The Lectionary and Scripture Interpretation for the Easter season
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Today’s Readings
In the Old Testament, Leviticus 23 talks about the Festival of Shavuot (Festival of Weeks) which happens 50 days after Passover. Traditional Judaism marks this as the day as when Moses was given the Torah. In ancient times it was a harvest festival.
Tobit 2:1 (written about 200 years before Christ) has the first use of the Greek term Pentecost for this festival, from “penta” meaning five.
Paul talked about Pentecost in the mid-50s: “I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost” (1 Corinthians 16:8). It’s not clear whether he meant the Jewish or Christian version, and it’s also not clear how early the Christians began to celebrate this as something distinct from the Jewish tradition.
After 70AD – the destruction of the temple – there was a change in focus: Pentecost became a pilgrimage holiday to commemorate all the covenants from Noah to Sinai. It became a covenant renewal feast. This makes it an apt festival for the birth of the church – the beginning of a new covenant.
The real event of Pentecost is the empowerment of the disciples by the Holy Spirit to communicate the gospel.
In the Pentecost account, we hear the disciples speaking in tongues. The New Testament talks in various places about “speaking in tongues.” Paul talks about it like it’s glossolalia which is speech-like sounds that are not a language known to us. Glossolalia, for Paul, has to have an interpreter. That’s not what we see in the Acts account today. In this account, the disciples speak in languages that they don’t know but others understand – they’re speaking actual, real languages. It might be analogous if I started reading something out loud in Spanish. I wouldn’t have much of a clue what I was saying but a Spanish speaker would understand me.
Why don’t people speak in tongues like this today? Maybe the Spirit empowers us to communicate in different ways. Maybe each era/age is empowered in ways that are unique to their time. The printing press… the radio… TV… the internet… The Spirit gives what is needed right then and there. I think today of how easy it is to pull up an app on our ever-present phones, speak into it, and have it automatically translated into a different language. We don’t usually associate our technology with the Spirit but consider how phenomenal this ability really is!
As we celebrate Pentecost, we’re not just fondly remembering an event that happened 2000 years ago and touched a group of disciples with miraculous abilities and powers. Rather, we also enter into that event and all that it means to the degree that we are willing to open ourselves up to the mystery that is Christ. We open up to a pouring out of the Spirit that equips us to share the good news in words and ways that speak to those around us.
A note about the readings covered below: If you attend the Saturday Vigil service, you’ll encounter different readings and they might remind you of the Easter Vigil service. In the 2011 update to the Roman Missal, an “extended” version of the Pentecost Vigil was introduced which has many similarities to the Easter Vigil. The “extended Vigil” service uses the same readings as the Easter Vigil service, serving as something of a bookend to the season. Like the Easter Vigil, the Pentecost Vigil invites us one last time for this season to tell our stories about where we came from.
Acts 2:1-11
Before reading the Acts account, you should read Genesis 11:1-9.
The Acts reading is a reversal of the Tower of Babel story. The city they were building in Genesis was intended to be the place where God and humans could meet and enter each other’s territory, but it was built on human terms with human initiative. Since God came down to visit and look around, it seems to have worked to some degree!
Today’s reading contains a description of wind, fire, and loud noises. These often accompanied biblical theophanies. You can read similar accounts in Exodus 19, 1 Kings 19, and Ezekiel 1:4. The key takeaway from these verses: when you experience this combination of wind, fire, and loud noises, look around: God might just be powerfully present!
In Acts, we see a chronological distance between Easter and the outpouring of the Spirit that isn’t supported by any other New Testament evidence, nor is the miracle of the tongues. Perhaps we should consider it not so much a factual historical account as Luke’s way of saying “Jesus is no longer physically present; instead, we now have a great power at our disposal as well as a mission to undertake.”
Verse 1 says “When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled,” literally “the day had arrived.” Luke doesn’t use the word kairos here but this phrase evokes that same idea. It’s not a specific day in chronological history but rather a moment of import in kairos time. At this key moment, the disciples are gathered together.
Verses 2 and 3 contain important little words: “like” and “as of.” The noise they heard was “like” a wind and something appeared “as of” tongues of fire. This is an experience of God’s divine, ineffable presence. We’re at the limits of language here so we must resort to metaphor.
Verses 7-8 indicate the crowd is amazed because the people speaking are backwater Galileans. They’re uneducated country folk. And yet they’re speaking all these different languages. It doesn’t compute.
Verses 8-11 give a list of nations. The original readers would have recognized this list as a broad sweep from East to West of the known world. They also would have brought to mind Genesis 10 – just before the Babel story, which gives a list of Noah’s sons and the nations they formed. Luke’s list is updated to reflect the geographic titles of Luke’s day. Basically, this list represents the whole of humanity – that’s the point Luke is trying to make.
