PENTECOST SUNDAY A

[cappie]

After the initial experience of the Holy Spirit,  we read further in the  book of Acts, Peter begins his Pentecost sermon: “In the last days, God declares, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your and daughters will prophesy.” These words, spoken just 50 days after the tragedy of Good Friday and the bewilderment of Easter Sunday, changed the tone for the earliest followers of the Jesus Movement. For weeks, they had been waiting and praying, perhaps somewhat nervously, wondering what might come next. And it was into this uncertain and chaotic situation that the Spirit brought new hope, a new life for all followers of Jesus. 

What happens next seems surprising, jarring almost, but it shouldn’t be. This has been the Spirit’s work since the very beginning. At the beginning of creation, over the waters of the deep the Spirit was there, hovering, waiting, participating in new life against the backdrop of chaos and disorder. 

During the times of the prophet Joel—the figure whom Peter used as inspiration for his Pentecost sermon—the people looked in anticipation for the Spirit’s arrival in their own moment of chaos and uncertainty. In the days of Joel, drought, wildfire, and swarms of locusts had led to severe famine across the land. People were losing hope. Despair and death were everywhere. And in the midst of that tragedy, the prophet received a promise: The suffering would not last forever. The rains would fall, the fields would again be green, the livestock would be healthy. But the restoration of Israel and Judah went well beyond streams and pastures; it included the heart too. Because in those days when everything was set right again, God’s Spirit would be poured out on everyone, young and old alike.

In our own chaotic and uncertain present, we are invited to consider how the words of the prophet Joel, echoed centuries later by the apostle Peter, are reflected in the daily lives of young people. People today  have some serious concerns about the state of our country and our world. Our concerns include the rash of  violence we face, the lack of civility and productivity within the public sphere,  the rapid increase in overall cost of a living—including the prospects for future employment—and the impact of a world shaped by artificial intelligence.

Dissatisfaction with the present, coupled with the willingness to work for a different and better future, is the work of the Spirit—what the late Walter Brueggemann an American Christian scholar and theologian  called “the prophetic imagination.” In his classic book The Prophetic Imagination, Brueggemann writes that the job of the prophet is to cultivate an alternative consciousness, one that “dismantles the dominant consciousness” of its own day while simultaneously engaging the “promise of another time and situation toward which the community of faith may move.” Can you, today, imagine a world in which gun violence no longer exists? What about a future where poverty is history? A future where everyone has enough to eat, access to clean water, and adequate healthcare? If you struggle to picture that kind of future, there is probably someone in your life right now who can imagine it. Go and ask someone in their teens or twenties—and prepare to be surprised.

This Pentecost, perhaps it is time for those of us with a little more experience to practice humility . Criticism comes easily for most of us, but when we rest in our criticism alone, we miss the creative capacity of the Spirit that is evident with the younger generations: To move beyond criticism into a creative imagination of a hopeful future. This is the life of the Spirit moving among us, doing what the Spirit has done since the beginning: calling forth new life out of the chaos of the present.

The blaze that began at Pentecost has continued across the centuries, growing, spreading, scorching. At times, humanity has tried to avoid or escape it;  and tried to ignore the beauty and disturbance of the Spirit’s power and energy. We’ve tried to tame or dilute it into a domesticated faith, rather than subject ourselves to the Spirit’s transforming and purifying fire. 

But try as we might, the Spirit blows where it will. The Spirit cannot be captured or contained; it’s not conservative or liberal, it’s not ‘us or them.’ The Spirit is free. The Spirit is everywhere and is especially alive in us; sending us out into the world like the disciples and empowering us to bring peace and forgiveness wherever life takes us.

Every day is a Pentecost.