THE UNSPOKEN WORD - May 31, Pentecost - Homily --   Acts 2: 1 to 11 / me Cor.  12: 3 to 13 / 
                                                                                                                                                        John 20: 19 to 23.
 
            From 1984, Animal Farm and Peter Pan to “You Are My Sunshine,” “Poison Ivy,” “Puff, the Magic Dragon” and “Hotel California,” pop culture revels in allegory. No one has any trouble “getting” the hidden messages. In high school lit class, we may have struggled with the differences between a metaphor, a simile, an extended metaphor and an allegory, but they are among the most commonplace - as well as the most complex - ways we express ourselves. “Like” is, like, the most-over-used word, like, Ever! 
 
            It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that the inspired words of Scripture often take the form of metaphor and allegory. The Vigil and daytime Masses for the Solemn Feast of Pentecost offer us a “feast” of them. In fact, the story of the descent of the Holy Spirit as told by Saint Luke in the Acts of the Apostles is an allegory made up of allegories. He uses a bunch of old stories to tell a new one. In Hebrew, this literary trick is called “midrash,” and the Bible fairly bristles with them.
 
            How do we know that? Remember, in a previous homily, we looked at the contradictory ways each evangelist told the story of the Ascension. Did it happen in Jerusalem or 120 miles away in Galilee? Did it happen on Easter night or forty days later? When we spoke about these puzzlements, we concluded that geography was at the service of doctrine and time was bent to theology.
 
            The same holds true in the stories of the giving of the Holy Spirit.  In today’s Gospel, Saint John tells us that the Risen Lord Jesus bestowed the Holy Spirit on the eleven disciples on the night of His resurrection, when He appeared to them in the room where they had been sequestered since the crucifixion. This is a far cry from fifty days afterward, which is Saint Luke’s version. They cannot both be right - unless the “truth” they are telling is imbedded within the story they are telling.
 
            Let’s start with the Gospel, even though the trappings of Saint Luke’s story are the images most often used in art and music, Saint John - just like Saint Luke - uses allegory to tell his story.
 
            At the beginning of his Gospel, Saint John presents a stirring poem about the eternal Word of God - a hymn that interpreted, rather than merely described, the Incarnation. Where Saint Luke had shepherds and angels, and Saint Matthew stars and magi, Saint John has a poem. Its central sentence reads, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The run-up to this great reveal, however, relies on the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible. “In the beginning,” wrote the author of Genesis, “the earth was waste and void and darkness brooded over the abyss.” That, in itself, is great poetry. But there’s more. “A mighty wind (in Hebrew “ruah”) swept over the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light!’ and there was light!”
 
            Saint John pointedly begins his Gospel with the same opening phrase, “In the beginning.” But - already at the start - there is no longer chaos; instead there is the “Word” God has spoken. And that Word is God’s own Self. And that Selfsame Word creates all things. Now, as his Gospel draws to a close, Saint John portrays Jesus, the “Word made flesh,” speaking a phrase much like “Let it be.” Jesus says to his shame-ridden, cowardly and cowering disciples, “Peace be with you!” Then He breathes (“ruah”) on them. This gesture not only echoes the mighty wind that swept the waters as God spoke; it also recalls the creation of Adam in the second chapter of Genesis: “God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being.” For Saint John, the Risen Lord creates the world and humankind anew through the giving of the Holy Spirit.
 
            The mission of us renewed human beings is to continue the work of re-creating the world by forgiving: “As the Father sent me, so I send you.” Although the Catholic Church formalized this mission/gift in the Sacrament of Penance, the work of re-creation does not stop at the confessional door. The Sacrament assures us of God’s forgiveness precisely in order to empower us. It frees us from the chains of guilt and recrimination, so that we can work - singly and together, in ways small and large - to re-create the world of our own time through the powerful act of forgiveness.
 
            Forgiveness is hard. It is counter-intuitive. Blame is easier. Blame excuses us from dialogue and compromise. Blame offers us black or white choices. Blame provides a clear path forward. Our technological society is awash in binary choices. But what makes computers efficient causes interpersonal relationships to crash. There is no crisis, whether global or familial, that cannot be softened by a little forgiveness.
 
            Now that we’ve watched allegory at work in John’s Gospel, let’s see how it functions in Saint Luke’s version of the coming of the Holy Spirit. He needs the fifty days so that the Passover, the actual date of Jesus' death, cedes to Pentecost, also called “The Feast of Weeks,” a harvest festival that had morphed over time into a commemoration of the Torah.
 
            So the story actually begins almost a thousand years earlier. Hebrew slaves, under cover of a pandemic, flee their Egyptian overlords. Moses, a fugitive from the Pharaoh’s justice, leads them through the Sinai wastelands to the base of a mountain. No matter its name, it is a mountain because, for ancient peoples, gods visited human beings in high places - closer to heaven. Yahweh-God makes His presence felt in a violent meteorological event. There’s crashing thunder; ferocious lightning; dense fog and what seems like a “pillar of flame” (perhaps a volcanic eruption?) In that setting, at once terrifying and compelling, God gives the Law that will weld refugees into a community. He makes a covenant with the Hebrews. Israel is born.
 
