Pentecost Sunday - Homily 5

Homily 5 - 2017

St Luke told us that devout men living in Jerusalem from every nation under heaven were bewildered when they heard the group of apostles that first Pentecost morning preaching in their own language about the marvels of God. I wonder if the apostles were all saying the same thing, or whether John was saying one thing, Peter another, James something else. The marvels of God! If you had been one of the apostles, which marvel of God would you have wanted to shout about, in your own language, to the assembled crowd? As you are sitting here this evening, at the end of a long day, at the end of an eventful week, what is it about God that has got you away from your warm lounge room, from your TV set, or whatever, that has fascinated you so much that you want to join with the rest of us and give thanks to God?

What had struck the apostles about the risen Jesus and about what he had shared with them during the few occasions he had been somehow present with them? If we take our lead from St John’s Gospel, I think it would have been the fact that, after his lonely death, after their abject abandonment of him, their cowardice and utter loss of faith, while still overwhelmed by their own sense of danger and caring only for themselves and their skin, he had appeared to them and wished them Peace. He had taken no notice at all of their desertion, their sin. He still loved them. In fact, as today’s Gospel made clear, he saw the whole meaning of his mission, entrusted to him by his Father, as proclaiming to the world, as bringing to the world, the forgiveness of God. The God of Jesus is God who forgives sin, who forgives the still unrepentant, who yearns to give every sinner another chance, and another chance, endlessly [seventy-times seven!]. Jesus revealed a God who is not interested in punishment but in healing – in healing the inner brokenness, loneliness, self-hatred, or whatever, that leads people to sin. God’s judgment is mercy.

God is all of one piece, utterly consistent, no favourites. God is love. Love is what God is. God has no more trouble loving Pope Francis than loving Donald Trump, or the leaders of ISIS; loving you, than loving me. God does not force forgiveness down anyone’s throat. People need to accept it for it to do them any good. In fact, what else is salvation if not accepting God’s love, responding with our own as best we can, and entering into the divine dance?

That is the marvel of God that I want to preach. No surprise! It is the mission entrusted to us all by the risen Jesus: As the Father sent me, so am I sending you. It is precisely the reason why he breathed on us at our Confirmation, and repeatedly invites us to Receive the Holy Spirit and empowers us with the commission, Whose sins you forgive are forgiven. How do you forgive sins? The same way that God does – by loving people, by loving sinners. We can. And we do not need to close our eyes to their sin. People sin because deep in their bones they do not believe, do not know, that they are loved. The Church is meant to be the community where we encourage each other and allow ourselves to be encouraged. The Spirit gifts us all differently; but those gifts are simply the diverse personalized, practical ways we express our love for others, our service of each other.

Our problem is never God. It is ourselves. We do not trust God. We somehow prefer to keep control of our own outcomes, our own destiny, to save ourselves. As well, the culture in which we live and that reinforces our mutual competitiveness and hostility, deadening us to our sinfulness, presents another massive problem.

Quite a mission to be entrusted with! But we are not alone. We share with Jesus’ in his mission.