Homily on Pentecost Sunday 24th May 2015

                    

Good morning my dear brothers and friends.

Today is Pentecost Sunday. Pentecost is etymologically derived from two Greek words “Pente” and “Costes.” The two words together mean “fifty days”. In this case, it refers to the fifty days after the Passover – the celebration of the Jewish festival of wheat. It was on this fiftieth day that it pleased God to fulfil his promise of sending down the Holy Spirit on the apostles.

May I begin this reflection by asking the question: what actually happened on the first Pentecost day? (Give opportunity for responses and answers)

The disciples where initially locked up in a room. Suddenly a remarkable occurrence took place. In John’s gospel, suddenly Jesus appeared; he breathed on them, imparted the Holy Spirit on them and gave them the super human power of forgiving sins. In the account of the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles (which is usually the locus classicus of narratives of the coming of the Holy Spirit), there was a violent wind; an extra ordinary sign was seen in terms of tongues of fire on the heads of the disciples, they started speaking in strange languages, nevertheless the people from different areas still understood them in their own vernaculars, the disciples broke loose from the house where they locked themselves up, the once timid and scarred disciples became emboldened, they began to speak of their faith and communicate it fearlessly.

I can therefore submit that the main thing that took place on Pentecost day was transformation. The spirit of God which the disciples experienced or encountered turned them around into new creatures and new persons. It is not the sound of the mighty wind; it is not the tongues of fire but the new creation which took place on this day that forms the core of the Pentecost event. Unfortunately, many have reduced the Pentecost event to noise. These people mistake the gifts of the spirit to some confusion of sounds and external displays of abracadabra. While these may still be somehow connected to it, it is however important to highlight that a sign that comes from nowhere and points to nowhere is fake, smoke that has no fire is fake or magic. Hence, let us concentrate on the fire before the smoke.

The central thing that took place on Pentecost was the internal and complete transformation of the disciples. The coming of the Holy Spirit was a force which re-created the disciples anew, making them new persons. This re-creation made them to understand more properly Jesus’ message and mission for them. It made them to change their mind-set of fear and timidity. It triggered a new process of being and thinking, relating and acting, confronting life and taking responsibilities. With the Pentecost experience, the disciples did not remain the same again. Something very fundamental changed in them. It was the beginning of a new life – spiritual rebirth, freshness, new energy, new light and determination. This is what Pentecost is all about.   

Why then the violent wind? This represents the process of change. No change comes easy. There is always some ‘violence’ that accompanies any change. Violence here means the force of turning a reluctant self to a direction it was initially unwilling to venture. In this context we can understand the statement of Jesus that it is only the violent that can enter the kingdom of God. Think of what it takes you to wake from up from the bed in the middle of the night during harmattan or winter to do some academic work. Think of what smokers go through to quit smoking. Think of the battle to break from a bad habit. Think of how hard it is to break loose from a bad friend or group. Think of what is involved to start learning something new.

Being good is not easy. Doing good is not easy. Changing ways of life from bad to good is not easy. If you are not prepared to take on yourself, discomfort yourself, even be ruthless on yourself, nothing new and nothing good can come out of it. I acknowledge that some people are saints and geniuses from the womb but most of us are not. We need to go through the tunnel of personal crucifixion or surgery in order get the best out of ourselves.

In our prayer to the Holy Spirit, we say: “Come Holy Spirit and fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit and they shall be re-created and you will renew the face of the earth.” In many of our parishes, there have been week long Pentecost activities in preparation for today. Many of these activities anchor people’s hopes on acquisition of extra ordinary powers or receiving miracles and other heavenly gifts. However, what has not received sufficient attention is this interior transformation of the person. Verses 7 and 8 of the Veni sancte Spiritus read: “Lord wash our sinful stains away, bedew our dryness, our wounds and bruises heal. Bend that which is stubborn in us. Warm with they love our hearts of snow. Rule our wandering steps.”

When people talk of the Pentecost experience, it is largely in the noise and others forms of dramatisations. Little attention is paid to this inner change of the person and this near violence to the self in order to change. It is precisely because of this lack of interior change that has made some people sceptical of the genuineness of those who claim gifts of the spirit.

Many who clamour for these gifts are fixed on how to mesmerise other people. The encounter with the Holy Spirit has meaning if it starts by changing me from within, turning me to see those dark spots of my life and empowering me to upturn them. The change taking place in me can then have the capacity to attract people to me who will eventually be wondering (as in the first reading) what great new things are happening in the life of this person.

What are the stains of my life? What are those dry places of my life? What are those wounds (either those I inflicted on myself or those inflicted by others on me) which make it difficult for me to be a child of God? What are those stubborn traits in me? How am I wandering away from God’s love and graces? What is my attitude to sin? Do I really know the demarcation between good and evil? Do I know that there is moral dirt? Do I still have a sense of shame? What do I use my time for? Am I held captive by a very serious bad character? Am I chronically lazy? Am I so envious that I am capable of doing anything? Am I ruled by the passion to kill or inflict terrible harm on other people even on people who trust and respect me? Am I prepared to cause injury on people, to push them out of the way to get what I want? Am I so greedy that I am prepared to sacrifice human life? Does it not matter for me if people are dying or crying? Am I like Brutus who strikes my most trusted friend just to realise some ambition? Am I a priest who does not pray?

My dear brothers, the Holy Spirit comes to renew us from within. Without this interior renewal, everything we are nothing is meaningless and only reducible to empty shows. That’s why there are many fake people around in many ramifications.

The Holy spirit is real. His activities and powers are real. You can be transformed from the life of self-delusion, greed, craze for power, insatiability, searching for cheap popularity, ‘inya isi na njo’, arrogance, wickedness, and compromised sense of good and evil. You can be transformed from the ground of despair, from the ground of ‘no positive ambition in life’, from the ground of care-freeness, from the ground of insensitivity to the needs of others and from the ground of the loss of the sense of shame.

Albert Einstein moved from a persona non grata to being one who revolutionised physics and tremendously reshaped human thought about the natural world. Bill Gates moved from almost being a school drop out to one who has made a deep impact on information technology. Wole Soyinka moved from being a third class holder in his bachelor’s degree to a Nobel Prize holder. The history of humanity is scattered with captivating stories of people who changed the stories of their lives and through it significantly and positively affected human civilisation. From the Scriptures, Jonah who ran away eventually became a great preacher who converted Nineveh. Peter who denied Christ became the head of the apostolic college. Saul the persecutor of the faith became Paul the great apostle of the faith. The boyish Timothy became a Bishop.

You can be transformed. I can be transformed. May the Holy Spirit which God released on the Church today, enable us to be thoroughly renewed from within in order to renew the face of the earth.

“Send forth your spirit O Lord that the face of the earth be renewed”. Amen. 

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