Download Pentecost Sunday 19 May 2013

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Pentecost Sunday 19 May 2013
Guildford Cathedral
A single word from the Scriptures; a deeply moving experience in the slums of Rio de
Janiero; and Pentecost Sunday – the traditional ’birthday of the Church’ and the
dedication of this our Cathedral Church.
Tucked away in Paul’s second letter to the Church in Corinth there are some
remarkable words about the Holy Spirit, whom we must think about toady of all days
here in this Cathedral of the Holy Spirit.
Paul tells the Corinthians that every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes’. The Good
News of God in Christ is not – Paul says _ ‘yes’ but also ‘no’. It is always ‘yes’. How
often do we Christians sound negative . . .So how come God’s answer to human
yearning is always a ‘yes’. And then Paul tells us that God has anointed us, put his
seal upon us, giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a ‘first instalment’. At every baptism
and confirmation I think of that phrase – the ‘seal’ of the Spirit, a sort of code for
baptism and confirmation – confirmation means to seal, to stamp, to brand, to mark
for ownership by Christ. I think of recent baptisms and confirmations here in the
Cathedral on Easter Eve, at Farncombe, at Fleet and yesterday at Gordon’s School.
Celebrations of the seal of the Spirit.
But the single word I want to consider today is that word ‘first instalment’. I know
that’s two but the original is one arrabon, originally a semitic or Hebrew word by
borrowed by late Greek. In earlier translations it is rendered an ‘earnest’, ‘pledge’,
‘guarantee’, but ‘first instalment’ is better. We, the Church, are a ‘first instalment’ of
the Spirit. Not in all its fullness but nevertheless really and truly a people of the Spirit
of God who creates and transforms the world – you and I are a ‘first instalment’ of the
same Spirit who breathed over the waters of chaos and brought life out of
nothingness in the beginning of things, you and I are first instalments, deposits,
down-payments of the Spirit of Pentecost that empowered the first disciples to reach
out to all the nations with the good news of God in Christ we hear about in today’s
reading from the Acts of the Apostles.
Now the Spirit of Pentecost came both corporately to the disciples in the upper room
on the Day of Pentecost, they were all together in one place, and individually. The
Spirit – single and unifying, rested like a flame of fire on each individual. You have
your gifts as an individual. But the Church corporately is also the bearer of the Spirit.
And today is the traditional birthday of the Church.
Do you think about the Church much? I don’t mean the Stewardship campaign, the
Cathedral fabric, the clergy, still less that strange body we call the Church of
England! No, something much deeper . . . The Church as Christ’s Body, the Temple
of the Spirit, the Bride of Christ, the People of God, and all other ways in which the
Church is described even in the New Testament, while it still remains ever in need of
radical reform and purification – as successive ecclesiastical scandals show only too
well. Yet though all ministry, lay as well as ordained, is treasure in very fragile,
earthen vessels, the Bible continues to use high language of us the Church.
Theologians have talked about the Church ecumenically for many years. Anglicans
in discussion with Reformed Christians and Roman Catholic Christians have used
language for the Church such as Sign, Instrument and Foretaste of the Kingdom of
God. On the birthday of the Church at Pentecost, think for a moment of the Church
as a Sign of the Kingdom. Whenever you turn the other cheek and absorb anger or
evil, whenever you speak up for the good and the right, whenever you help your
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neighbour or the disadvantaged, or the prisoner (whether literally in prison or
metaphorically in the captivity of affluence, drugs, alcohol, sexual perversion)
whenever you contribute to the common good, you as Church are a sacrament or
sign of God’s Kingdom. And not just like a road sign which does not contain what it
points to. More like the sign of a kiss in a human relationship which contains the love
it expresses. So you are not a mere sign but you – as Church – are an Instrument of
the Kingdom. Of course not in its fullness or completeness, not yet. But like an hors
d’ouvres, the first fruits – or what St Paul tells the Corinthians (who were a pretty
motley lot by the way) what St Paul tells the Corinthians they are – an arrabon. A
first instalment of which more is guaranteed to come.
Now all this Bible and theology (ecclesiology is the technical term) you will be saying,
I don’t really want to think about the Church. It’s all rather abstract and wordy.
So let me contextualise – as they say. Those who like pictures rather than words can
now wake up. I will take you mentally to Rio de Janiero, where I was privileged to be
talking with Anglican and Roman Catholic colleagues from different parts of the
world, just two weeks ago. Some of you may have seen what I have said about Rio
(and some pictures) on the Diocesan Website.
We visited a favela – a kind of shanty-town. When slaves were freed in Brazil in the
late 19th century – the last ‘western’ country to do so – at the instigation of the
Papacy, the freed slaves moved out of the centre of Rio to the surrounding hills.
Where they found a shrub which survives the harshest conditions, the favela. And
they called their settlements after it. In the late 30ies the authorities wanted to move
people from the slums in the middle of Rio to make room for the rich to build larger
houses. One way they moved the poor was to set fire to the slums and send the firebrigade without water – that is true. The authorities did then build a township with
basic facilities and called it ‘The City of God’. It was for 20,000 people. There are
now between 60 – 80,000 people in this single favela. And up until a few years ago it
was entirely and absolutely controlled by drug barons. There were regular and
prolific murders, gun-fights, the killing of men, women and children. No one could go
in or out or do anything without their permission. Eventually, after some loss of life it
was successfully policed, and the label is community policing. We visited the
community organisations for the old, football clubs (yes, Rio and the World Cup next
year as well as the Olympics in 2015), the Police station, a local community bank
with its own notes to keep money within the community – here is a 10 real note which
can only be cashed in the City of God. And we were taken round by two priests, one
Anglican, one Roman Catholic, with their community helpers. People were warm and
welcoming, smiling and cheerful – though still desperately poor. And the river
running through the City of God was not yet quite like that of the New Jerusalem
described in Revelations with the trees for the healing of the nations, as it was an
open sewer. But we were welcomed, we were safe, we were moved to be so
received. The City of God was a city of hope.
In the little Anglican Church an artist has decorated the walls with the story of the City
of God – from the fire, through the gun-fights, to a place of safety and joy. And
behind the altar there is a fresco. Christ is in the centre but he is surrounded by
locals from the City of God in ordinary Rio dress. But not only Christ has a halo. All
have halos . . . all are called to be and already are ‘saints’. Even if still pretty
imperfect saints – like you and me.
You see the Church is an arrabon, a first-instalment, guaranteeing eventually the
other payments like a deposit. Those locals in the City of God were making the true
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City of God in their slums. They were a sign, instrument, foretaste of the Kingdom of
God – that is what the Church really is.
And that means you, too.
Remember today the Birthday of the Church. Remember that you are the Church.
Remember that by the Spirit of God you can be an effectual sign and instrument of
the Kingdom of God itself – a first instalment of the Spirit. And to enable that to be,
all you have to do is say Amen to God’s yes – that’s Paul again. And you do this
here and now today as you say Amen to receiving the Sacrament of Christ’s Body
and Blood. You receive the Sacrament of our Redemption, with an Amen as joyful
as the Mozart Amen in this morning’s Missa Brevis and become the Sacrament of the
re-creation of the world into its true configuration as the Kingdom of God.
Or to put it another way, whatever the mess of life we are in – like those favelas in
Rio – we can still be a first instalment of the true City of God.