Here is a link to listen to the sermon by The Rev. Edwin Chinery on June 9, 2019, the Feast of Pentecost. There is also a link to the scripture for this Sunday and the text of the sermon below.

Lessons

You can read the scripture for June 9, 2019, here.

      Sermon - Feast of Pentecost 2019

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In today’s gospel passage we’re back in The Upper Room with Jesus – once again peeking in on his final conversation with the disciples. He’s been talking about what the disciples’ lives will be like after he departs – after he returns to “his Father”.

Now they’ve come to sort of understand what he’s about in the last three years – and like us, perhaps, never quite arriving. And they’ve grown quite comfortable with his physical presence among them – how he moves in and around their lives. They feel safe with him it always seems. But he’s begun to tell them that he must go, and – and this is the whole point of Pentecost and the coming of the spirit – that they can continue to rest assured in the knowledge that God will somehow still be present with them.

And then we hear from Philip. For Philip, Jesus’ assurance provides little comfort. He asks for proof. “Show us the Father and we’ll be satisfied”. (Interesting side note – he’s somehow avoided being labelled Doubting Philip.)

But again, in Johannine fashion, Jesus’ layers of response to Philip, and to the disciples, point toward being subject to – or stuck, really – in a pattern of understanding God as being external to them. Externalizing God, rather than in conceiving of God’s intrinsic nature – or, imagining the way in which God is already present in you. So, using very simple language, Jesus creates a series of images of how the God-head resides in Jesus and Jesus in the God-head. And then, as means of underscoring that point, he refers to how it’s that presence – the presence of the God-head within – that has enabled him to say the words – to teach – in the ways he has. It’s the God-head’s presence in him that has enabled him to perform the works he has.

Jesus is very much aware that it’s the combination of words and works that’s been so illuminating, so sustaining…so healing, affirming and just simply stirring – that all of this has brought those he’s loved and lived among to just this point. To the point of separation – the point of Jesus’ departure. And in beautifully balanced correlation, it’s the same point at which he is now letting them know that they’re ready to move from understanding God as external to them, and toward embracing God as being in them. In a new way. A way in which we can know without knowing, how God is both transcendent and imminent. Untouchable and yet inescapable.

And then he goes on: “The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these…because I am going to the Father.”

Now what do you suppose he means by that? “…will do works greater than these…because I am going to the Father”.

You may not agree with me, but I have a strong sense that Jesus’ linking of “works greater than these” and “I am going to the Father” d...