May 19, 2024 at St Peter and Saint William Catholic Churches s in Naples, FL
Acts 2: 1-11 + Psalm 104 + Galatians 5: 16-25 + John 20: 19-23
We need to quit thinking that this Gospel is an historical account of something happened a long time ago to a group of people hiding in room our of fear. The truth is, Jesus just spoke to us saying once again, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” He just said that to us, and there is no way to look around and think he is talking about someone else or to just those apostles. There is not much difference between us and them. We are hardly more bold or faithful than they were. We are just as timid and fearful as they were. We have been too silent too often when we shold have stood up and said something when something wrong or violent is happening. During that trial, when Pilate asked the crowd who to release, they could have shouted out “Jesus”, and perhaps if they had things might have been different.
They feared for their lives, and it is understandable. It had been a terrible week. They saw their leader brutally murdered while they were absent when he needed them the most. They had all kinds of regrets, and they needed one another not unlike times when things go wrong for us and we need one another.
We are a people in need of the Spirit just as much as they did, maybe even more. The Joy they felt in the presence of the risen Christ is sometimes missing in our lives and in our churches. Yet, he is just as present here as was to them but somehow there is not much evidence of joy over being here. It has become just something we do because we always have or because we think it will keep us out of hell.
We need that Holy Spirit to lift us up out of the routines of life that leave us weary, troubled, and sometimes fearful about all that is going on around us.
The power of the Holy Spirit is in the hands of those who choose to love, forgive, and share the peace that comes from above. The power of the Holy Spirit is in our hands to heal what is broken and bind us all in the unity of faith, and hope. This fragmented and polarized world needs the Holy Spirit that is too often ignored and sometimes avoided. Where ever there is division there is no Spirit because the Holy Spirit unites, and division is everywhere these days. Even our church strains to hold itself together resisting change and growth with fragments here and there wanting things the “old way” as though it was better, resisting new ideas and teachings that call us to embrace those who have been pushed aside.
I suspect that some who profit by division and polarization would have grabbed fire extinguishers in that upper room. To make all things new, we have been given the authority to forgive which is the only way to start over. It is time to show our gratitude for the gifts of the Spirit by not hiding them, but by using them to respond to the command he has given us. We are sent, my friends, no less than those once locked in that room, and we know what we are sent to do.
We have different gifts, but the same Spirit. With that Spirit, we can face the culture around us that has exalted self-interest and reduced men and women to pawns of ideology. In many ways we are still a pre-Pentecost church, huddled in fear of each other as well as of the world at large. We long still for that lover of the poor, the kind and gentle giver of gifts, who walks with us through sadness and sorrow. Yet, he is here still living among us and within us, and all that he has been we can be when we let that Spirit set us on fire with hope, with joy, and courage.