For some time now, technology has been becoming increasingly female.  What do I mean?  Simply that everything seems to be able to “multi-task”.  Multi-tasking, the ability to perform more than one task at a time, I’m reliably informed is a particularly female attribute.  Men on the other hand cannot seem to do anymore than one thing at a time and even that they are going to get wrong!  Or so some woman told me!

So my nifty little mobile phone, takes calls and sends texts, it will take photographs and videos, play music and even function as a games console.  How’s that for multi-tasking?

I recently upgraded my television to one of those flat panel types with a built in digital tuner.  I can now flip through 700 channels and still find nothing to watch!  No surprise there perhaps but I was surprised to find Radio Stations on my TV.  Even my TV was gaining a touch of female multi-tasking.  I quite enjoy listening to radio – as they say the pictures are better on the radio – so I couldn’t quite understand the logic behind staring at a blank TV screen in order to listen to radio.

I’m led to believe that Radio is a vastly popular medium these days.  I know that I enjoy listening to the radio while I’m driving in the car.  I enjoy the radio being on in the house too because it doesn’t matter which room I’m in it sounds the same. I can go about my housework and still not miss anything that’s being broadcast. Unlike television, which demands me to behave like a couch potato so, I can watch the pictures.

For the most part I listen to Clyde 1.  First thing in the morning I quite enjoy the humour of that George Bowie.  George is only too happy to highlight the err of someone else’s ways, publicly shame them with their most embarrassing moments and give us all a laugh in the process. 

Then we’ve all had embarrassing moments somewhere when we’ve said the wrong thing at the wrong time or in the wrong way, misunderstood a situation, got the wrong end of the stick and next thing we know our face is glowing a bright shade of red and we feel ever so self conscious.

One thing we can all feel self conscious and embarrassed about is trying to talk freely to someone else about our faith and beliefs.  It tends to be such a tender subject with us so at times that we get anxious about being treated as though we are stupid for just going to church and believing in God.

On the Day of Pentecost all those years ago, the Apostles who were gathered were singing their praise of God; there was no sense of embarrassment with them, even though those onlookers who claimed the disciples were drunk were ridiculing them.  God had fulfilled his promise through the Christ to send the Holy Spirit and such was their sense of God’s presence with them and upon them that nothing was going to deter them from praising God.

Before the day of Pentecost the disciples were behind locked doors, locked on the inside for fear of what awaited them on the outside.  After Pentecost they were afraid of nothing.  They were men with a Gospel to proclaim and the energy to proclaim it.

There have been many, many people in the history of Christian testimony who have told of the way God has touched and changed their lives.  They have been touched by the presence of God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit and their testimony is every bit as exuberant as that recorded in the Book of Acts.

Here is just one example;  “In an instant the Lord made me so happy that I cannot express what I felt.  I shouted for joy, I praised God with my whole heart... I remember this, that everything looked new to me - the people, the fields, the cattle, the trees.  I was like a new man in a new world.... They said I was a “mad” man but they meant I was a “glad” man, and glory be to God I have been glad ever since.”

We would most likely describe our experiences of God in different words, but basically the Christian is the person made free because of God’s grace.  We are able to look to God Almighty and call him “Abba father”, our Daddy.  There are some things of which we can have too much like wealth and power but of the fruits of the Spirit we can never over-indulge.  The Spirit brings liberty and freedom, he bring us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control.

We might think on that first Pentecost as being like an oil company discovering a rich source of oil.  There is a violent eruption as the oil forces its way to the surface through the borehole.  It then takes time to capture and harness the flow of oil until it can be distributed to the places it is needed.  There is no real value in going back to the fireworks of the first days where everything seemed to be out of control.  Now the Spirit of God is channelled through our lives to be distributed to as many places of need as exist in the world today.  The power of the Spirit of God in human life; even if it begins with great excitement is shown in its fruits, and above all else in love and in concern for others.

The Spirit of God is the creator of community.  In the Old Testament, the story of Babel tells of how the tongues of men were confused and divided, one community was effectively brought to an end by that confusion.  The “descent” into confusion needs the “resurrection” into unity.  The disciples, as they were gathered in one place were touched by the Spirit, which made them into one community of faith.  Although we must not imagine that it was all a bed of roses there was amazing unity in all the diversity of folk who made up the fellowship.  When we share hopes and fears together, when we work together for the same cause and from the same place we build that sense of community and fellowship.

This is what the Church is meant to be “a community, worshipping, thinking and working together, bound together by the fellowship of the Holy Spirit in a common love for Christ.  A place where the stronger help the weaker and the older help the younger in the ways of Christian love.  When Christians learn to love with a love like Christ’s, other people more readily want to become Christian.

A journey with the Spirit has its risks and dangers.  Jesus never promised his disciples safety; he only promised them that they would not be alone.  When we face danger and difficulty, through the events of life, or through the challenge of proclaiming the gospel, the Spirit of God is there to strengthen and comfort us.

We shall not doubt that those first apostles and witnesses to the Lord received the gift of God’s Spirit. We shall not doubt that through the course of Christian history there have been untold numbers of great men and woman who filled with the fire of the Spirit have done marvellous works.  In our own day we are still discovering the truth that the Spirit of God is given to ordinary folks who can be made extraordinary by the Spirit.  We cannot say that we have never heard of the Spirit, we cannot say that we do not have the power of God within our lives yet, dare we be like those first disciples who, when they realised they had been given Good News for the world, risked their lives to offer it to those around, there was no stopping them.  Dare we rise up in the Spirit of God to proclaim the freedom, the community and the strength God gives through the gift of the Spirit without fear of embarrassment?