The Magnificent Seven
(Acts 2:1-11; 1Cor.12:3b-7, 12-13; Jn.20:19-23)
I’ve long loved stories of unlikely people who get together for a purpose, and end up discovering something larger than themselves.
One example is John Sturges’ film The Magnificent Seven (1960). It’s the story of seven different men who are hired to protect a Mexican village from bandits. [i]
They begin as mutual strangers, bound only by a common task. But they find that combining their talents is much more effective than working alone. Through shared risk and sacrifice they become a team and their courage uplifts and protects a vulnerable community.
We see this, too, in Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring, where nine assorted characters share the burden of destroying the insidious Ring. Their diversity, mutual dependence and sacrificial mission model how a community can be forged under pressure and for the salvation of others.
Such stories offer us insights into today’s feast of Pentecost. In our first reading, Jesus’ disciples gather in fear and confusion in the Upper Room, when a great noise like a mighty wind suddenly arrives. And as tongues of fire appear above them, they find themselves speaking new languages.
This is when the Church is born. The Holy Spirit gathers these unlikely souls together, equips them with his divine graces and then sends them with the Gospel to the far reaches of the earth.
Something like this happened to St Paul Miki and his 25 companions in Japan in 1597. As these humble priests, laymen and children – the Martyrs of Nagasaki – were led to their deaths, they prayed, proclaimed Jesus Christ, and forgave their executioners.
Their shared witness formed a testimony that has sustained Christian identity in Japan for generations. And it reveals how the Holy Spirit forms communities not only in comfort and safety, but also in suffering and cost.
All these examples show how a new community is born whenever people gather for a purpose greater than themselves, pooling their gifts for the common good, and being prepared to risk, and even to suffer, for others.
From this, we can draw three lessons for any parish community:
Firstly, no-one has to be perfect. The Magnificent Seven aren’t perfect – their courage coexists with fear and moral complexity. The first Christians and the Nagasaki martyrs weren’t perfect either. The Holy Spirit does not demand perfection; he simply requires an open and willing heart.
If you hesitate because you feel weak or unskilled, know that God does not call the qualified. Rather, God qualifies the called. So, come as you are; the Spirit will make of us a people.
Secondly, the Spirit doesn’t turn disciples into solitary heroes. He forms them into a body willing to bear one another’s burdens. The Magnificent Seven only become a force when they agree to stand together, sharing danger and dividing responsibility.
If we want the Spirit to form us as a living community, we must be willing to risk our comfort – to show up, to serve, and to be vulnerable with one another. Community is not built by passive attendance but by shared effort and sacrifice.
Thirdly, a healthy community is built not on sameness but on gifted difference. Each character in The Magnificent Seven brings something different – some fight, some plan, while others encourage. Their diversity is their strength.
The same is true at Pentecost. People from many nations hear the Good News in their own tongues, and the Spirit gives varied gifts so that the whole body can flourish (1Cor.12).
The Martyrs of Nagasaki, too, were all different – some were priests, others lay catechists or children, and yet their diversity deepened the Church’s witness rather than diminished it.
A healthy parish community grows not when we recruit clones of ourselves but when we welcome varied gifts, ages, backgrounds, and temperaments into a common mission.
So, whose gifts is God inviting us to recognise today? Who might we have been excluding by our unhelpful habits or assumptions?
A true community is born for mission, and sometimes for costly witness. The Magnificent Seven come together to help a village. Jesus’ disciples, filled with the Spirit, are sent out to proclaim, to heal, and to baptise. And the Martyrs of Nagasaki embody the ultimate cost of that mission: witnessing unto death.
Pentecost’s gift is not private consolation; rather, it’s public power for witness, even in hostile places. And our unity is not an end in itself but a means by which God’s merciful love reaches the hungry, the lonely, and the marginalized.
What, then, is God asking of you – and us – today?
If our gatherings do not lead us outward, we have missed the point of coming together for Jesus.