This past Monday one of the readings for daily Mass was from Acts of the Apostles. I described St. Paul’s encounter with two men who had received the baptism of John of the Baptist, were apparently part of the Christian community in Ephesus, but had never heard of nor received the Holy Spirit. Paul baptized them and laid hands upon them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. From then the two men went about using their gifts given by the Spirit.

In our Catholic understanding of the way God works in the world, the two men before encountering Paul were examples of prevenient grace. “Prevenient” – before the coming; that grace which is imbued in every person part of our soul. The grace that disposes us, leans us into, precedes and prepares us for conversion. I love that image. From our creation we are already wired for God, connected, ready to answer.

The two men were already “leaning” towards Jesus, were part of the community of Ephesus, yet as the English scripture scholar William Barclay writes, they were incomplete Christians. I have been thinking about that expression since then. What does it mean to be an incomplete Christian? In terms of the Sacraments of the Church it means that the person has not received all the Sacraments of Initiation: Baptism, Eucharist, and Confirmation. But for most Catholics the Sacraments are complete by 8th grade or so.  We are then in Full Communion, but are we complete.?

There is the admonition from Matthew 5:48: “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” As I have mentioned at other times, the Greek is better translated as “So be whole, be complete…” Certainly in the great by-and-by, when filled with the love and grace of God, by the work of God, we will be complete when we truly and finally rest in God. But what about the time between “full communion” and resting in God? In the betwixt and between, what might it mean to be “incomplete Christians.”

In today’s gospel, in the quiet of the Upper Room, Jesus tells the Apostles, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” We are sent. It is the final words of the Mass, Ite missa est! “Ite” is imperative, it is in the command voice, “Go!” We are sent on a mission into the world. Sent with the Holy Spirit, the parakletos, the one who “comes alongside” of us, the one who advocates for us, remains with us, strengthens and helps us. And while we might hope the Spirit will just plain save us, or at least to take us away from whatever challenges seem to threaten to overwhelm us in the moment, the Spirit is here to be with us during challenges rather than taking those challenges away from us. To be with us on our Christ-given mission, strengthened by gifts of the Spirit.

The wonderful reading from St Paul, our second reading, says so clearly that there is but one Spirit given, and that one Spirit gives many gifts, “distributing them individually to each person as he wishes” – not for the benefit of that one person, but to build up the church for mission, that the church becomes universal. Gifts given that we go into the world to reconcile, relationships, reach out and hold them dear, draw them into the table. We are to go into our families, our neighborhoods, work places, and into the larger world to invite people into the One Body of Christ. To let them activate the prevenient grace, already there, that they may join us in proclaiming “Jesus is Lord.”

Relationships, reconciliation, outreach, holding them dear, drawing them to the table to share the Eucharist. In ways direct and indirect, obvious and obfuscated – this is the way. For this the gifts are given.

To the extent we withhold our gifts, let them lay fallow, we ourselves are incomplete.

To the extent we are incomplete, this community at St. Francis is incomplete, the larger Church is incomplete.

The mission for which we are sent – is incomplete.

The world is then unreconciled, incomplete

We just need to look around our own table of unlimited grace and mercy to see there are loved ones missing, seats empty. We are incomplete

As Spirit-filled disciples we are the agents of completeness

Just as God breathed the Holy Spirit upon the waters of a formless void to create and give life to the world, so too, Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit upon the disciples to empower them to continue that life-giving works. And to you the gifts of the Spirit are given that you may be perfect, whole, complete/

So on this Pentecost Sunday, let us pray:

Come Holy Spirit. Remind us of our gifts, encourage us, and stay with us so that we might perceive the needs of our family, neighbors and community and then rise to the occasion to meet those needs with equal measures of tenacity, courage, and grace. And lead them to our table. Come Holy Spirit.

Amen