The Rev. Joseph Farnes
All Saints, Boise
Pentecost, Year A
May 28, 2023
Today is my liturgical anniversary of being called as your rector here at All Saints! Four years ago on Pentecost was our first Sunday together, and we baptized Virginia and Ruby Borg-Borm in a joyful celebration.
Four years already! And how things have changed so much in four years of time. The wee little Virginia and Ruby are now incredibly mobile youngsters. Some of our youth have gone from elementary school to junior high, or junior high to high school, or high school to college. There have been fond farewells to dear ones and warm welcomes to new friends and companions along the way. The years are full of change.
And as years change, so do we. Things slowly unfold over time. Sometimes it’s only after a few years have passed that we can see how that change has unfolded in us. We look back and see the journey we’ve been on. We see the slow work of God in us.
The Day of Pentecost in Scripture is anything but slow work. It’s a rushing wind, its prophetic utterances, its tongues of fire and a multitude of languages spoken. It’s dramatic, energetic, it’s festive! The Holy Spirit rushes down and gives abundant gifts and energy. The Holy Spirit takes believers from all these different backgrounds and helps them to speak and understand each other. The Holy Spirit gives voice to the prophets!
But the Holy Spirit shows up in quieter, slower ways, too. We need to remember that. The Holy Spirit is part of the very fabric of church, the energizing force in what we do.
When I started adding these red streamers to the church (and thanks to the Altar Guild for adding more of them, because crepe paper isn’t the easiest thing to work with), I started thinking about where the Holy Spirit shows up in our lives together.
When I was putting some streamers around the Bible, I started thinking of how we think the Holy Spirit inspired the words of the Bible. Not in a literal sense – the Holy Spirit didn’t “take over” Biblical writers and make them write these specific words but worked with them, through them, “inspired” them in the sense of “breathed into” them. And it’s not just the words of the Bible that are important – it’s our reading of them. We bring our own experiences to the Bible. We listen for how the Holy Spirit may nudge us to notice something new. The Holy Spirit guides us individually and as a community in reading the Bible.
When I was putting streamers up on the absurdly big chairs – one for the bishop, apparently one for the rector … yet I’m not going to sit in it – I was thinking of how the Holy Spirit is present in ordination. We sing a hymn to the Holy Spirit and ask the Spirit to be present, to make someone a deacon, a priest, or a bishop. But the Holy Spirit’s ongoingly present in that person’s ministry throughout their life – and the Holy Spirit’s ongoingly present in the ministry of every person.
That Spirit-filled, Spirit-empowered work of the whole people of God was coming to my mind as I started to put streamers up on the sides here. The Spirit helps us to pray, the Spirit helps us to take care of one another and take care of the world, the Spirit helps us to speak truth to power and do all the great works (and all the little stuff, too). The first reading today shows us that the Holy Spirit can show up in surprising places – it wasn’t just the prophets that showed up at the tent with Moses that got the Spirit – it was others, too. And
And the Spirit seals us to Christ in baptism – that’s what I was thinking about as I put all those streamers in the baptismal font. The priest anoints the forehead of the person baptized and says, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.” Sealed by the Holy Spirit – united to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, with a power that cannot be shaken or undone.
The Holy Spirit is the power of God’s own promises. God promises to be present in baptism, in ordination, in our ministry, in our prayers. The Holy Spirit is wild and free and goes where she will – and also the Holy Spirit is dependable. The Holy Spirit can always do the new thing, the exciting thing, the energizing and amazing thing like at Pentecost. And the Holy Spirit shows up in the everyday stuff we do, too.
Perhaps a good reminder for us to hold to is how the Holy Spirit shows up in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is both an amazing, wonderful thing, and also an everyday sort of thing that we do week after week.
The Spirit is present as we gather, in our greeting one another.
The Spirit is present as we pray: from formal prayers like the Collect of the Day or the Prayers of the People, and to informal prayers that we might say ourselves.
- The Spirit is present as we read and hear the Bible together.
- The Spirit is present as we pray for the needs of the world.
- The Spirit is present as we confess our sins, and as a priest absolves us.
- The Spirit is present as we share the peace.
- The Spirit is present as we make our offering.
- The Spirit is present in the Eucharistic prayer.
- The Spirit is called down to bless the bread and wine to become the Body and Blood of Christ.
- The Spirit is present as we share communion together.
- The Spirit is present in song and silence.
- The Spirit is present in sending out a Eucharistic visitor.
- The Spirit is present in the final blessing and the dismissal, sending us out into the world to do the works God has given us to do.
The Spirit is everywhere in our service. The Spirit empowers us, strengthens us, guides us and heals us. Come, Holy Spirit, come to us, that we may thank you for all that you do, seen and unseen in our lives. Glory to the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.