by E. Louise Williams

THE LORD’S PRAYER: "Tamai keimami mai lomalagi (Fijian), Uw Naam worde geheiligd (Dutch). Ni Rajyanu Vachu gaka (Telugu language). Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Unser tägliches Brot gib uns heute (German). Perdoanos as nosas ofensas asim como nós perdoamos a quem nos tem ofendido (Portugese). Äläkä saata meitä kiusaukseen (Finnish). Frels oss fra det onde (Norwegian). Yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory now and forever. Amen."

In many different languages, we prayed. Nearly 4,000 Christians from all over the world spoke with one voice the prayer that Jesus taught. For that one brief moment last February, during opening worship at the World Council of Churches Ninth Assembly, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, we tasted the oneness that is the Spirit’s gift to Christ’s body, the church.

Whenever I join in those multi–lingual prayers, I feel the Spirit’s presence. I always think of that first Pentecost described in Acts 2. There was a great gathering of people then, too, in Jerusalem from many places. That day, 50 days after Jesus was raised from the dead, the disciples were gathered together, and, just as Jesus had promised, the Holy Spirit visited them in wind and fire. And they began to speak in many languages. The people gathered there were amazed that they could understand these disciples, speaking right to their hearts in their own mother tongues. The variety of languages that once had blocked communication and cooperation among people (Genesis 11) now became a means for God to reach each person with grace and love.

Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus tells the disciples that the Spirit will come to them. That Spirit, Jesus says, will guide them into all truth (John 15:26). John describes the outpouring of the Spirit on Easter evening when the risen Christ appears to the disciples who were gathered behind locked doors. In that brief encounter, the risen Christ breathes on the disciples, gives them the Holy Spirit, and sends them into the world. This fearful band of followers is transformed, and the rest, as they say, is history — the history of the church — a history in which we all now share.

In our North American churches, Pentecost doesn’t often get much attention — not like Christmas and Easter. "Pentecost," the late Henri Nouwen has written, "completes the mystery of God’s revelation as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, becoming not only a God–for–us and a God-with-us, but also a God–within–us…" (Eternal Seasons: A Liturgical Journey with Henri J. M. Nouwen, Michael Ford, editor, Sorin Books, 2004; p. 138, quoted in Behold the Beauty of the Lord).

Pentecost reminds us that God transforms us from the inside out. That working of the Spirit within is often quiet and unnoticed. Sometimes we can miss seeing and celebrating the gifts that the Spirit brings. The Spirit’s gifts are manifold.

Let’s just focus on a few — unity and community, wisdom and understanding, and empowerment and courage for mission.

UNITY AND COMMUNITY
From the first accounts of Pentecost, we realize that the coming of the Holy Spirit is not an individual thing. It is something that happens to the community of disciples. The gifts of the Spirit do not come to us alone. Rather they come to us in relationship — with God and with other people. The Spirit brings unity and community.

There are not many times and places in the church when the rich diversity of gifts that we experienced at the World Council of Churches Assembly last February is on display. Yet in every congregation, in every gathering of Christ’s people, there are a variety of gifts, a diversity of opinions, and an array of tastes. Sometimes we find it hard to see those differences as gifts. Sometimes we see them primarily as problems.

We could easily let differences divide us. But the Spirit at work in us — in each of us and in all of us — pulls us in another direction. The Spirit in us seeks to be joined to the Spirit in the other. I wonder what would happen if we looked on those differences as gifts. What if we began to look between those differences for what the Spirit is teaching us? How might our hearts (and minds) change if we focused on what binds us together?

Perhaps, by God’s grace, you have tasted the unity that is the Spirit’s gift. Perhaps you have sometimes found yourself connected in a way you could not have imagined with someone very different from you — someone from a different culture, someone who spoke a different language, someone who held a different opinion, someone who led a different lifestyle. Perhaps, to your surprise, you discovered a bond that transcended your differences, and you knew that you were one.

Sometimes the gift of unity comes as a serendipitous surprise. Sometimes, though, we know that the gift of unity and community is promised, but we have to keep looking and working to unwrap the gift. We might think that we are creating unity and building community by our hard work, but we really can’t make it happen. It is a gift from God. We can only prepare ourselves to receive it and be ready to enjoy the gift when it comes.

WISDOM AND UNDERSTANDING
There is no lack of information in our culture these days. We are bombarded with all sorts of data — in print, on the Internet, on television and radio, on billboards. We are exposed to more facts than we can hold. Clearly, there is no lack of information. It is harder to find wisdom and understanding, the deep knowing that is born from within, in relationship.

Often in our world we seek to get at the truth through argument and debate. We do this in the church, too. When we debate, we are always listening for the weakness in what the other person has said. What if instead we listened for the strength in the other’s point of view? What if together we sought to discern the Spirit’s leading by listening to the piece of the truth that each of us in the body of Christ carries? What if we really believed that the truth God would have us understand is beyond what any one of us can know?

Like unity and community, wisdom and understanding cannot be forced. Like all gifts of the Spirit, they come in their own time and in their own way. Sometimes we strain and struggle to listen and learn, but the sense of it does not come. And then maybe unexpectedly we see how things fit together, and we know and understand.

The truth that those first disciples came to understand was the great expanse of God’s love. We, too, come to know, as the Spirit lives in us, that God’s grace is not confined to a particular time or place or people. Rather God’s embrace is bigger than we can imagine and — in the power of the Holy Spirit — ours can be too.

The Spirit at work in us opens us to more than our minds can hold, to an understanding also of the heart, to a wisdom of our whole being.

EMPOWERMENT AND COURAGE FOR MISSION
In many parts of the world today, to be a Christian is to live in danger. Thankfully, most of us in North America can practice our faith without fear. And still we may be reluctant to give witness to the hope that is within us. We may not fear for our lives, but we fear ridicule or rejection. We may not want to take the risk to get close to those who most need Christ’s love.

We cannot make our fear go away, but as the Spirit works in us, we can begin to act as if the fear were not there. We can act boldly. We can dare to move toward the outcast and brokenhearted, the despised and depressed, the dying and bereaved. Already in our desire to be more Christ-like, the Spirit is working in us. We may soon find a power and courage that we could not have imagined.

It happened to those first disciples. Hiding behind those locked doors on Easter evening they never could have imagined the courage that would be given to them. In the power of the Spirit they were sent as Jesus was — into the world that God so much loves. In that same Spirit, we, too, are sent — empowered and encouraged.

We are not sent alone. The mission is ours together in community. God has promised that we have all the gifts we need to do it. What if we shaped the life of our congregations around the needs of our neighbors and the gifts present among us? What if we saw that part of our mission is to empower and encourage one another, from the youngest to the oldest?

The word courage has its root in the same word as heart (in Latin, cor). The heart, it seems, is the place where the Pentecost Spirit is mightily at work — to give courage, to lead to understanding, and to long for unity. In the Spirit’s working, we are transformed, individually and together — never to be the same again.

May this prayer for Pentecost be ours:

God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as you sent upon the disciples the promised gift of the Holy Spirit, look upon your church and open our hearts to the power of the Spirit. Kindle in us the fire of your love, and strengthen our lives for service in your kingdom; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen (Lutheran Book of Worship, p. 23).

Come, Holy Spirit, come!