Here’ a story by theologian Diana Butler Bass:
As the end of Lent 2011 neared, I went to my local bank to deposit some checks. Three tellers were working that morning, all women. One woman wore a pale ivory hijab as a head covering; the second woman's forehead bore the dark red mark known as a bindi; the third woman had a small crucifix hanging around her neck.What she describes, what brought tears to her eyes, was a Pentecost moment. It was the experience of the early disciples in the first reading when people of different languages and ethnicities and parts of the world connected. A Pentecost moment. It’s what we sometimes find here at St. John’s where Berkeley professors and physicians become friends with -- and stand around this table with -- people for whom simple day-to-day survival is often a struggle.
I walked up and laughed. "You all look like the United Nations of banking!"
They exchanged glances and smiled.
"You are so right," said the Hindu woman. "You should meet our customers! But we cover a lot of languages between the three of us."
It was a quiet morning. They wanted to talk. I said something about being a vegetarian for Lent. The Hindu woman wanted to give me some family recipes; the Muslim woman wanted to know more about Christian fasting practices.
I shared how we had dedicated Lent that year to eating simply and exploring vegetarian foods from different parts of the world. "When we eat Indian food," I explained, "we try to talk about the church in India or pray for people in India. The same for African and Asian and Latin American countries."
"What a wonderful idea!" the Muslim woman said. "We need to love our traditions and be faithful to our God; but we teach the beauty and goodness of the other religions too."
Her Hindu colleague chimed in, "That is the only way to peace to be ourselves and to create understanding between all people."
... I glanced at my watch. I needed to get to an appointment. I thanked them for their insights.
"I would wish you a Happy Easter," I said hoping they would hear the sincerity in my voice, "but, instead, I wish you both peace."
I started to walk away when the Muslim teller said to me, "Peace of Jesus the Prophet. And a very happy Easter to you."
And the Hindu woman called out, "Happy Easter!"
When I reached my car, I realized that I was crying. I had only rarely felt the power of the resurrected Jesus so completely in my soul.
Gathering what has been dispersed. Connecting what is normally fractured.
This is the work of the Spirit. It is what Jesus, a Jew, called Tikkun Olam. The ancient Jewish story is that at the dawn of Creation, when light was created, something happened to shatter that light. It exploded into small shards that scattered throughout the world. And the task of every Jew, a task that Jesus took upon himself as a Jew, was to gather the divine spark found in every human being, from every corner of the world, back into one great light, gathering back into one what had been shattered. Tikkun Olam. Repairing the world. It is the work of the Spirit at Pentecost.
What gets in the way of this gathering, this great healing work? Jesus speaks about this in today’s gospel passage. Drawing from his own Jewish mythology, he has a word for it: Satan.
I know the word Satan can conjure images of the church lady from Saturday Night Live and red devilish figures, but in biblical mythology, Satan is the prosecuting attorney in a huge courtroom, “the accuser of our brothers and sisters” as he would later be called, and, still later, “the enemy of our human nature” whose goal is to crush and destroy the human spirit. Jesus says he is “the ruler of this world”.
The work of Satan is to divide us into “us” and “them”. He does this by “a scapegoating process where the majority can see itself as righteous by accusing a minority or one person of sin and then carrying out a judgment against them.”[1] It was by this scapegoating that Jesus himself was killed.
Satan is the father of lies who judges, condemns, kills not only Jesus but also all those with whom Jesus identifies: the poor, the vulnerable, and the outcast.
If you are a person of color, or a woman, or LGBT, or someone who is aging, or someone with little or no money, chances are you’ve been on the receiving end of the work of this figure of Satan. We’re aware of it today:
● In Palestine, Syria, Myanmar
● In our own country and neighborhood, where police kill unarmed civilians with impunity, without ever even going to trial, all under the guise of keeping the peace, serving and protecting.
● In our neighborhood and all across our country, where immigrants desperately trying to care for their families, are torn from those same families and sent to detention centers, deported to countries where they often face torture and death.
In our own day, this is the work of what our ancestors would call Satan. And in a few moments, when Oziah is baptized, each of us will be asked point-blank: “Do you renounce Satan...?” This is what we’re being asked to renounce.
All so that we can enter this great feast of Pentecost, make room for the Spirit, the Advocate, the Defender of the Accused who takes our side, pleads ferociously on our behalf, overturns the condemnation of Satan. No more separation into righteous and unrighteous, pure and impure. Today, the ruler of this world is overthrown. The shards of light are being gathered now; what has been shattered is now reconnecting. This is the work of the Spirit, not only in the larger world but in each of our own hearts where we can sometimes become divided, lose touch with who we are, who God has called us to be. This is the work of the Spirit, reconnecting what has been shattered.
One last thing... I know the usual symbol for this Spirit is a dove, but I prefer the one from Celtic Christianity: the wild goose that represents purity, strength, grace, and a deep and ferocious nurturing of her young. She is caring and protective, but also strong and beyond human control, hard to catch. She is not a tamed creature. Unlike the cooing of the dove, she is loud, noisy, and unrestrained.
This is the Spirit: strong, defiant, a bit disturbing, harsh, and exciting. She takes up our cause, she fights for us. She overturns the condemnation once laid on Jesus and on so many of our brothers and sisters, and perhaps us as well. This Spirit, the Advocate, frees us from the lies and chains of Satan, so we and our brothers and sisters can live and breathe and move -- and do it together.
It is this Spirit we welcome into our midst once again as we celebrate Pentecost. It is this Spirit in which we hope to drench ourselves as we stir once again the waters of baptism -- both for Oziah’s sake and for our own.
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