1When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together
in one place. 2Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent
wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they
were sitting. 3They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that
separated and came to rest on each of them. 4All of them were
filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a]
as the Spirit enabled them.
5Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from
every nation under heaven. 6When they heard this sound,
a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one
heard them
speaking in his own language. 7Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are
not all these men who are speaking Galileans? 8Then how is
it that each of us hears them in his own native language? 9Parthians,
Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia,
Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts
of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11(both Jews and converts
to Judaism Cretans and Arabs-we hear them declaring the wonders
of God in our own tongues!" 12Amazed and perplexed, they
asked one another, "What does this mean?" 13Some,
however, made fun of them and said, "They have had
too much wine."
14Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice
and addressed the crowd: "Fellow Jews and all of you
who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen
carefully
to what I say. 15These men are not drunk, as you suppose.
It's only nine in the morning! 16No, this is what was spoken
by
the prophet Joel:
17" 'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my
Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your
young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.
18Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour
out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. 19I
will show
wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke. 20The sun will be
turned to
darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the
great and glorious day of the Lord.
21And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'
He was the son of a King. If he hadn’t been pledged
to the Church he might have become a King. Instead he served
as a monk.
The trouble began when a copy of the Gospels arrived. They
were sacred books. Few copies existed because they were all
meticulously hand written. He asked his superior if he could
make a copy for their monastery. His superior refused him.
Undeterred, he got up in the middle of the night for many,
many nights and did it anyway. After all, he was a prince.
When the copy was discovered his superior flew into a rage
and demanded the copy be passed over to him. The monk
refused and fled the monastery to seek refuge with his tribe.
A trial
was ordered before the High King who found the monk guilty
and demanded the copy of the Gospels. Again he refused
and fled to his people. An army was raised against them by
the
High King. The monk’s people responded in kind.
At the ensuing battle, the monk’s army won but thousands
of people on both sides were slain. The monk was filled with
pain and remorse over what had happened—all the lives
that had been lost because of his arrogance and stubbornness.
Devastated, he went to his Father Confessor who told him,
as penance, he must leave his homeland. He was exiled and
told to preach the Gospel where it hadn’t been heard.
He was told to save as many souls as had been slain in
the battle over the copied texts.
And so he and 12 followers left his beloved homeland. They
sailed and landed on several islands. Each time they landed
in a place the monk went to the highest point on the island
and looked back toward his homeland. If he could see it they
continued to sail further and further away.
Finally he came to a very small island. Three and a half
miles long and a mile wide. They landed on a shore with
a pebbly beach and the monk found the highest point of the
island. He looked for his homeland and couldn’t
see it. Here was where they stayed. They built a Church
and developed
a community to preach the Gospel.
The year was 563 AD.
The monk became known as Columba.
His homeland was Ireland.
The island they settled at was Iona.
For the next 34 years Columba used the Isle of Iona as a
base from which he spread the Gospel into Scotland and Northern
England. After he died, Iona continued to develop into a
flourishing Christian Community that blessed the rest of
Scotland for the next three hundred years.
The BBC states:
“In 794 AD Iona experienced the first of many Viking
raids that eventually forced the monastery into decline.
As one historian has commented: rich monasteries like Iona
were the Dark Age equivalent of drive-in banks to the Vikings.
In 806 AD, a total of 68 monks were slain by the Vikings
at Martyrs Bay… By 825 AD the monastery, thanks to
its exposed position, was virtually abandoned… In 849
AD Columba’s relics were removed and divided two
ways between Scotland and Ireland.”
(bbc/history)
In 1200 a Benedictine Abbey was built and Iona, again,
became a spiritual centre. But with the Reformation the Abbey
was abandoned and fell into ruin. It was 400 years before
spiritual life was breathed into the island again.
This is Pentecost Sunday—the day when we celebrate the coming of the
Holy Spirit to give birth to—to breathe life into the Church—just
after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ.
We sometimes get caught up with the “speaking in
tongues” aspect of the first Pentecost and lose sight
of what the real message of that experience was all about—mission.
The Holy Spirit came upon the disciples and allowed them
to speak in foreign tongues—languages they had never
spoken before. The purpose of this rather strange phenomenon
wasn’t to prove their Christian faith or provide them
with an ecstatic experience. It was to allow them to preach
the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those who wouldn’t
have understood them otherwise. The gift of tongues was
a gift
to reach out to make the Gospel clear to all who needed
to hear it. This emphasis on mission is further underlined
as
Peter, immediately after the experience of tongues, boldly
preached the first Christian sermon.
