Catching Fire
Acts 2:1-21
by the Rev. Sara Fischer
Come, Holy Spirit, come. Come as the wind and cleanse; come as the fire and burn; convict, convert and consecrate our lives until we are wholly yours.
Pentecost is a feast of rich imagery: wind, fire, miraculous blurring of boundaries in the spoken word.
Fire is almost always a mixed metaphor. We talk about someone being “all fired up” as a gift of inspiration and engagement. Being fired from a job, on the other hand, is about disengagement, brokenness. We talk of someone being “on fire” metaphorically as being a good thing, when actually, to be literally on fire is a horrible and unimaginable thing, unimaginable unless it has happened to you. Fire is captivating, and fire is dangerous thing.
Unless, of course, you are a sequoia tree. Sequoia bark is almost impervious to forest fires. Sequoia seed cones are sealed with a thick coating of resin that must be burned, melted, in order to open. At the same time that a forest fire heats the cones enough to melt the resin and set the seeds free, the fire clears the earth of debris so the seeds can germinate. Now there’s a metaphor.
The fact that fire can be both so dangerous and so life-giving makes it a perfect way to talk about the Christian ministry inaugurated by the first Pentecost. The power that comes with the descent of the Spirit is dangerous and life-giving.
Jesus was put to death because he was considered dangerous. The work of God in the world, the work of healing, liberation, and justice, which Jesus was sent to proclaim, is dangerous work. And yet, it is life-giving work, Spirit-proclaiming work. It is the work for which we are commissioned on this baptismal Sunday and every Sunday.
*
Theologian Richard Norris wrote that “the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is simply the other side of Jesus’ resurrection.” In other words, the coming of the Spirit which we hear about this morning means it’s our turn to heal, liberate, and reframe justice so that it works for the poorest and most broken among us. The Pentecost event reminds everyone to proclaim God’s mighty deeds of power. John’s gospel tells us that Jesus breathed on the disciples, but the better translation is that he breathed into them. The Spirit is how God works in us.
The image in the Acts story is of a bunch of people speaking different languages, talking about how they have glimpsed the kingdom of God. In our own languages we hear them speaking God’s deeds of power. What might they be saying?
Did you hear? God raised Jesus from the dead!
Let me tell you what happened: God raised up a physician to heal my brother!
I have been full of anger and despair, it’s shifting into hope because of some people God put in my path.
I am afraid, and yet, I have courage.
I prayed and God gave me strength and words for a difficult conversation with my neighbor.
God must’ve been present at this crazy controversial meeting I attended because everyone was so kind to one another.
I just did this incredibly hard thing I didn’t know I could do (fill in the blank). And I’m talking about it, which is even stranger!
In our collect we prayed to “shed abroad this gift of the spirit throughout the world by the preaching of the gospel.” We always think this is someone else’s job, but it’s not. The preaching of the gospel is simply the affirmation of triumph of life over death and love over hate.
The presence of the Spirit, on this side of the Resurrection, is the possibility of the Kingdom of God.
Kingdom work is not without danger, in our psyches or in the social orders we orbit. But it is how seeds of new life and hope get planted.
When I think of the people who gathered in Jerusalem for the first Pentecost, I imagine them telling stories of being welcomed, being nourished in a hundred different ways, and experiencing that kingdom hospitality as a miracle worth sharing in any language.
They are on fire. When was the last time you were on fire? Those people in Jerusalem on that day are us.
This is not something we need to enact in some symbolic, dramatic, extra-liturgical way. We don’t need to unleash a bunch of doves or balloons. The Spirit’s power is unleashed by Jesus’ resurrection and ascension and by the Spirit’s presence in us and among us.
What will so move us that we might be on fire with our experience of the Spirit and our hope for the Kingdom of God?
Your assignment—and I do mean this—is to think about something that you have witnessed or heard about that lets you know God is at work in the world. Tell someone. Tell someone you don’t know, later today. Or tomorrow at work or the grocery store. Pentecost means we no longer get to keep God’s deeds of power a secret.
I’d like to close with a story, which some of you may have heard before, about two desert fathers:
Abbot Lot came to Abbot Joseph and said: “Father, I do my best to keep my little rule, my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and I work to cleanse my heart of thoughts; what more should I do?” The elder rose up in reply, and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: “Why not be utterly changed into fire?”
Come Holy Spirit, come as the fire and burn.
