May 31st, 2020
Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.
About a week and a half ago on Facebook live I sat in my
yard on a sunny, breezy day to tell the story of the Ascension of Jesus to
heaven. It’s one of the more minor, underrated festivals of the Church year,
but this year it actually brings a special meaning, if you think about the
story as Jesus leaving to “work from home.” If you missed it, you can go back
on our Facebook page and check it out. You may remember that the music I was
using almost blew away, and my paper airplanes didn’t fly very far. I also read
the story from the Spark Bible, which ended with the disciples excitedly explaining,
“We have work to do! Let’s get going!” Only…. They didn’t, not exactly. At
least, not yet.
In the Book of Acts version of the ascension, Jesus’ last
words are a promise, that the Holy Spirit would arrive, and that with
the power of the Holy Spirit, they would be witness for Jesus both near and
far. And what we heard today from the book of Acts is the fruition of that
promise – while the disciples were still huddled together, waiting for
something unknown to happen, in world that was newly unrecognizable… the spirit
arrived. And. How!
Wind. Loud rushing
sounds. Tongues of fire. Sudden language proficiency. So many words and so much
noise. But even in all that noise and confusion, suddenly everything made
sense, and the disciples were no longer scared – they were ready to face the
world, to carry on the work that Jesus began.
To interpret these events for the bewildered disciples
and bystanders, Peter quotes from the prophet Joel… “In these last days it will
be as God declares, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh…” Portents
and visions and scary signs like blood, fire, darkness, and mist. You see, the
prophet Joel is the perfect prophet to guide us and help us make sense of this
Pentecost moment in a pandemic, because Joel is well acquainted with disaster.
As Joel wrote, plague upon catastrophe was happening in
the land – not unlike what is happening around us on a daily basis, right here,
right now. Not just with Covid-19, but with literal plagues of locusts happening
in Ethiopia, floods in Michigan (and also the continuing Flint Water Crisis),
epic storms bearing down on India exacerbated by Climate change, riots and
property damage caused by white supremacists in the streets of Minneapolis… and
the never ending list of black and brown Americans Like George Floyd who have
been murdered at the hands of the very people who are charged to protect them.
By this time, Pentecost 2020, it certainly feels like our world is falling
apart around us.
Joel is a prophet familiar this feeling. Peter quotes
from Joel Chapter 2, but right before this, the first chapter is Joel lamenting
the state of the land, lamenting the death of innocent people, lamenting the
suffering that is all around him. Then, Joel writes in hope that as a sign that
God will not abandon God’s people – the spirit being poured out
indiscriminately: on all genders, on all races and stations, on all ages and
abilities.
The first Christians lived in that hope as well. But
before they got the completion of that hope in Pentecost, the community travels
through the trauma of Good Friday, the new and scary reality of the
Resurrection, and the confusion of reorientation and reordering this new way of
being. And then it seems like Jesus ups and leaves us just when we need him
most!
However, Jesus promised that we would not be alone as he
left – body and all – to go “work from home.” That promise is the Holy Spirit,
the most “freaky” part of the trinity, which arrived in a completely unexpected
way and bestowing gifts on Gods’ people to equip them for ministry in their
time and place.
We certainly have a lot to lament, along with Joel. We
have experienced the loss of what we knew – loss of jobs, loss of income, loss
of movement and in person connection. It feels as though every week, every day,
every hour, bring news of a new change, a new way that the world will be
different. But one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is language – the language
to mourn, and the language to remember. To remember: all the ways that God has
been faithful in the past. And the language to RE-Member – to put ourselves
back together again when the world has ripped them apart.
On that original Pentecost Day, the birthday of the
Christian Church, the disciples got to leave - no they were PUSHED OUT! – of
the little room that they were gathered in. We may not have that luxury, but
the Holy Spirit is still arriving in ways we do not expect, but perhaps is
preparing us in just the very ways that are necessary right now.
This Pentecost morning you may not have woken up to the
sound of a rushing windstorm, or with scorch mark on your pillow from a tongue
of flame hanging out over your head. And over breakfast, you probably didn’t
ask your family members to pass the eggs in Hungarian, Amharic, or Mandarin
Chinese.
But you did tune into this worship service through little
miracles that we might take for granted – through the unseen waves of the
internet, translated into light and sound by strange metal boxes, or zapping
through miles of phone cable right to your ear. Maybe in OUR Pentecost Moment,
while it is necessary to stay in place, the Holy Spirit speaks through
electricity and waves and social media and apps and keypads. … in order to
reach out to people who are down in Buckingham Springs, all over Pennsylvania,
and beyond. Miracles upon miracles, all at 10 on a Sunday morning.
I wasn’t planning on attending the Festival of Homiletics
last week, as I did last year in person when it was hosted in Minneapolis. But
this year, the organizers gave us a gift – free streaming live. Through this
event, I heard about Joel’s lament. And how tragic, that just about one year
after I was last in Minneapolis, we have so much more to lament – the
senseless murder of George Floyd, the destruction of property by white
supremacists for the purpose of violent escalation, and the continued suffering
of our siblings of color.
The miracle of electricity and wifi and social media
gives voice to the suffering, for those who care enough to hear and to act. And
it also gives us voice too, in order to speak out, perhaps in a new language,
with words we might not be used to saying: White Privilege. Systemic Racism.
Black Lives Matter.
Equipped with this new language with the “tongues of
flame” we have at our disposal, we cry out in lament, and we also speak out for
justice. We speak out, here in Buckingham and Philadelphia, throughout the East
Coast, to the ends of the Earth, and may we – with the help of the Holy Spirit
– never stop - not until justice for all
is a reality, and God’s kingdom arrives where all can breathe. Thanks be
to God. Amen.
