A reflection on the lectionary readings for Pentecost Sunday.
Today is Pentecost Sunday, the day we celebrate the coming of Holy Spirit to empower and equip us to bear witness to the good news of God’s Love in this world. At it’s core, this is an identity story for those who follow Jesus. This story tells us how our God of Three Persons is One. This story gives us our mission and tells us who it is we serve and follow. This story tells us who and Whose we are: God’s beloved tasked with carrying God’s Love to the corners of the earth.
I find it so bewildering how some who claim to follow Jesus can read scripture and somehow walk away with the idea that we are to bully, belittle, guilt, or shame people into following Jesus. Why on earth would anyone want to participate in something that is grounded in tearing people down and not building them up except they’ve developed the absolutely false notion that somehow God’s power comes from putting others down.
The Good News of God’s Love is that every human being, regardless of their gender, the color of their skin, the place they were born, where they grew up, who their family is, or their economic status, EVERY HUMAN BEING is created in God’s image, is beloved of God, and is offered the invitation to follow Jesus. No one has to prove they are worthy of God’s love or earn it. It is a gift already given. We only have to recognize it and pick it up. And when we pick it up it begins to grow and bloom and bear fruit that nurtures and nourishes others so that they can know they are God’s beloved, too.
When we ground our identity in God’s Love for us and begin to discover the freedom that comes with being able to let go of our ego’s need for attention and power, to let go of our need to gain approval of others, our need to always be right, to be over others, to gain for ourselves at the expense of others, we come to know the gift of God’s salvation. We are saved from the things that keep us self-centered. We are saved for the good of God’s Creation, here and now, in our own little corner of the world.
With the foundation of God’s Love, the formation of all that Jesus teaches us, and the fire of Holy Spirit burning in us, we are equipped to participate with God in building up the Kingdom-on-earth-as-in-heaven. We are empowered to work towards the Kingdom justice that sees everyone as infinitely valuable, as beloved children of God. We live on this earth as if God has already brought this Kingdom to fruition in the power of Love.
I was asked this week how do we pray for a person who is truly doing evil in this world, someone who appears to hold absolutely no value for any human life except what they can extract from others to bolster their own ego, someone who appears to see human life as expendable for their own gain. I suggested that we pray for God to intervene with this person because it appears that our human efforts are not capable of stopping them. I thought later that I should have added that we also pray for ourselves and each other that God keep our eyes on justice not retaliation and revenge. Justice holds people accountable for the harm they’ve caused; retaliation and revenge seek to harm. To want anything less than justice is to deny the dignity of all of our humanness.
In our reading from the Gospel according to John today, Jesus says to the disciples “peace be with you” and then he breathes on them and says “receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
To be at peace, we cannot let the sins of others cause us to harm others. To forgive is about our own well-being and growth. It is the wisdom of knowing we can’t control the behaviors of others but we can, with God’s help, keep our eyes on Jesus so that we work toward justice. To harbor anger and hatred against another is to retain their sins in ourselves. To be a Peace Maker isn’t to ignore harm but to tend to the needs of those harmed and to hold the one who harms accountable. And so very often it requires that we to the work to dismantle the social, political, and church systems that enable harm to go unchecked.
My prayer for all of us on this Day of Pentecost is that we will let the fire of God propel us into the world to share the Good News to those who are hurting, to hold accountable those who are causing harm, and to show the people we encounter that they are the true treasure of God’s Kingdom.
Keep Lovin’ louder than the hate, Y’all!
Mother Nancy's Coffee Thoughts 