: WCC, 1982.
3. Cf: Konrad Raiser, Report of the General Secretary, in The Ecumenical Review, vol. 52, no. 1, January 2000, p. 99.
4. Cf: Heino Falcke, Christ liberates - therefore the Church for Others, in The Ecumenical Review, vol. 65, no. 2, April 2004, p. 183.

Order of service for Pentecost Tuesday

Pentecost Tuesday Prayers
Ecumenical Centre
25 May 2010
Praying through the ecumenical prayer cycle for Botswana and Zimbabwe

Musical preparation

Welcome
Call to prayer
In the joy of the promise of God’s Holy Spirit
We gather to pray together for God’s “oikoumene” – the whole inhabited earth;
We ask that God may send his Spirit upon us
that we may celebrate the name of the blessed Trinity, one God, now and forever.
Amen

Sing: Come Holy Spirit

O Lord, open my eyes,
that I may see the need of others,
open my ears that I may hear their cries,
open my heart so that they need not be without succour.
Let me not be afraid to defend the weak
because of the anger of the strong,
nor afraid to defend the poor,
because of the anger of the rich.
Show me where love and hope and faith are needed,
and use me to bring them to these places.
Open my eyes and ears that I may, this coming day,
be able to do some work of peace for you.

Shona prayer

Sing: Come Holy Spirit (from Iona)

Psalm 104: 24, 31-25 (read antiphonally)

All: O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.

Women: May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
may the Lord rejoice in his works

Men: who looks on the earth and it trembles,
who touches the mountains and they smoke.

Women: I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.

Men: Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Praise the Lord!

All: O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.

Stand to sing: Thuma Mina 84 (twice)
Rakanaka Vhangeri Rakanaka
Rakanaka Vhangeri Rakanaka

Ndanguri ndaku udze kuti Rakanaka
Ndanguri ndaku udze kuti Rakanaka

Bible reading - Acts 2:1-18 read in French and Amharic
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs - in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’
But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘People of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
“In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.

Stand to sing: Thuma Mina 84 (twice)
Rakanaka Vhangeri Rakanaka
Rakanaka Vhangeri Rakanaka

Ndanguri ndaku udze kuti Rakanaka
Ndanguri ndaku udze kuti Rakanaka

Meditation – Dr Stephen Brown

Sing: There’s a Spirit in the Air
(see end for music)

There's a spirit in the air,
telling Christians everywhere:
"Praise the love that Christ revealed,
living, working in our world."

Lose your shyness, find your tongue;
tell the world what God has done:
God in Christ has come to stay,
we can see his power today.

When believers break the bread
when a hungry child is fed:
praise the love that Christ revealed
living, working in our world.

Still his Spirit leads the fight,
seeing wrong and setting right:
God in Christ has come to stay,
we can see his power today.

When a stranger's not alone,
where the homeless find a home,
praise the love that Christ revealed,
living, working in our world.

May the Spirit fill our praise,
guide our thoughts and change our ways:
God in Christ has come to stay,
we can see his power today.

There's a Spirit in the air,
calling people everywhere:
praise the love that Christ revealed,
living, working in our world.

Copyright Brian Wren, 1969

Prayers of the People
L: Great God of all
we pray to you for the people of Botswana and Zimbabwe
Assure them of your Spirit’s comfort and support
at all times and in all places.
Hallowed be your name

Sung response: Mayezinwe

L: We pray for all people everywhere working for justice and peace in the world, send your Spirit to renew and refresh their commitment.
When war and violence threaten lives and destroy communities
May your Spirit of peace teach us:
Blessed are the peacemakers

Sung Response: Mayezinwe (Your will be done on earth)

L: We pray for all seeking to bring practical
and humanitarian aid to people in need throughout the world
May your Spirit of love fuel practical solidarity between human beings
Your kingdom come

Sung Response: Mayezinwe (Your will be done on earth)

L: We pray for all facing illness in body mind or spirit,
for all who struggle on a daily basis to find enough water or food.
We unite our voice with theirs saying:
Give us this day our daily bread

Sung Response: Mayezinwe (Your will be done on earth)

L: We pray for ourselves, our friends, colleagues and families.
In our lives and in our work grant us your Spirit’s steadfast support
Lift us up when we are discouraged
Comfort us when we are downhearted
Celebrate with us when we rejoice.
At all times
Your will be done

Sung Response: Mayezinwe (Your will be done on earth)

The Lord’s Prayer (we rise to say each in our own language)

Blessing
Now go out into the world to sow seeds of peace with justice,
And may:
The God of overflowing creative energy
The Jesus of vast compassion
The Holy Spirit who turns chaos to life enhancing wholesomeness
Be with you as you go.
Amen.

