June 9, 2019
Acts 2:1-11
The past seven days have been something else for the Knight family. It all began last Sunday as Joshua stood before a packed sanctuary at First Baptist Church in Greensboro and delivered a heartfelt sermon. One that came from deep within him and one that took great courage to preach as he chose to open himself up in a very vulnerable way. Not only did he choose to do this in front of adults, but by choosing to be vulnerable in front of his peers, he summoned courage that most don’t seem to have.
On the heels of that day came, what felt like a week full of festivities due to Joshua being a member of Grimsley High School’s Class of 2019. Truth be told it wasn’t a full week. Grimsley, unlike other area High Schools, holds a convocation the evening before its graduation ceremony. Similar to its graduation ceremony, convocation began with opening words from Grimsley’s Principal, Mr. Ged O’Donnell. If you don’t know him, I believe he is someone you should want to know. I’m lucky enough to consider Ged a friend and I am always blessed when I have the opportunity to hear him speak. He has a charisma that draws you in, or as one father of a graduating senior said yesterday, he makes you want to go back to high school. Education is big for Mr. O’Donnell and his love of and passion for education is un-matched in my opinion. There is something else about him that draws me in though… the way he sees his world and the way he speaks about his vision with such fervor.
He opened both convocation and the graduation ceremony in similar fashion. He talked about his great love for what he calls “the best high school in Guilford County.” He encouraged everyone, students and non-students, to strive for excellence in everything they do each and every day. And while that kind of speech is always impactful, when he told everyone in the audience to take a look around and see, really see, all of the people sitting close by, his opening remarks took on even greater significance for me. He said, “in this space there are different nationalities, different genders, different races and different accents even, but in this space we are offered the chance to see the very best of what Greensboro could be and should be!”
Now I have no way of knowing if everyone heard him, or if those words were as impactful to them as they were to me. But late Friday night as he and I stood together in the Grimsley Gymnasium where Amy & I volunteered to help with Grimsley’s Project Graduation I made sure to tell him how much I appreciated those words. I made sure to tell him how important I believed it was for people like him, and others who stand before groups of people, to encourage them to take a good hard look around to see the people who they are sharing space with in this world. It can make a huge difference in how we understand who we are in this world. By stopping and really looking at the different nationalities, different genders, different races and different accents of the people around us, we begin to take steps toward becoming All. You see, Mr. O’Donnell’s call to see what was right in front of us in those auditoriums, was a call to see that we were ALL in those spaces together.
He also challenged me to think about my own high school graduation and how today’s ALL looks a good bit different than it did back then. Just consider the last names of the first ten classmates of mine my senior year were:
Abney,
Adams,
Alexander,
Allan,
Allen,
Anderson,
Andrews,
Armstrong,
Ashe &
Austin
compared to the last names of the first ten of Joshua’s classmates:
Abdelgadir,
Abdoulrazig,
Aboeid,
Aboelgasim,
Aboubacar Issoufou,
Adams,
Adcock,
Al Salemy,
Alarcon-Mendez, and
Alexander
The contrast is quite remarkable isn’t it? More than that though, the contrast is quite beautiful and should be celebrated which is exactly what Mr. O’Donnell was calling everyone to do. Celebrate the coming together of different nationalities. Celebrate the coming together of different races. Celebrate the coming together of those who are different. That is how we become ALL.
****************************
Maybe Mr. O’Donnell’s call to celebrate difference resonated so powerfully with me because of our text for today. Earlier in the week I had been encouraged to consider who the ALL was in today’s text. They are referenced in the very first verse, “… they were all together in one place.” Then again in verse four, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” Amazingly, the ALL that began in verse one actually grows and gets bigger as the story progresses. Not only does the ALL get bigger, the ALL becomes more diverse. And instead of fearing the diverse growth of the ALL, we are told it brings amazement. We are told the new larger, more diverse ALL, is astonishing. Without using these exact same words, we are told this new larger, more diverse ALL represents the best of what God’s world could be and should be. This is Pentecost and unlike some earlier stories of human division, “Pentecost represents the inbreaking of God’s purposes for all humanity, bringing humanity together in understanding, despite their differences.”[1]
Those previous stories of human division can make it hard for some to accept this new, larger more diverse ALL. It even happened on the actual day of Pentecost when some in the crowd said the people making up the larger ALL were drunk. Peter, though, “moved quickly to disabuse those who were muttering: “They are drunk with new wine.” No, said Peter, these people are not drunk. They are the living fulfillment of the long promise of God. God’s Word is being heard, God’s Spirit is being shared, and God’s communion is being brought into existence among humanity here and now.”[2] In other words, dividing humanity is not God’s plan. Dividing humanity was not part of Jesus’ teaching and in the same way Jesus let God’s spirit lead him to teach about reconciliation for ALL, we are now the torch bearers of Jesus’ mission of reconciliation. We are the torch bearers of God’s love of diversity and desire for communion. This is our responsibility.
