A message about baptism, Pentecost and mass shootings.

I have a confession to make. Until about 10pm last night I had planned to recycle a Pentecost sermon I’d written a few years back and deliver it again to you today. Now before you judge too harshly pastors do this on occasion, especially if you have given the message in another setting as far away from Iowa as, oh, perhaps Florida ?.

My reasonings for a recycling job this weekend were simple.  First, I’ve been sick with a spring cold for a few days, with energy running low.  And second, for the past two days I’ve been at synod assembly, that’s an annual church gathering of Lutherans. And those two days of gathering ate up a chunk of time normally used to craft a message. The conclusion seemed obvious: recycle and call it a day.

The message I’d planned to deliver until yesterday is a personal favorite, Shut Up and Dance, all about the Holy Spirit being your divine dance partner. It’s light, it’s playful, it’s fun. It connects to a music video that gives me shivers of joy. Perhaps that message will be delivered in Iowa one of these days.

But two things happened yesterday that hit me hard enough to want to reconsider that sermon recycle.

Events
The first was the mass shooting at Santa Fe High school in Texas, where ten were killed with another ten wounded. It’s difficult personally to preach light and fluffy when our current news cycle is dripping in blood.

The second thing that happened is I got convicted. Sitting at our synod assembly, with a theme of water and the witness, my mind wandered back to the basics of our faith.

The water symbolizes baptism; I heard story after story of the promises God makes to us, whether we’re infants, youth or adults. God comes to us in those baptismal waters, claiming us as beloved children, and tasking parents, godparents, congregations, and the entirety of Christ-followers on our planet to lift up and care for that child. We are called to teach those we baptize in the faith, and called to protecting them in this world, just as God cares for and desires good for each of us.

The witness is what we do with this gift of baptism. When we know that God sent his son to model how we are to live in this world, and sent his son to the cross, to cover all the brokenness and atrocities we commit on each other, past present and future, so that we may live, in harmony, with our Creator, well that’s really good news. And that news needs to be shared.

When the Spirit descended on the upper room that night, as you heard in our reading from Acts 2, moving in wind and fire, it lit a movement that spread this good news to the farthest reaches of our globe. It is this moment we refer to as Pentecost.

It is this same Spirit we speak of in our baptismal liturgy that says “For in the beginning your Spirit moved over the waters and by your Word you created the world, calling forth life.” And it is that same Spirit whereby those who are washed in the waters of baptism are also given new life. And it is that same Spirit that calls to us to help usher in a new kingdom, one not grounded in violence toward each other. Instead we’re called to usher in a divine kingdom, a kingdom of new life. A kingdom of peace.

Pentecost Peace
In light of Pentecost, where the Spirit moved, spreading the message of Christ throughout the world, and in light of yet another mass shooting, and yet another mass shooting in our schools, my mind wanders. It wanders to one of the bigger challenges our society faces. In the aftermath of the school mass shooting in Parkland Florida earlier this year a new hashtag went viral on our social media: #neveragain.

Yet here we are, another mass shooting in our land. #Neveragain turns into #herewegoagain. And again. And again.

We live in one of the most highly educated countries in the world. And yet, for all the advanced degrees and brains this country possesses, our smarts haven’t been enough to fix it.

We live in the richest country there is, home of Google, Amazon and Facebook, oh my, and yet our vast wealth hasn’t been deployed in ways that solve it.

We live in arguably the oldest democracy still standing, and yet our political will remains unable to address it.
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And there are more Christians in America than in any other country in the world. Yet our faith, at least in terms of how we’ve been practicing it, well it doesn’t seem up to the challenge.

To What End?

From that I can only conclude this: that our collective brains, our vast wealth, our beloved democracy and our cherished civic religion, none of it is enough. Something else is needed. Perhaps what’s needed is an elixir that stirs us from within. An elixir that removes fear, replacing it with peace. An elixir that tears down the barriers we place between us, giving us new languages that unite. An exlir that thaws us from the numbness of violence and ignites us with a heart to take action for peace.

We need a Pentecost moment in this country, a movement of the Spirit, in many ways, but today let’s just focus on one.

Mass shootings are not according to God’s plan. And when we turn a blind eye to them we fall short of God’s plan for peace and harmony in this land.

Put another way: we’re missing out.

God’s Spirit is here, and always has been, blowing us in ways that cause us to care for one another, from birth to baptism all the way to when we meet our Creator and beyond. But I’m not sure we’re always paying attention to God’s Spirit. And that’s really too bad.

Because when we fail to notice the movement of the Spirit we miss out on reclaiming the beauty of this world, a divine and peaceful kingdom that God so deeply wants us to be part of.

Close
Let us pray.

Dear God, we confess. We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

We have relied on our brains, and money, and politics and civic religion, and turned to them, instead, to answer the problems of our day.

We acknowledge that really hasn’t worked out too well.

Forgive us for not placing you first. Forgive us for not remembering you come to us in the waters of our baptism, and are always by our side. Forgive us for not bearing witness, to your restorative plans for this world, through your son Jesus Christ.

Send a Pentecost moment to this land. Help us to be led by your Spirit to be part of the solution, be it by petition, policy, protest or prayer. Grant us peace in our land. Protect our children from the violence we perpetrate on each other.

And, when our leaders tell us our problems are too complex to be solved, remind us otherwise. For we know you are a God that separated night from day, a God that can part the seas, and a God that brings life out of death. You are a God of miracles. And with you all things are possible. For all this we pray. Amen.