Pentecost + We are God's Prayer for the World + ACL+ and MCL+ 5.19.24

 

We are God’s Prayer for the World

Day of Pentecost, 2024

 

St Paul’s Emmanuel, Santa Paula and All Santos, Oxnard

The Revs. Alene and Melissa Campbell-Langdell

 

 

Happy Feast of Pentecost!  Today, the early historian known as Luke takes us back to the Upper Room.  We’ve been here before in the story.  We watched as Jesus joined his disciples for a somber meal.  As they ate together, Jesus said goodbye, and told his disciples to hold on to this ritual of bread and wine as a way of remembering him.  Emotions ran high that day.  One disciple left to betray Jesus, another promised never to deny him and then did so a few hours later. 

            In the following week, the Upper Room continues to figure prominently in the story as the disciples gather there in fear.  We are told the doors are locked out of fear.  The room is haunted by ghosts of the past: denial, failure, grief.  When Jesus shows up in their midst, he first has to reassure the disciples that he is not simply another ghost, another hallucination born out of their collective trauma.   And so, he breaks bread and eats fish and in so doing proves that he is really, truly present (breathing, eating, living). 

            As we join the disciples in the Upper Room this week, there is a decided shift in the room. For one thing, it is crowded!  No longer just the close circle of twelve, the room is crowded with some 120 people all waiting there together.  The Feast of Pentecost is a bit like Thanksgiving, so as much of the family as could make it has come together.  The air is filled with joy and laughter as people catch up with each other.  The smell of cooking mingles with other bodily scents in a not entirely unpleasant way because this is family, and there is comfort in knowing that those we love are close by.  As the day itself approaches, I imagine that some of the talk settles down into quieter murmurs as people grow accustomed to simply being together.  A few of the kids begin to get antsy and find ways to stir things up as only kids can.  But above those bursts of noise, there is a stillness of anticipation.  Something is coming. 

Before I visited Jerusalem and saw one of the places which is believed to have been the Upper Room, I kind of imagined, based on the Pentecost story, a room overlooking some kind of large plaza.  Perhaps a bit more like St Peter’s square in Rome than a dusty, twisting, narrow street with buildings all around.  So instead of a square filled with people intently looking up at a carefully set stage, imagine with me instead this crowd of people hanging out of windows up and down the street.  The street below Peter’s window is standing room only as the crowd fills the space and cranes their necks to see what is going on.  Others have climbed up to the roofs of neighboring houses and are hanging dangerously close to the edge in order to listen.  The sky is blue and the sun is warm--explaining why the sound of wind was so startling and brought everyone out from their respective celebrations trying to see and hear.  Suddenly, all of these travelers hear a voice speaking to them in the language of their new homes far away from this ancestral home to which they’ve traveled.  They have come to this place to celebrate and honor the God of their ancestors and are being met by a God who honors who they are and the people they have become. 

On a day like Pentecost, we see so much renewal. We see the church being formed even as it builds upon the edifice of ancient Judaism. We see people hearing and understanding each other in such a way that community can be built, a spiritual gift we continue to need in diverse Southern California. We see so much renewal, in fact, that I think we might be tempted to rush entirely to the new life aspect- the founding of a new church, a new understanding of each other. But it is helpful for us to remember that God is in the business of renewal of what is- honoring who we are as well as what we are becoming.  God doesn’t take us out of the pain of our lives and instead transforms it.  In a recent On Being episode, Krista Tippett talked with children’s author, Kate DiCamillo, about how the best children’s books don’t deny or ignore the pain of our lives, they “make pain bearable.”  As Tippett says: “In her writing, it is Kate DiCamillo’s gift to make bearable the fact that joy and sorrow live so close, side by side, in life as it is — if not as we wish it to be.”[1]

And just as with DiCamillo’s writing, resurrection doesn’t erase the pain and trauma the disciples have experienced.  Yet, when we get to Pentecost, the fear has been transformed into something new. Earlier, the disciples were in a locked room, afraid. Now they are bursting with flames of joy, mutual understanding abounds. But they had to go through the fear to get to the renewal.

In John 15, as Jesus prepares the disciples for his death, he also prepares for the renewal that will come afterwards.  Jesus said to his disciples, “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning (John 15:26-27).” After the pain and the fear, the disciples will be given a new job.   Jesus makes it sound so simple: the disciples are to share what they’ve seen. The Spirit will do the work of proving what is true.  It is the Spirit who will make of our lives, pain and all, something that tells the world about God. We just have to be willing to bear witness. To the pain, to the joy, and to how God has remained faithful. In all of it.

The Apostle Paul, writing to the Romans, writes of a hope that is grounded in a past that has yet to be fully realized (Romans 8:24-25).  Paul invites us to see the pain of the world from a lens of creation and resurrection.  No matter how bad it looks.  The end is not death.  There is no need to hide away in a locked room.  Why?  Because the Spirit has come!  The God who knows our language, who honors every part of who we are, has chosen to love this world through us.  And here’s the craziest part, we don’t even have to know what we’re doing!  We stumble along trying to figure out what to say, how to reach out to community, or even how to pray for a world that is so broken and so beautiful all at once.  And like a wind out of nowhere, a fire that burns inside us, a counselor who shows up when we have no idea what to do, or the miracle of new life when all seemed lost, the Spirit comes.

The Spirit comes into our everyday, stumbling around attempts to be God’s people in the world and makes us something new.  God’s Spirit prays through us bringing healing and wholeness into the lives of our neighbors, and “renewing the face of the earth.” And, in that moment, we are also transformed.  As the Spirit prays through us, we become God’s prayer of love for the world.  Amen.

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[1] Krista Tippett, “On Being: Kate Di Camillo: On Nurturing Capacious Hearts,” May 9. 2024 (from March 17, 2022), Kate DiCamillo — On Nurturing Capacious Hearts | The On Being Project.