Pew Sheet, Sunday the 8th of June, 2025 Pentecost Sunday
This week we celebrate Pentecost, the day on which the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles as promised by Jesus in the days before he took his leave of them before ascending to sit at his Father's right hand in glory as our great king and high priest, as explained by the writer of the letter to the Hebrews elsewhere in scripture.
I have lost track of the number of times I have heard sermons about Pentecost being the Church's birthday, which is all well and good, for it does mark the occasion when Jesus' early followers were emboldened to preach and proclaim what Christ had done for them after his death and resurrection; and people of all nationalities, religions, and backgrounds gathered in Jerusalem, heard the Gospel proclaimed in their own language for the first time.
But to focus purely on ourselves and the Church on this day is surely missing the point. It is easy to concentrate on the 'what happened at Pentecost' question because the answers are simple; and are provided for us in the set reading we will hear from the Acts of the Apostles. We know when, where, and how it happened, and even the time of day; and we also know the identities of those who heard the Gospel proclaimed so powerfully by Peter, not renowned for great acts of courage elsewhere in the Gospels (though he was apt to act quite rashly on other occasions) straight after his encounter with the Holy Spirit.
The question which most preachers avoid of course, is the "Who" question. Not the identities of the apostles, friends and family members of Jesus gathered in that upper room, or even the tongue twisting nationalities of those to whom Peter preached afterwards, but the person of the Holy Spirit herself, whom we almost instantly forget once the tongues of flame have died out, and the miracle of each person hearing the Gospel in their own tongue is forgotten.
We hear all about what the apostles subsequently did after the day of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles, but for me this is a misnomer. For me, 'The Acts of the Apostles' should more rightly be called 'The Acts of the Holy Spirit' - for it is the Holy Spirit whose work and identity is clearly set out in Luke's fascinating account of those early years of the Christian church which, we must remember, did not even call itself that for a century or more afterwards. The early Christian believers were simply called "followers of the way" or "Nazarenes" after Jesus of Nazareth, at least for the first decades of the Church's existence; and the word 'ecclesia' translated from the Greek to mean 'Church' simply means a community or gathering of people in its original sense.
It is the Holy Spirit who empowered, guided, and directed those early believers, who taught and admonished them, and guided them into all truth, just as Jesus promised she would. And it is the Holy Spirit who brings forth the fruit of the seed which Jesus had sown, a hundred, thousand-fold times more abundantly than Jesus did in his short earthly ministry, because the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Jesus, and of the Father too, can be everywhere and anywhere simultaneously. But who is this Holy Spirit, and why is she so important not only to the early Church, but to us as well today?
The first obvious thing is that the Holy Spirit is just that... ‘Spirit’. As such, she is not restricted or constrained by the frailty of a single human body as Jesus was in the incarnation and can hover over the waters of the earth (and by definition, the whole earth) just as she did in the beginning (Genesis 1:2). She is the author of creation just as the Father and the Son are, and she is also an author of our salvation and redemption, for she is fully God and fully a part of the Father and the Son in the unity of the Holy Trinity. Just as the Father and the Son are one, so is the Holy Spirit at one with them too; and represents the active force and agency of God at work in the world today - just as she always has.
The Holy Spirit is mentioned throughout the Bible from its second verse in Genesis 1:2 as we have already seen; and is sometimes referred to as the Wisdom (Sophia in Greek) of God in the Jewish tradition. Although unseen, just as the Father is unseen beyond the person and character of Jesus, save the odd appearance as a dove here, or a tongue of flame there, a whirlwind, or a pillar of fire, the Holy Spirit remains largely unseen, but can be experienced in real and powerful ways both in the whirlwind of our lives, and in the whisper of our quiet contemplation – if we invite her to be there.
