Mx.Holy Spirit: profoundly uninterested in our locked doors

based on Acts 2:1-21 and John 20:19-23 for Pentecost Sunday, Year A
On Pentecost Sunday, we return to that locked room in John 20 — where frightened people are hiding behind heavy doors — and to the wild scene in Acts where the Spirit lands on all flesh without asking permission first. This sermon sits with the particular kind of locked room that educated, thoughtful, progressive people tend to inhabit without realizing it: the one that looks like wisdom from the inside. Into that room, and into this specific political moment where the word "Christian" is being weaponized to decide whose body counts, Pentecost arrives with breath, fire, and the ancient insistence of the prophet Joel that the Spirit falls on all flesh — not approved flesh, not respectable flesh, not economically useful flesh. All of it. The question this sermon leaves you with is not theoretical: what locked room have you mistaken for wisdom, and what would happen if you finally opened the door and let yourself (or others) out?

​The doors were locked.
John tells us why: fear. These folks were afraid. Specifically, in John's words, of "the Jews" 

...but let me translate that into modern language for our ears today: what John is describing is fear of religious leadership in cahoots with government leadership, willing to kill a totally innocent guy. Judaism is not the problem, here.

So yes. They were afraid.
And for all my joking about these stooges known as Jesus' besties, at the core of things, their fear is completely reasonable. The disciples were not cowards. They were people who had watched someone they loved be murdered for the crime of… well, no actual crime.

So there they are behind their locked door. And there goes Jesus, walking right on in anyway.
Ironically enough, he says: "Peace be with you."

Right, man. Have you seen what is happening out there? Trouble has been brewing for a while, and you yourself were publicly executed quite recently. Peace my butt.

At any rate — then he breathes on them.
Not all that unlike Genesis 2, where God breathes life into the mud creature known as Adam. Or Ezekiel, standing in that valley of dry bones saying: I can tell the truth to these bones, but if they are going to live again, God, you are going to have to breathe. Jesus breathes onto these frightened people hiding behind locked doors  in this room that has kind of become a tomb.
Or maybe even a womb.
Something enclosed. Something waiting. Something probably not meant to stay sealed forever.

And I have been thinking about that locked room-tomb-womb. Not  the disciples' - though-- I've been thinking about ours.

There is a very specific kind of locked room that educated, thoughtful, progressive people tend to live in. And the thing is: it does not look like a locked room from the inside. From the inside it looks like being informed. Wise. Ethical. Up to date. It looks like reading the right (well researched!) things and having the appropriate (logical really) opinions and mostly talking to people who already agree with you because they are intelligent and see the issues at hand clearly. From the inside, this all feels a lot like being engaged and involved and thinking critically, with clarity.

You would never guess we're operating in a room with a locked door. Unless you happened to be someone were standing on the outside. Someone like Jesus. And the Holy Spirit, who don't care about our locked doors.

So anyway, here comes Jesus through locked doors, bringing breath and Spirit, and effectively shoving people out of the room.

And you notice the direction of the Spirit in both John and Acts is outward, right? Toward the city. Toward the street. Toward other bodies. Toward the messy world outside.

It seems like a lot of spiritual language treats all things Holy Spirit as internal. Private. Interior. Personal. But based on what the excerpts we got today say, the Holy Spirit in scripture is rarely private. The Spirit interrupts. The Spirit gathers. The Spirit sends. The Spirit moves people.
Pentecost is not a story about private spirituality. Pentecost is a story about bodies and fire. Lots of moving, interacting bodies and hot, breathy fire.

There's that line from the prophet Joel in Acts: I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your elders will dream dreams. Even upon those the world has pushed to the bottom — even upon them, I will pour out my Spirit.
All flesh.

We are living in a time where our government is actively using the word Christian to justify deciding whose body-- which flesh--counts. Whose body is legally recognizable. Whose family is valid. Whose gender will be acknowledged. Whose disability is inconvenient. Whose suffering is too expensive. Whose existence can be turned into a political talking point.

And directly into that reality, Pentecost. Mx. Holy Spirit (truly a kween if ever there was one) arrives boldly declaring: all flesh. Not some flesh. Not approved flesh. Not respectable flesh. Not economically useful flesh. Just simply: all flesh. Every body in this room. Every body outside this room. Every body the world has scapegoated, ignored, criminalized, abandoned, or deemed disposable.

