"When the day of Pentecost came, all of them were together in one place. Suddenly, a sound like the roaring of a mighty windstorm came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw tongues like flames of fire that separated, and one rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance."

Yes, it's the Feast of Pentecost again, the birthday of the church - the day we remember that very significant event that took place in Jerusalem that started with wind and fire and so much chaos, and concluded with the Apostle Peter standing up and explaining, "No, we are not drunk. It's only 9am in the morning" (the implication being, of course, that had it been a little later in the day, well .

Even so, Pentecost is a very significant event in the Christian calendar and, as far as Christian feasts go, it's my personal favourite of the entire ecclesiastical year!

I appreciate that this puts me out of step with the commercial world that has managed to find in Christmas and Easter major marketing opportunities for the sale and distribution of useless gifts and unhealthy foodstuffs respectively, and yet has failed thus far to get a foothold in the Feast of Pentecost (as far as I know).

And I appreciate that this might equally put me out of step with many of the faithful, for whereas Christmas and Easter focus on Christ - on his birth, death and resurrection respectively - the Feast of Pentecost is all about us, the church - who we are and where we came from - and hence an emphasis on Pentecost may seem relatively impious.

And yet my feeling is that we, the church, tend to be less confused about who Christ is - 'Son of God and Son of Man, with reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting' (that's for those of us who are fans of the Athanasian Creed) - than we are about who we are.

Who is the church? What are we supposed to be on about? What's the point of meeting together like this each week when there are so many other things we could be doing?

You only have to look at the history of the church and at the tensions within the church around the world today to realise that there is a great deal of confusion surrounding the question of who we are and what our role in this world is supposed to be.

I read an excellent article this week, written by someone who I see as one of this world's greatest living saints - the former Archbishop of Capetown, Desmond Tutu - who has just published a new book with the provocative title, "God is not a Christian!" And in this book he talks about the sad history of the church:

"We are supposed to proclaim the God of love, but we have been guilty as Christians of sowing hatred and suspicion; we commend the one whom we call the Prince of Peace, and yet as Christians we have fought more wars than we care to remember. We have claimed to be a fellowship of compassion and caring and sharing, but as Christians we often sanctify socio-political systems that belie this, where the rich grow ever richer and the poor grow ever poorer."

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