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Scripture In Depth
Solemnity of Pentecost C
May 19, 2013
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Pentecost originated as a final celebration of the
ingathering of the grain harvest, which had begun at
Passover. Later Judaism transformed it into a feast of
salvation history celebrating the giving of the Law at
Sinai and the establishment of Israel as God’s
people.
All these associations were carried over into the
Christian feast that marked the conclusion of the great
fifty days. The grain harvest and the Law are replaced
by the gift of the Spirit, and the constitution of the
old Israelis replaced by the constitution of the new.
The feast of the Law becomes the feast of the
Spirit.
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Reading I: Acts 2:1-11 There is no unanimity in the New Testament about a
single outpouring of the Spirit. The gospel of the day,
as we shall see, places the gift of the Spirit on Easter
Sunday evening, while Acts 2 puts it on Pentecost.
Originally, perhaps, the gift of the Spirit was
associated with each of the resurrection appearances,
and perhaps the Pentecost story corresponds to the
otherwise unknown appearance to the five hundred (1 Cor 15:6).
Historically, this appearance marks the foundation of
the Church as a wider community than the original Twelve
and the beginning of the kerygma. Perhaps, as a later
part of this story suggests (the crowd’s suspicion
that the apostles were full of new wine), the beginning
of the kerygma was marked by an outburst of glossolalia
such as Paul describes as taking place at Corinth (1 Cor 12-14).
This earlier concept of glossolalia has been overlaid
with a new symbolism (whether due to Luke or to his
tradition, we cannot say) in which Pentecost reverses
the effect of Babel.
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Responsorial Psalm: 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34
This is a hymn of praise to God for his works in
creation. The dominant theology of the Spirit in the
wisdom literature (“the Spirit of God fills the
world”) stresses the work of the Spirit in the
created order.
By contrast, the New Testament concentrates almost
exclusively on the eschatological work of the Spirit.
The pneumatology of the New Testament is conditioned by
its Christology.
When the psalmist speaks of the “renewal” of
creation through the Spirit, he is probably thinking of
no more than the renewal of nature at springtime.
But in Christian use it can be reinterpreted to mean the
eschatological renewal of creation, a renewal of which
the Church is the first fruits.
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Reading II: 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13 or Romans
8:8-17
Paul’s Corinthians were very keen on glossolalia,
but its effect on the community was questionable. It led
to divisivenessthose who spoke in tongues treated
those who did not have this particular gift as
second-class citizens.
In reply, Paul insists on several things here. First, to
have the Spirit means to confess that Jesus is
Lord.
Here Paul’s use of the name Jesus is especially
nuanced. “Jesus” means the earthly Jesus,
Christ crucified.
The Corinthians regarded the death of Christ as a mere
episode of the past and put all their money on the
purely spiritual, ethereal Christ. Paul recalls them to
the centrality of the cross, pricking the bubble of
their enthusiasm.
Second, the gifts of the Spirit take different forms,
not just the one form of speaking in tongues. Each gift,
however unspectacular, has to be used for the common
good.
Third, the gift of the Spirit must not lead to
individualism but to the building up of the corporate
body of the community. The Church is one body through a
common baptism and a common “drinking of one
Spirit.”
The latter is probably a reference to the baptismal
Eucharist rather than to a rite analogous to the later
rite of confirmation (see “supernatural
drink” in 1 Cor 10:4). Here is a further
suggestion that 1 Corinthians was written for the
paschal feast.
OR
Reading II: Romans 8:8-17
Chapter 8 forms the climax of the first, doctrinal part
of Romans. In chapters 1-4 the Apostle had first
prepared the way for, and then enunciated, his message
of justification by grace alone through faith. Now,
having dealt in chapters 5-7 with certain objections to
that message, Paul is ready to move from justification
to the new life in the Spirit that justification opens
up for the believers.
(Verses) 8-11 can be found on the fifth
Sunday of Lent in series A.
These verses speak of the Spirit’s indwelling the
believers as a result of their baptism, making them
participants in advance in the resurrection life and
renewing their inner being daily in preparation for that
resurrection life.
Verses
12-17
insist that baptism is only a beginning. Life in the
Spirit is a life of freedom, but it is always a freedom
struggling with constant temptation. For life in the
Spirit means being under the lordship of Christ.
The baptized are not under obligation to the
“flesh” (our old, unredeemed nature, not
some higher nature); therefore they must mortify the
deeds of the body (remember, this will include pride as
well as sensuality). They must be “driven”
by the Spirit.
At this point notice how Paul appropriates and sanctions
the language of the charismatic enthusiasts, which he
had probably picked up at Corinth. But, significantly,
he gives it an ethical twist.
Not spiritual excitement and religious emotion but
obedient Christian living is the supreme test of the
Spirit’s presence and activity.
It is that, rather than overpowering emotion, that will
entitle Christians to cry out in worship, “Abba,
Father.” And still that acclamation is
characterized by a “not yet.” Only at the
final consummation will the believers really receive the
“adoption” anticipated in baptism.
For, as an Anglican theologian of the last generation,
Oliver Chase Quick, used to teach, sacraments are both
symbolic and instrumental. Baptism is symbolic of our
final salvation, and it is instrumental in inaugurating
the life in the Spirit that is to be consummated in that
final salvation.
As we noted above, the freedom of the Spirit is a
struggling freedom. This means that baptism inaugurates
a life characterized by an element of suffering.
