PENTECOST A
The face of our world has changed and we’ve lost so much over the last several months in ways that we could never have imagined – people sheltering at home, empty store shelves, worried faces hidden behind masks, historic unemployment, and people dying from the virus.
But there has also been some good news in all of this; a remarkable wave of care and concern for one another – efforts to make and distribute food, heroic first responders and medical care-givers being cheered, people making masks at home and distributing them to family and neighbors.
Can these stories offer us a glimmer of hope that this new outbreak of care and concern can continue to survive when the tragedy of the pandemic has subsided?
Jesus’ disciples had suffered a devastating loss when he was crucified. Like us, the world they knew was gone. But their world was renewed far beyond what they could have imagined.
Gathered in Jerusalem with people from every nation under heaven, the disciples were taken over by the Spirit that Jesus had promised he would send. In that mighty wind, they felt the Spirit’s power. In the tongues of fire, they were set on fire with the energy of the Spirit.
They found the courage to leave their place of shelter, to go out and boldly proclaim the good news of Jesus. And people who heard them were brought together from many languages, in the profession of one faith.
In our gospel, Jesus breathes the Spirit on the disciples as they huddled in their locked room on Easter day.
By doing this, Jesus offers them his peace by forgiving them for abandoning him on Holy Thursday night. By doing this Jesus gives them the power to do a job - a mission – as the Father has sent me, so I send you. By offering them his peace and forgiveness, he gives them the power and courage to proclaim God’s peace, forgiveness, and merciful love to others.
As Jesus’s disciples in 2020, can we continue to fan into flame the sparks of human kindness we now see around us. Can we make that our life-long, Christian mission?
At every celebration of the Eucharist, we pray that having received the Body of Christ, we will also receive the Spirit of Christ and become one body, one spirit in Christ. And then we are sent to be his witnesses in our world, setting it on fire with loving mercy and forgiveness, with charity and kindness.