by Rev. Fr. David b. Tabo-oy
Happy Birthday, Church!
v15″If you love me, you will obey my commandments. v16I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, who will stay with you forever. v17He is the Spirit, who reveals the truth about God. The world cannot receive him, because it cannot see him or know him. But you know him, because he remains with you and ise in you. John 14:15-17
About two weeks ago I had a chance meeting with two senior lawyers in this city and Benguet, Atorni Pakol and Atorni Annab (you may google these names if you are not familiar with them). They were having coffee at the Eco-lodge in the EDNCP Mission Centre compound. Immediately there was some kind of bond established given the fact that I haven’t seen these guys for some time. And straightaway Atorni Pakol went to business by telling a story about a church board (we call them Council or Vestry in the Anglican/Episcopal Church). While a church board was meeting, the story goes, the priest presiding noticed an old lady in the table obviously not a member of the board and called her attention. He sternly asked the gate crasher her reason being with the esteemed church board meeting. The old lady told the priest in the most righteous manner that she has all the right to be in the meeting to air her grievances because she is a MEMBER of the BORED congregation. Bored of his sermons, bored of his way of singing the mass, etcetera (Gets nyo?). Well, you may be wondering now the connection of this story to the appearance of this column-article in this esteemed weekly. Atorni Pakol capped his story (this is the connection) by asking me to resurrect my column with the hope to lessen the bored members of ZigZag Weekly readership.
It was more than a decade ago since The Small Still Voice first appeared in this paper. The acquiescence to write again is very timely on the occasion of this Sunday in most Christian churches. This is Pentecost Sunday. It is celebrated world-wide by catholic and protestant churches as the birthday of the church with the descent of the promised Holy Spirit to the apostles (Acts 2:1-4). Similarly, the spirit to write has descended upon me to write again The Small Still Voice. I hope it will beat the ‘Friday before lunch’ deadline of the ‘big editorial board’ of ZigZag Weekly to be appropriate for this Pentecost Sunday of 2018. BTW, to the converts of ZigZag Weekly after the column went on hibernation more than ten years ago, The Small Still Voice refers to the same Spirit which descended upon the first disciples on that first Pentecost morning. It is inspired by the account in 1 Kings 19:12 of God speaking to the prophet Elijah in ‘a small still voice’.
Pentecost Sunday. This Sunday we commemorate the descent and outpouring of the Holy Spirit to the first disciples more than two thousand years ago in the city of Jerusalem. This occasion is the birth of the Christian church as a consequence of the coming of the Holy Spirit. Today, this is a festival observed on the 50th day or the 7th Sunday after Easter, (Greek pentecoste = ‘fiftieth’). The apostles were celebrating the ancient Jewish feast of Shabuoth in Jerusalem when that celestial experience took place. In the early church it was a time for administration of the sacrament of baptism, and in the Church of England and other Anglican churches the festival is called Whitsunday in allusion to the white robes traditionally worn by the newly baptized.
On that day the Holy Spirit descended to the disciples attended by a “sound like a rush of violent wind” filling the house where they were gathered and marked by the appearance of ‘tongues’ as in fire (Acts 2:3). So what is the consequence of that outpouring or descent of the Holy Spirit? The 100th Archbishop of Canterbury, Donald Coggan practically describes the divine movement as follows:
“Think of yourself on a cold dark night. You slip into a room. No lights are on. It seems dark and cold. But presently just a little warmth reaches you. You move closer. A fire is burning. You begin to see. In the brightness of the fire you notice in the room shapes, forms, outlines. If there is someone else in the room you see his face, reflecting the fire Thus the Holy Spirit enables you to see, and to see like a Christian – perceiving things as they really are in the eyes and mind of Jesus; perceiving what a Christian out to be doing.”
In the words of the Latin litany Veni Creator, “Enable with perpetual light, the dullness of our blinded sight.” The Holy Spirit in us will give us “right judgment in all things.” The Holy Spirit keeps the light of Jesus glowing in us: that is how we may see as Christians should see. The fire as you approach it, gives warmth. Warm itself, it makes you warm. So the warmth of the love of God within you can warm your heat to love Him in response. This is not a matter of sentiment only. The very love of God can penetrate you and warms your faculties to love Him. In response we say, “Thy blessed unction from above: is comfort, light, and fire of love (Veni Creator, 2nd stanza).”
Secondly, the Holy Spirit within the Spirit of the God of love, the Spirit of the living Christ is the Holy Spirit who creates a new community among those who believe. This community is not built on mutual compatibility, shared affection, or common interests. It is built upon having received the same divine breath, having been given a heart set aflame by the same divine fire, and having been embraced by the same love. In short, it is the Holy Spirit that causes the community to be. A community that is ruled by tyranny which I believe the nation is presently led is an opposite of that community saturated by the Holy Spirit.
Thirdly, the community of faith fashioned by God within, the Holy Spirit is not fashioned simply for the well-being of its members. The community of faith so constituted is for the transformation and liberation of the world. This means that the spirit of the risen Christ who has called together into one body, SENDS us out into the world so that all people can share the fruits of redemption accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Having that same spirit we are moved ‘to seek to transform unjust structures of society and to challenge violence of every kind and to pursue peace and reconciliation’ (4th Mark of Mission of the Episcopal Church).
On the Day of Pentecost, the world scattered in the destruction of the Tower of Babel in Israel’s primeval history (Genesis 11:1-9) is drawn back together. As God’s action divided languages in response to human presumptuousness in ‘making name’ for themselves, so now the divided languages become a gift, empowering the message of the gospel to reach out to the world as experienced by the apostles when they received the Holy Spirit, beginning in Jerusalem, moving into Judea and Samaria, and thence to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).
Pentecost is the day we remember and celebrate the gifts of God’s Spirit: a gift to the community of faith; a gift that draws us into the heart of that mystery which is God’s revelation; a gift that creates new unity out of diversity; a gift that empowers us to bring the world out of darkness into light. May we be so empowered! Blessed Pentecost Sunday to all. **
