Sermon for the Day of Pentecost (June 8, 2025)
Sermon for the Day of Pentecost (June 8, 2025) at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day.
The Holy Spirit banner we use at Pentecost also flew at the April 5, 20205 “Hands Off” protest in Kingston, New York.. Photo by Raleigh Green: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=9356091781126584&set=pcb.9356097884459307
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Transcript
May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated.
I remember about five years ago now it was, in the early days of COVID, and we were doing everything that we do here in church. We were doing it online. I remember once in a service with about 40 or 50 people, and it was such early days that nobody knew how to use Zoom yet. Do you remember that? Nobody knew how to mute themselves. Nobody knew how to turn off their camera. And so it was time to say the Lord's Prayer with all these 50 or so people who were on the online worship together and nobody was muted. And so the celebrants had Our Father Who Art In Heaven, and then someone said, our father and then you hear our Father, our father, and you know how Zoom will cut off and it was all glitchy, but you could hear these different voices sort of bursting through.
Then at the end, kind of like this morning, there was just one voice still praying. The kingdom and the power and the glory are yours now and forever. Amen. And then it was quiet. And then somebody said, that must be what God hears. Because everywhere, all around, people are praying all the time, different languages, different voices, different faces, different times, people praying in the middle of the night, people praying when they wake up, people praying because something horrible is happening. People praying cause they're so grateful, and there's just this cacophony. That must be what God hears. But then I think, to God, there must be a peace in all of it because all these different voices, different words, different times, different days, different ages, different nations, different races, different people, they're all singing the praise of the one God.
There is unity and there's unity without uniformity. And there's many things we could talk about in what Jesus has to say to his disciples today, but one of the things he says is, I do not give to you as the world gives, right? And there's so many ways in which that is true, but one of the ways is that Jesus gives us unity, not as the world would give in requiring uniformity, but that God gives us unity. Jesus gives us unity. The spirit gives us unity in our diversity, in exactly who we are. In all these different expressions; language and gender and race, nation and people, there is unity and uniformity is not required.
We read this Fall, many of you who are here today participated in this book study. We read Monica Guzman's book, “I Never Thought of it That Way: how to have fearlessly curious conversations and dangerously divided times”, and it was very timely and it still is. In the first section of her book she talks about the SOS emergency; SOS, sorting, othering and siloing. She says it's natural as human beings that we sort of sort ourselves into groups right goes with right? Birds of a feather. It's kind of a tendency we have just the example she gives is like, what do you do if you're at a party? There's lots of people there. What do you do at Coffee Hour? There's lots of people there. A lot of us, including myself, if I know someone at the party, I'm like, hi, now I know someone, someone I have something in common with.
If I have the bad fortune to be at a party where I don't know anyone, which is my worst nightmare, then I'll be looking around. I'll be like, who here looks like someone I might be able to strike up a conversation with? And I look for those kind of exterior markers like someone who's maybe my age, someone who maybe looks like, I dunno, a t-shirt of a band I like, I don't know. I'm looking for something that we have in common. And we do. We sort ourselves into groups she says and there's nothing particularly wrong with this. We are looking for common language. But what happens is gradually we sort ourselves more and more, and once we're all in a group with other people who kind of talk like us and look like us and think like us, then we're like, what's wrong with those people over there? Because everyone I know and everybody I trust and like thinks this and speaks like this and dresses like this, prays like this. So that's othering, right? Sorting sort of leads to othering.
And if we don't intentionally disrupt this cycle, we end up with what we have now, which is siloing, right? Our mutual suspicion and mutual disregard for one another has us kind of get behind walls and we build these vertical silos. And the people in this one are incommunicado with the people in that one over there. Now a silo, does that sound familiar based on what you heard this morning? The Tower of Babble is a story that is kind of designed to tell us that from the earliest time before history, this is a mythical kind of story. It is a kind of story that explains this is why things are the way they are. It's lots of stories like this in the earliest, the sort of pre-history portion of Genesis. Why are things the way they are? Why do you talk different from me? What's that about? Why do those guys over there pray like that?
