Pentecostal Jubilee: A Sermon for Whitsun
At Early Communion on Whitsunday 2022, during the Platinum Jubilee
Acts 2:11
Seventy years ago, Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne. As part of the ancient coronation rite in Westminster Abbey, the new monarch was anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
These words were prayed at the anointing: “Confirm and stablish her with thy free and princely Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom and government, the Spirit of counsel and ghostly strength, the Spirit of knowledge and true godliness”.
The act of anointing, echoing the anointing of prophets, priests, and kings in the Scriptures of Israel, is a sign and symbol of the gift of the Holy Spirit strengthening, guiding, and sustaining a person for Christian life and witness.
It is the case, of course, that the anointing of a monarch in Westminster Abbey is a dramatic occasion.
But the subsequent evidence of the presence and gifts of the Holy Spirit in a life is rarely dramatic.
It bears fruit in the ordinary responsibilities and duties of a life.
It is characterised not by self-promotion but by humility.
It usually finds expression not in dramatic experiences but in a quiet wisdom which guides and sustains.
Or, as the Archbishop of York said, in words addressed to the Queen at Friday’s National Service of Thanksgiving: “But with endurance, through times of change and challenge, joy and sorrow, you continue to offer yourself in the service of our country and the commonwealth”.
Such is the presence and gifts of the Holy Spirit.
The signs which assure us of that presence and those gifts can have a dramatic quality, but the fruit is found in ordinary faithfulness in ordinary duties and responsibilities.
We see this in the reading from Acts appointed for this feast of Pentecost, or Whitsunday.
Yes, it begins with the dramatic: tongues of fire, the rush of a violent wind.
But the presence and fruit of the Spirit is seen in something quite ordinary: the crowds from various nations say of the disciples, “in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power”.
The fruit, in other words, is what the Church has done across centuries: telling the story of God’s acts in Jesus Christ.
Showing that here there is peace, forgiveness, reconciliation, renewal, healing, hope.
As individual Christians, it is what we are called to show in our own daily lives.
Nothing dramatic. Nothing exceptional.
But that steady faithfulness which shows, over time, in good times and bad, what it is to be rooted in God; in God’s grace, love, wisdom, goodness.
The Christian life begins in the waters of Baptism; it is strengthened by the laying on of the bishop’s hands at Confirmation.
And we might note, by the way, that the words prayed at the anointing of a new monarch are an echo of the words prayed over us when we are Confirmed.
At both the Sacrament of Baptism and the Rite of Confirmation, dramatic words accompany the dramatic acts.
But just as on that first Pentecost, and just as with the anointing of Elizabeth our Queen on 2nd June 1953, the fruit of the presence and gifts of the Holy Spirit is found in how we live out the ordinary routines, the daily duties.
The older collect for this feast of Whitsunday captures this in a meaningful way.
It begins by recollecting the dramatic outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, but then prays: “Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things”.
‘A right judgement in all things’: in our daily responsibilities and duties.
‘A right judgement’ which comes from being rooted in the life of God, drawing on and nourished by God’s grace, love, wisdom, goodness in daily life.
Such has been the example of Elizabeth II.
May it also be true of us, living daily life in the communion of the Holy Spirit.
(The picture is of the Coronation Ampulla and Spoon for the anointing of the monarch.)
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