Christians rejoice this weekend as we remember the power of the Holy Spirit poured out on the believers gathered together in Jerusalem. Scripture tells us that the Spirit was already present in the world. The Book of Wisdom says “The Spirit of God that fills the world is all-embracing and knows what we say.” (Wis 1:7) But on the day of Pentecost, the believers had a powerful group experience of God’s Spirit – powerful enough to unite them in mutual understanding regardless of their native language or country. Experience is a powerful teacher – quite different from the intellectual consideration of ideas, policies, or rules. It is doubly powerful when multiple people have the same experience at the same time.
This is how I understand the difference between the Spirit’s presence in the world before and after Pentecost. Pentecost gave the people a cooperative experience of the Spirit, an experience that united and empowered the people to go out into the world proclaiming God’s saving love. Another joint experience recorded in the Bible, one that had a negative impact on the people, occurred at the Tower of Babel when the body of people were separated to prevent the wrong use of their combined power. That story in Genesis 11:1-9, reminds us that the Body of the People can come together to do works that are not in accord with God as well as works that are fueled by the Holy Spirit and engender good.
As ordinary Christians living in the world, we are tasked with being God’s Presence in the world, experiencing life with all of its difficulties. We are tasked with listening to others, with walking with people whose lives are different from our own, and with being open to learning from the people we encounter. These experiences that we have are important and they should be reflected in the way that we come together to worship, the way that we organize our parishes, and how we conduct the mission of being followers of Jesus in our own time.
In Rafael Luciani’s book Synodality, he writes that “the ecclesial form of sensing, understanding, and living faith occurs in the context of our everyday life…it happens within sociocultural relationships and in the context of the actual claims and needs that shape people’s lives.” (pg. 98-99) He goes on to describe how the faith is enriched when the people gather together to listen to one another, to hear about their various encounters, and then come to consensus about faith in the context of their collective experience.
“This ecclesial way of proceeding requires us to move beyond an unequal, clericalist Church, and to overcome a dualistic vision of salvation and the world. As Cardinal Landazuri Ricketts advised during the Conference of Medellin in 1968, ‘We are perhaps accustomed to a “clerical” view of the world. Sometimes we experience an almost spontaneous suspicion, distrust, or fear in the face of what is called…”the profane.” Nevertheless, the Word of God became (human) and lives among us, thus giving meaning to everything human that exists and that happens. Therefore, wherever we listen to other people, we listen to Christ; whenever we care about other people, we care about Christ; and to the extent that we meet with other people, learning how to commune with them, we meet with the same Lord.’” (100) Luciani, like Pope Francis, emphasizes that the People of God, who by virtue of their baptisms share in the work of the church, are not a collection of individuals who are saved, but a People who are saved together, as the Body of Christ.
This concept of being one body is integral to modern life but likely in a way we rarely think about it. Incorporation literally means to become one body. We have laws that give greater power to incorporated entities which can speak as one powerful voice, function as a single person, and in the case of corporations, are given the rights of personhood. The business world understands that corporate bodies have enormous power in economic and political spheres. Unfortunately, that power can be used in ways that are not good for communities of people who get in the way of corporate goals and profit. In these cases, like at the Tower of Babel, one can only hope that the body will become separated or unincorporated. At other times, in civil society, communities can languish because they are unincorporated, as is the case in my own small corner of the world where we have an urban area with a rural government. But becoming ‘one body’ can seem threatening to people who believe that they will have to give up anything for the sake of the common good.
In the Synodal Church as Pope Francis has envisioned it, decision making will not come from the top down, (the Pope, the Curia, the Magisterium, the Pastor, or the staff), but will come from collective discernment of the people who will be affected by any decisions that are made. As Luciani says, “It is the application of the classical medieval principle according to which what affects everyone must be discussed and approved by everyone (quod omnes tangit ab omnibus tractari et approbari debet).” (27) Collective decision making takes time and requires conversion on the part of the hierarchy, and faithful participation on the part of the laity. It is not as simple as unilateral decision making, but the process brings people together and allows for the possibility of a church and a world renewed.
When the Holy Spirit was poured out on the people at Pentecost, the tongues of fire, and the ability of the people to understand one another, was universally experienced. There was no hierarchy of Spirit – with some people receiving a greater portion than others. The apostles were there. The disciples were there. People from all over the region were there. Men and women were there. I think the Holy Spirit made a bold statement for a ‘synodal church.’ I am grateful that Pope Francis is picking up the threads from the past, articulated well in the documents from Vatican II, and is pushing us all to become the Body we were called to be.