Sunday Stretch: Pentecost
Come, Holy Spirit
Hi Readers,
Special - and different - kind of post for you here today.
Today is the High Holy Day of Pentecost. It’s an opportunity to step outside the pragmatism and rationality and capitalism of our everyday lives and instead let the Holy Spirit lead us into an embodied and emotional experience of God’s presence with us, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
In that sense, in place of our traditional Sunday Stretch readings and questions - I want to share with you a reflection I wrote last year on Pentecost, with a video to start us off from the tradition of Taizé worship. This video took me back to the Pentecost of 2020 — and to a time when, for at least a moment, Christians across the world leaned into the leadership of the Holy Spirit at a time of national mourning, fear, and upheaval.
Might we do that again today.
A Pentecost Post from 2023 …
Happy Pentecost! Today is the day!
Before I wrote today’s Sunday Stretch, I forced myself to sit down - put down my phone - and watch this video without distraction.
Typically, I suffer from the affliction I suspect many of us do today, which is this sort of inability to focus for too long on anything, and to inadvertently pick up our phone or check an app or distract ourselves from the deep message that God is giving us right before our eyes and in our ears.
Fortunately, this video was not that experience at all. Instead, I was captivated. I experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit, which is what we celebrate today - in the third high holy day of the church year, in addition to Christmas and Easter.
Click on the image above to access the YouTube video
I felt my body relax into the moment as I watched the video, and it took me back to another place and time.
For a moment, let’s go there together …
It was May 31, 2020, and we were more than two months into the global COVID-19 pandemic. People were dying all over the world, there was no cure in sight, and many of us had been confined to our homes, with schools, restaurants, stores, and events all canceled.
As I watched, I remembered distinctly an unexpected gift of that time - much like the unexpected gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.
In the midst of the pandemic, there was a burst of musical creativity. Musicians all over the world were banding together to share ideas and music virtually. As a Pastor at the time, I especially saw church musicians and worship leaders seeking to share ideas and work together in ways I’d never seen before. The competitiveness of the past, the fear of “losing members” to other congregations had dissipated in the face of the global emergency, and so instead creativity flourished. Everyone wanted to share ideas and encourage one another. The gatekeepers who for so long had wanted to keep the Church and music in its proscribed box had become irrelevant. They no longer held sway, especially in a time when churches were able to access supportive funds from the government.
It was incredible to see happen in real time. I watched the immense musical talent of people all over the world, and how generous they were about sharing it.
I realized something that people who have lived through war and famine and crises and danger and migration and poverty have long known better than those of us who live daily in unrealized privilege and comfort.
In times of struggle and unfairness, it is the artists who save us.
So often misunderstood or cast aside, forced to work multiple jobs and rely on wealthy patrons in order to have space to make their art, artists and musicians and, yes, writers, often toil away in obscurity and pain and loneliness. They have a sense of a gift that God has given them to share with the world, but they also have a sense that the world does not care and does not want to hear them.
And even when the world does look or see or hear, the moment is fleeting. Or, often, it comes after the artist has died.
On May 31, Pentecost, 2020, there was a moment where the clouds parted and the gift of art and music shone through this opening in the sky. In tiny rooms around the world, lonely artists banded together by the power of the Internet.
They all spoke different languages, but they understood alike the language of music. It was enough. What they made together outdid anything they could have cumulatively done on their own.
The Holy Spirit intervened, and something magical broke through.
Of course, we all know how the story ends. About 30 years after the Day of Pentecost, Peter, the rock on whom Jesus founded the church, was crucified in Rome. Christians were constantly persecuted and under threat of arrest or death at the hands of the Roman government. There must have been so many times that the believers thought it was all going to end, and the Gospel just might not survive. Despair and abandonment and lament and fear are all part of God’s story.
And we know, too, how our story has gone since May 31, 2020.
The hopeful days of the early pandemic quickly waned. Even on that day, as the singers desperately called together for the power of the Holy Spirit to come to our world, the world was also reeling from the brutal murder of George Floyd. Even as a pandemic raged, Americans were reminded that racism is our Original Sin. Even as a pandemic raged, white American Christians were forced to see the ways in which white Christianity supported and upheld a racist hierarchy in our country, too often granting it Biblical backing and theological underpinning, twisting God’s words to support human power and control.
So soon, the early hopefulness for cooperation and understanding, the outpouring of creativity and musical offerings, descended into partisan rancor, anger, and violence, culminating in the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Come, Holy Spirit
Veni, Spiritus Sanctus
Writing all of this down, it seems unrealistic to think that one could watch that video from May 31, 2020, of Christians all over the world, simply repeating and singing these three words over and over and over again, and be moved.
But I was.
Maybe you will be, too.
After all, that’s the gift of this day, of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit winds its way into unexpected people and places, creating understanding, hope, camaraderie and love where it may have been least expected.