What follows this account is Peter delivering the first sermon which we read a couple weeks ago. So the emphasis here in receiving the Spirit is about then turning around and sharing the gospel – telling the story in a way that everyone can hear and understand. In that sense, Pentecost is always occurring – we’re always telling the story in ways that everyone should be able to hear and understand. Or at least that’s what we’re missioned to do!
Have you ever had the experience of being “heard” despite not being able to convey something adequately in words?
How are you uniquely equipped to tell the gospel story in a way that others can understand?
1 Corinthians 12:3B-7, 12-13
This passage comes from a section on problems in liturgical assemblies, chapters 11-14: dress, the Eucharist, gifts of the spirit, love, prophecy, and order in the use of spiritual gifts. So this passage is in the context of things that go on in a liturgical/communal assembly. The reminder here is that our gifts are meant to be used for the good of the community.
Paul has discerned a selfish competitiveness that was detrimental to church unity. Some people in Corinth had the ability, the gift, to speak in tongues (glossolalia) and they thought that gave them a status above other people – it made them better. It’s telling that even Christians can become divided over what are essentially good things!
3-point summary of the passage:
- Jesus is Lord. This is over and against the Corinithians’ view that the cross was a transient and perhaps rather regrettable incident of the past.
- There is a multiplicity of gifts of the spirit and tongue-speaking is not even the most important one.
- Christian faith requires community. The sacraments initiate into and nourish the life of the community, not just individual lives.
Verses 2 and 3 are intriguing in their setting and content within this chapter. At first glance, they appear not to “fit” and even further reflection does not make them fit well. Paul is setting the stage here to argue the case: anyone can mouth the words “Jesus is Lord” but it is quite another matter for one’s life to bear out this confession. The Holy Spirit enables this true confession of life, just as the Spirit fits people into the body and graces them with what they need to perform their tasks. It is essential here to interpret vv. 2-3 as going beyond mere speech.
Verse 7 is beautifully rendered by The Message:
Each person is given something to do that shows who God is.
What have you been given to do to show who God is at this moment in time? What kind of God are you preaching with your life?
John 20:19-23
We read this same passage on the second Sunday of Easter. As we always do with the lectionary, we interpret readings first through the season and feast. So this will have a different focus today than earlier in the Easter season.
While Luke puts 40 days between the resurrection and the coming of the Spirit, John seems to say you can’t separate the giving of the Spirit from the Paschal event of the resurrection; these things happen on the same day in John’s gospel.
1 Corinthians 15 is the earliest account of the paschal story and it does not include Ascension or Pentecost. 1 Corinthians 15:5 is an appearance to a very large group which may be what the Acts story today refers to. Also, it may be that the empowering of the Holy Spirit was not a single event but happened multiple times with different groups. In this sense, we can say that such empowerment continues even today.
Why is such an important event like the life-giving, faith-establishing gift of the Spirit described in such diverse ways? Luke tells the Pentecost story in the context of his narrative and he conveys the message his community needed to hear. John too will tell the story in his own way for the needs of his community. But they both tell us this: Jesus is no longer physically present with us, but he has not withdrawn to some distant place in the cosmos, remotely waiting for his time to return. Both of today’s narratives tell that Jesus is fully with us because his Spirit dwells in us – as individuals and as a church community.
Verse 22 evokes Genesis 2:7; this is the beginning of a new creation! This is a sacramental moment where the words and matter effect what they signify. I’m struck by the fact that Jesus is giving us something powerful but there is work to do on our part: we must receive!
Verse 23 is usually viewed as the hierarchical power to absolve of sin. But the word “retain” here is not a word that has a legal sense at all. It is more often translated “hold on to” or “seize,” “hold in check.” Similarly with “forgive” which is a word better translated “send away,” or “leave alone.” It’s almost like a statement of fact: when someone does something wrong against us and we hold on to it, we do indeed hold on to it! But if we let it go, it is gone. As one commentary put it, “Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is also the spirit of truth, the disciples are given power to forgive sin and unmask the power of evil.” I would extend that to say we all have this power, choosing to hold onto or let go of sin within our communities.
Imagine yourself locked up in a place of fear, doubt, and despair. Imagine that Jesus suddenly appears in this place; he breathes on you and says “receive my power, receive me.” What is this experience like? What is Jesus empowering you to do?
Questions to ponder
Have you ever had the experience of being “heard” despite not being able to convey something adequately in words?
How are you uniquely equipped to tell the gospel story in a way that others can understand?
What have you been given to do to show who God is at this moment in time? What kind of God are you preaching with your life?
Imagine yourself locked up in a place of fear, doubt, and despair. Imagine that Jesus suddenly appears in this place; he breathes on you and says “receive my power, receive me.” What is this experience like? What is Jesus empowering you to do?
Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
© 2023 Kelly Sollinger