May 31, 2020
Acts 2:1-21; 1 Cor 12:3b-13; John 20:19-23
INTRODUCTION
Pentecost is one of my favorite days of the church year – the dramatic story, the festive red, the great hymns, the global nature. Of course, this year the mood is much different, but that’s the cool thing about the Holy Spirit: there are so many facets and expressions and descriptions of the Spirit, there is always some aspect of it that can speak to us just exactly where we are.
Our readings today reflect that variety. Our first reading from Acts is that dramatic first Pentecost, as Luke tells it. Jews from around the known world are staying in Jerusalem and celebrating the Jewish Festival of Weeks: a harvest festival where Jews also remember the giving of the law, the 10 commandments. And the Holy Spirit makes a raucous entrance, complete with wind, noise and fire. Very exciting! The Psalm shows us the creative nature of the Spirit, recalling how at creation, before God said anything, the Spirit hovered over the chaotic waters. 1 Corinthians shifts gears and talks about the unifying nature of the Spirit – though there are varieties of gifts, Paul writes, we are all one in the Spirit, “for in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” And finally in the Gospel reading, we will hear a story we always hear the week after Easter, about Jesus appearing to the fearful disciples who are locked in the upper room. Jesus breathes his Spirit onto them and tells them not once, but twice, “Peace be with you.”
So… which expression of the Spirit do you need today? The disruptive and driving one of that first Pentecost, or the creative one of the Psalm? The unifying Spirit of 1 Corinthians, or the Spirit of peace breathed into a place of fear? As you listen, hear the promise that whatever you need this day, the Spirit is with you. Let’s listen.
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| This is part of a project I did in an art and spirituality workshop I'm doing! |
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I look forward to Pentecost every year. It’s such a festive and fun Sunday, less pressure than Easter or Christmas, but just as important. It is often a day on which we celebrate confirmations or baptisms, and we get to sing one of my very favorite hymns, O Day Full of Grace. I mean, what’s not to love? I knew this year would be different, of course, but I was still really looking forward to it.
But this week has made it difficult to get into a festive and celebratory mood, and certainly to preach a word to the effect.
Jesus breathes his Holy Spirit and a word of peace onto his disciples… even as another black man is killed by police saying the words, “I can’t breathe.” In other news, the US crossed the 100,000 deaths mark to a disease that takes away people’s ability to breathe. Where’s that breath of peace, Jesus?
The Holy Spirit comes like a loud rushing wind and tongues of fire… even as Minneapolis becomes host to fiery riots in response to George Floyd’s murder, and news comes also of riots in Louisville over another death of an innocent black woman, Brionna Taylor, who was shot 8 times in her bed in the middle of the night by FBI agents doing a search for drugs (which she did not have). Just last night, riots broke out around the country, including in Rochester, and looting was happening just a mile from my house. So, are fire and violent wind such helpful images just now?
The apostle Paul boldly claims that though we are many members, we are one in the Spirit… even as we see the divisions growing deeper – and the pandemic has revealed just how much disparity exists between classes and races, both in the US and around the world. People of color are disproportionately affected both by the virus itself and by the economic impact of the response, due to less access to adequate health care, pre-existing income inequality, the fact that they are more likely to be the essential workers who cannot stay home, and more.[1]
Nope, it is not an easy week to be a preacher.
But difficult or not, I do believe the Word of God can always guide us in our spiritual needs, and that is no less true in a week like this, and especially on a day we celebrate the various ways the Spirit has worked among and through us since the very creation of the universe. So let me share with you a bit about this journey I have taken this week, guided by the Spirit and these Pentecost texts.
One of the primary images we lift up on Pentecost is that of fire, and those tongues of fire that rested on each disciples’ head. “You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire,” John the Baptist had announced, and now, here it is happening. It’s sort of a strange image in a normal year, and perhaps this year, also a troubling one, given what is happening in Minneapolis and around the country. But here is something else we know about fire: it cleanses. It refines. It purifies. It burns away the brush so that stronger plants can grow. In nature, fire is necessary for the long-term flourishing of the forest.
