Fifty nights ago, we gathered in the evening light on the steps of the church for the Easter Vigil. A flame was kindled with flint and steel; a taper was lit, and then the Paschal Candle was re-ignited, after the long days of Lent, a single flickering flame that moved then into the church, carried by the cantor and the congregation, accompanied by a cloud of incense and a single voice chanting the Light of Christ, the Light of Christ, the Light of Christ.
And then from that single flame, we all lit our candles, and everyone in the church carried the light of Christ risen from the grave, and then every light in the Church was turned on, the organ played and we all sang, for the first time in 40 days, Alleluias.
Fifty days ago, a flame was kindled.
Today, that flame becomes a wildfire.
Today is Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, the day we remember the appearance of the Holy Spirit in a room where the disciples are gathered in Jerusalem. And the disciples are touched, illuminated by divine fire, and begin speaking in a cacophony of languages – and yet, they all understand each other. And outside, throughout the city, the same thing is happening – people from every nation under heaven, each speaking in their own languages, and somehow able to understand each other, to hear each other. On that day, Pentecost was storm, it was noise, it was all the voices of the world speaking at once, it was sudden, unexpected connection. Pentecost was the love and inspiration of God making itself known in and through the diversity of many voices, the rhythms and accents of many languages, all come together.
Theologian Diana Butler Bass reflects on Pentecost this week, and she focuses on a single word from today’s passage from Acts – the word is all. It shows up six times in today’s reading. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. All were amazed and perplexed. I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.
Several years ago, Bass writes. that during disagreements in the Episcopal Church about who can take Communion and who cannot – some stated that Communion wasn’t meant to be received by “all people” but only by “God’s people,” drawing this line between them – and that position prompted Bass to post a response on Twitter, which in turn prompted an online, shall we say, firestorm. Bass tweeted: ALL PEOPLE ARE GOD’S PEOPLE.
At Pentecost, Bass writes: “God’s burning breath remade the universe. God restored the oneness of all creation, and birthed a new humanity. All ground is scorched with holiness, all bodies soaked with the Spirit. All. All. All.”
We are all God’s children. All, all, all. All people
All people are beloved of God, and all have a place in this world and in this church.
And that idea winds its way through today’s readings. Listen again to the words from today’s Psalm, which I love partly because it contains the word “yonder” – but especially because it speaks of that diversity and complexity of creation:
O Lord, how manifold are your works! *
in wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
Yonder is the great and wide sea
with its living things too many to number, *
creatures both small and great.
Creation, the Psalm says, is infinite in its variety. It is complicated. Creation is beautiful and sacred in its complicatedness.
And we hear the beauty and sacredness of complicatedness, of complexity, in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. He writes:
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.
Healing, miracles, interpretation, prophecy – every created being has their own gift to bring to the church and to the world. The artists, the prophets, the healers, the gardeners, the counselors, the pilots, the coaches, teachers, refugees, politicians, prisoners. The flame of Pentecost touches all of us, Paul writes. And each of us receives its gifts.
So what do we do with all that spirit and fire and gift-giving?
Earlier this week I was on an approximately weekly Zoom call with my friend Samson, who was ordained with me here at Trinity and is a priest in North Carolina, and we were talking about our Pentecost sermons, and I said I had been thinking about the difference between kindling of a single flame and the wildness of the Pentecost fire – both the single flame and the wildfire are brought into being by breath and wind – by the Spirit.
On the day of Pentecost, that single flame that was kindled in the darkness-to-dawn of Easter has now become the midday wildfire of Pentecost, roaring into the upper room where we imagine the disciples were gathered. The small flame of Easter has become the fierce firestorm of Pentecost. What does that mean to us?
And Samson pondered these things, and said, “I think what you’re saying is ‘get out of the upper room!’”
Yes! Pentecost is telling us exactly that. Church is not meant to happen just within the walls of a single room – including that upper room, and including this beautiful, beloved space. We are not meant to sit still. If we came into the church on the eve of Easter carrying a single flame, then today on Pentecost I think we’re meant to leave the church with our arms and souls filled with light. Just as we do at baptism – every baptism – we hand the new baptized a candle lit from the Paschal Candle, and we say, “Receive the light of Christ – be light in the world.”
That light shines a little differently in all of us, beautiful in its complicatedness and its complexity. Paul again:
To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge, to another faith, to another gifts of healing, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues… For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ… in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
As Samson put it in our Zoom call:
“The Spirit doesn’t erase the differences – it speaks through the differences.”
So today let’s get out of the upper room – and listen to the Spirit for the beautiful complexity of our gifts, whatever they are, if we know them yet or if they are still a discovery. Let’s be the loving, giving, reconciling, healing, prophesying, bridge-building, justice-seeking, coaching, teaching, cooking, serving, praying, singing, creating and co-creating church in the world.
Receive the fire of Pentecost – be light in the world. Amen.
