Pentecost 2010

Abbot Paul's Homily for the Feast

"If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him,
and we shall come to him and make our home with him."

I have always been struck by these words of Jesus to his disciples at the Last Supper. We find the phrase "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word," repeated throughout the Gospel like a refrain. The result of this faithful, obedient love is that God will love us and come to make his home in us. But how does God love us, people ask, considering the precariousness of human life, the depth of human suffering and the perversity of human sinfulness? "We shall come to him," says Jesus, "and make our home with him."

Jesus also promises his disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth who will lead them to the fullness of truth and remind them of everything that he has taught them. He answered Thomas' question about the way to heaven by saying "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life" and Philip's request to see the Father, saying "Whoever sees me, sees the Father; whoever knows me, knows the Father."

This love of the Father, the indwelling of the Father and the Son in those who keep God's word and love him, is nothing else but the gift of the Spirit, the Spirit who unites Father with Son and Son with Father, and now unites us with God and God with us. To be loved by God is to be comforted, strengthened and made whole by the Spirit's breath, to be touched and set ablaze by the fire of the Spirit.

Now Jesus had also promised his disciples something else. "In my Father's house there are many mansions." He said he was going to prepare a place for them. On the one hand Jesus goes to prepare a home for us in his Father's house, on the other hand, we are that house, where the Father and the Son through the gift of the Spirit come to dwell in us and make their home with us. The Prologue of John's Gospel tells us that God pitched his tent in our human flesh when He became Man at the Incarnation.

The Holy Spirit brings about in us what Jesus says of his own relationship with the Father. "I am in the Father and the Father is in me. I and the Father are one." Through the Holy Spirit you and I are now one with the Father in Christ. There can no longer be any separation between us and God. A friend once said to me, "I don't know where I end and God begins or where God ends and I begin." Now the gift of Pentecost is exactly this: to be one with God, I in God and God in me.

There are two short proverbs that can help us: "A house is not a home," and "Home is where the heart is." We all know that the Church is not a building, though buildings are useful and, at times, beautiful. The Church is the Body of Christ, made up of living stones, the disciples of Jesus who keep his word and love him. Nor is a house a home without the warmth and love of family life and human friendship. Home is the most intimate of all places. It is where our loved ones are. It is where we feel comfortable and at ease, welcomed and loved. Home is where we don't have to pretend any more, and where we can welcome guests.

So a home is not a building but a living organism, a family made up of human beings, pets, and even the photographs of those who live far away or have gone before us. They are my home. For a child home is the warm embrace of a mother's arms, for a young couple it is holding hands or kissing for the first time. For a monk home is sitting in choir, singing Vespers or sharing a book in the refectory. For friends home is simply being together, sharing interests and having a shoulder to cry on. For all of us home is a welcome, a smile, a kind word. For the elderly home is not being left all alone and ignored, but included and considered. We know instinctively where and when we feel at home. The disciples felt at home with Jesus.

Wherever it is that we feel at home, we have Jesus' word for it that God feels at home in those who love him and keep his word. This is the message of Pentecost, that God not only wants to make his home with us, in each one of us, but that in Jesus and through the outpouring of the Spirit, he has already done so. But because God is God, we are probably not even conscious of his presence within us. He is our unseen guest, a silent guest, but always the most courteous of guests.

Now we often say, "It's great to see guests come, but it's even better to see them go." We must be very careful not to think like that about God. When he makes his home in us, he comes to stay for ever, for all eternity. "I am with you always," says Jesus. So let us make him welcome always and, just as he enjoys being with us, let us enjoy being with him. It was St Augustine who said we should simply "enjoy God". Why else did he create us, redeem us and sanctify us, dwelling deep within us, making his home in us, if it wasn't so that we could enjoy him.

On behalf of the monastic community I wish you all a very happy feast day. May the Spirit of Pentecost fill your hearts and minds with the light, warmth and joy of God's presence now and for ever. Amen.