St George's Cathedral, Cape Town

A sermon preached by The Reverend Bruce W. B. Jenneker in the Cathedral of St George the Martyr, Cape Town, at Solemn Evensong on the Feast of Pentecost, 31 May 2009

Tonight we solemnly celebrate the birthday of the Church when the promised Hoy Spirit came in tongues of fire to touch and transform each of the disciples. To focus our celebration the Church turns our attention, not to the historical moment of the descent of the Spirit, but to two very different moments. First we are taken into the fabric of our Jewish heritage and reminded of the original festival of Pentecost. Next, we are taken to the moment at the heart of our Lord's last night on earth, before he was betrayed, tried under Pontius Pilate and crucified. We listen with the disciples to some of his most poignant farewell words. In these two moments from our spiritual history the Church bids us discover the meaning of the feast we keep so solemnly tonight.

Pentecost is a Jewish feast, one of the principal agricultural feast of the Jewish religious calendar. The word Pentecost is derived from the root work for the number five. Pentecost means to 50 days. In Jewish numerology the number 50 has a unique significance which is based on its connection with the number 7. 7 is important because it represents the cycle of creation, repeated perpetually in the pattern of our weeks as the moon orbits the earth – in six days God created the universe and on the seventh day God rested: 6 plus 1 = 7. Since 7 is a distinctive number representing the Divine energy at work creating the universe, the number 49, 7 weeks – 7x7 days – brings us even close to this wonder of the Divine energy. 7x7 is 49 - and while 49 days by themselves would give us a glimpse of the mystery of God, 7x7+1 goes over the top, opening us in time to the wonder of God. That is the meaning of 50 days – and for Jews the Feast of Weeks, coming 50 days after the solemn celebration of the Passover, was of towering significance. It celebrated the wonder of a God who not only redeems and saves, but who also provides in lavish generosity for the needs of God's people. The Feast of Weeks or Pentecost was, and remains for our Jewish brothers and sisters, a festival of joy and thanksgiving to celebrate the completion of the harvest season, for the enduring loving-kindness of God in which God redeems God's people, provides for God's people, and remains with God's people, present in loving solidarity . It was celebrated as a Sabbath day on which the people rested from all ordinary toil and tasks and a participated in a solemn religious ceremony of high festivity.

Over time, with the urbanization of the Jewish people, this festival in thanksgiving for the first fruits became a festival in thanksgiving for the gift of the Law – in which God secures God's people, guides them in the way of justice, peace and righteousness and guarantees their welfare. It is from this ancient Jewish feast that the Lectionary intends us to discover the meaning of the Feast of Pentecost we keep tonight.

Next, the Lectionary turns our attention to our Lord's farewell words to his disciples, words that take their meaning from the context in which they were spoken. It was the last night of his life. First he washed the disciples feet, giving them and us an example of how we are to love and serve one another in the pattern of our Lord's love and service. Next he shared a meal with them, breaking the bread and blessing the cup, and commanding them and us to do this in memory of him. Then he speaks to them, long and tenderly, of the meaning of his life and theirs, of the significance of his passion and death and the weight of the mission and ministry he was entrusting to them.

From the rich tapestry of these two moments in our spiritual history we unravel the threads to uncover the meaning of the feast we keep tonight. And that meaning is single and simple, unified and uniform - as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. That meaning is love. It is God's love that brings a universe to birth, it is God's love that provides and nurtures, chooses and protects, sustains and blesses with an extravagant abundance way beyond our asking or imagining. It is love that informs and shapes the Feast of Weeks. The people of God express their loving thanksgiving for God loving provision by offering the first fruits of the Spring Harvest. Love in thanksgiving meets Love creating, sustaining and redeeming. So too it is love than impels and empowers Christ self-sacrifice, himself the first fruit given to save and restore the humanity he shares with us in God's name and by God's intent.

The Fourth Gospel has always been the preferred Gospel of Anglicanism. The banner of our Communion bears as a motto the words The Truth shall make you Free from John 8:32. The Fourth Gospel is pre-eminently the Gospel of Love. The word 'love' is used 76 times in the four Gospels and more than half of those uses, 39 of them, occur in the Gospel of John, and of those 39 uses John makes of this important word, 20 of them occur in our Lord's Farewell Discourse, in chapters 13-17 of John's Gospel.

So – when the flames have subsided and the fierce wind is stilled, when ears no longer understand the many tongues which every one can suddenly speak, then the truth of this remarkable day is raised up high, to shape our lives and inform our identity.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

This is the feast we keep, the life we live, the ministry we share and the mission to which we are called. That we should love as God loves in creating and sustaining us. That we should love as Christ loves in saving us and liberating us. This is the gift, call and blessing of Pentecost – the gift of Love.

But this gift is no mere sentiment or cosy feeling of warm affection and tender desire. The love that is ours at Pentecost is the Love-that-holds-the-Universe-together. It is a self-sacrificial love that cherishes the earth and sky and sea, stewarding them with faithful care, using their resources responsibly in our own time and leaving them well preserved for those who come after us. This is the love that is ours at Pentecost – it is nothing less than the Love-that-holds-the-Universe-together. It is living in alignment with God's purposes, lining ourselves up with the plumb-line of justice and peace, reconciliation and restoration that is God's will for us all. The love that is ours at Pentecost, it is the Love-that-holds-the-Universe-together. It is saying 'Yes' to the righteousness of God and letting that goodness and truth direct and rule our lives – turning away from the temptations that beset us to lie, to rob others of esteem and control, to gain our comfort and possessions at the cost of others. The love that is ours at Pentecost, it is the Love-that-holds-the-Universe-together, gathering us all in to the embrace of God's love so that no one is forgotten, not one is left out and no one is left behind. The love that is ours at Pentecost is the Love-that-holds-the-Universe-together. May this gift be kindled in our hearts, a living and holy flame to burn in us for ever, for our good, for the good of all God's world and to the Glory of the name of our God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

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