This week we are celebrating Pentecost, the day the Holy Spirit was received on Earth. I didn’t celebrate Pentecost until these last few years. I had never even heard of Pentecost, honestly, until I came to Trinity almost six years ago. Learning about it has been interesting and strangely freeing in these last few years. While the foundation of my faith education included the Trinity, and so a recognition of the Holy Spirit, beyond naming the entity, I received no other instruction on it. I didn’t know the Scriptures associated with it. I had this idea that the Holy Spirit was this kind of aloof element of God that blew this way and that, providing nudges one way or the other in service to God’s will. The idea that the Holy Spirit was a gift and resided in me wasn’t ever communicated. Pentecost, now, feels kind of like coming home to myself. I am reminded that the Holy Spirit dwells in me, a gift I never deserved or could have hoped for, and she is the very force behind my being.
So, for this week, I originally thought, finally, during this global nightmare, I can focus on celebration! I won’t post something sad, but something joyful! Our text is 1 Corinthians 12:3-13, a familiar passage about our gifts, of being one body with many parts, and the explanation that we are all going to do unique and beautiful things, and while they will look so different, they come from the same source, the Holy Spirit. Good news in the midst of bleakness.
But then.
Then I read that we reached more than 100,000 deaths from COVID-19. Then a white woman lied to harm a black man, again. Then George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer.
It felt wrong to put that aside to celebrate, so very wrong. It’s more appropriate to lament, I think. And so that is what I hope we will do.
The Good news of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is that it isn’t lost in lament. In fact, it seems this compulsion to lament, to cry out in pain and sorrow, instead of celebrating is nothing other than the Holy Spirit moving in us. We grieve the loss of life, the loss of people that were once moved by the same force that moves us to mourn now.
1 Corinthians 12:3b says, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ but the Holy Spirit.” The truth cannot be proclaimed without her and it is only the truth she will tell.
I am angry and sad and sick. I think I feel this way because the truth-teller in me knows this is all wrong. That the truth is God’s presence in this world in George Floyd and a hundred thousand other people has been extinguished and the only way to feel about that is awful.
And feeling it is essential.
The Spirit may whisper or she may scream inside of us, but she can still be ignored. And it would be so much easier, honestly. If we don’t listen, then we don’t have to do anything. We can continue our lives unbothered. I know this isn’t the case for everyone, but as a white woman, it’s certainly the case for me, and let’s be honest, beloved Trinity family, it’s the case for most of us. But to do so would be to still the force of God that makes us who we are. Without her, any gifts we have to offer, to bring about the kin-dom of God, to be present as Christ, they’re lost.
In moments like this, when everything feels like it’s on fire and our chests are tight and our cheeks are tear-stained and we are afraid of so many things, like a virus and our own racism, we have the choice to listen to the Spirit or not. I hope we are listening. We can do that. We can do that for our brothers and sisters suffering because of these losses.
It may take practice. We may feel out of touch with the Spirit that whispers to us, but we can find her again. Take the moments to listen. What is sparking in us. Where and when are we moved? What do we want? What scratches at our thoughts?
She is there, urging us toward the kin-dom. We can trust her. She may lead us to hard spaces. To spaces of lament instead of celebration. But that is Good. Those are the spaces we can love, ourselves and one another. The spaces that we can be Christ, to be the church, here and now.
(By: Britney Yount)