"This is a story about Pentecost Sunday. A priest in a large church in Florida, with his usual flair for the dramatic, decided to dramatize the Holy Spirit coming like wind in a particular spectacular way. He got the engine out of one of the boats used in the Everglades--an airplane propeller attached to a big gasoline engine--and mounted it in the choir loft high in the back of the church. The wind from the propeller would blow out across the congregation when the story of the coming of the Holy Spirit was read. It seemed like a great idea.
The priest and an usher gave it a dry run on Saturday afternoon, and although it was incredibly noisy, it worked just fine, and promised a spectacular effect for Sunday morning. So when the great moment arrived, and the lector read, "And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind and it filled the entire house," the engine coughed once and then howled into life.
But the effect was a little different than it has been at rehearsal. The sudden screaming gust of wind sent sheet music and bulletins flying out over the congregation. Coiffures came undone and hair streamed out from faces. The preacher's sermon notes were gone with the wind. A hairpiece flew toward the altar like a furry missile. It was like a scene from the play "Green Pastures," when the Angel Gabriel looks down from heaven and says to the Lord, "Everything that was nailed down is comin' loose!"
Everything was messy, and noisy, and absolutely unpredictable. And that's just the way it is with the Spirit. It's that part of God that refuses to be contained in the little boxes we create for God to live in, safely confined to the careful boundaries we set for God's Spirit. The problem is--and the miracle is--God just won't stay put. And God won't let you and me stay put, content to believe what we've always believed, what we've always been taught, what we've always assumed. Change isn't just something to be wished on our enemies--but something God requires of us as well." (Pages 9-10).
As we read the account of Pentecost in Acts 2: 1-21 we hear that when the Holy Spirit came upon those first Apostles it was no longer business as usual. There was something so different in the Apostles that many thought they were drunk. The eight to nine days of waiting and praying were over. The early Church was given their new mission, to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ who had been crucified, raised from the dead, ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit. Suddenly there was room for people from all walks of life, in the early Church to experience the ministry of healing and reconciliation. How the Church and our society needs the Holy Spirit to renew that ministry today.
The Holy Spirit came to help "build new bridges" as today's Out in Scripture's commentators write.
In Acts 2:1-21 the promise and hope of Pentecost is that the gift of God's Spirit bridges human division. It gives the capacity to communicate across language and race. People from different cultures and religions, with different values and worldviews, were given a common language. They appeared to be simultaneously[RAR1] given a desire to listen to one another. A holy possibility — human understanding — was made manifest in the crowd gathered in Jerusalem. It is a gift for prophecy that is poured out on all, women and men, the young and the old, enslaved and free, the straight and the queer.
Our Pentecost drama calls us to build a bridge, not a tower. That bridge is built on the promise and hope of Christ that makes a way in the desert of our misunderstanding. The common language might be creative enough that it's new for all sides, uncomfortable and awkward when we first try it out. But every day we learn new words within our culture, words which usher into our lives new meaning, possibilities, even new creations.
Pentecost reminds us that we have this capacity and God gives us the desire and the words to speak to one another in ways that lead to peace. In the middle of the chaos and confusion, misunderstanding and brokenness, God was and is present in creative, life-giving ways.
In Romans 8:14-17, the apostle Paul — courageous enough to go to Philippi and also to Rome, the center of imperial power — now calls forth that same courage from new believers who live in Rome. Stop acting so afraid, he tells them. Stop being a doormat for those in power! You're not a slave to those who would do you harm and keep you quiet! Quit your passive ways! You, too, are children of God, heirs to the promises and to the love of God. Stop acting like displaced, unwanted stepchildren and get on with your lives. God's powerful, creative, sustaining Spirit rests on you, lives in you and gives you what you need to live abundant lives. Claim those promises. The Spirit makes anyone who receives it a beloved child of God, a daughter or son — not a servant or subordinate stranger.
Since at least the 1940s, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Christians in the United States have founded communities of welcome and witness. These bands of prophets spread the gift of the Spirit of God. Now, after half a century, their witness has found unexpected fulfillment in the policy changes of many Christian churches. But the important work of the small communities continues.
