They'll Soon Discover
Sermon for The Lutheran Church of The Good Shepherd on April 30, 2023
It was my second day
On the island of Barbados.
I was on a study abroad trip
For the college course
“Literature of the Eastern Caribbean”
And Bridgetown, Barbados
Was our first stop for this class.
It also happened to be my first time
Traveling outside of the country.
On our first evening of the trip
Our class adventured downtown
To experience the Saturday evening fish fry market
Which involved me hanging onto the outside
Of a speeding bus driving through city traffic
In a sequence comparable to the Knight Bus
Scene in Prisoner of Azkaban.
It’s a long story—we don’t have time to get into it now.
Suffice to say
That I was now terrified of day number two.
To quote Arnold from The Magic School Bus
“I knew I should’ve stayed home today.”
I knew that I should never have left my home
Never left the comfort of familiarity.
But since I didn’t have the option to stay home
I figured that the most familiar thing to do on a Sunday morning
Would be church.
My professor was a devout Catholic,
And had a favorite church to attend.
She led me and five other students
To a cathedral
Where the comforts of a sanctuary space
Were rapidly stripped away by the liturgy.
You see, the official spoken language of Barbados
Is an English creole language called Bajan
So while many English words remain
The pronunciation and rate of speech
Made these words unrecognizable
To my ignorant Midwestern American ears.
I did my best to follow along with the service
But I was ready to give up all my hope for this trip
Convinced that it was a mistake to open myself up
To the unfamiliar, to the different, to the new.
But then, the priest took the lectern
And began delivering the greatest sermon
I had ever heard
Even though I didn’t understand a single word.
Fluent in Bajan
This priest spoke to his congregation
With a passion and fervor
That resonated with everyone present
From the locals to the visiting Americans.
It wasn’t a sermon meant for me
But by the power of the Holy Spirit
I received his message
And it was exactly what I needed
To revive my soul.
He preached with his whole body
With gestures and vocal inflections
That awoke and aroused the senses
But it was more than body language.
This priest was on fire!
The Holy Spirit dwelled within him
And he let it pour from him
He didn't hold back
He didn’t restrict its power or reach
He let the Spirit explode forth from his body
So that it may deliver the message of liberating grace
To anyone present to witness this
Unleashing of the Spirit.
And it worked
Because in that moment I felt the Holy Spirit enter into my body
And a part of myself
That I kept contained, restrained
Was set free.
On the first two days of this trip
I dwelled in dread, despair, distrust
For the difference I was being exposed to
For the first time in my life.
But for the rest of the trip
I would begin a metamorphosis
Discovering myself, my call, my faith
My responsibility to my neighbor
My desire to share my voice
As I opened myself to the Holy Spirit
That dwells in the unfamiliar.
Pentecost
The arrival of the Holy Spirit
Is the ultimate encounter with the unfamiliar
And the experience of discovering God
And ourselves
In difference.
For the disciples were clearly unprepared
For the unfamiliar.
They act as if they’ve reached the end of the story.
They have seen the incredible events
In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ
And have now seen him rise into Heaven
With the promise that he will return.
That seems like the end, right?
Jesus has already accomplished everything
So now they chill out
Until Jesus comes back.
That's the familiar story
Where God acts
And humans watch.
But it’s not the story of the God
Who became human, defies death, and ushers in new life.
The story God chooses
Is one so unfamiliar
That it involves a violent wind
Overtaking the disciples
Bestowing their heads with tongues of fire
Filling them with the Holy Spirit
And giving them the ability to speak other languages.
This is the farthest thing from familiarity
Especially when you think of what a language is.
Languages and dialects
Are not a series of words and rules of grammar.
You can memorize every word and rule of Spanish
Go to Mexico City
And still be completely unable to communicate
With the locals.
Because a language isn’t just words
It is culture.
Language emerges from
A people’s relationship with the land
Unique community structure,
Religion,
And way of being!
So when the disciples gain the ability
To speak in different languages
In a way that allows them to proclaim
The message of the Gospel
So that native speakers of the language can understand it
They are taking the entirety of a different, unfamiliar culture
Into their bodies, souls, and minds.
They are not receiving a new vocabulary
They are receiving the gift of true empathy
They are receiving a full encounter with difference
Accompanied by the promise that the Holy Spirit
Dwells in that difference
And is calling them to embrace difference
Embrace unfamiliarity
And transform
Metamorphosize
Beyond their narrow perspective
To discover that the God
Who became Jesus
Lived among them
Redeemed and saved them
Rose to new life for them
Is alive and living
Among all the people of the world
Calling them to a love so eternal
That it draws all people together
In the belief that we are all
Bearers of the divine.
The Holy Spirit makes God unfamiliar again
Removing us from a belief in an exclusively external God
And guiding us toward the belief
That all our bodies bear the Holy Spirit
That we have all been saved by grace
And are called to love one another
As the living body of Christ.
And that we can do this
Because when we open ourselves to love
The Holy Spirit arrives
To unite us through our differences
And fill us with the courage
To preach a love that expands
Far and deep enough
To embrace the unfamiliar.
For consider the disciples’ response
To their newfound capacity to speak different languages.
They do not hide, as they do
Throughout the Gospels.
Now that they have encountered
The fullness of God’s love
In the unfamiliar
In themselves
They cannot hide
So instead they preach
And they preach with such courage and urgency
That people believe that these disciples must be
Witnesses to the full expanse of God’s love
Must be preaching about a love that is real
And consequential—
A love that changes how they see themselves and others
A love that
Activates the Holy Spirit dwelling within them
And calls them to preach this Gospel of love
Through a new, radical, expansive, everlasting
Love for one another
As they have discovered the Spirit in themselves
And in those different from them.
