You all wanna know what my favorite religious holiday is? It occurs every spring??
And it's not Easter. Nor is it Passover. Pentecost. How do you celebrate Pentecost?
The odds are, you probably don’t celebrate it, right? Or even know a whole lot about it…
other than maybe, that’s when the tongues of fire appeared above the Apostles. And you’re right
that did occur – but this day meant so much more for the early church than just that spectacle.
For them, it was a day that celebrated liberation! In a sense, it was their "Independence Day".
Let me explain. Pentecost is actually a Jewish holiday known as Shavout
also known as the Feast of Weeks. Occurring in the spring, 50 days after Passover,
the feast commemorates the gift of the Law by God bestowed upon Moses and his fellow Israelites as a
guide for living. This is what Jesus’ Apostles were celebrating, privately in an upper room,
when they had a supernatural experience of the Spirit of God in their midst.
And then someone shouted, "It’s 5 o’clock somewhere, right?"
Just kidding. You know during Covid it’s always 5 o’clock, right? No? Well..... I got a problem.
Pentecost is often taught as the reversal of the Genesis 11 story of the Tower of Babel.
In that account, all the people of the world – speaking the same language -- come together in
order to build a tower so that they can make a name for themselves. Since naming rights is
a sign of power, it’s often interpreted as people wanting to become their own gods.
As a result, God scatters the people all over the earth and confuses their language.
The Greek word for sin means "alienation" or "separation." The opposite of sin would
therefore be what? Communion right? The fact that at Babel the world is separated means
that the people were sinning. They were kicking God out of their lives and the result was chaos.
At Pentecost, the apostles were gathered together in a room to worship God – to praise God for God’s
guidance. The result? Union, Understanding! Which is the opposite of separation, right?
It was while partaking in this Jewish Feast Day the Apostles realized that Christ was
still with them in the form of the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised that after he left,
God would send a paraclete, an advocate. And this is it! And at that moment, they were no longer
separate and afraid. Barriers collapsed, with most noticeably the language barrier being
broken – they understood each other’s differences and were united in the Spirit of Christ.
From there, they were empowered to leave the upper room, go out and begin the church. This
is why Christians regard Pentecost often as “The Unofficial Birthday of the Church.”
The Holy Spirit remains the most misunderstood person of the Trinity
due to its abstract nature and the fact that it was the last to be revealed in Scripture.
The Spirit is usually best described through the use of symbolism – dove,
bones, wind, etc… The Hebrew word for Spirit is RUAH, literally meaning wind or breath.
Therefore it’s the force of God that’s all around us and drives us. Like wind, although we may not
be able to see it, we can certainly feel its effects. Like breath, we need it to survive.
At Pentecost, the Apostles experienced this euphoria of the spirit and were compelled to begin
the church. Over the next few decades, questions over what will drive this new church – the Law
of Moses (AKA The Torah) or the Holy Spirit -- will unfold as the first Theo-ethical debate of
Christianity. The issue specifically surrounded if whether or not a gentile would need to first
become Jewish in order to become Christian. In other words, would they have to follow
the kosher dietary restrictions and if male, partake in the ritual mandate of circumcision.
For observant Jews, it was seen as a grave offense to even be in the presence of or eat with a
gentile – for being a gentile was seen as the same as being a sinner, since they did not
follow the laws and were by definition unclean, polluted, and idolatrous. This would certainly
make Eucharistic celebrations difficult since eating a large meal together was a pivotal part
of early Christian worship. (They didn’t start doing just bread and wine until they got cheap).
Because of this debate, gentiles would therefore first need to repent of being a gentile and then
adopt the purifying and transforming practices of God’s covenantal people, the Jews, before they
could become Christians. (Now does this sound familiar to you? Because this is ultimately
a question of who is “permitted” to receive communion in today’s Roman Catholic church.)