Suffering is symbolized in baptism when the converts
symbolically die with Christ; it is effectualized
internally in mortification, and externally in
persecution.
Then, at the final consummation, the suffering will lead
to glory, when the believers will inherit the kingdom of
God with Christ (v. 17).
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Gospel: John 20:19-23 or 14:15-16, 23b-26
We have already seen that John places the giving of the
Spirit on Easter day, and we have discussed the
historical and theological grounds for this.
Here, as in Acts, the Spirit empowers the Church for its
mission (“even so I send you”). The mission
is defined here, however, not as kerygma but as the
forgiving and retaining of sins.
The traditional Catholic and High Anglican
interpretation of this has seen it as a reference to the
sacrament of penance, but this is probably an
anachronism as far as the evangelist is concerned.
In the New Testament, forgiveness of sins is baptismal
language (see Luke 24:47), and what we have here is the
Johannine version of the tradition, which includes in
the appearance stories the command to baptize.
Our text speaks of the giving or withholding of baptism
consequent upon faith or unbelief at hearing the gospel
message. Only derivatively and insofar as the sacrament
of absolution is a renewal of the baptismal status can
this text be stretched to cover the traditional
interpretation.
If our new interpretation be sustained, it is
significant that both the second reading and the gospel
speak of baptism, for in patristic times Pentecost was
the day when those who for some reason had missed their
baptism at Easter were baptized.
Baptism was not continually administered at any time of
the year because its corporate significance was
paramount.
OR
Gospel: John 14:15-16, 23b-26
We see here the same kind of spiral thought that
characterizes the farewell discourse throughout and of
which we spoke in our comments on last Sunday’s
gospel. The points made are:
1. Love of Christ means obedience to his
commandments.
2. The promise of the Paraclete (RSV:
“Counselor”) sent by the Father in
response to the prayer of the Son.
3. The Spirit, whom the world cannot receive, will
dwell in the community.
4. The coming of the Spirit is equivalent to the
return of the Son and almost completely fulfills the
primitive expectation of the parousia.
5. The world will no longer see the Christ, but the
community will (a) see him, (b) live because he
lives, (c) know the mutual indwelling of Christ with
the Father and of Christ with the community.
6. This indwelling is a relationship of mutual love
that includes obedience to Christ’s
commandments.
It will again be noted how point 6 brings us full
circle to where we were at point 1. Yet, the spiral
leads to an enrichment of understanding.
The Christian life is not an external observance of
Christ’s commandments but an intense relationship
of the community to the three Persons of the Trinity,
each with a specific role to play in this
relationship.
The Spirit conveys the presence of the Son, who reveals
the Father.
But this intense personal relationship is not dissolved
into mere emotion; it is concretely and soberly
manifested in a life of obedience to Christ’s
commandments.
The departure of Jesus does not mean that he is now
absent. It means his ever-renewed presence through the
coming of the Spirit to the community. That is the
Easter message of this gospel reading.
Commentary on John 14:23-29
In the Easter season we tend to read the farewell
discourses, with their promise of the coming of the
Paraclete (RSV:
“Counselor”), as discourses given by the
risen and not yet ascended Lord during the forty days in
preparation for the coming of the Spirit at
Pentecost.
For the evangelist, they are discourses of the earthly
Jesus, placed in the context of the Last Supper. They
look through and beyond the death of Jesus to his
glorification, which releases the gift of the Spirit.
Thus, in the early Church the whole of the fifty days
included the celebration of the gift of the Spirit, not
just the day of Pentecost.
We are here listening to a promise fulfilled at Easter.
In the Fourth Gospel the risen Christ conveys the gift
of the Spirit to his disciples on Easter Sunday evening
(see the gospel of Pentecost Sunday). The Spirit is, as
in Paul’s letters, the gift of the risen
Christ.
In the gift of the Spirit, the risen Christ and the
Father come and make their home with the disciples.
The function of the Spirit is to “teach you all
things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have
said to you.” It is not the work of the Spirit to
convey ever new revelations, but to unfold in ever new
understanding, interpretation, and application the
once-for-all revelation of Jesus Christ (“all that
I have said to you”).
“His work is more than a reminiscence of the
ipsissima verba of the Son of God; it is a living
representation of all that he had spoken to his
disciples, a creative exploitation of the gospel”
(E. C. Hoskyns).
This ongoing work of the Spirit gives the disciples
peace and takes away their fear, because the Spirit is
always there as their helper who stands by them in
persecution and martyrdom.
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Copyright © 1984 by The Order of St. Benedict, Inc.,
Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved. Used by
permission from The Liturgical Press,
Collegeville, Minnesota 56321
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Preaching the Lectionary:
The Word of God for the Church Today
Reginald H. Fuller. The Liturgical Press. 1984 (Revised
Edition),
pp. 87, 96, 98-100, 435, 441-442..
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Thank you to Liturgical Press who makes
this page possible
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For more information about the 3rd edition (2006)
of
Preaching the Lectionary
click picture above.
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Art by Martin Erspamer, O.S.B.
from
Religious Clip Art for the Liturgical
Year
(A, B, and C).
Used by permission of Liturgy Training
Publications. This art may be reproduced
only by parishes who purchase the
collection in book or CD-ROM form. For
more information go to:
http://www.ltp.org/
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