In order to create a hospitable space in their hearts for the Spirit, the disciples spent time together ”constantly in prayer” (Acts 1.14).

For the disciples, prayer was a process of developing an awareness of, and availability to, the Spirit. It involved waiting upon the Spirit and a willingness to yield to the Spirit. It was essentially a desire to live life wholly and solely in the joie de vive of the Spirit. Prayer had an important place in their life together, because they recognised that the joie de vive’ of the Spirit was the centre of energy that they needed to practice the Be-Attitudes.

Prayer became the ‘still point’ around which their life revolved; the ‘point of integration’ where their inner and outer conflicts were resolved; the ‘starting point’ at which people began to live again; and the ‘point of departure’ from which people began to experiment with practicing the Be-Attitudes. (Acts1.12-26)

The disciples prayed constantly because, finally, after trying and failing, they came to realise that it was only in encounter with the Spirit that all that was good could be affirmed, all that was evil could be confronted, and their task for the future outlined; that a vision of justice could be revealed and an infusion of grace could be realised; and they could access the vitality they needed to practice the Be-Attitudes required to engage in the struggle for the salvation of the world.

When the Spirit came at Pentecost the disciples were ready for it.  Nonetheless, even then it was a completely unexpected, surprisingly, wild and wonderful ride…

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, … Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.” Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on a people. “(Acts 2.1-18)

I think we can identify with both kinds of reactions to this event. We might start out saying to ourselves, “These people are out of their minds”, but probably end up asking ourselves the big question, “what does all this mean?” Well, I think this event means many things.

The activity of the Spirit is always anonymous. We hear the wind, look around to see who is there and, on an occasion such as this, see ‘tongues of fire’, but on most other occasions probably see nothing at all. But even when there are ‘tongues of fire’, they act as signs that point to otherwise singularly unimportant people—most of whose names we do not know and never do get to know—as the centre of attention on this particular occasion.

The apostle Paul says that this is typical of the self-effacing way the Spirit works – anonymously empowering ordinary people to do extraordinary things. In writing to the faith community at Corinth, Paul says,

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world -and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are. (1 Cor 1:26-28)

The apostle Peter says that ordinary people need no longer be subject to the prophets, priests, and kings who traditionally ruled their lives, because through the power of the Spirit  they have become “A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pe 2:9).. Now, as prophetic people, they can bear witness to God’s agenda of love and justice for the world; as priestly people they can intercede for those in need themselves; and as royal people they can actually anticipate and represent the kingdom of heaven on earth. [i]

The ‘tongues of fire’ are a symbol of the way the Spirit takes ‘nobodies’, like these poor despised, uneducated Galileans and makes them ‘somebodies’.

As we know, ‘fire’ has always been an archetypal image of ‘passion’. It’s common for us to say that someone ‘burns with desire’.  When the Spirit comes at Pentecost, the Spirit puts people in touch with their passion. The Spirit does not put people in touch with an abstract ideal, but with the reality of their true selves – stirring their desire to be the person that deep down the really want to be.

Relating to each one individually, the Spirit fills the hospitable space they have created in their hearts with a burning desire to become the person that God has created them to be. Paul talks about the powers of the Spirit as “the energies for a new life’”(1 Cor 12:6,11). ‘They are gifts of grace (and) the gifts of grace (charismata) lead to ready, courteous service (diakonia). Through the powers of the Spirit’, he says ‘the one Spirit gives every individual (a) specific calling, what is exactly cut out for (them), in the process of the new creation’.[ii]

The text states that tongues of fire came to “rest” on each person as if the fire sat with of them comfortably, burning brightly but not dangerously, generating more light than heat. There is a suggestion here that if people yield to the burning desire’ to become the person that God created them to be, it will not lead to ‘burnout’. Burnout comes not from being ‘too fired up’, but from being ‘fired up’ about an abstract ideal of ourselves rather than the reality of who we are meant to be.

Community worker Parker Palmer writes from painful personal experience that ”Burnout does not come from giving too much, but from trying to give what we do not have to begin with”. [iii] He says that the ”liberation of society comes not from those who try to change society, but from those who try to be their true selves’“.[iv] Indeed, he says the sustainable spiritual dynamic for liberation takes place at the intersection of where our true selves engage the real world around about us. [v]

Pentecost shows us where we are filled with a burning desire to engage the real world in the light of their true selves, people are able to relate to their world with a much greater degree of sensitivity. While most people might be willing to give intellectual assent in their heads to the importance of a much greater degree of sensitivity, it does not happen unless we give emotional affirmation to that intellectual assent in our hearts, just as the Spirit inspires, to make it happen! The issue is not so much a conflict between our heads and our hearts, but a conflict that we have in our hearts. In our hearts we know that we cannot live without love, and that love involves an enhanced “sensibility’, an enhanced appreciation of, and affection for, one another’s lives. But, in our hearts we also know that if we develop an enhanced “sensibility” towards the beautiful, yet painful reality of one another’s lives, it will inevitably entail great agony as well as great joy. [vi]

So we vacillate between wanting to become more loving, and wanting to become anything but more loving. Both take place at the same time. As we prevaricate we are tempted to withdraw from “sensibility”, which involves a greater sensitivity toward the total reality of one another’s lives, into “sentimentality” which involves more sensitivity to those parts of one another’s lives which are less painful, (like rumour, innuendo, scandal and trivia), and less sensitivity to those parts of one another’s lives that are more painful, (like disadvantage, disability, disease and death).[vii]Thus we tend to retreat into an unreal world of infotainment, sit-coms, chat-shows and ‘hot-gos’ magazines that give us the illusion of relating to the real world, without relating to the real world at all.

However, the only way we can live is to live in the real world. And the only way we can live in the real world is to love the real world. And the only way we can love the real world is to overcome their fear of the suffering that love in the real world involves. And the only way we can overcome our fear of suffering is to be filled by the Spirit with a burning desire to love the world that is so passionate we are prepared to risk the pain in the world in order to embrace the world— and to love it as it is.[viii]

And that is what the Be-Attitudes are all about.

Dave Andrews

From Hey, Be And See (Authentic)

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[i]Jurgen Moltmann The Church In The Power Of The Spirit p301,302

[ii] Jurgen Moltmann The Church In The Power Of The Spirit  p295

[iii] Parker Palmer Let Your Life Speak Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2000 p49,

[iv] Parker Palmer Let Your Life Speak Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2000 p32-34,

[v] Parker Palmer Let Your Life Speak Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2000 p16

[vi]Macmurray, J. Freedom In The Modern World, (London: Faber&Faber, 1958) 28-29,55

[vii]Ibid., 88-90

[viii]Ibid., 58-59

[ix] John V. Taylor, The Go-Between God: London: SCM Press, 1972, p. 243

[x] John V. Taylor, The Go-Between God: London: SCM Press, 1972, p. 243