Pentecost (Sermon 1: published, but not preached)

In England today there is a marked divide between those who live on the land – who tend to vote Blue – and those who live in the cities – who tend to vote Red. Perhaps this divide is universal; it certainly features in the Bible. But however badly the city-dwellers and the rural peasants related to each other in practice, the Jews lived-into their Story through a bringing-together of the Land and the Temple. Jesus, his disciples, and everyone we read about in the Gospels, would have known and in some form taken part in three annual pilgrim festivals. Each one told part of the foundational Story of God’s people; and each one was tied to a particular harvest.

The land they lived in was famous for bearing two grain crops – barley, and wheat – and five fruit crops – grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates. The first two festivals belong together, marking the seven week period over which the grains ripened, from the bringing-in of the barley at Passover to the bringing-in of the wheat at Pentecost. In other words, Pentecost marks the completion of something begun at Passover. The third festival, the festival of Tabernacles, took place later in the year, marking the bringing-in of the fruits.

Here, then, is the story that unfolds from Passover to Pentecost:

A long time ago, the brothers from whom the tribes of Israel would descend sold one of their number, Joseph, into slavery in Egypt. They meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Through this Joseph, God saved the Egyptian Empire from a catastrophic seven-year long famine. But, far from gratitude, the Egyptians enslaved all of Joseph’s family for four hundred and fifty years. Then God sent Moses, to proclaim judgement on Egypt if they did not repent, and to rescue his people. Pharaoh and all Egypt hardened their hearts; and their world came to an end when they awoke to find every first-born son had died in one night. Those Israelites who listened to Moses – and not all of them did – were led out of slavery on that night. Seven weeks later, the refugees now camped in the wilderness at the foot of Mount Sinai, God spoke with Moses, giving the Law that constituted them into a new people.

(Like the Egyptians, they turned out to be an ungrateful people. God allowed them to wander the wilderness for forty years; living in tents; the whole generation he had led out of Egypt – with the exception of one man, Joshua – dying, before their children inherited the land God had promised to give to Abraham’s descendants. This is why they needed the third festival – but that is not our concern today.)

Seven weeks ago, Passover. Jerusalem was full of pilgrims, gathered to give thanks for another harvest; gathered to eat roast lamb and unleavened bread, and to remember that God had brought them up out of slavery in Egypt; gathered, wondering when God would set them free from the Roman Empire. A potent mix of past and present and future; of celebration and lament. And Jesus, re-interpreting the Passover. Jesus, sent to Israel as Joseph and Moses had been sent to Egypt; rejected, by those who in rejecting him had sealed their own judgement; believed in, by those who in believing in him had secured their deliverance, their survival of the end of the world.

Seven weeks later, and Jerusalem is once again full of pilgrims, gathered to give thanks for the harvest; gathered to hear the Law of Moses being read out, and to remember that, at Sinai, God had constituted them into a people. Still asking, when, O Lord, will you overthrow Rome and restore David’s kingdom? Except that this is not going to happen – at least, not obviously, not any time soon. Within the lifetime of many of those pilgrims, Israel would rise up against Rome and be utterly destroyed, the very stones of the temple thrown down on to the pavement below. The end of the world is coming. What Jesus and his first followers are acting out is this: that God has rescued a remnant from the coming destruction; and that God is fashioning them into a new community.

In the first act, a hundred and twenty are rescued. In the second act, the Church explodes from Jerusalem to every corner of the Roman Empire, from where she will grow until Rome is overthrown not by might nor by power but by the Spirit of God.

The end of the world happens all of the time. Ask any member of our congregation who has sought asylum in the past twelve months. Ask any member of our congregation who has been bereaved in the past twelve months. Ask any member of our congregation who has received a life-changing diagnosis in the past twelve months. No wonder post-apocalyptic dystopias are so prevalent a theme in young adult fiction at present. In the midst of life, we are in death.

Pentecost says, the end of the world is real; but it is not The End. Pentecost is the Spirit of God giving birth to a community that will survive the end of the world: and not a community that can survive the end of the world once, just about limping along; but a community that can survive the end of the world over and over again, and give rise to the world reborn; a community that carries within itself the seed of the world made new. Jesus said, unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains but one seed; but if it falls to the ground and dies, it bears a harvest. Pentecost is our carrying to God the first-fruits of that harvest, with great celebration.

Pentecost is where we gather together – old folk and younger folk; men, women, and children; from England, and West Africa, from the Middle East, from the Indian sub-continent, and South East Asia – and start dreaming God-inspired, God-empowered dreams of what life after death looks like, here in our midst, at Sunderland Minster. Visions of a new world for the asylum seekers – and everyone who steps inside this building is seeking asylum from this world, within the world that is coming among us.

We all get to play: the young in faith, and the elders among us; the women and the men. It doesn’t happen overnight; happens, mostly, by tiny almost imperceptible degrees; but it changes everything.

So go: Go, and have visions and dreams. Go, but gather again, often; and when we gather, share those visions, those dreams. Speak them out for others to hear. And together we will see what God will do with us, and for us, and through us. Amen.