St Martin's & St Paul's
Parish Canterbury
St Martin's & St Paul's
Parish Canterbury
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A short while ago we held a stall at a Boot fair: : a good opportunity to get rid of some of the stuff that has accumulated in the loft and garage over the years. I am pleased to say that we did turn a small profit. Boot fairs certainly serve a purpose; all sorts of people visit them, looking for a bargain. The dealers of course are also there and on this occasion had spotted the Victorian folding table that I had brought to display some smaller bits and pieces. Was it for sale? No, it wasn't. I could have sold it many times over that day but I would not sell it even though it has a dodgy leg and in the fashion of the day was ebonised to be rather heavy and black. I would not sell it for two reasons: first, it is a family heirloom with a family history which ought to keep it in the family; secondly, I don't know the value of it. Boot fairs are a good place for getting rid of unwanted things for a few pounds but, if I really wanted to sell the table, it would need a proper valuation. I would need to understand what it was worth.
Of course life teaches us that the most important things we can ever possess are free. Asked about these things people would probably say: family and friendship, political and religious freedom, the beauty of the world we live in, and of course love. One of the readings that is very popular at weddings these days, from the Song of Solomon, includes the passage: ."If one offered for love all the wealth of one's house, it would be utterly scorned". In another popular reading from 1 Corinthians 13, St. Paul writes that the greatest of all things and of all gifts is love.
On Pentecost Sunday we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church. Sometimes when we approach Pentecost, it is a bit like receiving a present that we can't understand or are not sure how to use. Is that what we say to God when we are offered the gift of the Holy Spirit? "Thank you God, I am sure that will come in useful one day". Why is it harder to relate to the gift of the Holy Spirit than to understand the gift of the baby at Christmas or the Cross at Easter? The simple, recognisable symbols of the first two speak of firm, clear occasions when something happened and something was given to bring blessings and hope. Every year we welcome the Christmas Crib and the Easter Garden - and then we put them away again and life goes on. We have no similar display for the coming of the Holy Spirit, although it is clearly depicted in the east window of St. Paul's Church. Yet the Holy Spirit is exactly about life going on. Your life and mine, the imperfect, ordinary lives that we live. The Holy Spirit is God saying: I don't want to be put back in the box every year - I want to come with you, into your life.
Our uncertainty and reservation about this gift may be something to do with the reticence with which we claim the authority of God and his approval of what we do. The other day I caught myself saying to someone "That was meant to be". It was one of those things you say that I immediately wished I hadn't said. I was referring to the chance meeting of one of my colleagues with his future wife. What did I mean? Was the Parish Centre, with all the expense and effort and arguments and visions that went into its ultimate success, meant to be? I want to acknowledge all that is said about the Spirit in the New Testament: the Spirit that leads us into all truth, that gives counsel, that brings diverse gifts, that builds up the life of the Church; but I am reserved about claiming that something happening by chance or achieved by significant effort is undoubtedly the work of the Holy Spirit. It isn't that I don't believe that the Holy Spirit did indeed make it possible, but rather than I am unsure about claiming such authority.
Perhaps the problem is that we have misunderstood what the Spirit truly is, which ensures that the life of the church goes on welling up and happening through hope and adversity. We may shy away from claiming authority, from letting ourselves go in spiritual ecstasy, but surely the Spirit of God can be only what God is, as experienced in our lives: God is love. It is love that makes distance no object, that makes us do what we really want to do with passion and without which, as Paul says, nothing we do has real significance at all. The gift of the Holy Spirit is not a gift of power, influence, and authority with which to show off or challenge others: rather it is the gift of love, the love of God, revealed and explained in the baby in the manger and the cross and now shown most personally by coming into your life and mine. Love needs no explanation. We can understand God's love because we are capable ourselves of loving and of being loved and we know something of the pain and joy of love. So perhaps we should challenge ourselves for Pentecost 2010: how can we illustrate the love of God renewed in our lives? At Christmas the Crib, at Easter the Cross; and at Pentecost - what? Doves and flames and so on are all fine - but what is the image in your mind when you think of love? Perhaps we could create a collage of those images, for the variety of them would only serve to show how great the love of God truly is that it can love so many with the same absolute and unconditional devotion.
Amen
.