Acts 10:44-48

Easter 6 - Year B

This Holy Spirit dude is certainly disruptive (the ADHD aspect of G*D?). "While Peter was still speaking ..." (NRSV)

In the midst of the hubbub, without any planning for it (such as everybody wearing red) Pentecost is revisited - the wonders of G*D are recognized and related in surprisingly different cultural contexts and languages.

Question: In what cultural/language group of today would it be most surprising to find this Holy Spirit gal showing up today?

Question: Given the track record of the surprising presence of the Holy Spirit, why, again, would we be surprised?

Question: Is there a minimum amount of work we need to put in (both amount and content) before the Holy Spirit will plunk its magic twanger? How much scripture, how much energetic interpretation of it and life, how much authority needs to be present to force the hand of the Holy Spirit?

Question: Is this baptism by Peter ineffective or illegitimate because only the Jesus Christ part of a later rubric was used? What is the minimum daily requirement amount of Baptism and how is it applied -- in a massive shot of B12 in the butt to seep into the system over time or doled out day-by-day in pill/liquid or natural food?

Question: Are four questions in a trinitarian system one too many? or just right because there are not only the three unique components but the synergy of them together? And, then, what are we going to do about any fifth question tagging along?

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/may2003.html

Completed joy is something yearned for and yet resisted in light of the joy of the journey.

Conquering joy is something we know all too much about. It is the thrill of victory with nary a trace of the agony of defeat. An impulse to power and connecting that with joy excuses all too many acts of violence, including that preeminent one of war.

Righteous joy conditions us to a legal approach to living and sharing. Judgment and equity, to be joyful, must end up on our side. Any bias toward the poor can be shredded by an appeal to righteous living as evidenced by a claim to joy through property, status, or any other hierarchical system.

Ecstatic joy brings us full circle when we use it as a measuring rod for completedness.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/may2006.html

While Peter spoke - something beyond words came to folks. There was an active crossing of boundaries - words restricting us from one another were left behind. Acknowledgment of our commonness was made. Whenever such boundaries between people are reduced it is a time to confirm such changes.

Baptism is an act of affirmation. Re-membering a Baptism re-minds us of our connection beyond tribal connection re-binding us to a common journey expressed in a multitude of keys and tempos - a seeming babble of tongues only understood in acting out a movement from servant to friend (others and ourselves).

These moments always come as a surprise, while something else is going on, and as a shift in expected outcome. Here we move from a specific witness to a universal one, from a known God to an unknown.

- - -

sing a new song
G*D remembered!
hooray
finally

sing a new song
help G*D remember!
woe
now

sing a new song
past the past
beyond tomorrow
sing

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html

Wouldn't you know it! Just when we thought we had an unrepeatable experience that would set us apart for all time and give evidence of our worthiness, along come these least-likely folks to replicate our experience.

Choice: Accept or resist this reality.

Hopefully when we return from our exalted moment we re-enter everyday living with a difference. We have learned that nothing is impossible and that not only includes us, but all. Here is a real opportunity for all boats to rise. The Market will never do that, but a new spirit can.

Instead of continuing to presume upon our elevated status as a spirit-touched person, we are renewed enough to join Jesus in not presuming upon our status with G*D. We can meet folks between our experiences and grow further together than we ever dreamed. We are also renewed enough to affirm our status with G*D. We can encourage and be encouraged to grow further together than we ever dreamed.

We'll stay on together for a bit and then move on and return and move on. See your life as a dance. This takes some distance and perspective over the long haul. But see your pirouette, your lift, your two-stepping/jive/samba/ waltz/free-style dance of a lifetime. Change partners and allemande left. Break out your tutu and pas de deux as you ready to move from position one to Arabesque.

Ready or not, here comes baptismal water. A sprinkle or a tsunami of baptismal water. Baptismal water approved by others or not. Beyond objection, baptismal water flows and flows.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html

Gifts bear the most fruit when done in community. “While Peter was still speaking”.... the uncircumcised, the alien, the outcast, the pagan, the unclean, the unacceptable are revealed as human as any circumcised, native, in-group, pious, clean and worthy of my peers. They, too, are open to and active in thanksgiving.

And then a testing question to those in control, with privilege, will we withhold “inherent worth” from those we had labeled as beyond grace by virtue of their community or choice? If we will, for how long? If we won’t, why not now?

This same testing question comes again and again as we peel back the layers of our prejudice to reveal the next person or group that sets our teeth just a little bit on edge or raises the hair on the back of our neck just a tad.

I am less impressed with Peter’s preaching than I am with his application of grace beyond authorized lines. We have so many fine preachers who can get a crowd riled up, even speaking in tongues, but who can’t make the practical application of the universal nature of G*D’s generosity beyond our limits.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/05/acts-1044-48.html