The Day of Pentecost-Year B

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Feast of Pentecost-Year B May 19, 2024 When my youngest brother was in preschool, he and his class went on a field trip to the Diocesan camp for a picnic. (It was a short drive from our hometown.) When he came home that evening, all he could talk about was one event out of the long day: when his classmate Noble Mosby had been attacked by a wild goose. I can still see my young brother telling this horror story with his big, round eyes, and how the most chilling part of the tale wasn’t when poor Noble got attacked, but it was when the teacher went to pick Noble up, and the goose went with him because it refused to let go. I’ve been thinking about this story a lot this week; I’ll explain more about that in a moment. Today is a major feast in the life of the church: the Feast Day of Pentecost. (The British refer to it as Whitsunday, so that’s a nod to our Church of England heritage that we include it as part of the name.) Pentecost was originally celebrated as the Jewish Festival of Weeks, also known as Shavuot (pronounced “sha-voo-OAT,”) that occurred 50 days after Passover and represented a sort of homecoming, for Jewish people to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This is why there are “devout Jews from every nation” present in our Acts reading for today. We see the origins of the Christian celebration of Pentecost captured in that same Acts reading today. It’s 50 days after Easter Day, the Day of Resurrection. The disciples are once again all gathered together, and the Holy Spirit descends upon them with the sound “like the rush of a violent wind.” Acts tells us that “divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them”. And that “all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” It’s why fire and wind are often associated with the Holy Spirit and why we wear our flame colors today. Throughout the years, other images have been associated with the Holy Spirit. The dove, which descends upon Jesus in his baptism with the gift of the Spirit, is one image often associated with the Holy Spirit. In the gospel reading for today, the word that is translated as Advocate is a Greek word “paraclete” which doesn’t have a direct translation, so along with advocate, it can be translated as helper, comforter, or even counselor. The closest literal translation is “one called alongside.” (Paraclete is only found in John’s gospel and once in the first letter of John.) We see this image of Holy Spirit as comforter lifted up throughout this portion of John as Jesus continues to reassure his disciples that he will not leave them as orphans, and it is lifted up in our collect for today when we pray: “Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort…” i It's a nice image, isn’t it? I like to picture how when things get challenging for us, the Holy Spirit might wrap us in a nice, soft throw blanket and bring us a cup of tea for a bit of respite. And while that does happen occasionally, when I talked to people about their experiences with the Holy Spirit, it’s not usually like that at all. They talked about doing things that they didn’t necessarily want to do but felt moved to do, after a sort of relentless insistence from the Holy Spirit. They talked about energy and heat, about creativity out of chaos; others have talked to me about how the Holy Spirit gives them persistent spiritual taps on the shoulder. They talked about how things come together in the most unexpected ways. This week, I read this quote by the writer Jason Byasee: “Another translation of Paraclete is as the ‘Comforter’…The image in English is altogether too placid, restful. Celtic Christians have long imagined the Holy Spirit as a wild goose—loud, demanding, aggressive if necessary, but not at all calm or quiet.” ii (You thought I’d forgotten about the goose, didn’t you?) The Holy Spirit as a wild goose….It’s an image of chaos and disruption, of persistence and insistence. But geese are also fiercely loyal and protective. They look out for each other, and they make good watch animals. (There’s a story in Celtic lore of how a flock of geese helped foil a Celtic invasion of Rome by alerting the Romans of the sneak attack by the invaders.) The Celtic Christians even had a saying about this image of the Holy Spirit: “the goose is on the loose!” (It’s a little bit terrifying!) The goose is on the loose! Today we close the door on the Easter season, and we are aware that this seeming end is only the beginning. The Holy Spirit is even now at work in our lives, in the Church, in the world. The goose is on the loose in ways beyond what we could even ask for or imagine: chaotic, disruptive, creative, insistent. And just like poor Noble Mosby, once that mama goose gets ahold of us, she will not let go! I see it here all the time: how creative endeavors turn out differently (and often better) than planned. How we have been forced to adapt to a changing world and culture, and even when it is hard, there comes a vitality in the wrestling. We see it in how the Holy Spirit continues to send us new people, people looking for a home, and how we continue to be challenged to create space for home for others. We see it in an insistent tug to look outside ourselves, beyond these walls and this property, to dream about how the Holy Spirit is urging us to share our joy with a needy world, to create a space of belonging, a gathering place for this neighborhood, this community. (For those who volunteer with children’s chapel, you see the Holy Spirit very much in that scarcely controlled chaos. It’s why we clergy always come back a bit disheveled from that experience.) The goose is on the loose! Where are the places of chaos or disruption in your life right now? How might the Holy Spirit be insisting that you move into a new direction? Where are you seeing the goose on the loose here in this church, and how are you being called to respond? i.Some information from this section came from the Exegetical Perspective by Paul Hammer on p 21 and 23 of Feasting on the Word Commentary Year B Vol 3 (WKJ: 2009). ii.Haverkamp, Heidi. Everyday Connections: Reflections and Practices for Year B. WJK: Lousiville, 2023, p 513.