This is a good day!

Today is Pentecost Sunday!

We are gathered together as God’s people.

We have come together from different places.

We come with faith that God is here.

By faith we believe that God is present with us through God’s Holy Spirit.

On Pentecost Sunday, we remind each other of the presence of the Spirit among us.

The Spirit connects us and joins us together as the Body of Christ.

The word Pentecost comes from the Greek and the word means fifty.

Pentecost Sunday is celebrated in the church fifty days after Easter.

You might look at this day as an opportunity for a fresh start in your spiritual life.

Or like a reset in your faith and your walk with Jesus.

The Spirit renews life.

The Spirit brings new energy and new power into our lives.

The Spirit helps us and guides us to live lives of faith.

We celebrate this gift today.

And we celebrate this day knowing that we all come to this day with different backgrounds.

And we also come to this day from different places in our faith.

We are all at a different point in our spiritual journeys.

But the Spirit brings us all together just like the Spirit brought those first Christians all together on the Day of Pentecost.

In the book of Acts the people came together from all different places and yet they understood each other through the power of the Spirit.

The text demonstrates to us how the Holy Spirit can make us one and can bring unity.

This same Spirit of God is at work in us now.

Again, no matter what place we are at in our faith lives or in our personal lives the Spirit is working through each one of us.

Let me tell you a story…

When Kalen was serving in her first congregation in Iowa an older and very respected member of the church came to speak to Kalen.

This was not her name but I will call her Martha.

Martha said, “Pastor Kalen, I wanted to tell you that you may ask me to help with worship in any way except please don’t ever ask me to read in worship.”

“OK, I will not,” Kalen said back to her.

“You see,” Martha continued, “I don’t know how to read.”

“Also, if you see me not singing or participating in the worship service it is not because I don’t care it’s because I can’t read and I can only participate in the parts of the service that I already know by heart.”

“But even though I cannot read and participate as fully as others I still find the service so meaningful to me.”

This member found a place for herself at that small, country parish in rural Iowa and the Spirit helped her to feel that she too belonged.

The Spirit was at work in her life helping her to know that she too was connected with others in Christ.

One more story here…

One of my colleagues that I serve with in this Synod is blind.

I once asked him to share with me what it is like for him to lead a worship service.

He shared with me that because he cannot see his parishioners, he has needed to find other ways to know that he is connecting with them.

For example, he told me that when he is preaching there often comes a point where he can tell if the people are engaged with his sermon by listening very carefully to how they are breathing.

Yes, you heard me right.

He shared that when the people are truly receiving the message, they breath together more closely as a group and after years and years of preaching he shared with me that he can feel that slight shift in energy in the sanctuary.

He can do this by simply paying attention to the way in which his congregation is breathing.

In the Bible the breath is often connected with the Spirit.

The Spirit is seen as the breath of life and the Spirit sustains life.

The Spirit joins us together from many different places and gives us the ability to be connected as followers of Jesus.

No matter who we are or in what place we are at in our faith the Spirit speaks to us and joins us together as the people of God.

Now granted sometimes we miss the mark and sin enters in and we think that we are more separate than unified.

We think that we have to choose a side and be separate from one another.

But the Spirit is always working to bring us together.

Last Sunday during worship we heard Jesus’ prayer from the Gospel of John about unity.

Jesus prays that we might be one and the Holy Spirit makes it so.

On this Pentecost Sunday may the Holy Spirit speak to us anew.

May the Spirit give our congregation a fresh start as we move into a new season in the church year.

May the Spirit give us that reset that we need in faith and in life so that we might continue joining God in mission.

This coming week look for ways to build community.

Look for ways to find similarities instead of differences in others.

It is easy to see how we are different but can we find ways that we are the same – one people in Christ.

No matter how different you might feel you are from your neighbor remember always what we hear on Ash Wednesday – we are dust and to dust we shall return.

In the end we are return to God from whom we came from.

We have a lot in common after all.

And lastly, remember the two people that I spoke about this morning and may their stories give witness to the unifying power of the Holy Spirit.

From the outside we may, at times, seem very different but through the power of the Holy Spirit we are all a part of the Body of Christ.

Amen.