Pentecost 2018: Holy Trinity and Christchurch
My father was once pursued
out of church by the ‘rudest man in the Church of England’. Douglas Feaver, a
former bishop of Peterborough jo iced in that sobriquet. Some of his bon mots were: -
“to bury a few I haven’t
managed yet.”
“Where did you find him, in a
blackout?”
Bishop Douglas had retired to
Bruton and used to attend my home church in Evercreech. One Sunday, as he was
leaving church my father asked the bishop what was the Old Testament reading
for the following Sunday (as Dad was due to read). Ezekiel 37 he was told.
Then, as Dad walked down the path towards the gate, Bishop Douglas rushed after
him shouting ‘The dry bones, the dry bones; tell them about the dry bones.’
I thought he was somewhat mad
and was rather in awe of him.
The prophet Ezekiel someone
else classified as somewhat mad. ‘Exhibits all the symptoms of acute mental
illness.”
Series of fantastic and sometimes lurid
visions suggestive of a man who had consumed industrial quantities of cheese
before bed time.
Weird symbolic actions –
lying for months on one side and then on another to symbolise the years of
Israel’s exile; cooking using an oven fired by human dung.
And yet it is Ezekiel who gives us two of the most
powerful, beautiful and thought provoking visions in the Old Testament.
Taken by spirit to the temple
and sees a great river with its source in the very sanctuary, the home of God’s
presence that flows out and waters the desert that turns the Dead Sea into a
water that is teeming with life that brings fertility and life in its wake.
Chapter 37 and detailed
vision of valley of dry bones – crying out for some good CGI and the bones that are clothed with sinews and flesh and muscle but
still have no life until the breath of God’s spirit fills them. ‘Can these dry
bones live’
Water bringing life
and breath bringing
animation.
To these we can add wind and
fire – Story of day of Pentecost; our birthday.
Wind, fire, breath, water –
all of them active, all of them bearing the potential for huge power, all of
them not in our control; all of them symbols for life. All of them symbols for
the Holy Spirit.
This is what God’s Holy
Spirit does. – sometimes gradually (dry bones) sometimes naturally (river),
sometimes suddenly and without being called (day of Pentecost).
All of us have been touched
by that same Spirit (baptism). Sometimes dormant (dry bones), sometimes
flooding us, sometimes galvanising us for action.
Unexpected star of Royal
Wedding – Michael Curry; St George’s
“We must discover the power
of love, the redemptive power of love. And when we do that, we will make of
this old world a new world, for love is the only way.”
Substitute ‘spirit’ for
‘love’
"There's power in love. There's power in love to help and heal when
nothing else can.
"There's power in love to lift up and liberate
when nothing else will.
"There's power in love to show us the way to live”
So on this Pentecost Sunday
let us give thanks for the breath of the Spirit; fire of the Spirit; wind of
the Spirit; stream of living water of Spirit.
And let us pray that through
the Spirit all that is dead in our own lives and in life of Church may be blown
away, burned away, washed away so that new life can flourish.
