A Sermon preached on 24 May 2026 (Pentecost) at St. Augustine’s, WI
Acts 2:1-21, 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13, John 20:19-23
Today we celebrate not only the Feast of Pentecost, but also a Baptism - of Olivia Marie. That is appropriate for two reasons.
One is that our Church considers Holy Baptism to be especially appropriate on this Day of Pentecost, as well as at the Easter Vigil, on All Saints' Day and on the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord. And the reason why Pentecost is one of the preferred days is because it is the Feast of the Holy Spirit, and Holy Baptism is full initiation not just by water, but also by the Holy Spirit, the latter symbolized by what we call chrism, which is oil specially consecrated by our bishop for this use. We are told right from the beginning of the Gospels that baptism is by water and the Spirit, for example in Mark (1:8) when John the Baptist told his listeners “I have baptized you with water, but he (Jesus) will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
We certainly heard a lot about the Holy Spirit in today’s readings. In the passage from Acts we heard how all of the disciples, men and women, “were filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:4) In the extract from the 1st Letter to the Corinthians, Paul lists a huge variety of gifts of the Spirit. And in the Gospel, we heard how Jesus breathed on the disciples with the words “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20:23)
Today is often also referred to as the birthday of the Church. Pentecost is when the apostles went out among the people and began spreading Jesus’ message, thus establishing the beginning of the Church. When we hear the word Church we often think of the building or the institution. But that’s not Church, it’s also not the priest, nor the bishop. It is all of you and all of us. The Greek word for church is Ecclesia, meaning gathering. If we look at all the readings about the Spirit, we see that she never just goes to selected people. Like the wind, the “blows where it chooses.” (John 3:8) The Spirit cannot be controlled and is egalitarian! That’s why for church hierarchies those who took their inspiration and authority from the Holy Spirit, rather than from tradition and the established leadership, were regarded with suspicion.
That is not to say that everyone is the same or receives the same gifts. As Paul writes, there are varieties of gifts as there are varieties of people and needs (services and activities as he calls them). What unites them is the one source: the same Spirit, Lord and God and one purpose; “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (John 12:7) None of these gifts are meant to make one person more important than another. They are for the building up of the Church and for the benefit of all God’s people.
What might that look like? We pray that our leaders, lay and ordained, will be given the wisdom and knowledge to help our church adapt to the ever-changing context in which we work. We experience that those who are entrusted with the ministry of teaching share the meaning and implications of our faith with both young and old. We have members of our church who as nurses and counselors are healers in the narrow sense of the word. But others can be healers simply by listening, praying, and visiting those in need, giving time and attention. I truly believe we have miracle workers in our congregation too; I have no other explanation for how we make and do so much with our limited resources: If we believe it, we can do it! And as for the gift of prophecy, our many preachers, lay and ordained, put their prophetic voice to good use week by week. These are just some of the gifts Paul lists here – also discernment and interpretation of tongues – and elsewhere, for example in Romans 12 which includes serving, exhortation, giving, leadership, and mercy or compassion.
Despite their diversity and variety, they all have one source: “All these (gifts) are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.” (1 Cor. 12:11) Again, they are not based on merit, privilege, or skill. The Holy Spirit both makes us unique and makes us one. Pentecost is also the feast of unity in diversity. In Joel’s vision that Peter cites in the Acts reading, God pours out God’s Spirit upon all flesh, on sons and daughters; on young and old; on slave and free; on men and women.” (Acts 2:17.18) And Paul reminds the Christians in Corinth, who had a tendency to value some of their members above others, that “in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:13)
God rejoices in our differences, God's gifts and God's love are for everyone regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, social status, or class, or politics. And God’s purposes are best served through a diverse but united community.
Paul uses the image of the one body with many members, each with their own function, to describe this unity in diversity. God’s one Spirit unites a diverse group of believers into a single body. Our oneness, our unity is not in who we are or what we look like, but in whom we serve and how we serve.
And so once again it is appropriate that we celebrate not just Pentecost and the Church’s birthday, but also Baptism, the sacrament of unity today. We began our service with the words:
- There is one Body and one Spirit.
- There is one hope in God's call to us.
- One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism.
- One God and Father of all.
Today Olivia will be baptized into that one body. We don’t know what particular gift or gifts the Spirit has in store for, we don’t know where she will be called to serve in the world or in the church, and we don’t know what activities God has planned for her. That is all in God’s hands. As family and godparents your role is to help and support her as she grows into her own expression of the full stature of Christ. As a community our role is to support her in her life in Christ, in her special role in the one body we all belong to by virtue of our own baptism. Amen.
