What makes a church a church? Is it stain glass windows, a steeple and pews? That better not be the case or we’re in big trouble. But if not that, what does make a church a church? Is it the preacher preaching, the lectors lecting, the choir singing and the ushers ushing? What makes a church a church? Is it having popes and bishops, pastors and deacons, parishes and dioceses? If you look at the first reading for this Sunday from the Acts of the Apostles you would have to say that none of the above are necessary for the church to be church. What is necessary, what makes a church a church is the Holy Spirit. Pentecost is called the birthday of the church, the day when the church was born into life, spanked by a strong driving wind and midwifed by tongues as of fire which signaled the divine indwelling presence. Before Pentecost the 120 people who were what was left of the Jesus movement (according to the previous chapter in the Acts of the Apostles) were merely those who recalled what he did and said, who missed his presence, who mourned his passing. They were something like the VFW who would talk about the good old days and all the struggles they had been through together. After Pentecost they were church, the body of Christ, the bold proclaimers of the kingdom of God, the ongoing continuation of the mission of Jesus in the world. The difference between before and after was the presence of the Holy Spirit. Before the coming of the Holy Spirit they remembered Jesus. After the coming of the Holy Spirit they embodied Jesus. Before the coming of the Holy Spirit they admired Jesus. After the coming of the Holy Spirit they imitated Jesus. Before the coming of the Holy Spirit they recognized Jesus as the Christ. After the coming of the Holy Spirit they became the body of Christ. Those first followers of Jesus were formed into the church because they were filled with the Holy Spirit.
As then, so now. What makes St. James a church is the presence of the Holy Spirit. According to the story of the first Pentecost when the followers of Jesus were filled with the Spirit they “began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.” While it might look a bit different than in New Testament times, we here at St. James speak in different tongues as well! If you look at the twenty-seven flags draped around our worship space you can infer the many different tongues that the members of our parish speak. You heard some of those different tongues in the first reading when some members of the parish spoke the Word of God in their native languages. But these diverse languages that are our heritage are not simply a quaint nostalgic reference to geography or upbringing. St. Paul reminds us in the epistle that “to each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.” On this Pentecost Sunday, then, we must look on this rich diversity as having a spiritual benefit. The different tongues at the first Pentecost had the benefit of enabling those first Christians to proclaim the message of Jesus to the multi-ethnic crowd gathered in Jerusalem for the Festival of Weeks. What about in our time? What spiritual benefit does our rich diversity bring?
The Bible provides the answer. Did you notice how many times St. Paul uses the word “one” in this short passage from his first letter to the Corinthians? Six times in six verses. It’s almost like he is banging us on the head with a nerf bat – do you get it yet? Following Jesus is about one-ness, about harmony, about unity. We live in a world which seems to draw endless distinctions, which has no tolerance for those who are “other,” which divides the world into Us versus Them. Some propose to solve problems by building walls. But the gift of the Spirit enables us to discover that beneath the diversity there lies a more basic unity, a oneness, a commonality. We are all made in the image and likeness of God. We are all beloved children of God. We are all precious in God’s sight. The differences that exist – differences of race or language or nationality or gender or social class or tribe – are not fundamental. When we see with the eyes of the Spirit we understand that some people have brown eyes and some people have blue eyes, some people are blonds and some people are brunettes, some people are tall and some people are short. But they are all people, which is to say all part of the family of God. The diversity here at St. James is a living manifestation of the oneness of humanity. When God looks at us he recognizes that we all possess a family resemblance to Jesus, the Son of God. So the first benefit the Spirit manifests in our midst is that there isn’t anyone here who isn’t brother or sister or mother to me. You are the we of me.
The flip side of that, of course, is that the diversity that we possess has a spiritual benefit in and of itself. God did not create human beings like so many army ants who are interchangeable parts on the relentless assembly line of life. No, we are all unique, a singular example of divine creativity. As St. Paul puts it: “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.” We can only be a Church filled with the Spirit by letting our different gifts, our different forms of service, our different work make their particular contribution to our life together. In other words, there can be no spectator Christians, no passive members. When we gather as the body of Christ we are all performance artists, not the audience. That means that we all have some homework to do. First, we have to understand what the Spirit has bestowed upon us as our gift, our service, our work. Perhaps our gift is a listening ear, a generous heart, a capable hand, an eloquent mouth. Perhaps we have a story to share, some suffering overcome, a dream to fulfill. Name the gift you have from the Spirit – and you do have one. Then comes the second part of the homework – figure out where and how to give that gift, perform that service, contribute that work. That is how the Church is a Spirit-filled Church – by each one making their own unique return to the Lord for blessings received.
The gift of the Spirit that enables us to be church looking the way we do is love. Jesus says, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” The Spirit of God dwells in St. James because we love one another. We love one another enough to forgive someone who hurt us. We love one another enough to genuinely listen to someone we disagree with. We love one another enough to be generous toward someone in need. We love one another enough to spend time with someone distraught. We love one another enough to hang in there. Love is the gift of the Spirit. Love is the indwelling of God. Love is what makes us Church.