“First Fruits”
Pentecost B
24 May 2015; 8:00 a.m. Said Mass and 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
24 May 2015; 8:00 a.m. Said Mass and 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
Homily Delivered by
the Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
at Trinity Episcopal
Church
Ashland, Oregon
God, take away our
hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh. Amen
The Pew Research Center in the
last couple of weeks put out the results of a new poll detailing shifts in the
American religious landscape: the trend toward irreligion and non-affiliation
seen in the last 25 years continues to advance. Some commentators remarked, “Doom! The end of American Christianity!” Others said, “New ways of experiencing God
are clearly here! Some remain very much
Christian, though different from what has gone before. At least people come to Church now for the right reasons! Christianity is at its best when its counter-cultural!” This week, the people of Ireland voted
overwhelmingly in a referendum to amend their constitution and allow marriage
equality for both same sex and opposite sex couples. Again, some cried “Doom! The end of morality and marriage!” Most said, “Thank God for fair-minded and
unbigoted people!” Many in our church
see the hand of God in both trend lines.
Seeing the loving hand of God in the world about us is what Pentecost is about. Seeing God’s prodigal and overwhelming abundance in this sparse and stingy world about us, is what today is all about. Breaking through old boundaries and life-denying rules is what this day is all about.
Seeing the loving hand of God in the world about us is what Pentecost is about. Seeing God’s prodigal and overwhelming abundance in this sparse and stingy world about us, is what today is all about. Breaking through old boundaries and life-denying rules is what this day is all about.
The Feast of Pentecost marks the
end of the great 50 days of Easter, and the resumption of what the Church
calls, prosaically, ordinary time. Most
Christians, harking back to Sunday School explanations as children, know
Pentecost as the “Church’s birthday.”
And Sunday School prodigies know that we wear red for the spirit, but
call this day Whitsunday because in the old days all those being baptized on
this special day wore white.
This day was a
festival day even before we Christians got to it with our story of tongues of
fire. As we read, they are all gathered
together on the great Jewish festival day Shavuot, or Weeks, 50 days after
Passover. There were only three great pilgrim feasts: days when Jews were required to make
pilgrimage to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice in the Temple: Passover, in the late winter and early
spring, a sign of liberty and deliverance from slavery. Shavuot, 50 days later, was the festival of
the earliest wheat harvest. Then in the
fall, Succoth, or booths, celebrated the full harvest, something like our
Thanksgiving Day.
Shavuot was a
festival of the first fruits, where the very earliest produce of the
agricultural year was becoming available. In those days, you stored food
by drying it, salting it, perhaps smoking it, and saving roots in cool cellars.
By late winter, your larder was pretty low, and the memory of fresh fruits and
vegetables very vague at best, but tantalizing. The earliest produce
of the new year, the grain from wheat or barley sown midwinter from last year’s
seed stock was an important sign that the hardship was over, that more and
better was on its way.
When I was in Galilee
two weeks ago, the hills were covered with wildflowers in bloom; a few were green
with tall young wheat shoots starting to bend with heavy seed heads full of
grain.
On Shavuot, this
first produce was given back to God in thanks as a sacrifice, and then you held
a big party with food still stored from last year, a prodigal sign that you had
confidence that plenty of fresh food was on its way.
It is this very image—first fruits—that
Paul uses in today’s epistle reading to describe the Spirit. Paul
describes the world in which we live as an early spring on the verge of
new produce. He says the spirit in our
lives is like this new wheat harvest, the first fruits, the earliest of
agricultural produce in the spare and barren early spring, after larders have
run bare: it is a sign of better things to come, and more and more life
and abundance. Changing metaphors, he
describes us as a woman in labor, suffering great pain in hope of a new life
being delivered. The spirit is a sign that the baby will be born, and the
pain will end.
Pain and shortage, and the doubt and
confusion that comes with them, is what the spirit counteracts. It makes us, despite our inability sometimes
to even know or express what we desire or feel, available to God. “The
spirit intercedes for us in groaning too deep for words” he says. (Romans
8:22-27)
Paul elsewhere says this: “God … establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first installment” (2 Cor 1: 20-22).
Paul elsewhere says this: “God … establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first installment” (2 Cor 1: 20-22).
Paul says that God’s
Spirit in us is a seal, that
is, a symbol and authenticating sign of the genuineness of our
faith and the reliability of God’s promises. He says it is “anointing,”
like God pouring rich olive oil over us, also a sign of prodigal blessing, the
one that made a person a king or a priest in ancient Israel. He says the
spirit is the “First installment,” of good things to come, an image from
finances and loans: the first, partial, payment of a much greater sum to come.
Elsewhere, Paul says
that the presence of the Spirit in our lives is a guarantee of greater
things to come. Again reflecting on the uncertainty and confusion of claims
that we meet in daily life, he writes,
“For in this tent
[our body] we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling--if
indeed, when we have taken it off we will not be found naked. For
while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not
to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be
swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who
has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always
confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are
away from the Lord--for we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Cor 5:4-7)."
If God’s spirit in us
is all these things—a seal, a sign of genuineness, a promise of better things
on their way—then how do we know God’s Spirit is with us? Paul once
again tells us:
“Live by the Spirit… the
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Gal 5: 16, 22)
So “love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” are
fruits of the Spirit, and the spirit is a seal of the sureness of God’s
promises. The spirit is a down payment on the whole of God’s promises, as
well as first fruits of an abundant and rich summer-long harvest.
Sisters and brothers
at Trinity: Our hearts need hope for the future, and grounds for full and
unreserved trust in God. The Holy Spirit, poured out upon the Church on
the Feast of First Fruits, is our greatest builder of hope and trust. It
warms our hearts, and makes Jesus present for us. It is God active and working in our hearts,
our lives, and our community the Church.
May we learn to hear
its whispers, and recognize its thunderings, be warmed at its gently burning
hearth, and also be purified in its raging fire. If we let our
lives be marked by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, this fire will burn through all the
world.
In the name of God, Amen.
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