Homily – Pentecost Sunday

“I’ll get you back.” “We’ll get you back.” Have you ever heard these words? Have you ever said them? Thought them? Felt them? Feelings and threats of payback often enough find their way into human relationships and human communities. We’ve all heard the saying, “don’t get angry, get even”. “Just wait until next time.” Some of these sentiments and sayings appear to be innocent but they are not. It would seem that payback runs deep in the human heart and is played out in many ways in human communities. In stark contrast to payback are the words of Jesus to his disciples in the gospel today – “peace be with you.” These are the first words spoken by Jesus to the disciples after the resurrection from the dead. Think about it. It is quite extraordinary really. Can you imagine the scene? He had twelve friends. They’d all deserted him. One betrayed him. Another denied even knowing him. At the end of the day he was hanging on a cross with only a couple of women and one disciple left. No wonder they were hiding in the upper room for a few weeks. It is not surprising that they hid away even further when they heard stories that the tomb had been found empty and rumors that he was alive! Can you imagine what they might have been expecting? You rotten so and so’s! How could you have gone and left me? Line up: it’s time for payback! No. Instead – ‘peace be with you’.

This is the day of the end of violent retribution and payback. This is the end of an eye for an eye. This is the end of having to resolve our battles and our differences by resorting to getting someone back for what happened to me. It’s over. Instead the message is peace and forgiveness.

The same thing happened eight days later. Peace be with you. As the Father is sending me, so am I sending you. No payback – but an invitation to do the same: to receive the Spirit that overcomes and transforms the human temptation to resolve our differences by getting rid of, bashing up or excluding the other. If you think it cannot happen, let’s remember that as we celebrate Reconciliation Week, it is only just over 40 years since the referendum which led to the counting of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the census in this country.

So what does receiving the Spirit mean for us? What does it mean for our parish? What does this mean for us in our lives this week? What does being filled with the Spirit mean for us? It means not being dragged along by the impulses of the mob, to knock what they knock, to bring down those whom they bring down, to run with those whom they run with, to make victim those whom they choose as victim, to blame for the wrongs of our community, our world, our times.

I actually will not be a better person or better liked because I can identify someone weaker or find someone to blame for the woes of my life or of our community’s situation. It means that I will not be diminished because someone else has gifts and talents that I do not have.

Pentecost is the birth of a community who are fundamentally a forgiving community because they were founded on forgiveness and not on payback. This means that our natural disposition is a call to acknowledge the goodness and giftedness of each person, and to be promoters and workers towards lasting peace and enduring reconciliation. The last line of the gospel tells us that if we do not practice forgiveness then it will not happen.

During this week let’s see if we can acknowledge one gift in someone else and give thanks to them and to God for that gift. Reconciliation and peace are habits we acquire through practice. And, of course, they are gifts of the Spirit.

By Brendan Reed