Sing: Wa, Wa Wa Emimimo Thuma Mina 12
Wa Wa Wa Emimimo. Emimoloye
Wa Wa Wa Alagbara. Alagbarameta
Wao Wao Wao.Emimimo.

Who was Saint Paul's press officer? Sermon on 2 Timothy 1:7-10 and Luke 1:1-4

Sermon preached at Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Geneva
For the Press Officers Network of European Churches (PONEC)
7 September 2008
Rev. Jane Stranz

2 Timothy 1:7-10
Luke 1:1-4

Au nom du Père et du Fils et du Saint Esprit, Amen.


(The first rule of communication is to check whether the microphone they’ve put in your pocket is switched on!)

You may be surprised to know that St Luke - the apostle who wrote one of the Gospels and also the Acts of the Apostles - is sometimes described as the journalist of the New Testament.
That idea may sound a bit anachronistic, after all there was no television or radio in first century Judea, probably no daily newspapers, certainly no internet.

But what is it that a journalist actually does? One definition puts it like this - journalists gather and present news, including information about current and historical events, things that have changed in the world and other topics of interest. They take notes and record information. They carry out background research for their reports or articles, and, we hope, check facts carefully. They interview people. They write news articles and background features, written in such a was that their readers, listeners or viewers can understand what has been going on. This means they need to know their audience.

[I should add it was the journalist I live with who put me up to saying this!]

If we look again at the text from Luke we can see that at the beginning of the Gospel
Luke sets out his audience - his friend Theophilus. Luke notes too that he has been closely following all the developments concerning Jesus – or perhaps we should call it the Jesus story - and it seemed that it was time to write an "orderly account", so that Theophilus may know the truth concerning the things of which he had been informed.

The tone of Luke's gospel is rather different to Mark's rather breathless and hasty style, or to Matthew's regal and scholarly tone, or to John's opaque, poetic and very theological approach.

But Luke the journalist also makes great literature out of the orderly account he writes for Theophilus. You only have to consider his versions of the story of Christ’s incarnation, passion and resurrection to see how beautifully constructed his account is.
Unlike the other Gospel writers Luke doesn't end the story he tells with Jesus.
He rightly understands that Jesus' story goes on in others – this is the meaning of resurrection.

The orderly literary account Luke narrates, continues in the Acts of the Apostles, where he recounts the exciting missionary tours of Paul, in Cyprus, and Antioch, Asia Minor, Macedonia, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, Galatia, and Ephesus, leading to Paul's imprisonment, trial, his trip to Rome, the shipwreck.

And there was also of course a major conference in Jerusalem to deal with - a controversy which threatened to tear the Christian Communion apart – centring on the question do Christians have to be circumcised according to the law of Moses?

That must have been a tense and difficult time. Sounds familiar?

If we think people today from the same or different churches are rather “muscular” in the negative criticisms and public statements they make about one another, then reading some of what Paul and Peter and their supporters said to one another in Jerusalem may convince us that being in the church has always been about very animated and committed debate and not particularly about being nice and well-behaved!

Today I wonder whether the Jerusalem conference had an assembly preparatory commission, or an 18 month long communications plan … I suspect not.

But as I was wondering where Luke got the information from, the stories, the narratives, the great statements of Paul, I came up with rather a surprising hypothesis.

I think it's clear that Paul must have employed a great press officer, a spin doctor, as we say these days, to make sure that his side of the story got a good telling.

A press officer is someone employed by an organization - or sometimes a person - to provide the news media and journalists with information about the organization or individual.

You may object, and say - but there is no reference to any spin doctors or press officers in the Acts of the Apostles.