So I’ve been wondering if we might take that image of a fiery Spirit, and understand it as one that refines or purifies our hearts, especially in the form of repentance. Repentance, of course, is the act of taking a good hard look at our hearts, and the ways we have fallen short of God’s hope for us, and then working to turn our hearts and our ways toward God. Speaking as a white person of considerable privilege, watching another string of racially charged incidents, I have been troubled by how little these events ultimately affect me, at least directly. They affect me in the sense that when one member of the body suffers we all suffer, but as for my day-to-day life, I am in a position to ignore them, if I want, and to go about my day. I will never have to worry about someone calling the cops on me if I ask her to leash her dog, like Christian Cooper. I will never be shot 8 times in my own bed by the police, like Brionna Taylor. And I can be pretty certain I will not be held down by a policeman’s knee for over 8 minutes, until I stop breathing, like George Floyd. Now, that privilege I enjoy doesn’t make me a bad person. But, being content with that position while ignoring the suffering of fellow children of God, is something to let the fires of Pentecost cleanse from my heart. My “lukewarm acceptance” (as Martin Luther King said) of the way things are is something to repent.
One way to start to do this, is to listen. On that day in Jerusalem, as that rushing wind left the room, the diverse group that was gathered found that they could hear the disciples speaking in their own language. What a gift this would be to us today, in a time in which even those of us who do speak the same language can’t seem to understand each other. But with the Spirit’s help, perhaps we could start to hear the voices and stories of those from other experiences and cultures. It will take some work – I have spent some time this week seeking out testimonies from people of color, so that I can read not only about how the riots we are seeing are affecting my mostly white Lutheran friends in the Twin Cities, but also those in communities of color. It isn’t enough, but it is a start in my effort to hear this story in the native language of another.[2]
In hearing these testimonies, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can start to move to the final step, the great Pentecost moment. For this, we actually have to return to last week and the Ascension. Just before Jesus’ ascended into heaven, do you remember what he told the disciples? “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” This was Jesus’ parting instruction to the disciples, before he was lifted up into a cloud. You will be my witnesses.
So what does this mean? In Acts, it meant that Peter, a country bumpkin known for putting his foot in his mouth, who had just weeks before denied knowing Jesus at all, suddenly found the courage to stand up and preach, and 3000 people were baptized that day. For Peter, witnessing was verbal, but it doesn’t need to be. Witnessing may look like walking alongside the oppressed, seeing our lives not as separate, but as intertwined, as one in the Spirit, as the apostle Paul would say. Witnessing may look like saying, “Enough!” and then doing something about it, using our own power, position, or privilege to persuade, to amplify the voices of the vulnerable, to start making phone calls or speaking up on their behalf. There are lots of pieces out there with titles like, “What white people can do to help.” Check them out, see what suits your abilities and desires. Witnessing looks like researching candidates and voting for the ones who will champion the causes of the oppressed, even if that vote may not be in your own personal best interest. Witnessing may look like listening, to go back to my last point – listening and trusting the testimony of those who have been oppressed, without trying to rationalize that story into something that makes more sense to us. Witnessing may simply look like donating to an organization that helps all these things to happen, along with making sure people of color have the voice and the support they should.
So there it is, your three-fold Pentecost Plan: let the fiery Spirit purify your heart in the act of repentance; listen to the stories of the oppressed in their own native language; and be witnesses to the ends of the earth. This is and always has been the task of the Church: to enact and give voice to God’s salvific work. If we can live out this charge given to us by Jesus’ Spirit, we will be participating in the promise of the resurrection to bring life out of death – hopefully to the 400 year old story of oppression of black people and other people of color in our country, but also we will see life in a new way in our own story. May this Pentecost bring death by fire to our old ways of complacency or “lukewarm acceptance.” May we find the life in the stories of those most affected by the sin of racism. And may our witnessing to the good news of Jesus bring life to us and to those whom we encounter.
Let us pray… Holy Spirit, purify our hearts with your fire. Breathe your peace into a world riddled with injustice. And enliven your Church, that we would be witnesses to your inspiration and life. In the name if the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] There are many good pieces about this. Here is one: “Coronavirus: Why Some Racial Groups are More Vulnerable.” (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200420-coronavirus-why-some-racial-groups-are-more-vulnerable)
[2] This piece has many helpful links: https://www.wmagazine.com/story/george-floyd-protests-minnesota/
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