The story says that in the beginning, the people were all the same. They all had one language and they liked it that way. And as soon as they were together all kind of being the same, they built themselves a nice tall silo and they thought we’ll go higher and higher and higher. And what God, who created as the Psalm says, how manifold are your works oh God, right? God created everything from the sea monster to the dove, everything in between, every kind of vegetation, every animal, and all these different kinds of people. And when God found that all the people were sort of in lockstep, being in the same and speaking the same, God said, there is no end to what they will do now. And not because God was scared, okay? Because when we seek the unity that the world would give us that maybe our instincts would give us, what we get is uniformity. And uniformity quickly moves from let's hang out because you and me like the same band and we are into the same stuff, to what's wrong with them over there. And then as we've seen again and again in history, what's wrong with them over there? They better get to be like us or else.
The sorting leads to the othering. It leads to totalitarianism and authoritarianism, and that is a great power that the world gives. You don't speak the right language, get out of here. You don't love the right people, get out of here. Uniformity, it feels comfortable, it feels powerful, and it robs us. It steals from us the gifts that God has given us in one another in all these different faces and languages and voices, because all these voices, as different as they sound. What we find out through the gift of the Holy Spirit is that all of us are praising the same truth, the same reality, the same love expressed in many languages and tribes and peoples and nations, all who have been prepared by God to inherit this banquet, this great feast, this kingdom of God. This is the vision of the whole New Testament, is that by the power of the Holy Spirit, everybody will hear this good news, that love triumphs over our hatred, that healing triumphs over our division, that life will always triumph over the powers that deal death.
On that day all these different people were together and they were speaking different languages. There were people from all over the world together. And the Holy Spirit fell upon all of them. And in their diversity, in the glorious beauty of all the different ways that all the different people expressed themselves, the Spirit was moving and the people found that they did not need to be the same or speak the same or look the same or love the same or pray the same in order to understand one another, in order to love one another. And that was his greatest commandment. If you love me, keep my commandment that you love one another.
And when we doubt our power, our ability, because each of us can think of, we have the idea that really the Holy Spirit has fallen on all people. The Psalm says that God's spirit is the breath within each of us. If God takes away God's spirit, we lose our breath. To me that says there is no place, no person, no heart, where the Holy Spirit isn't moving. But boy, I can think of a few people that I'm like, but are you sure that the Holy Spirit's in there too? It takes an act of faith to believe the testimony, but the Holy Spirit fell on all of them that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved, rescued, rescued from uniformity, rescued from hatred, rescued from the relentless progression of sorting and othering. The Holy Spirit fell upon all of them.
The practice I want you to bring into the week ahead for yourself. Something you've heard many times in this church, may you see the face of Christ in everyone you meet. May everyone you meet see the face of Christ in you. May you imagine that the Holy Spirit dwells in the heart of everyone you meet. May you know that the Holy Spirit dwells in your heart to fire your imagination, to allow you to hear and understand and hope.
I know it's not easy to look at the world, to look at the people in power, to look at the war and to really believe the Holy Spirit is in every human heart, but nothing is impossible with God. I believe that by the power of the Holy Spirit, there is no forgiveness that is impossible. I believe that there is no telling of the truth that is impossible. I believe that there is no healing that is impossible, for all things are possible with God.
The Holy Spirit fell on all people. And if we find that, as we will, probably every day this week, impossible to believe, remember what Jesus said. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will give it to you. And the prayer I want us all to pray this week is give me the fire, the fire of the imagination to be able to trust that even now, your spirit is in every heart and in mine. These prayers, this faith, it's not going to change the world overnight. But I promise you, the practice of imagining that the Holy Spirit is in everybody else's heart and yours too, it will change you, which is a beginning, a new creation.
May the Holy Spirit recreate us all. Amen.