**********************************
Human division is not how we become the new, larger more diverse ALL. It never has been. Yet becoming that new, larger more diverse ALL seems to be exactly what God wants. It seems to be exactly what Jesus taught. Tribalism hurts. Tribalism even kills. It always has. We are so much better when we embrace the new, larger more diverse ALL. Our collective lives are so much more enriched when we expand our understanding of who we are and who our neighbor really is.
For those God fearing Jews all those years ago, the Holy Spirit opened their eyes and helped them see that their neighbors were Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya near Cyrene, visitors from Rome, Cretans and Arabs. What tribalism and division always seek to take from us, the story of Acts so lovingly gives back, there is no singular individual image of God. God’s image is more diverse, more expansive than our minds can comprehend. The image of God is so expansive that it reaches ALL, even if our minds don’t quite understand.
I believe Mr. O’Donnell was right when he said that a community of different nationalities, different genders, different races and different accents represents the best of what a community could be and should be. His words echo the words we find in the book of Acts. Words that are as timely today as they were for the people back then. And just like it was for that community, in order for us to become ALL, we must open ourselves up. We must expand our own understanding of who we are and who our neighbor is. And we must let the Holy Spirit work through us.
[PRAYER]
Amen!
[1] Jenkins, Michael, Feasting on the Word
[2] Id.
Acts 2:1-11
The past seven days have been something else for the Knight family. It all began last Sunday as Joshua stood before a packed sanctuary at First Baptist Church in Greensboro and delivered a heartfelt sermon. One that came from deep within him and one that took great courage to preach as he chose to open himself up in a very vulnerable way. Not only did he choose to do this in front of adults, but by choosing to be vulnerable in front of his peers, he summoned courage that most don’t seem to have.
On the heels of that day came, what felt like a week full of festivities due to Joshua being a member of Grimsley High School’s Class of 2019. Truth be told it wasn’t a full week. Grimsley, unlike other area High Schools, holds a convocation the evening before its graduation ceremony. Similar to its graduation ceremony, convocation began with opening words from Grimsley’s Principal, Mr. Ged O’Donnell. If you don’t know him, I believe he is someone you should want to know. I’m lucky enough to consider Ged a friend and I am always blessed when I have the opportunity to hear him speak. He has a charisma that draws you in, or as one father of a graduating senior said yesterday, he makes you want to go back to high school. Education is big for Mr. O’Donnell and his love of and passion for education is un-matched in my opinion. There is something else about him that draws me in though… the way he sees his world and the way he speaks about his vision with such fervor.
He opened both convocation and the graduation ceremony in similar fashion. He talked about his great love for what he calls “the best high school in Guilford County.” He encouraged everyone, students and non-students, to strive for excellence in everything they do each and every day. And while that kind of speech is always impactful, when he told everyone in the audience to take a look around and see, really see, all of the people sitting close by, his opening remarks took on even greater significance for me. He said, “in this space there are different nationalities, different genders, different races and different accents even, but in this space we are offered the chance to see the very best of what Greensboro could be and should be!”