            The Pentecost episode in Acts goes further than today’s reading, all the way to verse 41. We actually heard “the rest of the story” back on the Third Sunday of Easter. Notice how the disciples are in a room. It’s the same room where Jesus appeared in John’s Gospel on Easter night. But, near the end of our reading, the room becomes simply “the place where they were.” A closed room would make it impossible for people outside to hear the wind. Luke fudges the location for the sake of his allegory.
 
            Although he was a Gentile Christian, Saint Luke was conversant with the great stories of the Hebrew Testament and the device of midrash. To interpret Christ’s gift of the Holy Spirit, he draws not only upon the story of the Sinai Covenant, but also on images found in Genesis, Ezekiel, Joel, and Psalm 104. 
 
            There is a “strong wind” blowing inside the room, so loud that it draws the attention of people in the streets. There is a flame that seems to break itself off into flickering “tongues.” Saint Luke takes us back to the epiphany of Yahweh-God on Mt. Sinai in the Book of Exodus. The stunned Apostles babble incoherently, as did the construction crew building the ill-fated Tower of Babel in the Book of Genesis. But, where hubris had broken the world’s coherence, the Spirit brings unity in diversity - every language speaks one message of God’s salvation. In Ezekiel, God tells the prophet to prophesy over the sun-bleached bones in a metaphorical battle field and restore fallen soldiers to life. This was itself an allegory promising the restoration of Israel’s land and people after the Babylonian exile. Joel’s prophesy that “young men shall see visions and old men dream dreams” is played out in the ecstasy of the Apostles and the bemusement of the crowds. Psalm 104 comes true as the descent of the Holy Spirit begins the “renewal of the face of the earth.”
 
            However, what we don’t see in today’s reading is the crowd’s reaction, so typical of cynical, mistrustful human beings. They are not impressed by - much less attracted to - the simultaneously translated message of the Apostles. They are merely “astounded” and “amazed.” The Greek word translated as “amazed” always implies skepticism and debunking. Saint Peter is forced to point out that it’s too early in the day for him and his friends to be drunk!! Only then can he tell them the wonderful story of Jesus, the healer and teacher, crucified at the instigation of the Sanhedrin with the collusion of Pilate, but raised from the dead and seen by His friends.
 
            The crowd’s is almost as nonplussed by Peter’s tale as they were flummoxed by the speaking in tongues: “What are we supposed to do?” This question is often read as instant docility and compliance with Saint Peter’s spellbinding speech. But Saint Luke places the fretful question at the climax of his story because he intends it to resonate in his own community. They were at a crossroads, a “pause” in the forward movement of the Church, caused by confusion over Christ’s Second Coming and fear of persecution. It has echoed down the ages because it is humanity’s essential question. Confronted by the breakdown of our systems of order and community, and by the babble of competing “truths," we say, “What do we do?”
 
            The mission assigned the Apostles by Jesus is couched differently in different Gospels: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you ... forgive!”; “Go, therefore and teach all nations ... I am with you always!” “Wait until you receive the Holy Spirit; then you will be My witnesses ... to the ends of the earth.”
 
             In today’s second reading, from Saint Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, a similar situation hovers.   The Corinthian Church is a fragmented community. Some people fling their Spirit-gifts in others’ faces. There is reprisal and recrimination. Saint Paul says that every genuine gift of the Spirit must be used to bring about unity and tranquility. “Peace,” said Jesus, “forgive.” “Repent,” said Saint Peter, “believe.”
 
            Saint Paul tells his fractious Corinthians that “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord!’ except through the Holy Spirit.” He is not talking merely about professing an article of Faith. “Lord” - in Greek, “Kurios,” and in Latin, “Dominus” - stood for the Emperor’s title in Rome and equally for “Yahweh-God” in the Hebrew Testament.  “Jesus is Lord” is a proclamation of belief in the Incarnation - the incredible belief that, in Jesus of Nazareth, God has embraced the earth and everyone on it. But, at the same time, it is also political defiance of the Emperors’ presumption of a godlike entitlement.
 
            “What are we supposed to do,” is the oft-heard complaint of people tired of social distancing, suffocating under hot masks, desperate for distraction, terrified of financial ruin, numb before the loss of over 100,000 fellow citizens. What are we to do?
 
            In Baptism, we have been “gifted” with the same Holy Spirit who so emboldened the craven Apostles. “Repent” of self-centered attitudes hindering recovery. “Forgive” those who see things differently, whether they are sincere, obtuse or venal. Spread “Peace” by being peaceful. Distinguish rightly the domain of Caesar and the domain of Church; right now, Caesar holds the high cards. Use our gifts - both spiritual and practical - all our talents, to renew (our little corner of) the face of the earth. Reopening will come. It is up to us whether it will be characterized by binary reprisal and recrimination or by merciful re-creation and renewal.