I preached this sermon on Sunday, May 23 as we celebrated Pentecost at St. Lydia's. The text is Acts 2:1-13. Read it here.
The bible is full of theophanies. It’s
a Greek word for a moment when God is shown, made visible:
Moses stands in front of the burning bush.
Mt. Sinai is wrapped in a thick cloud with thunder and
lightning.
Isaiah speaks of God “coming in fire, in chariots like the
whirlwind.”
These are theophanies.
It seems like whenever God shows up, it’s with a lot of
show, and often a lot of sparks and flame and fire. The face of God is terrifying, but filled with wonder, and
ecstasy.
Pentecost is about difference, and about unity. It’s also about communication: about
speaking, and hearing and listening.
I’m going to tell you a story that’s about all of these things.
When I was living in New Haven, I worked for a summer as a
community organizer. We worked
with neighborhood groups to plant street trees and reclaim abandoned lots and
turn them into parks. A lot of
what I learned that summer is employed at St. Lydia’s: that people care about
things more if they put work into them.
As a Yale student, that summer was about being keenly aware
of difference. I was working in
the poorest neighborhoods and projects in the city and I looked different,
spoke differently, and acted differently from everyone I was working with.
To my surprise, the neighbors weren’t always that concerned
with how different I was (they were used to Yale students) but with the
difference among the neighbors.
The homeowners resented the renters and the Italians didn’t like the
African Americans, and the old people didn’t like the young people.
I spent my days trying to translate. Trying to figure out how to change and
manipulate my language to get across a message about how, if we planted more
trees, fewer windows would be broken, and cars would slow down, and the
neighborhood would improve. Trying
to figure out how to talk about planting and changing the neighborhood together, as a community, renters and
homeowners and Italians and African Americans, even though everybody was
suspicious of one another, and I was a complete outsider. It felt like the most naïve message in
the world, and I often felt really distanced from the people I was working
with, as if there was nothing that held us together.
One of the neighbors that I worked with lived near a busy
road with a steep hill covered in litter and plants overgrowing the
sidewalks. He worked in the
landscaping business by trade, so it was pretty hard to convince him that we
should invite everyone in the neighborhood to come help clean up the area.
“It will be faster if I just get a chain saw and a weed
whacker and take care of it,” he told me.” “But, it will bring the neighborhood together if we all work on the project,” I would say, “and then people
will be less likely to litter!” He
looked at me like I was crazy, but dutifully helped me pass out fliers.
Despite his aversion to community organizing, he was the
only neighbor I ever worked with who invited me to eat with him. He and his wife insisted that I come
early to every planting session and share dinner. His daughter took a shine to me, and she would always want
to show me her room (which was very frilly and very pink) and afterward I’d
come downstairs and they’d give me a burger from the grill and we’d sit on the
couch with TV trays and he would say very formally, “Emily, you are our
guest. So what would you like to
watch on television?”
This was a moment of difference, and of unity.
I felt more welcomed, more included in this house than I had
in anyone’s home the entire summer.
At the same time, there was this distance, like a gulf between my
experience and the experience of this very dear, very lovely family. I still felt like I was translating,
using words that weren’t my own.
But I also felt that I had been able to hear the incredible generosity
and hospitality that was behind this man welcoming me into his home, even
though the language he used was one that I didn’t speak.
It was a partial Pentecost. A communication that hinted at a deep well of shared
humanity.
When God moves in wind and fire on Pentecost, enters the
heart of everyone present, God burns away translation. And in
its place, inspired by the flames of God’s spirit, is pure listening, pure
hearing. Each person speaks the
language of another, and rather than having to translate, is understood. Is heard.
The neighbor in New Haven spoke in a language that I needed
to translate. He offered me
burgers and the remote control to his television as a way of
communicating, “Look, we are the
same. We can share this.”
And I accepted his burgers and the remote control and sat
silently and awkwardly watching television with his family because I knew that,
despite our different native languages, he was right. We were the same, both God’s children, and there was plenty
for us to share, despite the fumbling method of our communication.
A partial Pentecost.
We come to this table each week hoping for Pentecost.
We translate, yes.
We’ll always have some of that.
But we also make space for Pentecostal moments.
Moments when we reach past translation: to hearing and
understanding what we hold in common: that deep well of humanity.
What God did on Pentecost through wind and fire, we invite
into this gathering of souls, whoever shows up, praying that God’s Spirit might
ignite in us, flare up in us, push us beyond difference to the place where
suddenly we can see that we are the same, our common humanity transgressing the
differences of its expression.
There’s a spark of the divine in each of us.
An ember glowing with the heart of God in each of us.
The gulf that we look across, that divides us from one
another is real:
difference is real, and needed, and good.
But the spark of humanity we share is stronger,
more important,
more true.
And there are rare moments, Pentecostal moments, when we
feel it in our bones,
as God’s refining fire does its work in us.
We finish the sermon together at St. Lydia’s. Please share a story from your
experience that was brought up by the text or my words.
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