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**Click here to watch the sermon as a part of our whole Pentecost worship service from May 31
Acts 2:1-21
When the day of Pentecost had come, [the apostles] were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”
But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ ”
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The fires are burning. Every afternoon, I light a candle to begin evening prayer, and I talk about fire as the symbol of God's presence among us. Today is Pentecost. Tongues of fire have descended from heaven and we are celebrating a Holy Spirit that bursts into the world, causing holy chaos and confusion. This Holy Spirit dismantles every boundary, that all people and all races and all nations might know love, justice, reconciliation, peace.
We love fire when it warms us. We love fire when it reminds us of God's presence. We even love and celebrate fire when it symbolizes the bustling activity of God in the world.
But what do we do when fire challenges us and convicts us? What do we do when our cities are burning? What do we do when buildings in flames stand as a jarring vision of a nation on fire, a world on fire, a devastating manifestation of the hot-burning and holy anger of those who have, over and over again, been denied the possibility of living a full, safe, beloved, peaceful, secure life because of our individual and institutional prejudices against the color of their skin?
(The color of their skin, my friends! Do you know how ridiculous it sounds to me to say that out loud, how petty, how senseless?)
The author James Baldwin, quoted in the documentary, I Am Not Your Negro, says, "When… any white man in the world picks up a gun and says 'give me liberty or give me death', the entire white world applauds. But when a black man says exactly the same thing, word for word, he's judged a criminal and treated like one and everything possible is done to make an example of [him] so there won't be any more like him."
The author James Baldwin, quoted in the documentary, I Am Not Your Negro, says, "When… any white man in the world picks up a gun and says 'give me liberty or give me death', the entire white world applauds. But when a black man says exactly the same thing, word for word, he's judged a criminal and treated like one and everything possible is done to make an example of [him] so there won't be any more like him."
It is Pentecost and the Spirit of Truth is speaking and the fires are burning. In the glow of the flames, our faces and hearts are reflected back at us. What do we see?
By all means, we must grieve and lament and reject violence and destruction and threats to a city's well-being. We must pray for safety. We just condemn those who are not acting out of solidarity with the groans of the oppressed, but taking advantage of the holy anger in the air to commit selfish and destructive deeds born not from the fire of the Spirit, but from the fire of opportunity.
But we cannot pretend that the honest roots of this present destruction—the first of the fires, the first night of disquiet—are anything other than violence begetting violence. Destruction of life begetting destruction of property. Injustice begetting anger that has nowhere left to go. We cannot hate the violence of these riots if we have not first learned to hate the violence and injustice that lit the spark in the first place.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a March 14, 1968 address, declared, “It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Grosse Pointe High School, March 14, 1968)
After black voices have been silenced and ignored for so long, after peaceful protests have been met with scorn and tear gas, after centuries of black bodies being counted as less than whole, something to be feared, something to be destroyed, when you have run out of ways to cry out, what is left except to set the world on fire? How else will the voices of the terrified and the oppressed be heard?
What is the fire of the Holy Spirit that we will celebrate this day if not a fire that burns away the chaff of our broken and sinful hearts, a fire that lands equally on the heads of all of God's children, blessing and claiming them as whole and loved individuals, without qualification? What is the fire of the Holy Spirit if not the roaring, destructive, unpredictable fire of God, getting our attention, lighting up our hearts and minds, inciting us to Make. Justice. Happen. and to Destroy. Every. Boundary. and to Honor. Every. Life.?
To those who would argue against the church’s role in rejecting racism and oppression of all forms, Pastor Lenny Duncan, in his book Dear Church suggests that we,
“Read Acts 2 to them, and explain that diversity was the way the Holy Spirit expressed itself on earth from the birth of the church. Explain to them that the Ethiopian eunuch was baptized before most of the church—even before Paul. By honoring the struggle of black people, we are keeping the commitment made by the Spirit through Philip two thousand years ago. Tell them that Ethiopia was worshipping Christ before all of Europe. Tell them that Jesus was lynched by police, and every Good Friday, we recount that story, and it touches us somewhere deep inside. The fact we can’t see the parallels with the extrajudicial murders of black people today is a sign that something is wrong with us. It shows a hard heart and disconnect from the very real events that happened to our savior.” (129)
He continues later, challenging to consider that “Jesus was a national security threat. He walked around followed by crowds of the poor and downtrodden, who waited for him to take apart the oppressive system they all lived under. Despite Jesus’s example, when we see thousands of people in the streets today, demanding justice in an unjust system, we don’t call them disciples. We call them thugs.” (139)
The fires burning in Minneapolis and in cities across our nation are fires that should unsettle us. They should challenge us. They should upend our assumptions and check our vocabularies and complicate our thoughts and furrow our brows and make us think new things and examine our spirits in new ways. They should cause us to wonder what it is that sets our own hearts on fire and why.
We might love fire for how pretty it is when we think we can contain it. We might love fire for the warmth it gives when we think we can control it. But fire cannot burn without burning something else down. It devours the very thing that gives it life. It scatters, it destroys, it leaps and it sparks.
There's a reason that we use the idiom "playing with fire" to talk about the risks we take in life. Because fire cannot always be controlled; it cannot always be tamed. Fire always leads to smoke and to ashes, it always takes away even as it gives, it has power beyond us. It gives heat, it gives light, and it burns and destroys.
