The Spirit Moves Us | The Power of the Collective

The most important part of June is the arrival of Strawberries. There isn't a more perfect fruit. I'm impatient waiting for them -- in my neighbors garden, not mine, because I don't have the patience to tend to them.

Sharing. It's delicious.

-Liz

The Holy Spirit Speaks

Pentecost! The holy spirit comes down and fills us with the spirit. I've always liked this holiday. It's joyful and a little magical and speaks so directly to who we are today. We are the people filled with the Holy Spirit.

For sure there is irony to me loving this day, for I'm no charismatic Christian. I love the study of our faith, and after that I am committed to the doing of our faith. Not so much the feeling. I was complimented on my ordination paper because I avoided saying I love Jesus and instead engaged in theological thinking. Again, a denomination (Christian Church Disciples of Christ) that is more about study and action and less about feelings.

Although I love communion. I feel communion. The Eucharist. The Last Supper. The bread, the juice, the prayers. I cry to eat and drink with others. I am filled with ... well with what? The Holy Spirit? It makes no sense, serves no visible purpose, gives me no identifiable power, and for sure I don't know any more than I did before the ritual. I just feel God is with us in that shared, ritualized, meal.

The key, for me, is the collective. It is the we, and the us. I am doubter at my core but believe strongly that we are created in the image of God, and as such, it is when we gather in community that we have more and more of God present. Alone I am a struggling person, in the plurality of church we are the Body Of Christ. Capitalized. Important. Powerful.

The pentecost story is not so much about confused individuals figuring out the chatter around them, but is a community finding they understand each other, they know each other, finding meaning in a life lived with others. In an age where everyone was no one, except as part of a household, these early Christians responded by creating "fictive family". Believers came together to share what they had because they believed that the others were now their household of God. They were not just neighbors, they were now siblings.

As such, they could stand up to and against whatever society said should be. They were the resistance to the Roman Empire, to a culture that said that some people are not worth our time. These resistors used their money and food to help people who had been strangers. They welcomed slaves and women and beggars as equals. They did labor and socializing and praying not with the household they grew up with but instead with this newly formed ekklesia. Over time this group, filled with the spirit, would change the world, but in the moment it was a few insignificant, unimportant people who were changed.

That is the power we take with us as church to deal with life in our church today. We use that power to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, to provide clothing. We use that power to visit the sick, and those in prison, and to welcome the stranger. We use the power of the Holy Spirit to resist a culture that says that some people are not worth our attention.

It is on Pentecost that radical visions of what church could be come to mind. When we are wearing red and holding balloons and imagining fire on our head, when we hear the scripture in many languages, when chaos and confusion are suffused with joy and singing, we can see that anything can happen. Church can be the most radical thing that exists.

What does your Pentecost look like? Let me know what's happening by hitting reply. ​
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This UUA sermon is deeply specific to the congregation listening, but is also universal in its insistence that it is the collective that makes changes in the world. I found it quite inspiring.

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There is a Veteran's March on June 6. For people who risked their lives to protect our constitution.

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