What do we do with this fire? [Acts 2:1-21 - Pentecost A]

-

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Acts 2:1-21

 

What do we do with this fire?

 

What do we do with this fire?

Breaking into locked spaces

Scorching one-hundred and twenty faces

Undermining homeostasis

 

In the upper room

Where they were waiting

It blew in on the breeze

 

At first among them

And then on them

Living lighters

Just milling about

Each saw one hundred and nineteen fires

The others’ fires

Everywhere

Spotlighting the frenzied faces

of friends and fellows

Each person saw mant,

but felt just one,

one tongue of flame

And one was enough

 

You don’t need to see what can be felt

It’s like faith

But in the hair

On the scalp

Like a burning bush:

Consumed but not consumed

 

Disruptive

To the days of silent prayer

And talking

And pacing

And waiting

Waiting for something

To come down from the skies

Like the angels promised

 

But not this

No one expected this:

To be set ablaze

 

These stubborn believers

The ones who would not accept the evidence

Found life in the empty tomb

Still able to see God through the gaping nail holes

Waiting and waiting while the world moved on

Waiting and waiting for the manifestation of a promise

One made by angels

As the one they loved, dead and yet alive, floated from sight

 

Before the sun came up

And the fire fell

They were the sleeping seeds of a latent movement

Still below the surface

Where things are quiet

And dark

Including the future

Seeds

waiting not for water

but for that fire

 

A house fire that left the house untouched

A bonfire floating in midair

A scorching predator with an appetite for human flesh

Or human hair

Zombies with flamethrowers

searching for brains

Unexpected

but experienced

Definitely experienced

And so intensely.

 

Flames

Flames dancing on heads

The tongues of angels

The tongues of dragons

The breath of God

 

Not coming down slowly, gently from the clouds

But on the rush of a violent wind

Riding and then resting

Burning but not consuming

 

Compelling

Each one out the door

Outside

Into the streets

To find what?

a watery well, a babbling brook, a garden hose?

No, not to extinguish

 

But to spread

To let this new fire devour the oxygen

In the air outside

Beyond the walls of a stifling room

Beyond the confines of a hideout

Like breaking through the ground

 

Locked doors, unlocked

And then opened

Where they could find

Fuel for their flames

 

Bursting from the door

A holy backdraft

In search of heads

More heads

Hungry

Desperate to become a wildfire

In an urban landscape

 

The people became the flame

Joined forces with the fire

Sanctified pyromaniacs

Looking to set the world ablaze

To watch it burn

To burn it down

 

To burn it down

To watch it burn

The final remnants of an old dispensation

 

Burn it down

To see what might grow up

From the ashes

From the charred remains

Of an old world

An old world built on striped backs

And violent intentions

 

A fire to spread

Across the abandoned ruins

Of a thousand impervious empires

Through the kindling

Of brutal nations

With their brutal rulers

Their unjust laws

And their vicious gods

Interested only in war and prosperity

 

A fire to set things right

Finally and forever

A fire to clear the way

For a new kingdom

A better kingdom

A kingdom governed by the Law of Love

A kingdom built on an economy of Mercy

A kingdom that burns with zeal for justice

And a passion for peace

A kingdom ruled by the one who shattered the terrors of Hell

And set the captives free

And baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire

A kingdom without end

 

Make straight the paths

For the wind is blowing in

Not in a room

But in a world

 

In a tinderbox world

In need of Holy Spirit

In desperate pursuit of visions and dreams

That make sense

That bring life

That spark hope

 

In need of young and old

And middle-aged

Those with eyes to see a new day

Who willingly wear fire on their heads

Dreams in their hearts

Consumed but not consumed

Pentecost people

 

What do we do with this fire?

We let it spread

Watch it burn

Clear the ground

And from the ashes

With our dancing flames

And daring dreams

We finally welcome

God’s Kingdom come.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chrism Mass of Holy Week 2024

-
  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Isaiah 6:1-8   Chrism Mass 2024   You are here today because someone spoke a word of God into your life.   Someone planted the seed.   Someone, at some point, became the first person who was convinced you were called to be set apart.   To be a priest.   Or to be a deacon.   To be an ordained minister of the Gospel.   For me, it was my paternal grandparents: Bob and Sharon Williamson.   And they first spoke that word into my life when I was just a boy.   The dawning days of my vocation were not of biblical proportions.   I didn’t get the divine drama of the scene in Isaiah, no sweetness of temple incense or angelic vision; my lips were not singed with a live coal.   Instead, what I remember most of those early days is a very particular scent: it was this overwhelming floral perfume, wafting from the dish of decorative soaps – certainly my grandma’s addition to the home.   They looked like little glossy roses.   And they were peach because, at
Read more

A Retrospective [Psalm 126 - Advent 3]

-
  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Psalm 126   A Retrospective   I first started dreaming when you talked to me about your nightmare.     It was late in the summer of 2015. The sound of toddlers trying to be quiet filled the nervous air.   I straightened my interview best and whispered a centering prayer.   I was sitting at my dining room table, laptop open, Skype on the screen.   And, for the first time, I was seeing the faces of Grace and St. Stephen’s – a parish far away, in Colorado Springs, that I knew only from their on-line profile.   It was that profile that first piqued my interest.   It was lovely and excellent and exciting – words that I now know describe this parish perfectly.   When I first looked through its digital pages, I started to imagine standing in this pulpit, watching my children sing with the St. Nicholas choir, staring up at the lighted tower on a crisp December night.     I stumbled upon that profile one July evening, during one of those rare
Read more

By the Rivers of Babylon [Epiphany 5B - Isaiah 40:21-31]

-
  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Isaiah 40:21-31   By the Rivers of Babylon Zion Episcopal Church, Morris, NY   They sat, forlorn, by the rivers of Babylon.   And they wept.   Their tears fell in torrents from the dark clouds around their souls and was absorbed by the hostile land.   As they cried, they were assaulted by the smug looks and barbed taunts of their tormentors.   They sat by the rivers of Babylon: eyes burnt with sorrow, tongues pressed hard against the roof of their mouths.   Because there simply were not words.   Just a suffocating grief, a searing pain, a heart-break that felt eternal.   Even in Babylon, they were haunted by the memories.   The ghosts followed them into exile.   Once there had been good days, but they now the memories felt like thin remnants of a past life.   The first sign of their impending doom were the terrible rumors.   Then brought to life by the pulse of distant war drums.   And then the siege happened.   It filled the land with
Read more