Breaking down barriers

A Sermon preached on May 15th, the Day of Pentecost, at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Acts 2:1-21, Romans 8:14-17, John 14:8-17, 25-27

Today is Pentecost, sometimes also called the birthday of the church or even also the feast of the Holy Spirit. Now I don't want to preach a Trinity Sunday sermon one week too early, but we worship only one God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So every Sunday is the feast day of all of God. And of course if we look at a normal Sunday service, the Holy Spirit gets a good look in every week, in the readings from Holy Scripture which is, we believe, inspired by the spirit, in our prayers, in the creed, in the Eucharistic prayer when we ask the HS to sanctify, to transform the gifts, and in the final Trinitarian blessing. But clearly today's service has a special "spirit focus." So just what is the Spirit's role, what does she do for us? I see the Spirit as a solvent! The Holy Spirit dissolves and breaks down barriers, and there are an awful lot of barriers to break down. 

First of all the Holy Spirit helps break down the barriers between us and God. Now of course Jesus came to break down the barriers between us and God, the ones we erected. This is the main reason for his incarnation and his participation in our human life. We hear this in his little dialogue with Philip in the gospel. "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, `Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?" (John 14:9) 

We often talk about Christ's ministry of Reconciliation, which is in origin a Latin word meaning to re-unite or re-connect. Christ made us his ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:20), his agents of unification, and he gave us God's Spirit to aid, support and strengthen us in that task: "When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God." (Romans 8:15) We always seem to be trying to create new barriers between us and God, or new intercessors or go-betweens: the Saints, the Virgin Mary, and also priests! It's not that we are not good for something or course, but you certainly don't need a priest to interact with God. As Paul goes on to say a little later in the 8th chapter of Romans (26-27) God's Spirit helps, even when we do not know how to pray, by interceding directly on our behalf, and God knows what is in our heart through the Spirit dwelling there. 

Secondly, the Spirit breaks down the barriers between us and our fellow human beings. Just look at the Pentecostal event. There the Spirit quite literally breaks down the language barriers, thereby allowing all the people gathered in Jerusalem on that day to hear the message of God's power, to hear the good news of Jesus Christ and of his ministry of reconciliation: "All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability." (Acts 2:4) The barriers that need tearing down are human ones, ones we have erected despite having been created in God's image. But that is something we find very difficult to believe and to act on! 

I've just got back from Israel and Palestine. We visited many holy sites, beautiful buildings and spectacular outdoor settings, buildings and places where we can be very sure that Jesus walked and lived and taught, and ones of more dubious provenance. But we also experienced modern day Israel, we saw and had to as through the so-called separation wall that cuts Palestinians off from their neighbours, from their land and from their work. We saw the injustice of the occupation. We were told about the almost complete separation of society within Israel itself with separate schools and towns or neighbourhoods for Jewish and Arab Israelis, for Jew, Christian and Muslim. There is just too little opportunity for exchange, to get to know each other, to move beyond stereotypes, to learn to love one another. This is wrong at so many levels. There can be no reconciliation without dialogue and encounters. And it is not God's will. In God's kingdom there are no walls or barriers, no divisions: There is neither Jew, nor Greek, neither Slave nor free, just as in the Acts' reading the gift of the Spirit is promised to all, young and old, men and women, slave and free. 

Finally, the Spirit breaks down the barriers we have erected within ourselves.  We don't have to worship quite as exuberantly as our Pentecostal brothers and sisters, but a little enthusiasm and joy will do us no harm at all. That too perhaps is a barrier the Spirit can help dissolve. But actually fear is the biggest hurdle we construct, fear of failure, fear of the stranger, fear of how other people will see us. Trusting in the gift of the Spirit can help us overcome the barrier of fear. 

To reassure his disciples, who fear for themselves once he has gone, Jesus promises that God will send the Holy Spirit, and tells them that they have no reason to worry as the Spirit will both strengthen, and empower them: "Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid" (John 14:27) Paul too picks up on the theme of fear. The assurance of being children or God should free us from fear: "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption." (Romans 8:15) If we act in Christ's name we have nothing to fear.

Today is the feast day of the Holy Spirit, the day we celebrate the gift of the Spirit. That gift comes with a purpose: To enable us to act in God's name and to further God's great mission of barrier breaking, of reconciliation. People flocked to the early church because it was open, welcoming, and fully inclusive in its invitation to become part of the Body of Christ. May the Holy Spirit move and empower us, as she moved and empowered all the disciples on that first day of Pentecost nearly 2,000 years ago. Peter believed and preached that the Pentecost event was the fulfilment of Joel's prophecy that God will "pour out (God's) Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams." (Acts 2:17) My prayer for us all today, as we reflect on and rejoice in the gift of the Spirit, is that we not only see God's vision and God's dreams of peace, harmony, and unity for all humankind, and between humanity and God, but that we do all in our power, to transport and realize this vision. And we have that power, for as Christ promises "the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and ... will do greater works than these." (John 14:12)

Amen.