Surely every Christian knows who we welcomed today! I watched Mass on TV. Isolating myself still from church, I watched EWTN Mass and then Solemn Mass of Pentecost from the National Cathedral in Washington DC. The cathedral was empty. 4 choir persons, one priest, several servers. Isolation and lockdown is not the way we imagined celebrating Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost, ancient Jewish feasts and newer Christian feasts… It is not what we decided to do, how we would celebrate Easter and Pentecost, but here we are, isolated, 70 days after many of us began isolation in the middle of Lent. Today marks the end of the Easter season which many of us church-goers missed. Today we celebrate when Christians celebrate the receipt of the Fire of the Holy Spirit! 2000 years ago a group of frightened men and several women huddled in a room, told to pray, left by Jesus… "Just Pray," he said, "just pray, I’ll come." OK… he said to pray. now what? Think of the emptiness of the first verse of the Bible…. Into the chaos and emptiness, the Holy Spirit hovered over the face of the earth and breathed… He blew in life! Go read chapter 37 of Ezekiel when God told Ezekiel he could restore life to a valley full of dry bones!!! As i sat and watched TV today I wrote: "how is our world today?" Can we ever possibly imagine the chaos of our world? Human anger and greed. Think of Babel building up a tower to get more more more…. but what we have done is let anger and greed reign. And today, Pentecost Sunday, we are deep in disease and riots that only burn every section of our world. Hovering in my quiet home, with country music playing on "Xfinity Music Choice", I call upon the Holy Spirit, "could you please try to get in here?" How many times are we going to beg God to save us? How many times is he going to respond? He promised he loves us. He promised he would come, but we have to be open… That’s a big "have to" and bigger is what we "should do" that Americans right now aren’t willing to listen to… We are so used to our freedoms that when I say, "we should pray…. we should obey the Law (Love)" that people tell me I’m being preachy.
A few days ago, a man of the Law went to work and he killed another man. Recorded on cell phones. That night he was in jail for murder. Oh he did it OK. We all saw it on TV. There isn’t any excuse. It looks like the officer (now, ex-officer) put the offender in a car and the offender crawled out the other side. (It looks like that). So on the other side, a few ugly words probably were exchanged and a knee when to a neck. For 8 minutes. It’s a classic hold that police officers are warned not to use… my husband quotes the rule to me… if you use the choke hold or draw your gun be prepared to kill. Youch. But think about it. That’s policing. And that’s what the officers hear in their training. So what does this have to do with Pentecost. Because it’s happening right now on our TV sets, and in our cities, I talk about it, because it is horrible and in our faces. So how do we reconcile this? I hope you are isolated. I have that vision of the empty church in Washington and my own church here in Lake Placid with many many empty seats. Let us keep the vision of the frightened men and some women in the upper room. "He said to wait and pray. He said he would send a new power." And well, he did. He sent the Fire of his Holy Spirit! Not the fire that incites riots, but the fire that incites love. I can’t go out into the streets, and I shouldn’t! But I can pray and be kind in my neighborhood. In my Publix I can be kind, and in my Winn Dixie I can be kind. I can be kind with "oh my goodness" the IRS and the police officers of my town. I can say, "thank you for your service and I pray for you." God bless us. Angels with us.