For Sunday, May 19, 2013 – Acts 2:1-21
I wonder if they sensed it in the communal vibe on that morning of mornings–an impending inter-ruption? It had happened before, God appearing out of nowhere, disguised as disruption. So why would they not be expecting God to show up now as Spirit, wild and dangerous, tongues of flame dancing among them?
Having already broken through the locked doors of their fear, having dropped by to host a mercy meal on the beach, and then leading them back into the world where they belong, Jesus keeps showing them–and us–alternatives to fear and shame. He will not be the Lord of hideouts or homeland security, judgment or revenge. “Peace I give you,” he says. “Forgiveness I give you,” he says. “Oneness I give you.”
You, give the same.
The Spirit of this Pentecost morning publicly pronounces interconnection and truth. Nothing pushes our buttons more–nothing will free us more–than to acknowledge that we are bound eternally to one another. We are different, and we are one.
As a young adult I once spent six weeks “off the farm” living and working with members of a black Baptist church in Harlem. I had never even been to New York before, let alone Harlem. It was Pentecost morning–awakening me to the truth of oneness in diversity. Then a peace activist in the congregation suggested I join a truth-seeking mission to Nicaragua, and I heard Spirit laughing. I had thought Harlem was it, but now came fire. Blazing truths about my own country, land of the free, plotting to kill and suppress rained down upon me. New understandings demand new language, the language of deeper connection in order to face the truth. I thought of the old saying, ‘The truth will set you free but first it will make you miserable.’ Yes.
I had pictured Pentecost before as only joy, primarily joy, but now I saw that awakenings also burn. Spirit chastens us and brands us, marking us forever as members of a new order, a diverse tribe, one with all creation. And we are never the same again.
