Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory to God. I welcome
all those who have come today for the baptism,
who are in the church, some are outside the church.
Nevertheless, God's grace is not held back by
walls. God, he said, does not dwell in houses
built by the hand of man. We have asked God to
come. And we have come to this place, and we
presented ourselves to Christ today in order
to be strengthened, to be nourished spiritually,
to gain insight and understanding and discernment
for our life, to gain forgiveness, to receive
his mercy. And we pray over and over again, Lord,
have mercy. Lord, have mercy. And we come for
his love. because he is the light, as he himself
says. Let me say a few words about this feast,
a feast day which is one of hope, and we see
in the fresco the apostles. It doesn't show the
rest of the people there, but a feast of unity
and reconciliation and of understanding and of
good news for those who need it. Before I do,
I want to just make a comment. I think it's true
for all times, maybe more now than ever. We all
need a spiritual father, a guide. Maybe a spiritual
mother. You have Mother Melania. You have Mother
Markela near Fresno. You have Mother Susanna.
We all need that mystical connection with someone
that can guide us. Through the very turbulent
times of our life. Otherwise we're kind of floating
out there. And we get depleted. We run out of
gas very fast. And we don't know how to fill
up again. So find a spiritual guide. I'm not
talking about me. Because I don't know anything.
But find someone who does. And they will help
you. For this feast. I'm going to let you study
for yourself. Why we emulate. the practice in
the Jewish temple of old, which was destroyed,
as you know, in 70 AD by the Romans. All that's
left there is part of the wailing bowl now. On
the Feast of Pentecost, remember, pente means
50, so 50 days after Passover, 50 days after
Pentecost, after Pascha, the temple was decorated,
just more so, but like this. I've been told...
and it may be right or wrong, but this is what
I've been told and seen, that when Moses received
the commandments, the law on Sinai, the desert
itself flowered and fruit sprang forth when that
law was given. So I want to thank those who decorated.
Bless those, bless, O Lord, those who love the
beauty of thy house. We believe. We confess as
Orthodox Christians and hopefully we experience
in some degree the coming of the Holy Spirit
to us. In a relationship with the Holy Spirit,
at least as Psalm 50 says, create in me, to create
is new life. That's why all this greenery. Create
in me a new and clean heart, O God, and renew
a right spirit within me. New creation. That's
what we saw at baptism. And so our life, our
new life, our human life, is itself supposed
to be God's harvest. The fruits of the Spirit
are what? Love, mercy, long -suffering, peace,
kindness, and so forth. Galatians will tell you
all about that. That's God's harvest. We are
God's harvest today. Is this our experience?
Or is this something we read about? It's extremely
significant that on the day of Pentecost, the
Holy Spirit should take the form of fiery tongues,
because the tongue is the organ of speech. And
what was given in that fiery gift on Pentecost
to the disciples and the apostles and those people
gathered there was the gift to speak in the language
of those around them. Not for passing on information.
Not for arguing people into the faith, but to
give something from God. That's what our Savior
did. And all he did, all he did is so that we
can become living temples too, to have that spirit
within us. And Saint Peter spoke, if you continue
to read Acts 2, he spoke with such boldness and
eloquence and conviction. We heard the gospel.
Jesus is speaking and they're saying, he's from
Galilee. He's a peasant. Uneducated. What? He's
a rube. He's a peasant. He's a know -nothing.
Is there a prophet from Galilee? They didn't
even give him a chance. And they said the same
thing about the apostles. These men are speaking
and they're speaking in different languages.
Aren't they from Galilee? What could they possibly
know? They're just hillbillies. The truth can
come from anywhere. Be prepared for that. Do
you recall when Peter spoke, how the people responded?
They were said, they said, cut to the heart.