Pentecost is the celebration of the gift of the Holy Spirit
which allows us to boldly proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ
in our words and in our lives.
That’s what Columba did.
That’s why Iona is such a special and sacred place.
It became the launching pad for Christianity to be proclaimed
in what eventually became Scotland.
But the Spirit had further use for Iona. At the turn of
the last century, work began to rebuild the Abbey. Things
didn’t really get off the ground until 1938 when the
Rev. George MacLeod, a parish minister in Glasgow, became
involved. There was high unemployment in his parish so MacLeod
came up with the idea of recruiting skilled labour from amongst
his people to work at Iona. Combined with the skilled tradesmen,
MacLeod welcomed students from seminaries to come and lend
a hand. The result was the formation of the Iona Community—an
ecumenical community dedicated to making faith relevant
to daily living.
According to the Iona Community web site (www.iona.org.uk):
“The Iona Community today has almost 250 Members,
mostly in Britain, over 1500 Associate Members and around
1400 Friends worldwide. An ecumenical community of men
and women from different walks of life and different traditions
in the Christian church, its members share a common Rule
which includes:
· Daily prayer and reading the Bible
· Mutual accountability for their use of time and money
· Regular meeting together
· Action and reflection for justice, peace and the integrity
of creation
The Community's mainland home is in Glasgow, the base for:
· The administration of the Community
· Its work with young people
· Its publishing house, Wild Goose Publications, and its magazine,
'Coracle'
· Its association in the revitalising of worship with the Wild
Goose Resource Group
Members meet regularly throughout the year in local groups
and in 4 plenary gatherings, including a week on Iona. As
a Community, members corporately and individually pursue
some particular areas of concern:
· Justice, peace and the integrity of creation (opposing nuclear
weapons, campaigning against the arms trade and for ecological
justice)
· Political and cultural action to combat racism
· Action for economic justice, locally, nationally and globally
· Issues in human sexuality
· Discovering new and relevant approaches to worship
· Work with young people
· The deepening of ecumenical dialogue and communion
· Inter-religious relations.
The Holy Spirit continues to work in and through the Iona
Community. The Spirit continues to reach out with the
Gospel in fresh, relevant ways—in the language of love,
grace and justice.
The Service that we are using today for Communion, as well
as the Evening Service we used a few weeks ago after our
Newcomers dinner, are both taken from the Iona Resource
Book. Iona’s influence continues to spread—only now
it’s not just to Scotland but around the world.
I have visited Iona twice. It’s a small island—easily
walked around in nice weather. It’s a quiet place—no
cars are allowed except those owned by the handful of folk
who live on the island year round. There are a few streets
with houses near the sea side. There are a couple of very
small hotels, a general store and several B&B’s.
There is a small Church. There is a still ruined Nunnery,
a graveyard for the Kings of Scotland including MacBeth,
(yes he actually did exist), and, several tall hand carved
Celtic Crosses that go back hundreds and hundreds and hundreds
of years. And of course, there is the restored Abbey, completed
in 1965 but still tinkered with each and every year.
There is something special about the island—something
spiritual. It’s an atmosphere like nothing else I’ve
ever experienced. Rev. MacLeod captured it once when he said
that Iona was a “thin place.”
Anthony S. Kill explained it this way in a sermon:
“
The island of Iona is known to many as a ‘thin place’.
This is a phrase in Celtic Christianity used to describe those places where
the veil that separates the eternal from the temporal grows thin and becomes
permeable, a place where the realm of Spirit and the realm of flesh come close
together, and the things of heaven are felt and experienced with greater clarity
on earth.
‘
Thin places’ are places where we experience God shining through,
where we are aware of the One in whom we live and move and have our being
with particular
clarity and assurance.”
(“We Have Found the Messiah”, The Eliot Church of Newton, Anthony
S. Kill,
January 16, 2005)
And so on this Pentecost Sunday, as we remember how the
Holy Spirit empowered the disciples and the Church, and
using the resources of a “thin place”, we come to this
Table—another “thin place”, where we
meet the Master and receive spiritual care and nourishment.
We are reminded of the work of St. Columba who had such
an incredible impact and the work of the Iona Community
which still seeks to influence the world for peace and justice
in Christ’s name.
We are reminded that the spiritual nurture we receive here
is to enable us to continue that work in the best way we
can in the name and in the power of our Lord and Saviour—the
One who calls us to faith and invites us to His Table.
(1631)
© The Rev. Dennis Cook, St. Timothy’s Presbyterian
Church, Ajax, ON, Canada
