I pray that we will reach deep inside ourselves and connect with that love of God bubbling up, calling us to go and to do likewise. To go out and to proclaim.
In this beautiful spring, in this wonderful season, come outside! Come outside of your fear—and love.
Watch above: a Pentecost message from DeDe Duncan-Probe, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York.
The following is the text of the bishop’s Pentecost 2018 Message:
Each time I approach Pentecost, I think, “I wish I could get some of that Holy Spirit!” I have tried for years to learn to speak Spanish. And I’ve improved, but I still can’t speak very well. I would love it if God would just “boom” smack me on the head and give me the ability to communicate. To meet people that I haven’t met before and be able to talk with them in their own language.
It takes work and effort and most of all, really, vulnerability. And there’s a certain amount of fear in it.
But then I think about the apostles and the disciples who had gathered in that upper room, who were terrified, probably fighting with each other, probably arguing about who’s best and who’s least, who should be the leader now and who should be the follower. And in that moment of fear and trepidation as they gathered and are hiding, literally hiding from the world, the Holy Spirit comes in with tongues of fire we’re told (we don’t know what those are exactly).
But they go out proclaiming the risen and resurrected Jesus in languages that other people can understand, and cultures and diversity.
There had to be vulnerability and there had to be a sense of love that overcame that fear.
Our reading this past Sunday talked about how perfect love casts out fear. And in this time in our world I think so many people are bound up in our fear and are not trusting love to be strong enough to overcome it.
It is our commitment to Jesus Christ, it is our commitment as a church and a people of God, to be the beloved community of God living and meeting each person in their own language, speaking to them whether it’s Spanish or Mandarin or maybe just “contemporary teenager.” That we’re speaking to them in languages they can understand so that we can proclaim the love of Jesus we’ve experienced.
In this time of Pentecost as we celebrate the Church’s birthday, this moment when our Church is born because it becomes the Church of God, the Kingdom of God alive in the world, beyond the walls of an upper room, beyond the fear, beyond the vulnerability, I pray that we will reach deep inside ourselves and connect with that love of God bubbling up, calling us to go and to do likewise. To go out and to proclaim.
In this beautiful spring, in this wonderful season, come outside! Come outside of your fear—and love.
God’s blessings be with you.
open door image taken at Trinity Episcopal Church in Fayetteville and used courtesy of Sue Cenci.
