Our culture is one that inherently favors extroverts. This, at least, is the claim of writer Susan Cain in her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking. It’s difficult to refute this claim that there is a tendency to trample upon the quiet voices of introverts. You may have been one of those eager but quiet freshmen in college who dreaded the incessant, boisterous social activities of orientation week. I certainly was. How many classes have you taken where part of your grade was based on vocal participation, as if you couldn’t participate without always saying something? And did anyone ever tell you to be less shy?
It is, of course, true that shyness is not to be equated with introversion. There are, in fact, shy extroverts. But whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, if you are quiet, gentle, and understated in your demeanor, the world is likely to pass you by without giving you a second thought.
Maybe it’s one of the aftereffects of a buzzing age constructed around technology. Everything needs to be in your face, all the time. The most popular movies must incorporate the most dramatic stunts. Everything is so full tilt in your face that there is no time to think and process inside.
This is part of Cain’s point in her book about the neglected values of introversion. She doesn’t argue that introversion is better than extroversion, but she does point out that society often implicitly assumes that extroversion is better than introversion. Her point is that the world needs both introverts and extroverts. They complement one another.
And like the culture we inhabit, the Church herself, at least these days, often seems to favor the extroverts among us. In some corners, the Church has begun marketing the Gospel as if evangelism is only the domain of extroverts. Yes, there are indeed introverted evangelists, but the Church in her quest for relevancy has equated evangelism with that other E word: extroversion.
Nowhere is this perhaps more in evidence than on the Day of Pentecost. On this day, the Church in many places resorts to all kinds of antics either out of pure celebratory spirit (no pun intended) or out of desperation. And there’s little doubt where the Church has found such fantastic displays of Pentecostal power. We need only look at the account of the Day of Pentecost from the Acts of the Apostles to see the wildness of the Spirit’s manifestation among the early disciples. The Holy Spirit filled the house where they were, like the rush of a mighty wind. Tongues of fire alighted on the heads of the disciples. People understood languages foreign to them. It was pure holy pandemonium.
It is this imagery of the Holy Spirit’s work that has captivated the imagination of the Church for so long. The Spirit is wild, unpredictable, and spectacular. The Spirit is visibly evident in strange behavior and in incomprehensible miracles. The Spirit is the dynamism behind bold, prophetic preaching. And if none of these signs is evident, then maybe the Spirit is just absent after all.
But just as the world needs both extroverts and introverts, so, too, we need multiple ways of describing the Holy Spirit. We have become accustomed to envisaging the Holy Spirit as tailored only to an extroverted world. We forget that the description of the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles is only one Scriptural voice testifying to the Spirit’s work.
And if we need both extroversion and introversion, maybe we can apply similar thinking to our knowledge of the Holy Spirit. The Church needs to embrace all aspects of the Holy Spirit’s power. The Acts of the Apostles gives us the proclamation of the Gospel on steroids. John the Evangelist presents us with the Advocate who will walk alongside us and lead us into truth. And St. Paul brings us into the depths of inner discernment.
If it’s true that extroverts tend to inadvertently trample all over introverts in a talkative world, it might be true that the babble of strange tongues, the noise of stupendous miracles, and visible manifestations of Spirit-filled ecstasy drown out the powerfully quiet voice of the Spirit related to us by St. Paul in his letter to the Romans, a voice that we might need the most.
There are no mighty winds in Paul’s description of the Spirit. There is not even any clarity around real truth. There is, in fact, no speech at all. There is, instead, something that goes far, far deeper than mere human speech. It is a sound that is beyond speech. It is a primal utterance that cannot be clarified into intelligible words. The Spirit, along with all of creation, groans. This sigh that is too deep for words is a groan that matches the incessant groaning of creation that is held captive in travail.
The creation held in bondage to darkness and evil, wrestling with the problem of evil and questions about God’s presence or absence, all of this is too incoherent and formless to be spewed forth in words. There is no clarity of language comprehension in this imagery. There is only the drone of agony as creation itself, humans and everything else, utters its existential lament.
This groan of sorrow is heard beneath the fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East. It is detected amid smoking pyres in COVID-wracked India. It cries out in gasps from the wells of injustice in this own nation. It screams from the dissonance of interreligious and interdenominational strife. This groan is everywhere, no matter its timbre or pitch.
But a world bent on fantastic displays of might and power cannot bear this groan. There is nothing flashy to articulate from the groan itself; there are only pain and emptiness. The primal utterances of these cavernous sighs have not been formed into any kind of processed thought. The internal processing is the sigh itself. The groan knows not what it should say or ask.
This is why it is so much easier to turn to theatrics on Pentecost. Bring in the fire-eaters, loud streamers, and party horns. Favor an extroverted display of Pentecostal fervor that is audible and visible, but avoid the groans. They have nothing to say.
Except that they do. We need the multiple voices that attempt to convey the indescribable mystery of this misunderstood Person of the Trinity. As much as we need the excitement of the Spirit’s power, we desperately need the Spirit’s quiet, inner utterances that give us hope.
Because, as St. Paul tells us, it is hope, after all, that can be the only proper response to groans so deep that they have no verbal quality to them. It is a hope that we are not alone in our groaning. It is in the groaning itself that our groans are matched, neither in consonance or language, but in sincerity and truth, with the groans of the Holy Spirit who meets us in our anguish.
It is perhaps in the torture of this groaning that we discover the mind of Christ itself. Here, in the depths of inarticulate utterances, God the Father meets our travail as the Spirit gives quiet voice to what is voiceless to us. Here God the Son is found as the meeting point of heavenly redemption and earthly sorrow. And imagine how all of this would be lost if we didn’t heed this understated voice of the Spirit among us.
If most of us are familiar with the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, it is probably found in this less obvious way, because this real groan is the bedrock of human life, even if it comes and goes. And the good news here is not that there is groaning but that when there is groaning there is One who comes among us, indeed within us, to intercede to the Father for us.
When forceful words are not able to quell war and violence, the Spirit is there interceding. When passionate and prophetic speeches cannot kill injustice, the Spirit is there nonetheless. When those who are anonymously suffering alone have no advocate, the Spirit who meets us within is a friend and companion.
And when we have no words to pray or have even lost our ability to pray, this gentle, quiet, but powerful Guide is praying for us because God will not let us go. So, on this day, when we have so much to celebrate, I say, you can have your fire-eaters, banners, and loud testimonials. Any day, I would gladly focus on the power of the Spirit who is not above the depths of our sorrow, but who finds us in it and groans along with us. Because so often in life, we are simply speechless before God, and this is precisely where the Spirit comes to help us.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Day of Pentecost
May 23, 2021