The call to circumcise is arguably the first divine command given to God’s people. In
Genesis 17 it’s intended to serve as a sign of the covenant and is mentioned no less than 30
times in the Hebrew Scriptures. Even Jesus and the Apostles were circumcised. So certainly one
could make the case that this external mark ought to remain a prerequisite for the faith, right?
This still remains a heated topic today – particularly in the United States,
the only industrialized nation that circumcises its males for non-religious reasons. Yeah,
thank you Dr. Kellogg -- I’m never gonna eat Corn Flakes again! And for queer people,
circumcision as a religious ritual carries some additional baggage:
Why does it matter to you that Gus is circumcised? It matters that he's been in this world less
than a week and already there are people who won't accept him for the way he is.
Who'd even mutilate him than rather let him be the way he is.
The way he was born. Well, I'm not going to let that happen.
Circumcision is also known to decrease sexual pleasure for both the man and his partner.
Which would make this first-century theological debate also a sexual ethics one. Not to mention
the questionable morality of mutilating one's genitals without one's consent.
In some countries, circumcision is illegal.
So the first-century church met its first division, with people taking sides or
factions as St. Paul would refer to them. On the right, the pro-law/circ side was headed by James,
known as the brother of Jesus, who served the role of bishop in Jerusalem. He apparently was the guy
you had to convince. On the left, the anti-circ side was headed by Paul, a former pharisaic Jew
and persecutor of Christians. And in the middle was Peter…. Who flip-flopped depending on who
he was around. Oh Peter… he's literally my favorite person in the New Testament!
The final decision was made at the Council of Jerusalem in 50 AD when James announced that the
Jewish laws would no longer be required, dropping the circumcision mandate and the
kosher dietary restrictions, with the exception of eating meat that was sacrificed to an idol.
So in other words, the laws of purity would no longer be the driving force of this new Church.
Now how did they reach that decision? How did they flippantly dismiss 30 mentions of circumcision
in the Old Testament and what was the first divine command of the Abrahamic Covenant?! How?!
Because the Holy Spirit guided their conscience!
For Peter, the story of his change of heart is well documented in Acts 10,
where his experience with Cornelius led him to realize that even Gentiles received God’s spirit.
Peter questioned, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the
Holy Spirit just as we have?” and ordered the baptism of all god-fearing Christians.
Unfortunately, he didn’t stay true to Cornelius, finding himself resorting back to “profaning
what God had made clean.” Ya know, deeply rooted prejudices are often hard to break,
right? A fact that Paul calls him out on in Galatians 2:11-14.
Paul’s decision to include gentiles is just as remarkable/radical as his
conversion to the Christian faith was. Once a Pharisaic Jew and persecutor of the Christian
movement for what he believed were grave violations of traditional Jewish laws,
Paul became the foremost advocate of faith as the basis of salvation, not works -- not the law.
As a Pharisee, the law was the end all -- be all. It was his identity, it was his drive, it was the
reason why he persecuted the Christians! For him to abandon it is just shocking --
but speaks volumes of the influence of the Holy Spirit had on his life.
Pre-conversion Paul was kinda like a religious fundamentalist with that zeal he had in
persecuting others, his refusal to see them as whole persons due to his unquestioning support
for religion, the Temple, its clergy, as well as his obsessive need for validation from the
external law. But ultimately (and this is what's important) it was a relationship with the risen
Christ -- through the Holy Spirit -- that changed those views. He even went on to compare the Law
to slavery and preached that following the Holy Spirit is a form of liberation.
The scales fell from his eyes and he could finally
see. The same hope that we share for all those people who persecute us.
The Holy Spirit must also have been working through Apostle James, whose change of heart
isn’t documented in the Scriptures. And this goes to show that even the
most conservative among the group can become more progressive with the help of the Spirit.
The spirit blows where it blows. It cannot be contained.
The purity system was an abstract way of indicating what fits,
what is appropriate, and what is in place. Recall Leviticus. It was a system designed
to peg, classify, and structure the world. By eliminating the external laws of this system,
the Holy Spirit has no bounds. Categories no longer matter in this new church. Just love.
