I was ordained a priest just six days after the death of my father. We had a…complicated relationship…and so my feelings were…complicated. I was grieved, and angry, and stunned. A little numb. As the procession got closer and closer to the church doors I could hear more and more the congregation thundering through the hymn, “Praise to The Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation.” Perhaps my favorite hymn. But, as we approached the church […]
The following is a reflection on Acts 2:1-21, the lesson properly appointed for the Day of Pentecost, year B of the Revised Common Lectionary, and Genesis 11:1-9 the lesson appointed for the Day of Pentecost, year c. Pentecost is often interpreted as the undoing of Babel. At the tower of Babel, God confounded the speech of His People so that they could not communicate with each other. At Pentecost God gave the apostles the gift […]
I think it's helpful in this regard to not separate the Resurrection of Jesus and Coming of the Holy Spirit as two wholly separate and different things. They are two different things, but they have lots of overlap - and they are in a fuller sense two actions of the one-and-the-same sweeping act of God: God reconciling all things to Himself, God making all things new.
Cause if we just sink into the mire of Christian blandness we might as well just climb back into the upper room. And lock the door. I heard it's safe in there. But when the Spirit of God moved on the waters, and Light shined forth, and the morning stars sang together with all the heavenly host - when that hunk of clay took its first breath direct from the lungs of God - when the white-hot fire of God swooped down from Heaven and set a bush on fire/ blazed a trail in the wilderness/ filled the Temple with God's Presence/ brought forth the Holy Spirit and set the disciples' heads literally on fire. . . there was nothing bland about any of it.