When Jesus promises his spirit in John 14:8-17, he describes it as an advocate or defender, but also as a teacher and reminder. Telling the truth about the realities LGBT people live every day — our stories — is made possible through the work of the Holy Spirit that helps us to be brave. The Spirit enables us to tell the truth (sometimes painful, embarrassing, humiliating, maddening, funny and redemptive). This is the Spirit that gives us the new, creative vocabulary we need to build bridges and new vision, not just for our community, but also for the church and the world.
LGBT individuals can take some credit for how the Holy Spirit has been kind upsetting people's comfort zones in the Church. Clearly, Bishop Gene Robinson and now Bishop Mary Glasspool are two individuals through whom the Holy Spirit has been busy shaking up the Anglican Communion. What the Holy Spirit has been doing is shaking up the prejudice that still exists in many throughout the world wide Anglican Communion, and even challenging the Archbishop of Canterbury as to how he might approach the issue of human sexuality among Bishops who are ready to divide the Communion. There is a challenge for everyone in this controversy. The bigger challenge is not just the full inclusion of LGBT people to be able to serve openly as Bishops, but also to keep everyone at the table to discuss and be challenged over the differences everyone has. I would like to note that it is the conservatives who are really challenging the Archbishop of Canterbury to dis-invite the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in Canada from the Anglican Communion so as to make the conservatives the new "accepted" group of Anglicans. The Episcopal Church as well as the Anglican's of Canada would very much like to remain at the table to discuss openly our issues of why LGBT and women should be included as Bishops, Priests and Deacons in the Anglican Communion. If there is going to be an ending to the issue, then among the things that must happen is everyone needs to be invited to the table to discuss, debate and be opened to a change of heart and mind. Before anyone says: "And how about the LGBT people being open to what the traditional understanding of Scripture is, and going back into the closet to keep quiet" most of us who are out and have accepted our sexuality, have already paid many years of misery and difficulty to get where we are. No one wishes the life of living in the closet with no way to express the real essence of who we are upon ourselves, our friends, and families.
Over this past year we have seen how hetero-sexism has reared it's ugly head in the anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda. The continual assault of religious right Christians here in the United States through organizations like Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, the Catholic church and many more that cannot be named, have attempted to put the Holy Spirit into the box of "heterosexuals only". There continues to be great fear among Christians that is creating an atmosphere of homophobia so that the Church will discriminate against LGBT people. A careful reading and examining the Scriptures and we will see that excluding people from the Church is contrary to the will of God.
In Paul's letter to the Romans he writes: "All who are led by the Spirit of God, are children of God." (Romans 8:14). The Holy Spirit has blessed and continues to bless many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people with her very own power and loving presence. The Holy Spirit who represents the feminine nature of God, is the Mother of all who live and breath by God's will and power. All who have been blessed with the presence of the Holy Spirit, are also blessed to be among her very own children, that is children of God. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people are among those that the Holy Spirit has given her divine power, presence and calling in the world and the Church. The Holy Spirit desires that there be a place in the Church for all of her children. God's Holy Spirit calls men, women, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, transgendered, Caucasian, African American, Native American Indian, Asian, Middle Eastern, European, Hispanic and South American, challenged and beyond to participate in the four orders of Ministry in the Church, Laity, Bishops, Priests and Deacons. Thanks be to God, that at the last General Convention, the Episcopal Church agreed that the Holy Spirit can and does call all individuals including LGBT to discern Church related vocations.
The Holy Spirit came on that first Pentecost to unsettle our comfort zones, and call us to build up an inclusive, welcoming Church in the Name of Jesus Christ the Lord. The Church is home to all kinds of people, from all walks of life and all languages and sexual orientations and gender identities/expressions. LGBT people are among those people that the Holy Spirit uses to unsettle those who are comfortable with God in God's box. We should never apologize or stop allowing the Holy Spirit to use us to do wonderful things, even when it makes others just a little uncomfortable or even angry. The Holy Spirit is forever challenging the Church and us to new understandings of ourselves and others around us. Thanks be to God.
Almighty God, on this day you opened the way of eternal life to every race and nation by the promised gift of your Holy Spirit: Shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, on God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect for the Day of Pentecost, Book of Common Prayer, Page 227).
O God, who on this day tougth the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect for the Day of Pentecost, Book of Common Prayer, Page 227).
O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions; take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatever else may hinder us from godly union and concord; that, as there is but one Body and one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may be all of one heart and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Prayer for the Unity of the Church, Book of Common Prayer, Page 818).
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