Of course, this vision of church doesn’t last beyond the first 100 years or so. Listening to
the Spirit rather than an external authority is just unsustainable from a management perspective.
People want rules. There’s comfort in the black and white. Oh well….
Over the course of the next two thousand years,
the Catholic Church develops a rather rich theology on the relationship between the
Holy Spirit and the human conscience and the role it should play in moral decision-making.
What’s most interesting to me is that despite the rule-driven reputation of the Roman
Catholic Church, when you're in a position of conflict between established church teaching
and one’s individually well-developed conscience, they teach taht you have a moral imperative
to follow your conscience. With Thomas Aquinas even acknowledging that it's
better to die in excommunication from the church than to violate your conscience.
This is known in Catholic moral theology as the “primacy of conscience.” The Holy Spirit
speaks to every one of us equally. God guides each one of us equally.
And therefore, it would be sin to ignore that guidance -- to ignore that voice.
John Henry Neuman writes: “Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ” (the original
stand-in for Christ). And that when there is a conflict between conscience and church teaching:
In order to prevail against the voice of the Pope, must follow upon serious thought, prayer,
and all available means of arriving at a right judgment on the matter in question.
Let me be clear: The primacy of conscience is not a free pass to do whatever sin you’d like.
Your conscience must be seriously well-developed for you to go against the church in matters of
morality. This includes prayer, research, alternatives, advice, and the list goes on.
The Roman Catholic Catechism contains 27 paragraphs reiterating this idea
that conscience is primary and that it would be sinful to go against it.
There was actually a Jesuit School in Indianapolis that recently used this
church teaching in order to refuse a bishop’s order to fire one of their teachers for being
gay. The school officials cited that it's their moral obligation to follow one’s conscience.
God, I love Jesuits! And since there’s only 2 paragraphs in the Catechism that’s against
homosexuality, I’ll say that the odds are in the school’s favor that they’re making the right call.
But how do you know that it’s the spirit acting in your life and not say
some… evil demon whispering crazy thoughts into your head.
Jesus says you will be able to tell them by their fruits.”(Matthew 7:16 )
St. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote “The glory of God gives life.”
Mother Teressa said “Where there is love, there is God.”
The late Jesuit John McNeill said that we can legitimately evaluate the validity
of a religious belief system by its psychological consequences.
And St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, taught a lot on how to properly
discern the Spirit. Discernment is defined as “the spiritual interpretation and evaluation
of feelings, and the direction in which we are moved by them.” During his personal conversion
experience, when thinking about emulating his life off the saints Ignatius felt a sense of
inner peace. When he thought about doing more worldly things, like impressing “a certain lady”,
he felt dry. Slowly Ignatius came to see that this is one way that God leads us. He realized that if
you act in accordance with God’s desires for you, you will naturally feel a sense of peace – what
Ignatius called “consolation” – feelings of joy, tranquility, an increase in hope,
faith, and charity, causing a soul to be “inflamed with love.” It’s an indication
that you’re on the right path. Conversely, feelings of “desolation” – turmoil within,
agitations, temptations, tepidness, unhappiness, hopelessness signal that you’re on the wrong path.
In short, all you have to do is look at the actions and effects of the Holy Spirit at
Pentecost. Look at that inspiration that drove the early church to go out and be Christ in the world.
If you can find similar feelings within yourself, that’s when you know the Holy
Spirit is alive and active in your life and in your moral decision-making. And for me,
everything in my spiritual, professional, theological, scriptural, rational,
and experiential background has brought me to the consolation that being gay is not a sin,
but a clear representation of the image of God.
We must recognize that the gospel and its interpretation isn’t the exclusive property
of heterosexual, cis-gendered male clerics. I said it before and I’ll say it again I believe
that queer people of faith can be at the forefront of a new understanding of how the divine works.
And what better way to do that, than by throwing a massive Pentecost Party!