ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE

Exarchate of Parishes of Russian
Tradition in Western Europe

The Birthday of the Church

Sermon for Pentecost preached by Bishop Basil of Amphipolis at the Parish of the Dormition (London, Holborn),  7 June 2009

Acts 2: 1-11 / John 7: 37-52; 8:12

There are in fact three Great Feasts for the Church year, and they are the Nativity of Christ, with the associated Theophany, Pascha and Pentecost.

It is interesting to think of the Nativity of Christ as an historical event, completely unnoticed – there was a bit of a reaction from Herod, but that was it. The second, the Resurrection itself, was not generally perceived by human beings, and had no immediate effect on history.  But Pentecost is another situation entirely: Pentecost changes the world!  From a liturgical point of view it follows a certain kind of hiatus, the ten days between the Ascension and Pentecost itself in which we neither sing,  ‘Christ is risen from the dead’, nor do we say, ‘O Heavenly King’.  In those ten days, as we experience it every year, it is almost impossible to avoid saying ‘Heavenly King’: you simply want to move from saying, ‘Christ is risen’, to calling upon the Spirit. But the Church says, ‘No! Wait ten days.’

The truth of the matter is that for a Christian, life after Pentecost is normal: it is ordinary life.  But Pentecost sets its mark on the whole of our life.  One thinks in terms of the Eucharistic Liturgy, of the epiclesis, the invocation of the Spirit upon the Gifts. In the Russian Slav practice, the Troparion for the Third Hour [see below], which actually refers to the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost, is inserted into that invocation. All the Sacraments are essentially manifestations of that same epiclesis, that same invocation for the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the material created world.

Even the Lord’s Prayer is a fascinating business! We say, ‘Our Father ... Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done’.  But, in some very early texts, for example Gregory of Nyssa among others, that petition, ‘Thy kingdom come’, is replaced by ‘Thy Holy Spirit come upon us and cleanse us.’  In other words, the early Church read that phrase, ‘Thy Kingdom come’, as an epiclesis, an invocation of the Spirit upon us for our own inner cleansing.  And, of course, that prayer which we do not say for ten days, ‘O Heavenly King’, is actually also an ‘epicletic’ prayer: ‘O Heavenly King, come and abide in us and cleanse us from all impurity.’   That prayer joins the early understanding of the Lord’s Prayer itself.

It is extraordinary how our daily prayer is reflected in the earliest tradition of the Church, going back to the second century.  And if it goes back to the second century you can be pretty sure it goes back even further. No more really needs to be said about the importance of Pentecost.  It is, in fact, the birthday of the Church, the birthday of a community in which we are still living.

The passage from the Acts of the Apostles which we read today tells the story in detail. But the Gospel which is chosen is something else, and we could ask ourselves, ‘What is the connection?’  It begins with quite extraordinary verses:

On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out saying, ‘If any man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink.  He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.’

What is Christ talking about?  I think we need to bear two passages in mind. One is the scene by Jacob’s well, mentioned earlier in the Gospel of John, where Christ meets the Samaritan woman and invites her to receive ‘living water’. What we learn from that is that Christ wishes that living water to be given to every human being.  It is not simply for the Jews; it is for all mankind. The other passage I think we ought to bear in mind is that point where, for the first time in the Gospels, the disciples begin to wander away from Christ. They feel that something is going to happen which is really quite difficult, and they don’t want to be part of it.  And Christ turns to Peter and says, ‘Are you going to leave also?’  And Peter says, ‘Where would I go?  You have the words of life.’  These words of life, coming from Christ, are living water.  They bring a person back to life.

What is interesting, of course, is that Christ wishes us to have that living water flowing from us.  We are given the Spirit in Baptism.  We are filled with the Spirit in Chrismation, and we are constantly renewed in our contact with the Spirit through the Eucharist. Remember the hymn which we sing at the end of every Liturgy: ‘We have seen the true light; we have received the heavenly Spirit.’ We have received the heavenly Spirit through the consecrated Gifts upon which we ask the Spirit to descend. The truth of the matter is that our words, when filled with the Spirit, are in fact also words of life. They bring life, not death. They bring union, and not division.

It is fascinating to look at the Kontakion for the Feast which we sang at the Little Entrance this morning, which draws the comparison between the events which surrounded the construction of the Tower of Babel and Pentecost. The first led to divisions of languages and of nations, and therefore to competition. The second, the descent of the Spirit in fiery tongues, led to diversity of tongues but unity of spirit.  The truth of the matter is that we all speak in different tongues.  Every one of us comes from a different spot in God’s creation. It is the Spirit of God which enables the Church to exist by bringing together those different tongues; the tongues of every nation upon earth and of every individual in any community. And so we need to ask ourselves at all times, ‘Is what I say something that unites or something that divides?  Am I building up or am I tearing down?’  To the extent that we are building up; that we are uniting different tongues; we are continuing the work of Pentecost.  And to the extent that we divide, we represent mankind’s experience at the creation of the Tower of Babel, falling apart into diversity and irreconcilable opposition.  Amen.