But that just shows how well St Paul's press officer was doing his or her job. Alastair Campbell - Tony Blair's spin doctor - once said he would have failed if he, and not Tony Blair, became the story (and in fact he finally resigned when he DID become the story).

But St Paul's press officer was so good, that she - or he - never did become the story.

But just think of the challenges the press officer had to face ...
– this Christian preacher and his companion get greeted and treated like Greek gods in Derbe (try explaining that to the evangelicals).
– can you imagine trying to pick up the pieces in Galatia after Paul's so called “pastoral” letter in which he calls the Galations stupid (try explaining that he’s a nice guy really to anyone after that).
– or explaining Paul's iconoclastic theology saying it's all right to eat the food offered to pagan gods in sacrifice.
– or trying to spin the huge unrest and rioting that seemed to attend Paul's travels (the forces of law and order are really not going to have much time for your explanations).

And of course all the time this person had Paul, their boss, telling them, 'It's not about me, it's about Jesus Christ living, dying and rising again for us, that's what you should be saying to those writers and storytellers'. While the press officer will of course also have been trying to keep the boss 'on message', and with someone like Paul who had such wide and broad knowledge, that really won't have been easy!

As you have heard, for the past two days press and communications officers from churches right across Europe - from Albania to Ireland and from Finland to Italy - have been meeting in Geneva, swapping experiences and insights about how to communicate their churches -
and looking at one particular conference that is soon coming up.

It’s not a conference in Jerusalem like in Acts but the 13th assembly of the Conference of European Churches that will take place in Lyon next year. And I hear that the press officers have come up with bags of ideas about communicating the assembly.

But what is it that makes a good press officer? I sometimes wonder whether the text we heard from Timothy does not provide a good summary of the qualities that are needed: For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

In English we do not have the wonderful word “Besonnenheit” to render the Greek σωφρονισμου (sophronismos) and so we have
Power love and self-control
power love and right mindedness
power love and sound judgement
and my personal favourite which comes surprisingly from the Darby translation
power love and wise discretion

Any press officer, particularly a church press officer, will need power or dynamism to do their job. They will also need love, a sense of passion and purpose in what they are doing; and they will need buckets-full of wise discretion, sound-mindedness, self control, and more besides.

Perhaps those seem like rather high values for press officers, but I'd like to suggest that actually those values apply not only to them and to the rather timid Timothy (you notice that Paul doesn't mince his words even to those closest to him – 'come on Timothy stop being so scared - get on with it!') but to all of us in the churches.

Each of us and all of us are God's press officers, telling the story of Jesus in today's world.

We bear witness through our lives, the way we do business, the way we speak and interact with one another …

Think for a moment of a local church, or a diocese or a church organisation, or a church-run aid organisation.

How does it and can it bear witness to story of Jesus in today’s plural, globalized world?

Perhaps we should take a leaf out of Paul’s book and not feel embarrassed by the debates, discussions, tensions and politicking, but actually dare to tell the story and say how it adds and gives meaning to our lives.

Bearing witness to the essential is not easy – we’d rather say, 'oh you know I go to church out of habit, for the music, to see friends'. We’re frightened about being seen as too religious.

In a book he has written, the French Protestant theologian Laurent Schlumberger says how important it for Christians today to reclaim the language of bearing witness to their faith. His book is called Sur le seuil which means on the threshold, in the doorway - between our faith and other people’s lives, questions, faith, concerns and convictions. Schlumberger says that if our faith talk is to have any resonance with others, we will need to dare to speak of our doubts as well as our convictions, as part of daring to go to the threshold of interaction.

Before I finish I’m afraid you are going to have to allow me one final linguistic aside. There is a wonderful German word Schwellenangst – it means fear of the threshold, fear of knocking on a new door, doing a new thing, being on a new threshold.

But God has not given us a spirit of fear of the thresholds where the witness to our faith takes place, but a spirit of dynamic power, passionate love and wise discretion.

So may God's Spirit truly blow a hurricane of wise discretion, love, and power calling us to live on that threshold where we bear witness to the faith and keeping all of us - 'on message'.

Amen.


Laurent Schlumberger, Sur le Seuil: Les protestants au défi du témoignage, Lyon, Editions Olivétan, 2005.


copyright (c) Jane Stranz