Dear People of Christ Church,

This week, our place in the holy in-between time after Ascension continues. I spent the better part of last week’s piece in this space outing myself as a potential heretic, and I suspect there will be more of that today. I felt really challenged on Sunday in our kids’ sermon in trying to figure out how to teach about the Ascension; it can be 100% true even if it didn’t happen exactly that way. Mostly I settled on talking with the kids about their experiences of having been left behind-we’ve all had times when we felt unmoored, left without our bearings and familiar supports. That’s certainly how the disciples felt. Our feelings of being left behind are not the whole story-even when the disciples felt that Jesus had abandoned them-again!-they still knew that he loved them. We have their example of being faithful even in the midst of grief. We have their example that it’s not faithless to grieve in the first place.

At the same time, what came next was probably not what the disciples had in mind. Pentecost is a riot of fire and language; all the disciples hear each other speaking in different languages, and a crowd comes to hear them “speaking of God’s deeds of power.” The crowd is not free of dissent, however-others “sneered,” and accused them of being drunk. It always makes me laugh that Paul defends them from this accusation by pointing out that it’s 9:00 in the morning. No, he says, it’s what the Prophet Joel said would happen-the Spirit would be poured out on everyone, and everyone who calls on the Lord will be saved.

This Sunday, we’re going all the way with the Holy Spirit; with, if not literal tongues of fire, some extra celebration and some extra languages to hear. Rev. Christine from our Ugandan partner church will read the Gospel in Luganda after I read it in English, and different parishioners will lend their linguistic skills from Aramaic to Haitian Creole. We’ll have Steve Taddeo and friends bring the jazz and have some extra smoke from incense AND we’re baptizing new baby Raven Fintzel, who’s just started coming with mom Kat and dad Andrew. It’s a good month for baptisms-Noah Hobin will go on the fifteenth.

As Jesus ascends it’s his entry into transcendence, holy “no” to being defined by the might-makes-right-world. Death no longer has power because Jesus has confronted death and come through the tomb on the power of love. Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to be with us, to continue his work and give us power to share in it. I read parts of Maya Angelou’s Poem, Still I Rise, at the 8:30 service last week to bring us, just for a moment, into that sense of determination and wonder. No matter what comes, whether torture or scorn, fury or abandonment, insult or injury, in Christ we are defined by the power of God’s holy love. This Sunday, the power comes crashing down on our heads, thanks be to God, and alleluia!

Blessings,
Sara+