In the next three Sundays, we will celebrate three gifts: The Gift of the Spirit, The Gift of Relationship, and The Gift of Food. The Church calls these: Pentecost, Holy Trinity, and Corpus Christi (or the Body and Blood of Christ.)
St. Paul in the letter to the Corinthians makes the gift this Sunday most obvious. He insists that the Spirit is given to each member of the community not just a few gifted leaders or apostles.
Yet somehow in our competitive world, it is always the gift of someone else that get our attention either by way of admiration or of envy. But ignoring our own gifts because we have our eye on the gifts of others is not just foolish. It is wrong. It robs us of life, and it diminishes the glory and generosity of God to each of us.
Pentecost is about gifts, our gifts, and not just those seven gifts we memorized at the time of our Confirmation (wisdom, understanding, counsel, courage, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord). It is about the gifts and talents we often take for granted, or wrongly assume are just for ourselves. But, it is easy to get caught up in the excitement of these readings today.
The images are powerful and vivid: not just tongues of fire and a mighty wind, but also these disciples who are so transformed by their experience in that room: from fear to courage, from locked doors to wide open windows, from the shame of their betrayal to the pride of their calling, from the silence of whispered wishes to the bold proclamation.
Even an unbeliever would have to be impressed and filled with awe. A transformation of such significance can only be the work of God. It’s easy to hear these verses from Acts of the Apostles and wonder "How did they do that? How did they speak in all those tongues?” But, all the while ignoring what they said! You see what’s important is not how they spoke in all those tongues, but what they had to say, and the fact that some actually LISTENED! I would like to put it another way, and give you something to take home today.
Talking is not nearly as important as listening. It is the listening that makes a difference. Pay attention to the story of this day. The first important verse here for us is: "each one heard them speaking in his own language." Something happened that day because the crowd stopped to listen.
That had to happen first. What good would the gifts of the apostles had been if no one had been willing to listen? We are reminded today more about listening than about talking. If the apostles had not listened to Jesus, they would have had nothing to say. If the people in the streets had not listened to the apostles, nothing would have happened that would have made any difference. The listening changed everything, not just the talking. What good can it do to say "I'm sorry" or “I love you” if no one listens to the words? I need to remind myself every day, about the need to listen.
It seems to me that one of the gifts of the Spirit is the gift of listening—a little more involved, a little more important than "hearing,” listening is part of the gift of Understanding and Wisdom. The image of the tongue, the tongue of fire, which artists have so quickly captured, should perhaps someday be an image of an ear of fire.
You see, the miracle of the tongues takes us nowhere without the miracle of the ears. They are both essential to make the Pentecost experience complete. We are never going to have the peace that Jesus promises until we learn to listen: listen to the cry of the poor, listen to the anger of the oppressed, listen to the pain of the sick and those living with AIDS, listen to the silence of those treated unjustly, listen to hearts of the lonely, listen to the whispers of the old and abandoned, the joy of the youth.
The gift of Peace that Jesus wishes for us will only find a home in the hearts of those whose lives, open to the Spirit, talk less, and listen more.
St. Paul in the letter to the Corinthians makes the gift this Sunday most obvious. He insists that the Spirit is given to each member of the community not just a few gifted leaders or apostles.
Yet somehow in our competitive world, it is always the gift of someone else that get our attention either by way of admiration or of envy. But ignoring our own gifts because we have our eye on the gifts of others is not just foolish. It is wrong. It robs us of life, and it diminishes the glory and generosity of God to each of us.
Pentecost is about gifts, our gifts, and not just those seven gifts we memorized at the time of our Confirmation (wisdom, understanding, counsel, courage, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord). It is about the gifts and talents we often take for granted, or wrongly assume are just for ourselves. But, it is easy to get caught up in the excitement of these readings today.
The images are powerful and vivid: not just tongues of fire and a mighty wind, but also these disciples who are so transformed by their experience in that room: from fear to courage, from locked doors to wide open windows, from the shame of their betrayal to the pride of their calling, from the silence of whispered wishes to the bold proclamation.
Even an unbeliever would have to be impressed and filled with awe. A transformation of such significance can only be the work of God. It’s easy to hear these verses from Acts of the Apostles and wonder "How did they do that? How did they speak in all those tongues?” But, all the while ignoring what they said! You see what’s important is not how they spoke in all those tongues, but what they had to say, and the fact that some actually LISTENED! I would like to put it another way, and give you something to take home today.
Talking is not nearly as important as listening. It is the listening that makes a difference. Pay attention to the story of this day. The first important verse here for us is: "each one heard them speaking in his own language." Something happened that day because the crowd stopped to listen.
That had to happen first. What good would the gifts of the apostles had been if no one had been willing to listen? We are reminded today more about listening than about talking. If the apostles had not listened to Jesus, they would have had nothing to say. If the people in the streets had not listened to the apostles, nothing would have happened that would have made any difference. The listening changed everything, not just the talking. What good can it do to say "I'm sorry" or “I love you” if no one listens to the words? I need to remind myself every day, about the need to listen.
It seems to me that one of the gifts of the Spirit is the gift of listening—a little more involved, a little more important than "hearing,” listening is part of the gift of Understanding and Wisdom. The image of the tongue, the tongue of fire, which artists have so quickly captured, should perhaps someday be an image of an ear of fire.
You see, the miracle of the tongues takes us nowhere without the miracle of the ears. They are both essential to make the Pentecost experience complete. We are never going to have the peace that Jesus promises until we learn to listen: listen to the cry of the poor, listen to the anger of the oppressed, listen to the pain of the sick and those living with AIDS, listen to the silence of those treated unjustly, listen to hearts of the lonely, listen to the whispers of the old and abandoned, the joy of the youth.
The gift of Peace that Jesus wishes for us will only find a home in the hearts of those whose lives, open to the Spirit, talk less, and listen more.
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