We need to remember, as we celebrate Whitsun tomorrow, that progress in the Spirit is by fits and starts. The gift of the Holy Spirit is something we need to get used to, and the Holy Spirit needs to get used to us

The description St Luke gives of the Church in Jerusalem after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is one that has inspired many subsequent reform movements in the Church, and has been very influential in the foundation of many religious orders. It is not difficult to see why. It tells of the whole group of believers being of one heart and soul, with no one claiming private ownership of any possessions, but holding everything in common, and not a needy person among them (Acts 4:32-35).

Commentators describe this passage as a "summary", but it is a very curious kind of summary, for no sooner has Luke given it than he appears to contradict it, at every point. First we hear of a married couple who tried to deceive the community by presenting only part of the proceeds of the sale of their property as though it were the whole (Acts 5: 1-11). A little later we are told of dissension that divided this early Christian community, if not along racial lines, then certainly along linguistic ones. The Hellenists (Greek speakers) grumbled against the Hebrews (Hebrew or Aramaic speakers) because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of bread (Acts 6:1-6). Christians are not supposed to grumble, even when they have something to grumble about, as St Paul told the Corinthians in peremptory fashion (1 Corinthians 10:10). But here we find grumbling among those who have just been described as being "of one mind and one heart". How can these Hellenists have had anything to grumble about if the Jerusalem community held everything in common, and there was not a needy person among them?

The solution the Apostles found to this problem hardly allows them to be seen to best advantage as giving testimony to the Resurrection of the Lord with great power (Acts 4: 33). For whereas Jesus had characteristically attended to the physical and spiritual needs of the people, and had encouraged his disciples to do the same (cf. Mark 6:12-13), here we find the Apostles distinguishing between service to the Word and waiting on tables, and clearly regarding themselves as being too important to be involved in the latter. Nor did their solution address and heal the original division, for the seven they appointed to wait at tables all had Greek names: presumably there were separate soup kitchens for Hellenists and Hebrews thereafter.

Other instances of bitter, and sometimes tedious, dispute among the early Christians, and fudged attempts at resolution by the leaders of the Church, can be found in the Acts of the Apostles - the dispute about whether or not Gentile converts should be obliged to observe the Jewish holiness code, for example (Acts 15:1-31). But we have seen enough to make us wonder what Luke was about when he described the early Church in such idealistic terms earlier in Acts. If he is simply contradicting himself unwittingly it is hard to see why the Church would have accepted Acts into the canon. If he meant to imply that things started to go downhill after the great event of Pentecost, it is hard to see why he would have bothered to write his book. So, presumably, he understood there to be a fundamental coherence between his idealised "summary" of the first Christian community and his subsequent description of a Church that was subject to conflict and dissension, of a leadership that was confused and inconsistent. But what is the basis of that coherence?

Luke says of those gathered at Pentecost that they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. But it is clear from his other uses of the phrase that he does not regard being filled with the Holy Spirit as a permanent condition. What, then, was the relationship between Christians and the Spirit at other times, when they were not filled with the Spirit for the purpose of prophesying? St Paul says that what we have been given is a "pledge", a "first instalment", or the "first fruits" of the Spirit (2 Corinthians 1:22; 5:5; Rm 8:23). That implies that the paradigm for our full relationship with the Spirit is not Pentecost but rather the eschaton, the last days, which Pentecost prefigures. At Pentecost Peter himself had quoted from the prophet Joel, saying that it was in the last days that God would pour out his Spirit on all flesh (Acts 2:17).

According to the second-century Christian writer Irenaeus of Lyons, in the last days, when the work of our Creation in the image and likeness of God will have reached the goal which God intended for it, the Holy Spirit will be integral to our constitution as human beings: we will not be just body and soul, but body, soul and Spirit (Against Heresies V 6:1). In the meantime, the process of our creation in the image and likeness of God goes forward by fits and starts, for our humanity must grow accustomed to having the Spirit joined so intimately to it, and, Irenaeus does not flinch from saying, the Spirit must grow accustomed to dwelling in us (Against Heresies III 17:1). This process of adjusting to the Spirit is not always easy, and sometimes it is painful. Indeed, St Paul compared it to the pain of a woman giving birth. "The whole Creation has been groaning in labour pains until now," he says, "and not only the Creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies" (Romans 8:22-23). Perhaps it is in that light that we should see Luke's lack of concern for the incongruity between his idealised summary of the post-Pentecost community and the rather sorry tale of failure, of division and of muddled leadership that he goes on to relate. These early Christians have a pledge, a first instalment of the Spirit, but Luke is not afraid to let us glimpse something of the painful process of their growing accustomed to that Spirit as it accustoms itself to them.

What was true of the first Christian community remains true of us and of our communities. We experience failure within ourselves: division, bitterness, muddle-headedness and bewilderment in our communities. Luke would not have us suppose that any of this is not real; but he encourages us to see in it that imperfect humanity which the Spirit joins to itself, modelling us anew after the pattern of Christ, so that the Father's light might shine from our humanity as it does from the humanity of his Son.

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