Now I have no way of knowing if everyone heard him, or if those words were as impactful to them as they were to me. But late Friday night as he and I stood together in the Grimsley Gymnasium where Amy & I volunteered to help with Grimsley’s Project Graduation I made sure to tell him how much I appreciated those words. I made sure to tell him how important I believed it was for people like him, and others who stand before groups of people, to encourage them to take a good hard look around to see the people who they are sharing space with in this world. It can make a huge difference in how we understand who we are in this world. By stopping and really looking at the different nationalities, different genders, different races and different accents of the people around us, we begin to take steps toward becoming All. You see, Mr. O’Donnell’s call to see what was right in front of us in those auditoriums, was a call to see that we were ALL in those spaces together.
He also challenged me to think about my own high school graduation and how today’s ALL looks a good bit different than it did back then. Just consider the last names of the first ten classmates of mine my senior year were:
Abney,
Adams,
Alexander,
Allan,
Allen,
Anderson,
Andrews,
Armstrong,
Ashe &
Austin
compared to the last names of the first ten of Joshua’s classmates:
Abdelgadir,
Abdoulrazig,
Aboeid,
Aboelgasim,
Aboubacar Issoufou,
Adams,
Adcock,
Al Salemy,
Alarcon-Mendez, and
Alexander
The contrast is quite remarkable isn’t it? More than that though, the contrast is quite beautiful and should be celebrated which is exactly what Mr. O’Donnell was calling everyone to do. Celebrate the coming together of different nationalities. Celebrate the coming together of different races. Celebrate the coming together of those who are different. That is how we become ALL.
****************************
Maybe Mr. O’Donnell’s call to celebrate difference resonated so powerfully with me because of our text for today. Earlier in the week I had been encouraged to consider who the ALL was in today’s text. They are referenced in the very first verse, “… they were all together in one place.” Then again in verse four, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” Amazingly, the ALL that began in verse one actually grows and gets bigger as the story progresses. Not only does the ALL get bigger, the ALL becomes more diverse. And instead of fearing the diverse growth of the ALL, we are told it brings amazement. We are told the new larger, more diverse ALL, is astonishing. Without using these exact same words, we are told this new larger, more diverse ALL represents the best of what God’s world could be and should be. This is Pentecost and unlike some earlier stories of human division, “Pentecost represents the inbreaking of God’s purposes for all humanity, bringing humanity together in understanding, despite their differences.”[1]
Those previous stories of human division can make it hard for some to accept this new, larger more diverse ALL. It even happened on the actual day of Pentecost when some in the crowd said the people making up the larger ALL were drunk. Peter, though, “moved quickly to disabuse those who were muttering: “They are drunk with new wine.” No, said Peter, these people are not drunk. They are the living fulfillment of the long promise of God. God’s Word is being heard, God’s Spirit is being shared, and God’s communion is being brought into existence among humanity here and now.”[2] In other words, dividing humanity is not God’s plan. Dividing humanity was not part of Jesus’ teaching and in the same way Jesus let God’s spirit lead him to teach about reconciliation for ALL, we are now the torch bearers of Jesus’ mission of reconciliation. We are the torch bearers of God’s love of diversity and desire for communion. This is our responsibility.
**********************************
Human division is not how we become the new, larger more diverse ALL. It never has been. Yet becoming that new, larger more diverse ALL seems to be exactly what God wants. It seems to be exactly what Jesus taught. Tribalism hurts. Tribalism even kills. It always has. We are so much better when we embrace the new, larger more diverse ALL. Our collective lives are so much more enriched when we expand our understanding of who we are and who our neighbor really is.
For those God fearing Jews all those years ago, the Holy Spirit opened their eyes and helped them see that their neighbors were Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya near Cyrene, visitors from Rome, Cretans and Arabs. What tribalism and division always seek to take from us, the story of Acts so lovingly gives back, there is no singular individual image of God. God’s image is more diverse, more expansive than our minds can comprehend. The image of God is so expansive that it reaches ALL, even if our minds don’t quite understand.
I believe Mr. O’Donnell was right when he said that a community of different nationalities, different genders, different races and different accents represents the best of what a community could be and should be. His words echo the words we find in the book of Acts. Words that are as timely today as they were for the people back then. And just like it was for that community, in order for us to become ALL, we must open ourselves up. We must expand our own understanding of who we are and who our neighbor is. And we must let the Holy Spirit work through us.
[PRAYER]
Amen!
[1] Jenkins, Michael, Feasting on the Word
[2] Id.