The Spirit falls on all flesh. Not metaphorically. Actually.
And that really matters, because Christianity as espoused by people who want it to support governmental initiatives seems to keep trying to be selective about bodies, attempting to control and put limitations on our very human, fleshy, made-in-the-image-of-God bodies.

Meanwhile: the Holy Spirit remains profoundly uninterested in our designs, and keeps landing directly on all flesh, pouring over every single body, refusing to wait for institutional permission.

And then, there is the fire. Think about what fire actually does. Fire transforms what it touches. It does not leave things unchanged. Fire burns. Fire illuminates. Fire spreads. Fire changes the temperature of the air around it. We lean on fire for life. And though we work very hard to control fire, fire is most often not especially interested in our permission or our will.

The disciples did not ask for fire. They were up in their locked room trying to stay safe together. And into that room: Jesus' breath, Mx. Holy Spirit, and good old transformative-won't-leave-you-the-same-fire.

Pentecost is not comfort arriving, unfortunately. Pentecost is transformation beginning, and continuing. And maybe that is why some folks like to reduce fire to metaphor instead of seeing it for it's literal reality. Because metaphorical fire is easier to manage. We can say "What does it mean?" to a metaphor, and get right into an intellectual rabbit hole, justifying all our categorizations and in-groups and out-groups. But actual fire does things. Actual fire changes things. This isn't about wht does it mean, it's about what it does. And what "it" does ("it" being fire, and Mx. Holy Spirit, in this case) is generate the kind of change and transformation that pushes people out of their locked rooms, away from their comfortable echo chambers, and allows people to understand one another and love better. And that-- that changes what is possible.

But here is what I notice about us  (and when I say us, I mean us here and like, the United States US). Us people who are high achievers, who read and assess and strategize and try very hard to get everything exactly right. Us people who calculate carefully, tracking whether the timing is optimal, questioning whether we are prepared enough.

Mx. Holy Spirit is the kween, and she is profoundly uninterested in all of our achieving and optimal condition tracking. Following Mx. Holy Spirit will cost you something. That is not a flaw in Christianity. That is one of its central truths. The manna arrives after the wilderness begins, other side of our locked doors. 

Mx Holy Spirit does not run risk assessments before loving people. She goes right ahead and falls on all the fleshy people and creatures the world has already dismissed: disabled folks, homeless folks, trans folks, immigrating folks, people without status, people without credentials, people our culture has decided are disposable. And, she is moving and kicking up change before respectable institutions have even figured out whether they're even willing to acknowledge her.

So what about you?

What locked room have you mistaken for wisdom?

What fear have you decorated so thoroughly that it now feels responsible?

What echo chamber have you confused with correctness?

Maybe Mx. Spirit has already set something in your life on fire. Maybe that fire is uncomfortable. Maybe it is burning away something you desperately wanted to keep. Maybe you are standing there with your hand still on the lock, desperately (and ineffectively) trying to negotiate with transformation.

There is no negotiating with a flamer like Mx. Holy Spirit, I hope you know. Nothing stays the same. Not even Jesus stayed with the disciples in the same form forever. Everything that is the Gospel keeps moving toward transformation, toward resurrection, toward release, toward becoming. Mx. Spirit is not going to let our locked room-womb-tombs stay locked forever.

So maybe Mx. Holy Spirit is asking you to let something go.
Or maybe she is simply standing there insisting that you open the damn door already.
Christianity is not about theoretical intellectual discussions held safely behind locked doors and in comfortable echo chambers. Christianity is about becoming people who dance and sing right along with that holy flamer, Mx. Holy Spirit, into the world with our actual bodies — forgiving, releasing, refusing to retain what needs to be let go, so that everyone might be free. Jesus did say, afterall, whatever sins we forgive are forgiven...whatever sins we retain are retained.

The Spirit and fire are here, beckoning us to own our power and get to work.
So, make like the disciples and quit wasting time and effort on trying to keep yourself locked up in one of those womb-room-tombs, refusing to let yourself — or others — out.


with joy,
Pr. Sam