I call her 'she', in case you were wondering, not because she has a sexual identity or gender of her own, she is spirit after all, but to remind myself that the Holy Spirit is as much a person as the Father and the Son are, though much harder to picture in my head than either of them. God is Spirit, and all who worship God do so ‘in spirit and in truth’ (John 4:24), but John is speaking here about God as Trinity and not the Holy Spirit alone, though it is she who enables us to do this in the current age.
I simply call her she, because that is what Jesus would have called her when talking to his disciples about the Holy Spirit. The Jewish and related Aramaic words for 'Holy Spirit' are 'Ruach Ha’Kodesh', and the word 'Ruach' used in both languages for 'spirit' here is female in gender when spoken about. Jesus would always have said she, not he, when speaking about the Holy Spirit, because to do otherwise would have been grammatically incorrect and would have sounded odd to those he was speaking to. It was not until more than 400 years later, and the first main Latin translation of the Bible by St Jerome that the Hebrew or Aramaic 'she' became a 'he' when Jerome translated 'Ruach' as 'Spiritus' - which is a male noun in Latin, and just to confuse things further, the word 'Pneuma' used for ‘spirit’ in Greek versions of the Bible is gender neutral. The fact remains though, that in many of the oldest Eastern communities and churches today, where Aramaic or Syriac is still spoken, the Holy Spirit remains a 'she' when spoken about. But why might such distinctions be important?
Well, in fact, they are not. The Holy Spirit is spirit and has no gender at all. The use of a gendered noun is simply a grammatical idiom in this case, which is used to describe something – or someone – whom we really cannot describe because the concepts 'God' and 'Spirit' are far beyond our comprehension. God is literally too big for human minds to fully understand, and these concepts are beyond our grasp (so treat the words of those who say otherwise with a healthy degree of scepticism!) But God can be experienced even if not fully understood; and it is in the person of the Holy Spirit that we encounter both the Father and the Son in our lives if we submit them to Christ’s lordship and seek to serve God and God alone before all others.
If we know the Father and the Son, it is because the Holy Spirit has revealed them to us, for she is the ‘Spirit of Truth’ who takes what we learn of them in the scriptures and brings them to life in our hearts. Not for her own sake, but for theirs - and ours. She claims no credit for herself; but is due the same glory, honour, and reverence that they are; and to grieve, offend, ignore, or lie against the Holy Spirit is the greatest sin of all (Ephesians 4:30).
That could be a terrifying thought; but is one of the reasons I find it comforting to think of the Holy Spirit as 'she'. That feminine epithet reminds me that the Holy Spirit is not just the power, or the mind, or the will of God; active and proactive in the world today, but is also the compassion, and the love, and the indwelling grace of God within it as well. That is why it is so grievous to ignore or offend her, because she is the grace of God – quite literally the Gift of God epitomised, sent in Christ’s stead to remain here with us until he comes again in glory. We often talk of Jesus as God’s greatest gift to us, but the Holy Spirit is in turn, his great gift to us – to the glory of God the Father.
The fact that we can see both male and female character traits in God - the Father, the Son, and indeed, in the Holy Spirit, reminds me that God is both mother and father to us all. Jesus compared himself to a mother hen, gathering her chicks beneath her wings, and Hosea depicts God as a mother bear. In Psalm 131 the psalmist likens God to a mother, and there are many other examples of this ‘gender bending’ use of language to refer to God elsewhere in scripture.
In many respects, you could argue that God is totally non-binary because God does not deal in opposites. God does not deal with simple equations - black or white, gay or straight, Christian or non-Christian, the sacred and the secular, heaven and earth – or even life and death. God is, and deals with complexity!
God is the Father of us all (Ephesians 4:6), and in Christ all things are brought into one, and are held together (Colossians 1:17). It is the Spirit who brings this about in the current age, acting both on their account and on her own, in union with them, so that those things which currently divide us; such as language, race, culture, politics, religion and yes, even sexuality and gender will no longer be diametrically opposed or binary matters to be discussed and fought over in the future, but will be brought into one in Christ, to the glory of God the Father, by the tenacity, the grace, and the infilling of the Holy Spirit if only we would open our lives and our hearts to her and pray, as the Church has done for millennia, ‘Veni Creator Spiritus’ or ‘Come Holy Spirit, come’.