What often drives religious leaders and institutions crazy about the Holy Spirit is that it absolutely cannot be controlled. It can’t be boxed in and asked to follow conventions and orders and wait its turn. The Spirit waits for no man. It comes when it comes and it goes where it wishes. It works through people the world has rejected and ignored. Its gift bubbles up and crackles and spits and flows, like living water. It burns, and some may think it’s destructive, like fire is, but in its wake, new life begins, like the fires set by Indigenous people in the American West, and in burn tracks green plants grow.
Some churches mark the gifting of the Holy Spirit by speaking in unintelligible tongues, but when I read the story of Pentecost, what I see is understanding, cooperation, and hope in togetherness. The Holy Spirit may, like Jesus did, initially bring division, in its explicit uplifting of the truth. And still in the end, that truth cannot help but end in love.
I think part of celebrating Pentecost means resigning yourself to letting the Spirit lead, and blow where it will. Ironically, it’s often in releasing my own power and control that God does God’s best work in my life. The Spirit blows so hard and hot that I can’t help but step back. Listen. Watch.
Veni Sanctus Spiritus.
The Story of Pentecost
Acts 2:1-21
Acts 2:1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Acts 2:5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”
Acts 2:14 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. 15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
17 ‘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.
18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.
19 And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
20 The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
PRAYER
Dear God,
Thank you for the gift and the promise of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate. Help us to relax. Breathe. Let the Spirit lead. Help us to follow with courage and hope. Lead us to others with whom we can persevere.
In Jesus’ name we pray,
AMEN
**This has been a special FREE edition of the Sunday Stretch for Pentecost, because the Holy Spirit just couldn’t be confined to behind a paywall. Typically, the Sunday Stretch is only available for paid subscribers. Subscribe below to receive it in your inbox each Sunday morning, and thank you to those of you who are already a part of this community! May God bless your day today, all of you. We’ll be back with the usual Sunday Stretch next week.**
An Invitation
A Community that prays for one another is transformed by the power of the Spirit. We’ve been praying for and with each other now for over a year! For the new year, and about once a quarter, I will re-start this space for prayer requests and praises. Please email with your own requests and I will share here with your permission!
We have begun a new season (PENTECOST) of the Church Year, which means I have restarted our section here for prayer requests. Please hit REPLY to this email or leave a comment to add a public or private prayer request to this list. Thanks for praying with me!
For all those engaged in the activity of care, of mothering and fathering and parenting and loving all those in need. May caregivers be celebrated in this month not only with empty words or platitudes but by valuing the work they do and changing policy to support and sustain their work.
For students, teachers, administrators, parents and families as school years come to an end. May all know the good work they have done this school year, and be filled with the energy of learning - even throughout the summer and the rest of their lives after graduation.
For the new bishop-elect of the Minneapolis-Area Synod of the ELCA, Jen Nagel, and for all of the candidates who faithfully engaged the process, may your Holy Spirit be our true guide and faithful leader
For so many loved ones of mine who have recently been diagnosed with cancer and are undergoing treatment. May they have caring and high-quality care, rest as needed, and loving support of family and friends.
For a college friend of mine’s daughter, who recently had surgery on a mass in her abdomen, awaiting further testing and recovering from surgery in the hospital in the Kansas City area.
We also pray for all those who are caring for loved ones who are going through myriad health challenges. Grant them rest and relief in the midst of difficult and tiring times.
For ongoing war and bloodshed in Israel and Gaza, that humanitarian pathways will be opened up to make way for food and supplies into Gaza, that a way forward out of war will be heard by Israel and Hamas, that all those in danger, including hostages, will be protected and set free. For all leaders to prioritize human life over power.
In Gaza, we pray especially for Sully’s loved ones (and all of our loved ones throughout the Holy Land in Israel and Palestine) that they might find protection and safety, and be able to gain safe shelter and access to their homes, or to be able to escape to safety in other countries.
For those who continue to live and fight in Ukraine, that the world will not turn away its attention from the plight of Ukrainians and their stand against authoritarian Russia.
For the United States and her politicians. That governmental leaders might see themselves as servants and examples, and for wisdom and courage for all who serve in government, especially the judicial system as it faces former President Trump’s cases.
For all those who don’t have a safe place to live or enough food to eat, that they might be first and receive what they need.
For all those living with addiction and mental illness, that they might find a way into recovery
For farmers and all those tending fields, gardens, and livestock. For farmworkers and those who travel north in the summer to work under difficult conditions: may be they be treated humanely and granted safety and fair working and living conditions.
For all around the world who face persecution for their religious beliefs, especially for religious minorities in places where governments sanction religion-based violence
For Christians to be emboldened to speak out courageously against anti-semitism and to acknowledge how we have been complicit in anti-semitic actions and speech against our Jewish siblings
For governments and leaders to prioritize climate change solutions and not be only ruled by profit or big business
For all the concerns deep on our hearts, that you hear and know and acknowledge, we pray …
In the boundless joy of a Spirit-filled existence, to worship God with exuberance, excitement, love, and inclusion,
In Jesus’ name we pray,
AMEN
P.S. …
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