Pentecost - Acts 2:1-21

This Sunday we get to celebrate Pentecost, that great outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem so long ago. People from all places and backgrounds praised God in their own languages and yet they understood one another perfectly.  Rather than make them all speak the same language, the Spirit worked through their differences to bring them together and this is precisely the moment we trace the beginning of the Christian Church in the world.  As part of a that Church, we are called to follow the spirit’s example.  God is not calling us all to sameness, God does not demand that all humans worship in the same way, but rather loves us all as we are and accepts the worship we each have to offer.  As we regather and reengage the world, perhaps we should call on the Holy Spirit into our lives to bring us into the world in a new way that values difference and waits with great expectation of what God is doing all around us.

Pastor Shannon Smith