I pray that the Holy Spirit will be as alive and real to each of us this day as the Father and the Son are, for it is only through the Holy Spirit that we can fully encounter the reality of God’s great grace for each of us, and fully worship God ‘in spirit and in truth’ as God always intended that we should.
Collect
Holy Spirit, sent by the Father, Ignite in us your holy fire,
Strengthen your children with the gift of faith,
Revive your church with the breath of love,
And renew the face of the earth,
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Genesis 11:1-9
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’ The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the Lord said, ‘Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another's speech.’ So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore, it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
Acts 2:1-21
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?
Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs, in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?"
But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine," but Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning.
No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the
coming of the Lord's great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'
John 14:8-17
Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.
Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine but is from the Father who sent me.
“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
Post Communion Prayer
Faithful God,
who fulfilled the promises of Easter by sending your Holy Spirit and opening to every race and nation the way of life eternal;
open our lips by your Spirit, that every tongue may tell of your glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
This Week’s Events
Monday (Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597)
Bell Ringing, 7.30pm in St Laurence. Contact Jan on 07835 461361.
Tuesday
Zoom In Morning Prayer, 9.00 am, Meeting ID: 539 3978774 password: TuaR0T or contact Sue on [email protected] (The 0 in R0T is a zero not an ‘O’)
Evening House Group, contact Jo on 07803 942 687 for more information.
Wednesday (Barnabas the apostle)
Morning Coffee, 10.00-11.45am in the St Laurence Room.
Midweek Holy Communion, 12.00 noon, St Laurence.
Thursday
Daytime House Group, contact Jo on 07803 942 687 for more details.
Friday
Junior Choir at 6.30 pm followed by full Choir Practice at 7.30pm. Contact Derry on [email protected] if you would like to join in this term.
SCHOOL GOVERNORS
We still need Foundation Governors for both Winslow and Great Horwood Schools. Please consider whether you might be able to serve both them and the parish in this way and talk to Steve if you feel able to help in this way.
PASTORAL CARE
Please call Steve on 07305 271 148. Steve will be away from Thursday 12th to Friday 20th June inclusive, but if you call the number as usual it will be directed to someone who can take your call and refer it onwards as needed. We are very pleased to announce that Jan Lewis and Sue Davies have now completed their safeguarding and DBS checks, and are able to assist Steve, Alan, Daphne, and the churchwardens with pastoral care in the parish and wider community. We will have a special commissioning service for them, and for others engaged in all aspects of ministry later in the summer.
HEALTH WATCH BUCKS EVENT
Healthwatch Bucks will be holding an event to recognise and support informal carers in Winslow Library on Monday June the 9th between 10am and 2pm. If you are a carer or know someone who is, do contact Richard Hamley for more information on [email protected]
PERSONAL NOTE FROM STEVE
I have been very touched by the many prayers and the kind consideration of so many people in respect of my mum’s health situation. She remains much as she was since her admittance to hospital on the 17th of February although the initial infection and septicaemia have now been dealt with. She is now effectively bed-bound however; and has not been able to benefit from the rehabilitation bed she has been occupying for the last two months. She will be undergoing tests for additional health problems she has started encountering next Thursday in the Royal Derby Hospital, after which point we need, as a family, to decide what the best course of action is regarding her care situation going forwards. Bishop Dave and Archdeacon Guy have kindly offered me compassionate leave on an ‘as needed’ basis as I will have to spend time in late June and throughout July up in Derbyshire and Staffordshire to help facilitate this. I will try, so far as I am able, not to let this impact Sunday services and hope to be here most weekends as the agencies I need to deal with only operate during the working week; but it does mean that other weekday activities and commitments may be covered by others in my absence or slightly amended. I very much appreciate your help and understanding in this, and hope that you will not be too inconvenienced.