The Holy Spirit is fire, because it does the same things to us and to the world. We cannot just pretend that the Spirit is heat and light. It also takes us down to the ashes. And from there, God can build us from the dust and breathe new life into us all over again.
The fires are burning. Our hearts and our nation are being tested by the flames. What needs to be burned away? What are we willing to toss into the fire? And what might be born out of the ashes?
We close in prayer, using not our own words, but words from the Masai tribe in Tanzania and Kenya, a prayer for holy fire:
Receive this holy fire.
Make your lives like this fire.
A holy life that is seen.
A life of God that is seen.
A life that has no end.
A life that darkness does not overcome.
May this light of God in you grow.
Light a fire that is worthy of your heads.
Light a fire that is worthy of your children.
Light a fire that is worthy of your fathers.
Light a fire that is worthy of your mothers.
Light a fire that is worthy of God.
Now go in peace.
May the Almighty protect you
today and all days.
Amen.
By all means, we must grieve and lament and reject violence and destruction and threats to a city's well-being. We must pray for safety. We just condemn those who are not acting out of solidarity with the groans of the oppressed, but taking advantage of the holy anger in the air to commit selfish and destructive deeds born not from the fire of the Spirit, but from the fire of opportunity.
But we cannot pretend that the honest roots of this present destruction—the first of the fires, the first night of disquiet—are anything other than violence begetting violence. Destruction of life begetting destruction of property. Injustice begetting anger that has nowhere left to go. We cannot hate the violence of these riots if we have not first learned to hate the violence and injustice that lit the spark in the first place.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a March 14, 1968 address, declared, “It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Grosse Pointe High School, March 14, 1968)
After black voices have been silenced and ignored for so long, after peaceful protests have been met with scorn and tear gas, after centuries of black bodies being counted as less than whole, something to be feared, something to be destroyed, when you have run out of ways to cry out, what is left except to set the world on fire? How else will the voices of the terrified and the oppressed be heard?
What is the fire of the Holy Spirit that we will celebrate this day if not a fire that burns away the chaff of our broken and sinful hearts, a fire that lands equally on the heads of all of God's children, blessing and claiming them as whole and loved individuals, without qualification? What is the fire of the Holy Spirit if not the roaring, destructive, unpredictable fire of God, getting our attention, lighting up our hearts and minds, inciting us to Make. Justice. Happen. and to Destroy. Every. Boundary. and to Honor. Every. Life.?
To those who would argue against the church’s role in rejecting racism and oppression of all forms, Pastor Lenny Duncan, in his book Dear Church suggests that we,
“Read Acts 2 to them, and explain that diversity was the way the Holy Spirit expressed itself on earth from the birth of the church. Explain to them that the Ethiopian eunuch was baptized before most of the church—even before Paul. By honoring the struggle of black people, we are keeping the commitment made by the Spirit through Philip two thousand years ago. Tell them that Ethiopia was worshipping Christ before all of Europe. Tell them that Jesus was lynched by police, and every Good Friday, we recount that story, and it touches us somewhere deep inside. The fact we can’t see the parallels with the extrajudicial murders of black people today is a sign that something is wrong with us. It shows a hard heart and disconnect from the very real events that happened to our savior.” (129)
He continues later, challenging to consider that “Jesus was a national security threat. He walked around followed by crowds of the poor and downtrodden, who waited for him to take apart the oppressive system they all lived under. Despite Jesus’s example, when we see thousands of people in the streets today, demanding justice in an unjust system, we don’t call them disciples. We call them thugs.” (139)
The fires burning in Minneapolis and in cities across our nation are fires that should unsettle us. They should challenge us. They should upend our assumptions and check our vocabularies and complicate our thoughts and furrow our brows and make us think new things and examine our spirits in new ways. They should cause us to wonder what it is that sets our own hearts on fire and why.
We might love fire for how pretty it is when we think we can contain it. We might love fire for the warmth it gives when we think we can control it. But fire cannot burn without burning something else down. It devours the very thing that gives it life. It scatters, it destroys, it leaps and it sparks.
There's a reason that we use the idiom "playing with fire" to talk about the risks we take in life. Because fire cannot always be controlled; it cannot always be tamed. Fire always leads to smoke and to ashes, it always takes away even as it gives, it has power beyond us. It gives heat, it gives light, and it burns and destroys.
The Holy Spirit is fire, because it does the same things to us and to the world. We cannot just pretend that the Spirit is heat and light. It also takes us down to the ashes. And from there, God can build us from the dust and breathe new life into us all over again.
The fires are burning. Our hearts and our nation are being tested by the flames. What needs to be burned away? What are we willing to toss into the fire? And what might be born out of the ashes?
We close in prayer, using not our own words, but words from the Masai tribe in Tanzania and Kenya, a prayer for holy fire:
Receive this holy fire.
Make your lives like this fire.
A holy life that is seen.
A life of God that is seen.
A life that has no end.
A life that darkness does not overcome.
May this light of God in you grow.
Light a fire that is worthy of your heads.
Light a fire that is worthy of your children.
Light a fire that is worthy of your fathers.
Light a fire that is worthy of your mothers.
Light a fire that is worthy of God.
Now go in peace.
May the Almighty protect you
today and all days.
Amen.
(From An African Prayer Book, ed. Desmond Tutu)