Saint Nicholas Cathedral
June 4, 2023
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
According to the Gospel we have just heard, today is “the last day, that great day of the feast.” The work that was begun at the time of Lord’s Nativity and perfected in his Pascha has now borne its fruit.
The words of the holy prophet Joel, which we heard last night at Vigil, were replete with images of abundance, of fruitfulness, of harvest. In the words of the prophet, the threshing floors are now full of wheat and the vats are overflowing with wine and oil. The years eaten by the locusts are restored to us.
The Spirit whom Christ promised has come. The Comforter whom Christ desired to send is poured out on all flesh. And with his coming, with his outpouring, the eschaton, the end of the world, has come upon us. We Christians are, in the words of St. Paul, those upon whom the end of the ages has come. Christ came to make sinners into saints; the years that we lived in sin are now restored to us as the years that lead us to repentance in Christ. And henceforth, anointed with the Spirit, we are empowered to live in accordance with his call to holiness.
And already, in this final age, at this end of the ages, we can see the harvest of holiness is already taking place. Saints fill the calendar of the year like so many kinds of fruit; they are, to use an image from the Apocalypse of St. John, the leaves full of healing that adorn the twelve trees of paradise, the months of the year through which we encounter Christ the Savior in the Spirit through the persons of the saints. From January to December, and around again and again, every one of these month-trees is evergreen. We always have plenty of the wheat of sanctity, an overflowing of the wine of everlasting gladness, an abundance of the oil of spiritual health. The barrenness of the old world is gone; the abundance of the new is here.
Wherever the Spirit blows and comes to rest, there life flourishes; what is dead is made alive and fruitful. Wherever the Spirit is, there the fruits of the Resurrection are already known. Wherever the Spirit is, the end of time, the fullness of the ages, is already present, though hidden from the eyes of the world.
This is true of the saints, and this is true of us. According to the Book of Acts, “divided tongues, as of fire” came to rest upon the disciples and apostles on the day of Pentecost. In Spirit, they shared a common power and a common goal: to be like Christ. They all received the same fire. And yet, these tongues were divided: each apostle received the gifts of the Spirit he needed for his particular mission, his particular calling, his particular vocation.
And so it is with the saints down through the ages: each of them has received a tongue of flame, a portion of the Spirit, that both serves as a pledge of our common vocation—Christ-likeness—and a “divided tongue” suited to the saint’s own special calling: to be a bishop, a martyr, a priest, a fool-for-Christ, a matushka, a nun, an elder, a teacher, a melodist, a confessor.
And, as I say, we too have seen the true Light and received the heavenly Spirit. Each of us has our own vocation in Christ, and each of us has received a portion of the Spirit according to our need. Even as we all strive to reveal Jesus Christ in virtue, in humility, in service to our neighbor, we each have our own particular vocation: choir member, choir director, reader, deacon, subdeacon, priest, bishop, monastic, parish council member. And it’s not just clergy, or those with a duty or ministry at services or in the church building: layman and laywoman are both important vocations, as are the vocations of being parents, children, witnesses for Christ in the world.
And so, on this great day of Pentecost, when we celebrate the coming of the Spirit and the division of tongues, it is an apt time to reflect our own vocation: to what is Christ calling me? What is the vocation of my family, of my community?
How will I open my whole life up to Christ’s work? How shall I live in accordance with that portion of the Comforter’s grace, which descended on my forehead like a tongue of flame at the time of my Chrismation?
More than this, for those of us who have some sense of our vocation, especially those of us who are called to formal service in choir, parish council, in the minor orders, or in the ranks of the clergy, today’s feast serves to remind us that vocation is not static; it is dynamic.
The apostles began as students learning at the feet of their Master. Soon they became itinerant preachers, then, after Pentecost, the leaders of churches as well as the common leadership of the Church. Finally, they became martyrs. At every juncture, they were guided by the grace of the Spirit who had descended upon them as a “divided tongue.”
Likewise, in our vocations, we should always be learning, practicing, growing. This is not just an individual calling, but a communal calling. As an aside: readers, subdeacons, deacons, choir directors, as well as those who are interested in serving, note that I will soon begin a program of quarterly retreats to help form and grow vocations in these areas.
But this is true not just for those particular vocations, but for all our vocations. Just as we are all called to grow constantly in Christ-likeness, so we are likewise called to deepen, day by day, year by year, the ways in which that Christ-likeness is made more perfectly manifest in our faithful, humble adherence to our vocation: as layman or -woman, as monastic or cleric, as parent or child, employer or employee.
We Orthodox Christians, all of us, have received the heavenly Spirit. We each possess a divided tongue of flame. And it is our duty to cherish that flame, to let it grow into a blaze, and to share that fire with the world, spreading the Gospel of the burning love of the God-man, the Good News of his forgiveness that consumes all the power of death and sin.
To him who came to cast fire upon the earth, our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, be all glory, together with his Father, who is a consuming Fire, and the All-holy Spirit who appeared as tongues of flame. Amen.