pentecost possibilities
tongues of fire for a world on fire
Below is a snippet of the sermon I preached for our congregation in West Los Angeles.
I am aware now that as I was preaching, there was and is a power-struggle in our city. The powers of ICE and the National Guard and now Marines flood the streets of LA.
Pentecost is our reminder that God’s spirit was given to ALL people. With that knowledge, we cannot separate documented and undocumented. We cannot name who is worthy of sanctuary and who is not worthy. God’s spirit gives us the ability to communicate, NOT the ability to violate and harm one another.
ALL are included in the expansive reach of God’s grace.
“And I will pour my spirit out upon all flesh” (Acts 2:17; Joel 2:28).
June 8th, 2025 | 10AM
When you think of Pentecost Power, you probably would not think of a 98-year-old Dutch woman, living in a group assisted living facility, with the inability to walk without her wheelchair. My mom’s side of the family is Japanese American, but my Dad’s parents were first generation immigrant from the Netherlands who came to the US after German occupation fragmented their country.
In my Oma’s last years, her language would oscillate, without warning, between Dutch and English as she tried to communicate with me and my family. But even in her 98th year, she clung to her prayer beads and prayer for hours every day.
God was her primary companion.
She was a devout Catholic woman, who had grace for our family of protestants.
One day she asked me to lean in so she could whisper in my ear: “God loves us all. God is working not just in us Catholics and you Protestants, but also in Jewish people and Muslims, and…” etc. etc.
I would step back and smile, knowing that this was quite a progressive claim given the history of these inter-religious wars and biases. There was no flame of fire that appeared above her head, but the tongue of English and Dutch within the frail mouth of Willimiena Hertogh echoed those words of the Holy Spirit: all flesh means all flesh.
No one is beyond God’s grace and power.
Maybe for us it does not look like flames of fire…
but we might sense the Holy Spirit among us when there is a lyric in a worship song that speaks to us, or when someone offers us a word of comfort after a terrible week.
We may sense the Holy Spirit among us when in our relationships, we feel the courage to admit we were wrong.
We might sense the Spirit's power among us when we gather the strength to speak truth to power, to call for ceasefires and sanctuary policies;
we might sense the Spirit’s Power as we raise money for LA fire relief, or when we invest in providing food and support for students facing food insecurity.
Maybe it does not look like flames of fire, but every time we sense the Spirit stirring us toward service, toward love, toward generosity, toward community, toward flourishing for all people, we know that the wind of the Spirit might be in our midst.
In the words of Walter Bruggemann, an American theologian and Old Testament scholar who passed away this week, God is “summoning” us.
He says,
“Now is the time for yielding justice, for foolish forgiveness, for outrageous generosity, for elaborate hospitality. None of these acts can come from fear, anxiety, or despair. But they are all acts that evoke new futures that the fearful think are impossible.”
Pentecost is our reminder that no one, no place, and no thing is too old, too young, too far gone, or too (you can fill in the blank) for the Holy Spirit to come in and bring new life again. We should not disqualify others, and we also should not disqualify ourselves.
The Spirit’s grace and inspiration, peace and courage, are never too far from us.
As one of the United Methodist Bishops, Will Willimon said, “God loves to talk.”
The question is: are we listening? And if we are listening, are we willing to respond?
A prayer from Walter Bruggemann:
Oh wind of God,
Rush us beyond ourselves,
Rush us beyond our hopes,
Rush us beyond our fears, until we enact your newness in the world.
Come, come spirit. Amen.