When the World Is on Fire

Happy Pentecost! Read this first! Acts 2:1-21

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My kids love to set fires. Even in the backyard, probably disobeying about a dozen borough ordinances, they like to build tiny fires out of sticks and leaves and old newspaper.  They love to throw things in the fire, watch them burn. We went camping for the first time last summer, and their favorite thing, above the white water rafting and the swimming pool and the staying up late and the sleeping in a tent, was definitely the campfire. They’d sit around it for hours, watching the flames flicker, adding logs to the fire, testing what burned quickly and what slowly turned to bright red coals. We’d watch them carefully, of course. They know they can only set fires when there is proper adult supervision. They know that fires only belong in designated places where they can be contained and controlled. They know that fire can both hurt and heal. Fire can warm and enlighten and purify. But it can also burn and destroy. They know that we need fire for energy, for electricity, for heat and for baking their favorite chocolate chip cookies. But they know that it can burn fingers and scald the bottoms of their sandals if they’re making their s’mores a little too close to the campfire. 

And that’s where I am today, with this passage, with Pentecost, with the state of the world, with Minneapolis burning, with protests in cities across the country, with Pittsburgh shut down last night. I’m in the both/and of fire. I’m watching it carefully, wondering about it, listening to it, unsure of what it’s supposed to mean.

I mean, how do we welcome the Holy Spirit fire, when the whole world is on fire? 

No matter your media source, it’s clear that things are burning out of control. Like a pressure cooker, or a simmering volcano, what’s been bubbling underneath for some time is finally making itself known in wild and violent ways. But it’s always been there. Police brutality is nothing new. Racism is found in the foundations of our country. Violent reactions to injustice have been woven into the fabric our our nation since the Boston Tea Party. People in power have decimated communities in active ways, through smallpox blankets and trails of tears, and through redlining, through segregation, and in more deceptive, passive ways, like income inequality, systemic injustice, societal structures and unequal access to resources. Just look at the corona virus statistics. This pandemic has impacted communities of color in more intense and devastating ways than any other group of people. 

And as a person of privilege, racism is in the air I breathe. I’ve locked my car doors at intersections, clutched my purse tighter, I’ve commented about how articulate so and so is, and I’ve supported systems that keep me and my family safe at the expense of someone else’s safety. I don’t have to give my sons “the talk” about the reality of being a black man in America. I don’t have to lecture them about how to keep themselves safe from the police, how to act around white folks, how to look unthreatening and intelligent and responsible. I don’t have to warn them about any of these things. My kids can play with squirt guns in the front yard, and all I have to worry about is a scraped knee or a smudge on the window. They can go for a run or sleep soundly in their beds without fear of losing their lives. I don’t have to flee violence only to cross some arbitrary border that was created out of violence only to be locked in a cage and separated from my family.  This is my privilege, and I’m not quite sure what to do about it. 

And I know I’ve already said too much. I know I should let the oppressed speak for themselves. I am no white savior, come to stand up for the rights of the “least of these.” I will never fully understand, never fully comprehend the unique struggles of minority communities. I have no right to speak at all. I need to shut up and listen. I need to stay up too late watching sad videos on the internet. I need to read the books and search my heart and watch and witness. I need to pray. I need to talk to my kids about it and say all the wrong things and try again. But that all seems so useless, so pointless, when the world is on fire. 

The world is on fire. But so is the Holy Spirit.

It came to us feral and uncontrolled. It came to us in violent winds and in unpredictable flames. We like to think of the Holy Spirit as a gentle breeze, a still, quiet voice, and sometimes it is that. But it came to us in a way that shook us out of our homes and led us into the streets. It had us saying things that don’t make sense to people who understood. It had us looking a little drunk. It came to us like the wild geese, “harsh and exciting, over and over announcing our place in the family of things.”

Let’s not make the mistake of taming the Holy Spirit. It comes to us in fire. Let’s remember that even the lodgepole pines need extreme heat to melt their waxy cones and release their seeds. Even when forest fires ravage and blaze through the wilderness, there is still rebirth, still life, still a kind of resurrection that comes out of it. The Holy Spirit still moves amidst destruction. The Holy Spirit calls us out of those places where we hide and out into the streets. The Holy Spirit helps us connect to those who are unlike us.

But fire can also be the language of the unheard. We may not understand it. We may not speak it. It is certainly hard to hear. It can certainly get out of control. But maybe we can be curious about it. Maybe we can enter in to it, wonder about it, question it, without immediately condemning it. 

How do we welcome the Holy Spirit fire, when the whole world is on fire? 

Well, as my friend and colleague said, maybe it’s the same fire?

