The Day of Pentecost 2012

The dubious legacy of Pentecost is that it allows the Church to behave like a man in the throes of mid-life.

We don't know how old the apostles were on the day the Spirit descended, but the story is too often told as the story of twelve men in the throes of mid-life. At Pentecost twelve men re-invent themselves, the story goes. They throw themselves into new activity. They leave behind for ever their former careers as fishermen, tax-collectors and tent-makers. They leave behind for ever the towns and villages where they have lived. They leave behind for ever the religion of their ancestors. They begin again.

Perhaps they were approaching the age at which it is not uncommon for men to re-invent themselves. Today, they acquire biker jackets, fast cars and inappropriate haircuts. Such re-invention is intended to fend off the encroachment of age. A new look, a new career, a new relationship: these are the resort of those who fear the future. Martin Smith from Croydon will never play guitar at Madison Square Gardens; he will never again receive his first-born child from the midwife;  he has lost the lean, taut physique of twenty years ago. So he re-invents himself, throwing himself into new activity that will disguise the inevitable. Because anything is better than just waiting.  

And the risk of telling the story of Pentecost as a story of energy and power, of frenzied activity, of re-birth and re-invention is that we tell Martin Smith's story - the story of a Church in the throes of mid-life, determinedly acting in the present because it is frightened of the future, frightened of waiting, frightened of God. But those who tell it thus tell it wrong. Pentecost is a story of waiting. By the time it arrives the apostles' moment for biker jackets and fast cars (or the first century Palestinian equivalents) is long gone. Christ is with them for forty days after Easter, forty days which challenge everything that they know about him, forty days which challenge everything they know about human life and human death. They are with Christ when he is taken up to heaven - and they are assured by angels of his glorious destiny. And their response is to wait, as they have been told. Despite seeing their dead friend raised, despite seeing the heavens opened to receive him, they wait. They go back to the city, back to their upper room, and they devote themselves to prayer. They do the one thing that Martin Smith would find it impossible to do.

Men in the middle of life re-invent themselves because they cannot bear to wait. The apostles are re-invented because they dare to wait. They have seen and heard mysteries beyond imagining, but their waiting is their acknowledgment that they are utterly dependent for everything on the one whom those mysteries reveal. The ministry for which they are re-invented at Pentecost is not theirs. It is never theirs. It is Christ's.

This is a truth that the Church needs to hear and that we need to hear, because the rush to activity as a displacement of or a disguise for something else is not confined to the middle of life. Waiting is no one's favourite occupation. It conjures immediate images of drab, functional rooms with hard benches and chewing-gum-spattered  floors. It is suggestive of long, uncertain, painful months while a diagnosis is reached or a bed is made available. It is reminiscent of the apprehensive agony that fills the time before the exam result is sent or the job offer is made. Yet it is because the apostles wait that the Spirit comes upon them.

If I appear in church wearing unfeasibly tight trousers or if I begin telling you about the piercings I'm planning I hope you'll remind me of what I've said this morning. The middle of life is difficult - in fact life is difficult. At whatever stage we are, the future is always uncertain and the demons of failure, envy, and anger are always threatening. Activity is always seductive and alluring. Yet activity that we devise and lead will ultimately disappoint. Such activity is the hallmark of a middle-aged, frightened Church. In the waiting places we are called to pray, we are called to be patient and we are called to be faithful. We are called to learn not to trust in our own experiences, our own wisdom, our own resources. We are called to wait on God and to rely on him alone. Everything else is vain. If we pray, if we are patient, if we are faithful, then God will find us. In rushing wind, in tongues of fire, in overwhelming love God will find us. We cannot force his hand. 'He measures us by our need'  Jeremy Taylor wrote ' and we must not measure him by our impatience'.

Look at little Jemima. We baptize her with great joy today. We baptize her although she cannot name God or worship him. We baptize her because her infancy reminds us of ours. As she is utterly dependent so are we utterly dependent. She will have to wait if she is to understand the gift poured out on her today. She is a symbol to us all of the waiting that we have to do too. Our impatience and our strength lead only to the follies of the middle of life. God's patience and God's strength lead to the glory of Pentecost. Amen.