May 31, 2009
Fruits of the Spirit
by Anne Le Bas
Acts 2.1-21, Romans 8.22-27
“When the Day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place.” The Day of Pentecost. What do you think of when you hear those words? The rushing wind, the fire dancing on the disciples’ heads, the babble of languages… the coming of the Holy Spirit to fill the first Christians with confidence and joy? Those are the symbols and events we associate with this festival. We grow used to the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of different festivals. Christmas with its spicy smell of mince pies and mulled wine. Easter with its spring flowers. Harvest with apples and grain. And Pentecost – Whitsun - with the familiar images of the Holy Spirit – wind and flames. Those are the things which are in our minds today.
But have you ever wondered what those first disciples were expecting on that Day of Pentecost, as they gathered in the upper room? They weren’t thinking of fire and wind – all that was yet to happen.
The feast of Pentecost is an ancient Jewish feast, still celebrated today - and nothing to do with the Holy Spirit at all. Pentecost means fiftieth, and this is the fiftieth day after the great feast of the Passover. Pentecost is also known to Jewish people as Shavuot and, for them it is the feast of the first fruits. Its roots are agricultural. It celebrates the first fruits of the crops gathered in the Promised Land, after the long trek out of slavery in Egypt, which was recalled at Passover. Passover is celebrated as the spring crops are being sown - Shavuot is celebrated when the first of them is harvested. If Passover celebrates the beginning of the journey across the wilderness towards the Promised Land, Shavuot celebrates the moment when they start to live there.
In Israel there were seven different crops which ripened in the seven weeks after Passover - and traditionally people would gather and keep the very first cut of each of these seven crops for this festival. They would tie a ribbon around each crop, put the fruits in a basket and bring them to the temple as an offering to God, giving him thanks for the good things that he has given them. Traditionally they brought wheat, barley, grapes, figs, olives, honey, and pomegranates.
But there’s another sort of first fruit which is celebrated at Shavuot, as well as all these delicious things. Shavuot is also the time when Jewish people remember the giving of the law on Mount Sinai – Moses going up the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments from God. The commandments were a sort of foretaste – a first fruit - of the way the world could be. By trying to live justly, treating each other and the rest of creation, and God, with respect and kindness, the people of Israel believed they were bringing that world into being. The law enabled them to grow the first fruits of a new harvest of righteousness. You can see how it all ties together, perhaps.
But what does that have to do with the Holy Spirit? Let’s go back to the disciples, gathered together, thinking of pomegranates and figs and olives on this Day of Pentecost, of the first fruits of the Promised Land, the new world which their ancestors had been given by God, but thinking too, I am sure, about the new world they had suddenly found themselves in.
Fifty days earlier, they had seen Christ crucified and buried, but then, just when they thought all was lost, he had been raised from death. In the weeks that followed they had had to re-examine everything they thought they knew. They had learned that God’s love was stronger than death. They had learned too that they were to be the ones who would take the message of that love to the ends of the earth. This was their new world and it was one which felt utterly bewildering and overwhelming. How could they possibly achieve this task they had been given?
- There’s a story from the time of the Exodus about the first glimpse the people of Israel had into the Promised Land. They came near to its borders and decided to send spies into it to see what it was like. The spies came back with glowing reports of the rich crops they saw there, but with alarming tales of the strength of the inhabitants as well. “There are giants in the land – we were like grasshoppers to them! “ they said. The Israelites took fright at this and turned back, wandering for a whole generation more in the wilderness until they found the courage to cross the Jordan.
But as they sat there together, full of fear and incomprehension, they had an extraordinary experience of the closeness of God. Later on they tried to describe it, but all they could do was come up with some images. It was like fire, like a rushing wind…but then again it wasn’t actually burning or blowing. In the end you get the feeling that it was beyond description – you just had to be there to understand…What really mattered was the effect it had. Suddenly, the obstacles – the giants in the land – the fear and doubt – are swept away, and the disciples themselves swept out into the crowd which has gathered in Jerusalem, a crowd from all over the world, but a crowd which somehow understood what the disciples were telling them. Again, it’s not an experience they could explain, and neither can we, but the effects were clear. Many people joined the disciples that day, convinced by what they saw and heard. And the disciples themselves were changed by the experience too. Suddenly now they knew that God really would do as he promised – be with them, giving them the words to say and the strength to say them.
Of course, that was only the beginning of the story. Not every day was as easy as that. But they needed that experience – that extraordinary beginning - to reassure them that God was working in them, and that extraordinary things really were possible.
Some of you by now, if the cogs have been whirring, may have realised why all this happened on that Jewish feast of Pentecost, Shavuot – at the time of the first fruits. The disciples had come together thinking “first fruits”, and first fruits were what they got, the first fruits of the new world that God was building through them.
St Paul, as a good and learned Jew, would also have linked Pentecost with the “first fruits” too. That’s why he writes to the Roman church in our second reading about the “first fruits of the Spirit”. That is why in his letter to the Galatians he talks about the fruit that the Spirit produces in our lives – “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control.” (Gal 5.28) These are fruits the world is hungry for; just as the people of Israel were hungry for the delicious food of the Promised Land and the order and peace of the law. On the Day of Pentecost, the disciples started to see and trust that God was changing them, bringing those fruits into being in their lives, but what about us?
The Shavuot basket God wants us to bring to him today, the Shavuot basket he wants us to share with the rest of the world, isn’t one that just contains pomegranates and figs; it has in it those far more important fruits of love, joy, peace and the rest – the evidence of the changes he has made to us. The coming of the Spirit is not just about extraordinary experiences – speaking in tongues or mystical visions – but the steady growth of goodness in us. Just as people couldn’t miss the effect of the Spirit of God in the lives Jesus’ first followers, they should be able to see changes in us too. If our faith hasn’t made a difference to the way we live our lives then we should be wondering why.
If we can see those changes in us though, that doesn’t mean that the work is finished. First fruits are just that - the promise of things to come. The changes that we can see should make us hungry for the harvest that is still unseen. Often we are satisfied with so little – and complacent about seeking more. We are content with a meagre faith, the faith we had as children, the knowledge we picked up at Sunday school. We are happy with a sketchy understanding of the Bible; relationships with one another that are cordial and pleasant but nothing deeper; the occasional bout of generosity or kindness, but nothing that will really make a lasting difference; one exciting day, one great spiritual moment, but nothing that lasts. Today, on this feast of first fruits, we need recognise that this is a beginning, not an end. Our Christian lives are supposed to get richer, deeper, more life-changing, more world-changing as we go on with God.
We are called by God today to build on our relationships with one another and with him, to find ways to serve others, to further that world of peace and justice which we are called to build; to catch fire, to be propelled out into action by the wind of his Spirit. Perhaps, like the disciples, and like the Israelites crossing the wilderness, we feel that there are “giants in the land”, obstacles too great for us to deal with, but God’s promise is that he has strength enough for us, energy enough for us, love that is strong enough to carry us through, and that he will always be with us, just as he was with the disciples.
So this Pentecost, what’s in your Shavuot basket? What are the signs you can see in yourself of God’s generous love for you? And what are you going to do to make sure that those good beginning are the first fruits of a bumper crop, not the whole of the harvest. Come, Holy Spirit, we pray today in word and song, but how are we going to nurture the seeds of God’s kingdom in us, so that its fruit fills not just one basket, but overflows to a hungry world? Amen. (Comments to Anne at ajlebas@googlemail.com.)