This cool photograph was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, and depicts a glowing shell of gas around this planetary nebula, a star very much like our sun, at the end of its lifetime. You see, as this type of star dies, it runs out of hydrogen and there is no longer enough energy flowing out of the star's core to support it's outer layers. The core begins to contract into itself, and it heats up. Eventually it gets so hot that it blows (not exactly a scientific term, but it conveys the point). You see that "fur"? It looks a bit like the hood of a parka? Well, that's gas and debris being ejected by a mighty cosmic wind blowing off the outer layer of the star.
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Yesterday was Pentecost, the day in the Christian calendar that we consider to be the "birthday of the church." It was on Pentecost that the original followers of Jesus, a bunch of scared disciples huddling together behind closed doors, exploded into a movement that changed the course of history.
What happened on that day? Well, we know that Pentecost was an obligatory feast day in the Jewish calendar, so people had made the pilgrimage, streaming into Jerusalem from all over the celebrate the feast in that holy city. Everyone was there - Medes and Elamites from the east; Romans from the west; Libyans from the south; and Cappodocians from the north. Only one group was missing, the followers of Jesus, who had locked themselves away. They were scared. Remember what happened on the last feast day, the Passover? Their leader had been arrested and executed! Their fear is understandable. And so is their reaction: they barricaded themselves in their room, believing that their safety lay in sticking together and keeping everybody else out.
Perhaps they would have continued on that way, pulling into themselves, seeking to find safety and security within their own little sanctuary, locking their doors to the outside world in hope of preserving themselves. But such was not the case. No, in Acts 2, we read that a mighty wind blew through that room, blowing off the doors and windows of their dying community, and hurling the followers of Jesus out into the world, ignited and set aflame, their lives to burn as a witness to truth and peace and justice and compassion.
We often fall into the same patterns as those early disciples. The world has become a frightening place for us, and so we lock our doors to barricade ourselves against it, believing that our safety is in sticking together and keeping everyone else out. We call our buildings freaking "sanctuaries"!! And we see Church as a place for threatened, like-minded people to get together and agree on everything that is wrong with the outside while keeping ourselves apart from the scary world in which we live. We decide who gets to join, and often that decision is based on who looks like us, who talks like us, who acts like us,who thinks like us, who loves like us. In fear, we contract into ourselves. And all this reveals that we are dying. We need a mighty cosmic wind to blow through us, to blow off our outer layers of debris, our locked doors and windows, and hurl us out into the world, into the streets, to do the good work that needs to be done: ending war, ending poverty, ending oppression...
And if we cannot let this wind blow, to let God's spirit transform us into a movement that actually participates in the healing of the planet, well then maybe it is time we finally burn out and (at the risk of mixing mythologies) see what rises from the ashes.
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Yesterday was Pentecost, the day in the Christian calendar that we consider to be the "birthday of the church." It was on Pentecost that the original followers of Jesus, a bunch of scared disciples huddling together behind closed doors, exploded into a movement that changed the course of history.
What happened on that day? Well, we know that Pentecost was an obligatory feast day in the Jewish calendar, so people had made the pilgrimage, streaming into Jerusalem from all over the celebrate the feast in that holy city. Everyone was there - Medes and Elamites from the east; Romans from the west; Libyans from the south; and Cappodocians from the north. Only one group was missing, the followers of Jesus, who had locked themselves away. They were scared. Remember what happened on the last feast day, the Passover? Their leader had been arrested and executed! Their fear is understandable. And so is their reaction: they barricaded themselves in their room, believing that their safety lay in sticking together and keeping everybody else out.
Perhaps they would have continued on that way, pulling into themselves, seeking to find safety and security within their own little sanctuary, locking their doors to the outside world in hope of preserving themselves. But such was not the case. No, in Acts 2, we read that a mighty wind blew through that room, blowing off the doors and windows of their dying community, and hurling the followers of Jesus out into the world, ignited and set aflame, their lives to burn as a witness to truth and peace and justice and compassion.
We often fall into the same patterns as those early disciples. The world has become a frightening place for us, and so we lock our doors to barricade ourselves against it, believing that our safety is in sticking together and keeping everyone else out. We call our buildings freaking "sanctuaries"!! And we see Church as a place for threatened, like-minded people to get together and agree on everything that is wrong with the outside while keeping ourselves apart from the scary world in which we live. We decide who gets to join, and often that decision is based on who looks like us, who talks like us, who acts like us,who thinks like us, who loves like us. In fear, we contract into ourselves. And all this reveals that we are dying. We need a mighty cosmic wind to blow through us, to blow off our outer layers of debris, our locked doors and windows, and hurl us out into the world, into the streets, to do the good work that needs to be done: ending war, ending poverty, ending oppression...
And if we cannot let this wind blow, to let God's spirit transform us into a movement that actually participates in the healing of the planet, well then maybe it is time we finally burn out and (at the risk of mixing mythologies) see what rises from the ashes.
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