Year A: Pentecost | Acts 2:1-21 | John 20:19-23
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
May 24, 2026
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
No recording of this service is available.
Today’s scene from John isn’t exactly what comes to mind when most Christians hear the word “Pentecost.” The Book of Acts? Yes. Wind and fire? Yes. A bizarre breakdown in communication barriers? Yes. Peter’s fiery sermon? Sometimes. But the disciples fearing for their lives in a locked room the evening of Jesus’ resurrection? No; it fits neither our imagination nor the more famous fifty-day timeline Luke offers us.
Maybe it’s because we prefer the bombast of the other scene. Maybe it’s the unmistakable presence of the Divine with all the auditory and visual mayhem. If God were to truly act, I think most people would expect it to be obvious and unquestionable. We Christians long to witness supernatural intervention and, not unlike addicts, often desperately seek the “spiritual”[1] high that goes along with it. We want something that will assuage our concerns or confirm our “faith” once and for all. It doesn’t really matter that such things almost never work. Think of the Hebrew people fleeing Egypt. They’d seen terrible plagues befall their neighbors, watched as sea waters stood like walls around them only to collapse upon and drown their pursuers, begged at Sinai that God stop speaking to them directly, been actively accompanied by a strange, towering, sometimes fiery cloud, and spent two years eating seemingly magical food. Yet when they did arrive at their Promised Land a short time later, they decided the God who liberated and sustained them wouldn’t be able to help them settle it and opted to head back into slavery instead.
Apparently all that supernatural evidence actually does for humans is leave us looking for something more.
Our Gospel text, sometimes called “John’s Pentecost,” as this is where that author has Jesus convey the Holy Spirit to the disciples, stands in stark contrast to the scene in Acts. If anything, the author understates the situation. As recorded, this is the evening of the resurrection itself. At this point, the only person to have seen or talked to Jesus is Mary Magdalene. The disciples, fearing the likelihood of meeting the same fate as their teacher, defend themselves by locking away the world around them. In this closed setting of doubt, suspicion, and fear, someone they knew to be dead suddenly pipes up from their midst with something akin to, “Hey, guys—good to see you again!” John’s note that “then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord”[2] seems almost comical, given the circumstance. Without any sort of pomp at all, Jesus briefly commissions them and offers them a portion of God’s Sacred Breath. The whole scene ends not with a dramatic send off or even a note about his departure, just a strange statement about forgiveness and sin.
It’s that sentence I’d like to hone in on today: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”[3]
One commentary I was reading said that this is the first and final appearance of the word “forgive” in the whole of John’s Gospel, and, in English, that’s true. The Greek word behind it, however, shows up quite a few times prior to this,[4] although it’s always translated along the lines of “leave” or “let go,” which is the word’s primary meaning, like when Jesus tells the bystanders to “unbind [Lazarus], and let him go.”[5]
This first half of the sentence has held a major influence in my adult theological development. It is, in fact, the first thing I think of when I hear other Christians complaining about how the Episcopal Church has “changed Scripture” or somehow turned from God in our efforts to include women and sexual minorities in every order of service. However, Jesus plainly tells us here, in one of the latest New Testament books to be written, that his disciples have the authority to forgive “sin,” a term which actually refers to any kind of failing, whether real or simply something that broader society looks down upon.
The entire story of the Early Church is one of people thinking they’re on the inside and being forced to reckon with the reality that God has indeed included those they consider to be outsiders or inferior as their peers. It starts in this locked room full of Galileans, spills into broader Judean society, and soon makes inroads among the Samaritans, reviled half-brothers of Galilee and Judea. Assuming the good guys must end with the extent of practicing Jewish culture, Peter is stunned when a group of foreigners receive the same Acts-style baptism of the Holy Spirit he experienced right in front of his eyes—without even having been water-baptized! Paul and other apostles carry the message to society after society, and soon the known world has heard about this Jesus.
And then, for some reason, we as the Church shut it down, choosing to reinforce barriers rather than continuing to follow Christ’s example in opening them. We decided that the Kingdom was big enough, so we began to exclude some insiders from ministry and kicked others out completely. But the nature of God’s Kingdom is to expand, and free from the shackles of Christendom—the 1500+ years of Church colluding with (but actually willfully enslaved to) the State[6]—the Reign of the Heavens is once again beginning to overflow its historic bounds.
Some may ask, though, if the Kingdom keeps expanding, how exactly do we as Christians maintain any kind of standards? We don’t intend to exclude, but Jesus says right here that we have a right to retain certain sins. And that’s true, he does…in English. What Jesus actually said, however, leaves a good bit of room for doubt about that.
It’s fascinating to me that in every English translation of this passage I had available when preparing this sermon, we see “sins” appear in both halves of this sentence while, in reality, the one in the “retaining” section simply isn’t present in the original Greek text. Maybe early translators were working with one of those copies of the manuscript that Renaissance scholars had retranslated into Greek from Latin. Maybe it’s just a historic linguistic tradition. But honestly, any appearance we find of “sin” in the second half of this sentence is, in fact, an interpretive assertion.
What Jesus actually says here is—and yes, I know this is rough, but I’m trying to be literal—“When[7] you all”—the disciples collectively—“might dismiss the failings of certain people, they have dismissed among them. When you all might cling of certain people, they have clung.”[8] While it isn’t unreasonable to assume that the “of certain people” phrases might both be referring to the failings (or sins) mentioned in the first half of the sentence, it could be that the people are the ones being held fast or clung to in the second part. The idea seems to be that once something is forgiven or let go of, the community should consider it to be gone. But then the community has the responsibility to embrace and uphold those “forgiven” people tightly. With the phrasing John offers, this isn’t any more drastic of an interpretive move than inserting the word “sin,” and its message is certainly in keeping with this Gospel’s pervasive focus on unity.
Even jumping over to the Acts passage, what do we find to be the result of all the opening spectacle we tend to district ourselves with? The birth of the Church—the establishment of a new kind of community, one that drew “together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.”[9]
The Holy Spirit, God’s Purifying Breath, doesn’t arrive with its own mission in mind. It continues the work that Jesus started—and empowers us, as Christ’s body, to join in that ongoing work. Instead of establishing or reinforcing dividing lines, Jesus, the Gateway, breaks down the walls that separate us from one another. In doing so, Jesus, the Method,[10] serves as a model of how we too can follow the Father. Whether serenely gathered for prayer or fearfully locking themselves in a closet, Jesus transforms his followers with a simple breath. He shares his own energy and life—the very air that empowers his own core self. He shatters the barriers that divide us, whether Cosmic or human. He calls us not to wait for some coming golden age but to unite, to “receive the Holy Spirit,”[11] freeing us to embrace one another and celebrate the diverse life and beauty of God’s Kingdom as it continues to unfold itself throughout the world.
[1] Actually just emotional or internal sensory
[2] John 20:20
[3] John 20:23 | All Bible quotations are from the NRSVue unless otherwise noted.
[4] Never after, though.
[5] John 11:44
[6] Not unlike the Hebrew people at the border of Canaan, Christian Nationalism seeks to abandon the challenges of freedom and return the Church to oppression and nostalgic stability they imagine under Christendom.
[7] Generally translated “if,” the Greek particle ἄν (“an”) also functions as the “ever” in “whenever,” “wherever,” “whoever,” and “however.” Since there’s a different word available for “if” (εἰ), I choose to interpret the term with the other understanding in mind.
[8] John 20:23 | my translation
[9] Acts 2:44-47
[10] An alternative translation of “Way”
[11] John 20:22