And in this encounter with the unfamiliar
An expansive love arises as humanity is filled with the Holy Spirit
And the trajectory of the world changes
As the grace of Jesus Christ pours out on all people
And continues expanding and transforming the world to this day.
Because Pentecost is the promise
That the story of God never ends
And continues through our lives today
When we have the courage to boldly preach
And proclaim God’s love for the unfamiliar.
But this message is difficult for those of us
Worshiping in the Lutheran expression of Christianity
Because Lutheranism proclaims the sufficiency
Of Jesus’ grace over good works.
And this has created a tradition
So hesitant toward good works
That it can often prevent us
From responding to the Spirit’s call
To preach the message of God’s expansive love
For the unfamiliar
Through our words and actions
Since words and actions
Can often be misconstrued as good works.
The Holy Spirit is an area where Lutheranism
Stands to learn a lot from other Christian expressions of faith
That hold the Holy Spirit in greater significance.
For the Lutheran resistance towards good works
Has led the church away from the Holy Spirit's chaos
And towards a desire for control
Understanding, and familiarity.
We inherit a hesitance
To embrace the Holy Spirit’s presence
In the unfamiliar
In that which we cannot understand
In that which seems different from us
And it is not lost on me
That a significant
And increasingly loud
Portion of the American population
Rejects that I have any right to preach
And may not have a right to exist
Given that I am openly bisexual and nonbinary.
Now, I don’t blame anyone for being apprehensive
About difference
It is perfectly natural to be nervous
About things one is unfamiliar with
But when you neglect to recognize
The presence of the Holy Spirit
In those who are different from you
In the unfamiliar
And especially when you respond
To difference and unfamiliarity
With violence and apathy
Then you neglect the message of Pentecost
That calls us all to be transformed
By the truth that God dwells with all people
Familiar and unfamiliar
Different and diverse—
That there is not one person on this earth
Who is separated from the love and grace of God
Because that is just how powerful the Holy Spirit is.
And when our words and actions
Are not done out of a belief
That the Holy Spirit dwells in all people
Then we fail to catch the fire
The prophetic potential
That only comes from encountering
The divine in difference
The Holy Spirit in the unfamiliar.
I want to share two experiences of being invited to preach
And ask you which sounds like a truer trust
In the Holy Spirit.
In my first year of seminary
While accompanying a group
Of Lutheran campus ministry students on a service trip
We were worshiping
Using the Holden Evening Prayer service
When, during the reflection portion of the service,
Our staff musician, Nate,
Turned to me and invited me to preach.
I was hesitant, believing myself unworthy.
But Nate, without having any idea of what I would say
Kept inviting me to preach
And didn’t move on with the service until
I delivered a preaching
That was authentically me
That could only come from the Holy Spirit.
But three years later,
I was preparing to deliver my senior sermon
At my seminary
When the campus pastor called me
And asked for a report on what I was planning to preach
Because she wanted to make sure
That it wasn’t too radical
Since the seminary administration
Knew that certain students and staff
Did not approve of my identities
So they wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t
Trouble the water too much in my preaching.
Now, in which of these cases
Do you see a trust in the Holy Spirit
To dwell in difference
In which example
Do you see a desire to encounter
The Holy Spirit in the unfamiliar?
My siblings in Christ
My siblings through the Spirit
We must be free to preach
However we are called to preach
Through our words and actions
If our church, our world, our whole lives
Are to be renewed, replenished, and restored by the Holy Spirit
But this will only happen
When we believe that
God’s love is for me
AND
That God’s love is for you
For all of your differences
Because who you are
Is a beloved child of God
Worthy of bearing the Holy Spirit.
And because we live in a time
When transgender, queer, and gender nonconforming people
When black, brown, and indigenous people of color
When Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders
When Jewish people around the world
Are facing so much hatred, aggression, violence, and rejection
Preaching the divinity of the unfamiliar
It is the responsibility of all
Who experience the Holy Spirit
To proclaim their experience with God’s love
As loudly and proudly as they can
Not because we must do it to earn salvation
But because once we discover the Holy Spirit
In unfamiliarity
We can do no other
Than share God’s presence within all of our lives
With our whole lives
For the sake of our whole world
For the sake of the Holy Spirit that dwells in this whole beloved world.
Because the world needs our witness to the Holy Spirit
You have been filled with the Holy Spirit
To speak to a time such as this!
The world is filled with messages of hate
Of prejudice against difference
Of the rejection of the unfamiliar
For the preservation of power.
Your body has been filled with the Holy Spirit
To proclaim God’s expansive love for the unfamiliar
Your body has been filled with the Holy Spirit
To love and serve all of your neighbors as they need to be served
Specifically by you
Your body has been filled with the Holy Spirit
To declare that every human being bears the presence of God
Your body has been filled with the Holy Spirit
To continue writing God’s story with your life!
So what shall you preach?
What shall you proclaim?
What Gospel shall you share with the world
To transform it with the love of the Holy Spirit
Calling us all to be made new
As we grow to love one another
In new and different ways?
This is not hypothetical!
Preach!
Preach now, boldly and loudly!
Tell me,
What excites you about the Gospel?
What excites you about God?
Why does Jesus matter?
How is the Holy Spirit calling us to love the world?
(Wait for responses)
Amen. Thanks be to God.