They said, what shall we do? What did Peter's
boldness, what did it consist of? So we understand,
maybe. Why people receive that message, those
fiery words. What was it that he said was so
much conviction and assurance to give hope and
understanding, to give new life? It wasn't so
much the fact of the teaching, but that what
he said was itself a word of grace. Think of
how we speak. From where do the words and feelings
arise in us? with St. Peter and the apostles
on that day, and the saints and the martyrs and
the confessors, the men and women, our forebears
in the faith, those who we know and those who
we have known and we loved and admired in our
church. Their words were projections of Jesus
Christ, the Word himself, an extension of the
action of the Word of God in the Holy Spirit,
is what Elder Emilio Noce says. This is why their
message, their word, that was the word of God,
had so much power. Because it was God himself,
God the word, the one who loves mankind, speaking
in and through them. For this reason, the apostles
were conscious of being witnesses to the word,
as they were told to be. They sensed that they
themselves were the mouth of the word of God
and of his grace. And this grace, this power,
which was the word himself, is the energy of
God, the energy of the Holy Spirit, says Elder
Emilianos. And signs and wonders followed, of
course. And the people saw it. They felt it.
They heard these signs and wonders. It was an
authentic experience of God. And there were in
Jerusalem that day. Parthians, Medes, Elamites,
Mesopotamians, Judeans, Cappadocians, Pontius,
Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, Romans,
Jews and non -Jews, Cretans and Arabs. And they
were all touched. They were gathered together,
all peoples from all nations, all colors. They
were gathered together in the unity of the Holy
Spirit. And they heard the word because it came
from God himself through those men. They were
purified and they spoke with God's own words.
But we Christians now, more often than not, defile
our mouths and defile the ears of others. And
people look upon us and listen. And they're confused
about... the connection we say we have with Christ
and the Father and the Spirit. Because our words
are like noisy gongs and clanging cymbals and
gnashing of teeth. And we know where there's
the gnashing of teeth, Christ is not there. Elder
Emiliano says, our deadness must be leavened,
made alive. with the divine life of the Spirit.
I'm taking a moment to say this because this
is how a Christian is to speak. And the speaking
was the first gift of Pentecost. But there are
two gifts. And much less attention is given to
the second gift of Pentecost. Mostly we remember
the first gift, the gift of tongues. Others may
hear the teaching, the gospel in their language.
But the second gift is maybe now more crucial
than ever. The first gift is meaningless without
the second gift. I speak of the gift of hearing.
We listen, said Father George Bennington in a
sermon on this day, but we don't hear. Let us
do everything we can to allow the word, the wisdom,
of God to speak to us. When we pray, slow down.
Let the words settle in your heart. Maybe God
is trying to tell us something at that moment,
but we are in a monologue and we don't slow down
enough to actually hear him. When we hear the
gospel, let's not read it as some kind of religious
literature. It sounds pious. Let us be surprised
and convicted. God's speaking to us. Let us hear
it. When we read the prophets, when we read the
Psalms, when we speak to our spiritual father,
when we come before, especially, before the icon
of Christ on the cross, dead, most eloquent,
that's when we can hear from God everything he
has to say. There it is. Absolute love. May we
allow the word by the power of the Spirit to
burn in our hearts, to purge our conscience,
to transfigure our life, our words, to nourish
our faith, to weave us into the body of Christ.
Let me leave you with the reading from last night,
which has been on my mind all night. The short
selection from the prophet Ezekiel. Chapter 30.
Six, is it? A word of hope, a word of challenge,
and a word of comfort from God. The Lord said
to the prophet Ezekiel, and the prophet Ezekiel
said, thus speaks the Lord, I will take you from
among the nations. I will gather you out of all
countries and bring you into your own land. Then
I will sprinkle clean water on you. and you shall
be clean. We rejoice today seeing that. I will
cleanse you from all your filthiness, from your
idols. I will give you a new heart and put a
new spirit within you. I will take the heart
of stone out of your flesh, give you a heart
of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and
cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will
keep my judgments and do them. Then you shall
dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers.
That's the church. You shall be my people and
I shall be your God. These words come true today
and came true in Pentecost. May they be true
for us and our neighbor and the stranger. The
icon of the hospitality of Abraham is set out
against the icon of Pentecost. You see Abraham
and Sarah. with the three angels. This is philoxenia.
You've heard of Philadelphia, love of the brother.
This is love of the stranger. That's today.