I find it interesting that the Holy Spirit is the Person of the Trinity that has typically been ascribed socially accepted feminine qualities like gentleness to go along with her feminine pronouns. The Spirit is often depicted in imagery as being like a dove or as a single candle flame instead of a roaring fire; what calm and lovely images! Yet, when the Spirit is described as a wind blowing through the trees, our imaginings of this peaceful breeze don’t always do justice to the work that the Spirit is up to in our midst. The Holy Spirit isn’t just our Advocate and Giver of Life, our very breath, but is also like the windstorms that tear down trees and knock over power lines, because the movement of the Spirit among us is life-changing! From the very movement of the Spirit in creation to the society-challenging, Spirit-driven proclamations of the prophets, the Spirit is vastly underestimated when the Holy Spirit is only understood as something gentle and comforting instead of a force stirring up change among us.
This very notion that the Spirit can and will effect change is at the heart of the refrain in our Psalm today when the Psalmist pleads: “Send forth your Spirit and renew the face of the earth” (Psalm 104: 30). We may not use these exact same words, but this is the same refrain that so many of us find ourselves crying out for God’s sense of peace and justice to come fix the brokenness and pain in our world. Our laments are filled with these cries which trust that the Spirit has the power to be present among us and change the reality of our world, to push us closer to God’s vision of life-giving care for all of creation. Yes, comfort is included in that, but often discomfort, and a push out of our stagnation, is required in order for these changes to come about. To turn the world-upside down is not going to be a gentle process, yet it is one that is necessary for our healing. I watch a lot of doctor shows, and I’m sorry for this imagery, but it reminds me of when a dislocated joint needs to be put back into place; it’s going to hurt, but it is necessary for recovery.
In the church today, we celebrate the day of Pentecost as the day in which the Spirit is poured out on all believers, moving away from an understanding that the Spirit dwelt only with the select few that God chose, like the prophets or even just the disciples, as we hear in the Gospel today. Even without any of the other details of today’s stories, this in itself changes the way that people understood and related to God; it shifted the very basis of their faith. This is what the Spirit is doing when the Spirit becomes present among the people. It’s no wonder that the arrival of the Spirit is described with the words, “as of fire” (Acts 2: 3a), because fire inherently changes the structure and makeup of everything that it comes across! But in the aftermath of fire, there is also room for new growth, a different way of being; it’s why part of the tending to our forests is doing controlled burns, to help make way for new life.
The Spirit’s arrival in today’s story also marks a dramatic shift in the way that people also understood their relationship to one another and what God was doing in and among them. We see the way that today’s stories shape an understanding about our God-given unity, as one body, with Spirit-created diversity. Whether it is in the way that people hear the Gospel, each in their own language, instead of just in a singular language (Acts 2: 6-9) or the way that Paul talks about us being one body but many members (1 Corinthians 12: 12-13), we are shown how the Spirit is at work breaking down human made structures and ideas that get in the way of God’s vision for the flourishing of all creation. Even with everything that Jesus was teaching before his Crucifixion, the people in this fledgling church still don’t understand how all of these things can be true, and yet they still trust that God is working to make this new reality come about. Here they are beginning to understand just what it means to be a new creation in Christ.
In contrast to the chaos of the Pentecost story, our Gospel reading takes a different approach for the sending of the Spirit, but it does not change the fact that the disciples’ reality has now changed as Jesus charges them with stewarding the faith of others after his Ascension (John 20: 21-23). It makes sense why, too, this is one of the charges read at the Ordination and Installation of pastors, because that role changes our realities in a similar way; in fact, I just heard this charge read at the Installation of a colleague yesterday. Despite how the Holy Spirit is often discussed and depicted, the Spirit isn’t just there to comfort us, but is there to gather us together and call us forth, to empower us to live into our callings as co-creators with God. Not in place of God, but alongside God, as we recall our original role as stewards of all that God created, and all that God is creating and will continue to create. This isn’t just a one and done event that we celebrate once a year in the church, but the Spirit is still calling and moving us today, even if the fashion is a little bit less dramatic.
Our stories today really highlight the fact that, even when we hear what we are supposed to do or what God is going to do in our midst, there is still often a lot of confusion. This speaks to the life-changing, reality-disrupting nature of the Spirit. Yes, the Spirit can be like the gentle breeze moving through the leaves, but the Spirit can also shake up our world so much that people can only assume that they are witnessing acts of drunkenness (Acts 2: 13)! It’s this interesting case of, “I don’t understand what is happening so those people must be drunk.” This is one of my favorite stories in Scripture, and it is also one that frustrates me because I know that we still respond similarly in our world today. When we don’t understand something or it is going to push us out of our comfort zones, we do all that we can to dismiss it; whether it is an attack on the personhood of those presenting the information or an attempt to discredit what they are bringing forth. If it doesn’t match our understanding and experience, then it must not be true. It is in moments like these that I am extra grateful that the Spirit isn’t just like a calm presence, because sometimes we need that disrupting force to help us see a new way of being in which all can flourish.
Besides the comical line of how the people can’t be drunk because it is only nine in the morning (Acts 2: 25), the story of Pentecost in Acts today demonstrates how the Spirit is a gift that is poured out on all people, not just those who are like us. In a world that is divided by societal standards and hierarchies, this Spirit blows in to proclaim that all people, regardless of age, sex, gender identity, socio-economic statues, you name it, are a part of God’s kindom and have a place within the ministry of God. That, dear friends, is radically good news! And, this is part of why people have a hard time accepting it. But the Spirit doesn’t need us to approve of its work; the Holy Spirit is going to come disrupt things anyway!
This was a promise made at Pentecost, and it is a promise that still exists for us today, even when we have as hard of a time accepting it as the people did watching the chaos and confusion in our story from Acts. And, this is where I am grateful that the work of the Spirit is not fully dependent on human beings because the Spirit is going to keep stirring things up and shaking our reality, even when we as humans struggle to accept those changes and those truths. But, over and over again, the Spirit continues to dwell among God’s people, calling them Beloved, and equipping them to go out into the world to make God’s love for the world known to all whom they encounter. Many times, people are going to question who we think we are to proclaim this Good News of God’s love and mercy for all people, and desire for the flourishing of all creation. But, when they do, know that we are in good company, because people would rather dismiss this work as a sign of inebriation than confront the reality that the Spirit is coming to unsteady us in order to help us build a world in which all of creation can thrive. The Spirit is going to blow how she chooses; it’s up to us if we want to join in her life-changing work too.
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Sunday May 17th, 2026 Worship