The Work of the Spirit

Day of Pentecost - June 8, 2025

Rev Sarah Colvin

You can find this week's readings here.

Happy Birthday Church!

The church as an institution is imperfect, but it is best when it strives to do the work of Jesus, which we can accomplish only when Jesus abides in us. Just as for Jesus, “the Father who dwells in me does his works”, the Spirit of truth will now do the works of Jesus, with and in the disciples and us. The Paraclete – the Greek word in the text for the Spirit - is also then a sort of translator too, a means of connecting the disciples and us with God’s purpose, translating the will of God into our actions.

For whatever reason, I don’t often choose the Genesis story of Babel on the day of Pentecost. There are many who link the story of Acts—many people speaking different languages, but people are understanding their own—to the Babel story in Genesis, which is really the story of the creation of different languages. However, I think the story of Babel serves a different purpose in the Bible. Although yes, it is a mythical explanation of how all languages came to be, I think the other important theme in the story is God limiting or checking human power. Yes, human civilization clearly requires rules to live by ---some system of governance is required, but it is never a good thing when people wield too much power. And in this story, God clearly wants to put a check on unchecked human power. The similarity of Yertle the Turtle to the Babel story is somewhat striking. Dr. Seuss had a good story on which to pattern.

But notice that the story of Acts is not a reversal of the story of Babel, just like our collective reading of the story in Acts, we don’t all speak one language again. The Spirit is what enables us to understand each in our own language. There is something to when people are touched by the Spirit; we gain what we might call our humanity, we gain understanding of the other. And there is something holy about the diversity of humanity, as all are made one in understanding even as our languages still differ. This is surely the work of the one who, according to the final book in Scripture, will gather every tribe and language and people and nation to feast at the banquet that awaits us.

Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as another comforter, another paraclete. And I don’t think it is unrelated that John at the beginning of this Gospel refers to Jesus as the Word, or the logic, or the understanding. And this second comforter, this paraclete, the Holy Spirit, this Spirit is what enables us to understand each other, to know and receive the logic of God’s Word. This Spirit is active whenever we engage with the other, whenever there is understanding, whenever there is not a power grab but instead a concern for another’s well-being. Somebody is always going to be smarter or less smart, stronger or less strong, have more money or less, have more than enough food, or going hungry, and our concern is not to pass judgment on the other, but to ensure that the other is okay. thriving. This is what drives Christianity. This is the work of the Spirit.

The Spirit drives the experience of the disciples and is active in their experience; in fact, the Spirit is closer than they would otherwise be inclined to imagine. Similarly, the Spirit is what drives us to reach to the other, always closer than what we think might be possible.

While we should consider some claims to the Spirit’s presence and activity cautiously, the Paraclete is present whenever the life of Jesus is remembered and where his “works” are performed anew, translated into our present life. The Paraclete is simply the presence of Jesus in the Church, at all times and in all ways, in struggle as well as in joy. If the Paraclete is always at our side, it is when we are most like Jesus that the Spirit is most clearly active; not in our feelings alone, but in our actions, not only in peak experiences, but in struggle. Above all, the Spirit is known in the keeping of Jesus’ commandments, and hence in love of him and of each other.

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IMAGE ATTRIBUTION: Kossowski, Adam. Veni Sancti Spiritus, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56946 [retrieved June 10, 2025]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/8750321716 - Fr Lawrence Lew, O.P..