Sunday Homily, 4-27-12, Pentecost
Readings:
Acts 2, 1-11, They were all in one place together;
Psalm 104, Lord, Send out your spirit and renew the face of the earth;
1 Corinthians 12, 3-7, 12-13, There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same spirit.
John 15, 26-27; 16, 12-15, I Have much more to tell you.
Notes on the readings, Mike Carrell
At the end of Luke’s gospel, the apostles receive instructions from the Lord. First of all they were told that he fulfilled the expectation of the Law, Prophets and Psalms for the coming of the Messiah.
Then they were told that as the Father had sent him to bring forgiveness to humankind, he was sending them.
Finally they were told to wait in Jerusalem for the Father’s gift of the Spirit. In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples receive this gift, that Christ is alive to them through the power of the Spirit.
In the letter to the Corinthians we are reminded that God has no favorites. The Spirit is alive within the hearts of all who welcome the good news and put it into practice by their words and actions.
Pentecost Homily, Mike Carrell
If you haven’t heard the story of the Master violin-maker, I share it with you now. His violins when used by a skilled violinist produced tones so true that they resonated within the hearts of those who listened to them. Violinists traveled from all over the country to his workshop in the mountains to seek the opportunity to purchase or play one of his violins.
This master violin-maker had been taught by this father that the most important step in making a great violin was the choice, curing and aging of the very best wood available. This meant that the wood used to construct a violin was in a preparation process for years before the violin’s construction could begin.
This master violin-maker wanted the process begun by his father to be followed after he had died, so he wrote it down and began instructing one of his skilled wood crafters everything his father had taught him. One day in the dead of winter, he asked the one he was grooming to follow him to enter the forest with him for it was time to choose another tree for his wood cutter so that its wood could be to put into the process of curing and aging.
It was a cold day, with some snow swirling in from the north. The master handed a compass to the younger man, and took a colored piece of rope from the wall of his office along with a ribbon to identify the tree. The younger man walked with him until they reached a downward slope on the parcel of land that had been given to the master by his father.
It felt much colder now, and after placing the rope, that required a certain diameter tree to be chosen, around several trees, he choose one. Now the trees along this slope were bent and rugged looking, not like the ones where the workshop was located.
‘Why this tree,’ asked the younger man? The master replied, ‘Look at the compass. You will see that these trees face due north. This tree has received for the last 100 years the brunt of the incoming north wind, snow and ice, and it has endured. This wood is your friend: it is about to give its life to you. Its cross section will give witness to a life well lived for it has been pruned many times so the sound of your violins will be vibrant and true….
Now, what is the meaning of the story? The wood that was chosen to make great violins is another metaphor of God’s plan of salvation for us. Each of us is the young apprentice to whom the metaphor was explained, and the music played by the violinists, that resonates within our hearts, is the Spirit.
The teaching in which we find today’s gospel reading begins, ‘No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,’ and that we are Christ’s friends because he has made known to us everything that he has heard from the Father.
We have been empowered by the Spirit to live what Christ has taught us. So, we are reminded at this feast of Pentecost and the 50th anniversary of Vatican II to be servants of the least among us who yearn to do God’s will. Continue to extend to them peace and justice, for we have all been made in the same image, to share the same bread, to have the same Father and to be bound together by the same Spirit.