Or at least, maybe some of it is. 

Is the Holy Spirit looting our Targets and burning down our restaurants? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know what to think about the riots and looting in Minneapolis and other cities, including here in Pittsburgh.  But I do think that at least some of the protests are a proclamation of deep pain, deep frustration, deep anger about the state of the world that we are in. People are heartbroken. They’re scared.

Just like the Bible and theology and churches and beliefs, people can abuse fire, too, causing destruction where God never intended. Like Scripture, words that came from love are transformed into hate. We throw doctrine or bible verses at each other like bombs, trying to dominate and convince, without ever really listening to each other. God gives us the free will to even abuse God, to even crucify God, even lets us use the name of God in order to crucify each other.

Martin Luther King Jr. says it better, about the riots in his day. He says, “Now I wanted to say something about the fact that we have lived over these last two or three summers with agony and we have seen our cities going up in flames. And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view. I'm absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.

Now every year about this time, our newspapers and our televisions and people generally start talking about the long hot summer ahead. What always bothers me is that the long hot summer has always been preceded by a long cold winter. And the great problem is that the nation has not used its winters creatively enough to develop the program, to develop the kind of massive acts of concern that will bring about a solution to the problem. And so we must still face the fact that our nation's summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay."

Sometimes, fire is a response to deep pain and frustration. And the Holy Spirit is always with those who are experiencing deep pain, and deep frustration. The Holy Spirit is always walking with those who are oppressed, always interceding on behalf of the victims of systemic prejudice. What if those of us with the power listened to those without it, really listened? I think we’d encounter the Holy Spirit fire in ways we’ve never encountered before.

And I think the Holy Spirit translates for us. When we’re talking at cross purposes and over each other, when we’re missing each other and we’re saying and thinking all the wrong things, there’s still the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit helps us understand each other, amidst differences of language and culture, amidst past histories of pain and oppression. But we have to listen to one another. We have to pay attention. We have to be curious. We have to not rush to judgment.

The disciples are alone, isolated, hiding in the upper room. But then the Holy Spirit comes and they catch fire, they begin speaking in other languages, they come down from their hideouts and out into the streets. Divisions that once existed between them are melted away. Seeds of connection are planted. It’s wild and uncontrolled and a little dangerous. But God is revealed, even when the world is on fire, maybe even because the world is on fire. 

The disciples don’t get a typical “happy ending.” The birth of the church comes from a wildfire that doesn’t lead us to safety and security. The disciples will be beaten and imprisoned and tortured and killed for the sake of this fire. And later, we will take those same Holy Spirit fires and use them to determine who is in and who is out, we’ll use them to condemn and convict, we’ll use them to control and manipulate and justify our own actions. The Church hasn’t done a great job at tending to the fire in a way that provides warmth and security these last 2000 years. In fact, our attempts to control and contain this fire have caused far more burns and heartache and injustice.

But God gives us fire anyway. God gives us God’s self anyway. God cannot be tamed or controlled, condensed or manipulated. God is a wildfire, and sometimes, an echo of God’s demand for justice can be heard in even the most uncontrollable fires. But we have to listen for it. We have to be curious about it. We have to watch and wait and ask questions about it. It might be a destructive force built from hate and fear and anger. It might be a spiral of injustice that never ends, just recycles itself and produces victim after victim. It might be violence adding to more violence. But it could also be the language of the oppressed that we desperately need to hear. It could also be that destructive force that leads the way to new life. We can’t know until we listen. Fire can be the untamed Holy Spirit. The presence of Jesus makes our hearts burn within us. 

God is presence and warmth and purification and protection. God is also dangerous and wild and unpredictable. But God is always love. That’s how we’ll know. That’s how we’ll figure it out.  We’ll look back upon our encounters with God and find a little of that fire within us. “Were not our hearts burning within us as he spoke to us on the road?"

The world is on fire. It’s burning, indeed. But some of that fire comes in the form of tongues hovering over our heads, in the form of translation and understanding, in the form of justice and repentance.

I know I’ve gone on too long. I’ve said too much, and probably some wrong things, but let’s listen. Let’s listen hard. Listen for the love. Listen for the demand for justice. Listen for the cries of God’s people, people whom God loves. Listen for and to the fire of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is speaking. The Holy Spirit is translating. The Holy Spirit is interceding for us. It may not look like what we expect. It may not be convenient or contained. But this is how God comes to us. This is how the Church is born. This is how connections are made and bridges are built and understanding is formed. It’s messy. It’s a little dangerous. But it’s God’s way. Let’s listen. 

Thanks be to God.