May 24, 2026

I honestly donot understand why the Feast of Pentecost is not on the same level ofimportance as Easter or Christmas.

 

Because, itshould be.

 

It is avitally important feast.

 

And hasalways been seen so in the long history of the Church.

 

Maybe it’sbecause it’s even more dramatic than Easter or Christmas.

 

There’s wind.

 

There’s fire.

 

There’s lots andlots of noise.

 

There’s. . .chaos.

 

There’s thiscacophony of sound as people pour into the streets speaking languages they didnot know the day before.

 

The Church wasnot born in silence or order or careful ecclesiastical planning.

 

It is born ininterruption.

 

And maybethat’s our biggest lesson for today.

 

Let’s face it,whether we admit it or not, many of us secretly want some sort of manageableGod.

 

A God whostays very politely inside the sanctuary of the church building.

 

A God whoblesses our routines.

 

A God whoconfirms our politics.

 

A God whoreassures us that everything will remain basically stable and safe and nice.

 

But the HolySpirit in Acts behaves nothing like that.

 

The Spirit ofGod comes crashing in  through lockeddoors.

 

The Spiritdisrupts certainty.

 

The Spiritmakes people speak in ways that disturb the established order of things.

 

And thestrange thing is: the miracle of Pentecost is not really that everyone suddenlyspeaks the same language.

 

It is thatthey remain different and still understand one another.

 

Thetemptation of religion has always been toward uniformity.

 

Toward makingall people the same.

 

Carbon copiesof each other. 

 

Towarddeciding there is only one acceptable culture, one acceptable voice, oneacceptable way of being faithful.

 

But Pentecostrefuses all of that.

 

Look at whois present.

 

TheseParthians and Egyptians and Romans.

 

These Arabsand Jews from every corner of the known world.

 

It’sinteresting when we think of the diversity included in this account.

But what’smore amazing is what the Spirit does.

 

Or rather,what the Spirit doesn’t do.

 

The Spiritdoesn’t erase their identities.

 

What does theSpirit do?

 

The Spiritspeaks through them.

 

ALL of them.

 

The birth of Christianitydoesn’t begin with domination, but with translation.

 

It begins withunderstanding.

 

It beginswith radical hospitality.

 

And nothing’schanged on that level, today

 

That’s stillthe work of the Spirit.

 

Right here.

 

Right now.

 

Because weare living in a world increasingly incapable of listening and hearingone another.

 

Everyone isshouting.

 

Everyone is interruptingone naother.

 

Everyone iscertain.

 

Everyone isterrified.

 

And fearalways makes us narrower.

 

Fear shrinks oursouls.

 

It makes ustribal and defensive and cruel.

 

We begindividing the world into the pure and the impure, the saved and the damned, thedeserving and the disposable.

 

But theSpirti does the opposite of that.

 

The Spiritkeeps breaking down those walls.

 

That is whyPentecost is kind of frightening.

 

Because theSpirit is not merely comforting.

 

The Spirit isliberating.

 

Andliberation can be horribly disruptive.

 

The Spirittears off ceiling and opens sealed rooms where people have hidden themselvesaway in grief and fear.

 

Thedisciples, remember, are not by any means brave when this story begins.

 

What are theydoing?

 

They’rehiding.

 

Thecrucifixion has shattered them.

 

The Resurrectionhas bewildered them.

 

They don’tknow what comes next.

 

And then whatactually comes next?

 

Wind.

 

This almost-violentbreath of God.

 

Scripturesays it fills the whole house.

 

Not part ofit.

 

But all ofit.

 

Which meansthere is no protected corner left untouched.

 

The fire ofPentecost is not destructive in the way human violence is destructive.

 

It’s a refiningfire.

 

It burns awayfear.

 

It burns awaydespair.

 

It burns awaythe lie that death and cruelty and empire will ultimately rule the world.

 

And suddenlythese frightened disciples are outside speaking hope publicly.

 

That’s themiracle.

 

Not spectacle,but courage.

 

The Spiritgives them courage to become visible again.

 

And perhapsthat is the Pentecost we need now.

 

We don’t needa louder, flashier Church.

 

We don’t needmega-church crowds.

 

We don’t needbetter branding.

 

We don’t needto desperately try to impress anyone.

 

Instead, weneed to be people brave enough to speak mercy in a brutal world.

 

We need to bepeople brave enough to tell the truth.

 

We need to bepeople brave enough to love without guarantee of being loved back. 

We need to bepeople brave enough to remain tender when cynicism would be just so much easier.

 

Because theSpirit doesn’t make us powerful in the way the world understands power.

 

The Spiritmakes us alive.

 

Vital!

 

And alivepeople are dangerous to systems built on fear.

 

The Church atits best has always been a strange, eclectic, diverse  people, crossing boundaries, speaking acrossdivisions, caring forthose the world discards, refusing to accept that violence is inevitable, insistingthat every human being carries the breath of God within them.

 

That breath ofGod is what Pentecost is really about.

 

In Genesis,God breathes life into dust.

 

In Ezekiel, God’sbreath enters dry, dead bones.

 

In John’sGospel, the risen Christ breathes upon the disciples.

 

And in Acts,that breath becomes wind sweeping through the world.

 

The Spirit isthe breath of God refusing to abandon creation.

 

Even now.

 

Even here.

 

Even amongus.

 

And perhapsthat is the deepest comfort of Pentecost is  the realization that God hasnot left the world alone.

 

Not to the powers of this world.

 

Not tohatred.

 

Not todespair.

 

Not to death.

But to renewal and change and hope. 

 

The breath ofGod still moves.

 

The fire ofGod still burns.

 

In us.

Through us.

And somewherebeneath all our exhaustion and fear and loneliness, the Spirit is stillteaching us how to speak to one another again