Pentecost – A Joyless and Boring Occasion

Cover image from Pixabay

“…it’s just that sometimes I need a laugh,” said Revd Wakeley. “There’s not much humour in my job.”

“Why?” asked 5-year-old Madeleine, having spotted the satirical Mad magazine he was trying to conceal between pages of scripture.

The reverend hesitated. “Because God isn’t very funny, I guess…”

-o-O-o-

Bonnie Garmus’ best-selling debut novel, ‘Lessons in Chemistry’, is a page-turner, a thoroughly enjoyable read. In between its heartbreaking plot punctuated with quirky humour, the author’s passionate feminism and her strident atheism shine through. Faith and religion make life not only joyless but burdensome. Garmus’ heroine, Elizabeth Zott, prides herself in tearing up the rulebook. You, the reader, end up rooting for her as she bids for her own freedom and that of all those whom she influences.

I’ve little doubt that the anger against all things ‘god’ with which Bonnie Garmus writes, comes from personal experience. Either her own, or of somebody close to her. But how tragic! That’s so far from what Jesus intended. Why, he himself was ‘called out’ for having too much fun. For going to parties with social outcasts. For speaking kindly to prostitutes. He was said to be ‘a glutton and a wine-bibber’. He didn’t stop his disciples from nibbling ears of grain as they passed through the cornfields. How appalling is that!

-o-O-o-

I wish I’d been in Galilee all those years ago, joining the crowd that thronged about Jesus. The atmosphere around him was electric. Hear the joyful shouts of the lame and the blind, as they find they can walk or see once more. The radiant faces of deeply troubled people who suddenly feel free of their demons so they can be themselves again. And then, sitting on the grassy hillsides listening to his teaching; the hilarious way he makes his points, such as suggesting I remove the plank in my own eye before worrying about the speck in my brother’s! The world seems so full of colour and vitality. God is no longer a distant figure. He’s here amongst ordinary people, enjoying our company!

-o-O-o-

‘Yeah, yeah,’ you may say, ‘but that was Jesus’.

Well, that same party atmosphere is repeated a few weeks after Jesus died and rose again, at Pentecost.

 The city of Jerusalem is just stirring into life when shouts of joy burst out of an upstairs room. People flock into the street to hear what’s going on. Jews from many middle-eastern countries happen to be in the city, and find that the ‘babblers’ are praising God in all their different languages!

It is, indeed, the beginning of the church. And what happens next? They do what Jesus has done. Disciples Peter and John go to the temple to worship, and meet a lame man begging. Instead of placing a coin in his bowl, they command him, in Jesus’ name, to walk. He gets up, joins Peter and John, and is so overcome that he leaps all the way to the sanctuary!

-o-O-o-

It’s all very well, you may argue, to look back 2,000 years. The church of today seems such a far cry from the revolutionary movement of the first century. However, look more closely; our two Anglican churches refuse to be written off. We’re holding an open-air party on Sunday afternoon right in the middle of Rastrick. We’re celebrating the day the Holy Spirit was poured out on those first disciples, remembering that the promise is for us, too. 

‘But’, you may ask, ‘you don’t do any longer what Jesus did.’ I suggest you talk to Cynthia, who invites a group of us to her home most weeks. An accident in the garden last month left her with excruciatingly bad back, so that everything was a painful effort. She couldn’t walk to the front of church to lead the intercessions, but had to ask someone else to read her script. She still welcomed us to her house however, allowing others to arrange the room and make the refreshments.

At the end of our meeting, our group laid hands on her and prayed for her in Jesus’ name. Cynthia still has back pain, but after we prayed, the severe symptoms disappeared. That night, for the first time since her injury, she slept soundly, and has been able to resume her usual activities ever since.

The party continues!