Karen Hollis | May 24, 2026 Pentecost Sunday, new members
Acts 2:1-14, 41 On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability. At that time there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem. When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages
being spoken by the believers. They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages!
Here we are—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs. And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!” They stood there amazed and perplexed. “What can this mean?” they asked each other. But others in the crowd ridiculed them, saying, “They’re just drunk, that’s all!” Then Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles and shouted to the crowd, “Listen carefully, all of you, fellow Jews and residents of Jerusalem! Make no mistake about this. These people are not drunk, as some of you are assuming. Nine o’clock in the morning is much too early for that. No, what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel:
‘In the last days,’ God says,
‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your young men will see visions,
and your old men will dream dreams.’
Those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to
the church that day—about 3,000 in all.
Let us pray . . .
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be reflections of your word to us today, in Christ’s name we pray. Amen
You never know when the Spirit is going to appear. I was doing a mundane task one day when a thought came to me: put your sermons on social media. It wasn’t the first time I had this thought, but this time it came with clarity. I didn’t particularly like the thought. I’m not much of a social media person. I give Instagram about a half an hour per week and that time is usually split between scrolling through my feed and watching videos other people send me.
I also didn’t love the idea of being that much more open to criticism. Standing up here is one thing, being recorded on youtube took some getting used to, but I feel even more exposed at the thought of putting clips out there for people to comment on. (I’m doing a great job of selling this social media project) The Holy Spirit blew into that moment and I wondered: what are you up to? Why put clips from sermons or other parts of our worship service out there? What is the purpose that will lead me past my resistance?
The Spirit does this. She blows into moments, into contexts, into our relative comfort, into our anxious questions about the future and offers something that shifts our focus.
When I was growing up in church, I wore red on Pentecost and thought the celebration was born at the gathering in today’s reading. I didn’t know that Pentecost marked a Jewish festival. The festival of Shavout (shah voo OAT), as it’s called, celebrates God giving the Law to the Israelites. The Law is God’s teaching about how to live well with God and one another. When we live well together there is abundance, so on the day of Pentecost at the festival of Shavout, people bring the first fruits of the early harvest and dedicate them to God. This is a celebration of history, tradition, and the ways God has already been faithful. So, it’s interesting, then, how the story unfolds. The disciples are practicing Jews, so they’re gathered together in a home for this festival when the Holy Spirit just disrupts everything . . . and does so violently, the text says.
I usually feel disoriented when I read this story. In one moment we’re there in the home and the Holy Spirit blows through. It’s almost like an earthquake: jugs tumble to the ground, food flies around, people instinctually take cover. They see this visual disturbance resting with each of their friends and feel this presence with them. And then all of a sudden, they have an audience. I always seem to miss the line in the text where the people hear a big noise and come running. In my imagination, the walls of the house just seem melt away and suddenly they’re in public. All these people who heard the noise lean in. They didn’t expect to understand the disciples’ words, so imagine their surprise when they did! It’s like a few weeks ago when I was watching a show with some French in it – I told my husband, I actually understood that! What?! So, I leaned in for more.
The witnesses lean in and are so confused by what they see. They think the disciples have been partying through the night and decide there’s nothing to see here – these people are not in their right mind. But then Peter stands up and offers a long sermon (we only heard the first part of it) about prophesies of old, the life and mission of Jesus, the ending of one age and the dawning of a new one. The Holy Spirit blows in and invites them all to broaden their focus from only the tradition of the past to what their tradition makes possible. They hear prophetic voice of the past draw their attention to the future. The spirit doesn’t destroy everything. She invites them to find grounding in their tradition as they witness what is being born before their very eyes. She’s like a gardener who gently disturbs the roots of a plant before placing it in a little bit bigger pot. She disturbs enough to get us to look beyond what we thought were our limits and gives us some space to grow.
Here in our time and space, we may not know exactly where the opportunities before us may lead, but we have a sense of our shifting context. The world is different today than it was yesterday and it won’t return to what it was. People are unsettled, looking more than ever for purpose, meaning, connection within and around them. As flawed as social media is, people are engaging in those spaces. They are searching and finding a variety of content . . . social media is really a choose your own adventure experience. You can make it what you want. What if we were part of the conversation that is taking place there? What if we strengthened the collective affirming, liberal/progressive Christian voice that is breaking into the world by offering our own? What if we offered our gospel message of the unconditional and extravagant love of God for all people, of radical welcome, compassion, and inner wisdom? Gospel that seeks not to be accepted at face value, but to engage an inner and outer dialogue along this path of beauty, ache, and wonder that is the human experience. We have this opportunity to offer what we can to the world around us at this moment. What if in a sense we allowed our walls to melt away so we could have a bigger conversation?
Depending on your context with these spaces, this might sound exciting or risky. The spirit doesn’t leave us to fend for ourselves. We are exploring this road with confidence that while the spirit leads us into new territory, we have the tools and wisdom in our midst to engage a bigger conversation in a good way.
Pentecost is a day of tradition AND the dawning of a new age, it’s about good soil and winds of change, it’s about a firm foundation and the waters of baptism to welcome people in, it’s about continuing to do the ministry that we know is ours and having some room to grow. Not so much that we lose our way, but just enough see a new horizon and receive the holy invitation to follow.