This past Sunday, we celebrated the vibrant, dynamic, disturbing, inspiring, and enlivening of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. God’s Spirit filled the place where the disciples were and all of them were filled with the Spirit, and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. The Spirit helped the disciples speak! Those were the words that swirled within me as I drove to the Capitol for the Black Lives Matter Peaceful Protest later Sunday afternoon. I was part of a clergy group organized to try and help the protest remain as peaceful if possible.
Kameron Neeman organized Sunday´s protest after the senseless murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. Neeman said in an interview, “I want this to be as peaceful as possible. I asked as many clergy here as possible. If things become not peaceful, I asked them to start preaching.” I believe that when the Spirit calls, I can’t not somehow respond…knowing that ignoring is a response, just like protesting is a response.
So clergy gathered before the protest north of the Capitol, we prayed together, and got our assignment: “try to keep the protest as peaceful as possible, partner up: clergy of color will have at least one white male clergy with you, put yourself between potential conflict (whoever it is) and the protesters, and be ready to preach.” All I could think was Jesus´ reassurance, “the Holy Spirit will give you the words to say at the moment when you need them.”
The protest remained peaceful. So, instead of preaching, I got to hear the Spirit preach. Speakers and the crowd repeatedly chanted, “Black Lives Matter!”, “George Floyd,” and “I can’t breathe!”
Friends, the Pentecost winds are blowing and the Spirit is speaking loudly and with raw emotion. She speaks the names of innocent men and women who are black, indigenous, and people of color and who are being killed at the hands of police. She speaks chants of protest against the broken systems we live in and, if you’re white like me, benefit from. She is the Advocate and Comforter whom Jesus chose to leave with us to teach us all things and remind us of everything Jesus said to his disciples. She speaks tongues of fire, asking all of us what kind of world we want to pass along to the next generation. As a pastor friend wrote, “Prejudice and discrimination certainly didn´t start with us–but it *can* end with us. Systemic racism is about more than just a few ´bad apples´; it’s an ingredient baked right into the whole American apple pie…Without justice, there cannot truly be peace.”
So, church, the Spirit is calling to us with pain in her voice. May we be open to God’s transforming power and not be like the people Jesus speaks about in Matthew 13:15, “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.”
Much love!
Pastor Justin
