Lament as the Fires Burn
This past Sunday was Pentecost, when I preached the following sermon of lament.
Welcome! I am Jessica Hetherington, and this newsletter is about faith and climate action. You can subscribe by clicking here:
Lament as the Fires Burn
This past Sunday was Pentecost in the Christian calendar. It is normally a time of celebration and jubilation, because on the first Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples and other followers of Jesus, and they then went out and built the church. Pentecost is considered the birthday of the church. Its central symbols are wind and fire, used to describe the way that the Holy Spirit appeared in the room on that first day.
However, I could not preach a sermon full of celebration and jubilation on Sunday. Given the way that wildfires were, and still are, raging across Alberta, I preached a sermon of lament. It was a lament about how the Earth elements of wind and fire no longer mean the same thing in the Earth community today, and so no longer reflect what they signified for the disciples and followers on that day.
When I came home from church, I settled in to read the newspaper from the day before. In it, there was a review of Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast by John Vaillant, a book about the factors that caused the devastating wildfire in Fort McMurray, Alberta in 2016. When I was preaching, a devastating wildfire was and continues to wreak havoc near Halifax, Nova Scotia. As of this writing, more than 16,000 people have been evacuated, over 200 homes have been damaged, and the fire is still out of control.
Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy.
Even as Pentecost has passed and we prepare for Trinity Sunday and the regular season in the church calendar, the lament continues. Here is the text of my sermon.
Sermon: Fires of Pentecost When the Earth is on Fire
Preached on Sunday, May 28, 2023 at Trinity United Church, ON
Can you imagine being there that day? Can you imagine being there on that first Pentecost day, after Jesus had ascended into heaven, and the disciples, and a hundred more people, were waiting in a large room, waiting for what was to come next?
Can you imagine what it was like, when suddenly from heaven they hear a sound, a sound “like the rush of a violent wind” (Acts 2.2) that filled the room? Can you imagine what it was like, when they saw tongues that looked like fire, appearing among them, over their heads? And can you imagine what it was like when suddenly all of them were speaking in tongues, in languages not heard before, and yet each one of them could understand one another?
Here on Pentecost, in that room, God took the languages each person spoke, the tongues of fire speaking at the same time, and made them intelligible. The Holy Spirit descended upon the people of God and they were able to understand one another. Through the fire and power of the Holy Spirit, people from so many corners of the Earth came together as one, able to speak of God’s power and be understood. Can you imagine being there that day?
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