Mike Riddell reflects on Pentecost as an “outpouring not a bottling up” where we are constantly invited to commit to the passion and adventure of loving all.
“Each one heard them speaking in the native language of each” (Acts 2:6).
Pentecost, it is said, marks the birth of the Church — a celebration of a turn outward. A group of frightened and disillusioned followers experienced something that caused observers to believe they might be drunk. Instead these voluble disciples were seized by the Holy Spirit, ecstatic and transformed.
The blessing they received, commonly celebrated as “the gift of tongues”, might more accurately be celebrated as “the gift of ears”. I owe this insight to a friend who examined the account in the book of Acts closely, and noted that the significant part of it is that the surrounding cosmopolitan crowd heard in their own native languages.
When you’re far from your homeland, it’s arresting to hear your own tongue being spoken. It causes you to listen. How things have changed. Now it is the Church that speaks a foreign language, and there are few listening and even fewer understanding. The expectation is that outsiders must learn the dialect of the religious institution.
I reflected on this recently while reading the banned book Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell. His ministry as Archbishop and later Cardinal seemed to cohere around the idea that the world must conform to the insights of the Church, rather than the Church adapt itself to society. This is not an attractive proposition to those who have witnessed systematic abuse in the halls of religion.
Invited to the Threshold of Becoming
The Holy Spirit, an integral member of the Trinity, is the same Spirit indwelling Jesus, and Jesus is God among us. In theological terms, this is known as the consanguinity of the Trinity. What it means for us is that the Church, to be the Church of Christ, must be consistent with the outward-facing mission of Jesus and the events of Pentecost.
The overarching question is whether we discover God in the past (deposit of faith), or in the future (beckoning from the horizon). My own reading of Scripture, and experience of God, leads me to the conclusion that we are constantly being invited to join the divine movement that takes place on the threshold of becoming. That’s where the action is.
Receptivity in Brokenness
Some 20 years ago I wrote about an experience in a Ponsonby Bar where a good friend and I had gone to have a quiet drink on a Sunday evening. Unknown to us it was the celebration of the establishment’s first anniversary and a party was in process. As we sat down two blue-sequinned transvestites hopped up on the bar and performed a routine to the song “I Will Follow Him”.
More pious folk than I might have been outraged. Instead I experienced the gentle yet palpable presence of the Holy Spirit. Here, among the outcasts and supposedly morally bankrupt, I discovered Christ. In that flash of insight, I realised that this was not an exception to the rule, but an example of where the tender heart of the Trinity is always at work.
I suspect that my openness to this was the result of the deep suffering that I was undergoing at the time. My life and my certainties had been cracked open by events, and I was a broken man. Here among fellow broken creatures, I discovered the light and healing joy of Christ, which up until then had bypassed me.
Instead of seeking to “talk” people into my religious framework, I was in a place where I began to understand their language. In this setting, I learned that their argot was suffering. I was one of them — a hearer rather than a speaker — and from that place I understood that God was among us in a way that I had not experienced in Church.
An Edge of New Growth
Many people of faith have suspected that this sort of claim is a sign that my framework is no longer Christian. In fact I suspect it was my point of genuine conversion, even though I had been the leader of a congregation for some years before that. It wasn’t that I broke free from the Church. In fact I became a Catholic, and took on the scandal of that institution.
But since that day I understood that as a purported follower of Jesus, I would need to not only remember in the elements of the Eucharist, but to imagine the future among the hearers of Pentecost. To do less would be to betray the vision I have encountered in the Gospel. I’m sure I do so anyway, but try not to do so intentionally.
Here among the broken I’ve discovered that many crave love rather than morality, healing rather than correction, acceptance rather than judgement, belonging rather than membership. I’ve learned that our sexual identity is unique to us, and never to be despised or shamed. I have heard the cry of the poor and disenfranchised, and in it the invitation of God to be with them.
I love the fact that Jesus wept at Gethsemane; that Paul prayed for his affliction to be removed; that Peter cursed in the courtyard of the High Priest. These are the elements of the humanity we all share. It doesn’t diminish us — rather it humbles us to know that we are cracked vessels, through which the light of divinity may well shine.
We’re not called to save the world — that has already been done. Instead we are called to fulfill the promise of our own being while remaining authentically human. I have found large parts of the Church to be dehumanising. The clericalism, misogyny, legalism, judgement and homophobia of the institution can be overwhelming. These forces make us less than we might be, not more.
Committing to the Passion and Adventure of Love
The fire of Pentecost will always be for me a blaze of passion and adventure, not a pyre on which to burn dissidents. I try not to waste my time on correcting the Church, but connecting with the world outside it. I acknowledge that I am part of a scandalous institution, but continue to make my lot with the people who will never darken its doors.
In each life, and in each corporate body, there is a choice between preserving what has been, or opening to what might be. I seem to remember some wisdom along the lines of “those who love their lives will lose them”. Pentecost is an outpouring, not a bottling up. In our embracing of it, we follow the one who has captured our hearts and made them his own.
The Church, it has been said, is both the first fruits and the harbinger of the realm of God. None of us are adequate for this invitation, but in our stumbling steps outside the walls we may find that realm in the presence of others. Come, Holy Spirit, come!
Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 226 May 2018: 4-5