Gifted with the Holy Spirit to Serve – 5 June 2022 – Pentecost
Apart from the church’s Pentecostal denominations and traditions, how does the church today invest in the power of the Holy Spirit? How is that power that produces works similar to those of Jesus manifest among today’s disciples? –– Sara Webb Phillips
John 14:8–17
[This reading] recounts the power of the Pentecost Spirit described by Jesus in his teachings at the Last Supper. The disciples, though an uncertain lot at this point, need to hear that they will indeed have the power to act as Jesus has. In loving Jesus, they will come to know the Father and have the power to keep faithful to the commandments of love by the Holy Spirit’s indwelling. Their love must be matched by their obedience.
John 14 provides an extensive teaching of Jesus on the Holy Spirit and the power to be given those who love and serve. –– Sara Webb Phillips
Acts 2:1-21
The crowd gathered for the festival [of the grain harvest and the gift of the Law at Mount Sinai] becomes the opportunity for the Holy Spirit to descend and spread among the believers as wind and tongues of fire. The crowd asks, “Are they drunk?” Peter in essence replies, “No, it is too early in the day for that. But now that I have your attention. . .” And the great service of Pentecost results in thousands of converts. –– Sara Webb Phillips
Romans 8:14–17
In [this reading] we encounter an extraordinary exposition of what it means to have been gifted with the Spirit of Christ: “If, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may be glorified with him.” –– S. Marian Bohen
How are we to explore the meaning of being “glorified with Christ”? “Glory” isn’t a word normally found in our everyday talk. In Hebrew, the word kabod denotes a greatness that is heavy and filled with light. God’s “glory” fills the heavens (Ps 19:1). God’s glory “settled on Mount Sinai” (Ex 24:16). The glory of the Lord ascended (Ezek 11:23). Scripture is filled with God’s glory. It is awesome, holy, without peer, beyond our ability to comprehend, and certain. How it comes to us in our sorrowful world is something MLKing addressed in his last speech the night before he was assassinated. He was speaking of the Good Samaritan through whom we see and emulate God’s glory –– Melinda Quivik
“The first question the Levite asked was, ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: said, ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’” (Martin Luther King, Jr., speech in Memphis, April 3, 1968) –– S. Marian Bohen
Truth (ale ́theia) doesn’t mean the opposite of falsehood. It means the opposite of le ́the ́, oblivion. Truth is what is remembered. (Marilyn French, The Women’s Room, 1977).
“We must throw the mind back. Without memories we are as wind in the buffalo grass” (Attributed to Lakota Native American Woman, 1982). –– S. Marian Bohen
Sara Webb Phillips is a United Methodist minister serving Grace UMC in Atlanta, Georgia. She is a former co-editor of the journal Liturgy published quarterly by The Liturgical Conference.
S. Marian Bohen, a writer and editor, was engaged in formal education for twenty-four years in Indonesia, has taught at Marist College, the Maryknoll School of Theology, in Sing Sing Prison in New York, and in Stateville Prison, Chicago.
Melinda Quivik, an ordained ELCA pastor (who served churches in Montana, Michigan, and Minnesota) and former professor of worship and preaching, is the Editor-in-Chief of Liturgy, a writer, and a preaching mentor with Backstory Preaching at backstory-preaching.mn.co.
Homily Service 40, no. 6 (2007): 37–44.