Aflame With the Spirit

Aflame With the Spirit

May 30, 2020

Scripture: Acts 2:1-13

Tomorrow is Pentecost, the day when the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus’ first followers. As they gathered on the Jewish feast day of Shavuot tongues as of fire descended upon them. Acts 2:3. Filled with the Holy Spirit they all began to speak foreign languages they hadn’t known before as the Spirit enabled them. Tongues as of fire is an apt image for what was happening. They were aflame with the Spirit, emboldened to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ not only to Aramaic speaking Jews like themselves but to foreigners who, while Jews, were culturally and linguistically different from them. The Holy Spirit got them talking to people they couldn’t have talked to before. Aflame with the Spirit they reached out beyond what had been their limits to connect with people who were different from the. What a wonderful example for us in these difficult days.

As I write these words American cities are literally and metaphorically aflame. Righteous rage over police killings of innocent Black men and women has spilled into the streets. A few people, including perhaps infiltrators with ulterior motives from outside the affected communities, have set property on fire as the fire of righteous (and perhaps in some cases unrighteous) anger burns in their hearts. Many white people condemn the violence of some of the protests against racially motivated police brutality, but who are we white people to judge? It is after all our racism that is the root cause of Black people’s anger. It should cause anger in us too. In far too many of us it doesn’t. Yet the fire of Pentecost should fill us as it filled those first Christians so long ago. For them it meant spreading the Gospel to foreigners. What could and should it mean for us?

It could and should fill us white people with a passion for justice. It could and should cause us not to preach to our Black sisters and brothers (Lord knows we’ve done that long enough) but to listen to them. To honor their experience of this country that so often is so different from that of us white people. To take the Black experience(s) seriously. To stop dismissing it (them) as inauthentic, or made up, or put on. It could and should wake us up to the reality of our white privilege. White privilege is a consequence of and is grounded in American racism. It doesn’t mean our white lives can’t be difficult. Often enough they are. It means that the color of our skin is not a cause of any difficulties we face the way the color of Black people’s skin is a cause of difficulties they face because of our racism. It could and should inspire us to speak out against racism every time we see or hear it, be it from strangers, associates, friends, or even family. To demand racially neutral policing. To demand educational and economic policies designed to mitigate the deleterious effects on Black people of centuries of white racism. The fire of the Holy Spirit could and should inspire us white people to respond to the better angels of our nature, to wake up to the reality of American racism, to know more, to care more, to demand more that our country at long last live up to its oft-touted but never realized ideals of equality for all.

So often we pay little attention to Pentecost. We may wear red to church—or we may do so again when we’re able to go back to church. Then mostly we go home, change out of our red blouse or shirt, and forget about Pentecost for another year. Ho hum. No big deal. Well this year let’s make it a big deal. Let’s be aflame with the Holy Spirit and God’s demand for justice for all people. Let’s become champions of justice for all people but especially for Black people who have for so long suffered under our white people’s racism. Let’s not take over their movement but be allies of that movement. Those early Christians that first Christian Pentecost burned with a passion for Jesus Christ. May we now burn with the same passion and make it our passion for justice. At long last let us do something meaningful about our racism. Like those early Christians let us reach out beyond our limits to make new connections and to spread the Gospel of God’s justice. The Holy Spirit demands no less of us.