Pentecost of the NextGen

This past Sunday was Pentecost Sunday in our Christian Tradition.  A few years ago, in a blog post, I imagined what a modern-day depiction of this story could be like. I tried to imagine the loyal and beloved friends of Jesus, the disciples, gathered together in a room during the celebration of the Jewish Feast of Shavuot.   (Shavuot meaning 'weeks' and the celebration happens 7 weeks/50 days after Passover.)  The familiar narrative, set this time in 2025.  What would that look like, and feel like, and sound like now?   I took that blog post and recreated it as a first-person account, asked our
NextGen group to edit it, and then they read it aloud in worship this past Sunday.   It was a powerful retelling of an ancient tale made relevant for today.  Below is the final reading.  
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It's June 8th, 2025. We are a group of young adults—ages 16 to 35—gathered in the upstairs flat of what some activists call a “safe house.” We huddle together, not just out of loyalty to our beloved Jesus, but out of fear. Fear of being targeted, profiled, detained, deported, or simply erased, because of who we follow, who we love, how we identify, or where we were born.

It’s been fifty days since the trauma and execution of Jesus, our teacher, healer, justice-worker, and friend. The grief still clings to us. The risks still linger. And still, we are here. Together.

Some of us are organizers. Some are seekers. Some undocumented. Some queer. Some nonbinary. Some disabled. Some of us are bone-tired from fighting for insulin, therapy, or shelter. But all of us? We are dreamers of a world that reflects the Way of Jesus.

And then it happens. We don’t know how to explain it. The air shifts. A roaring sound fills the room, like wind tearing through the walls. Heat rises. Movement pulses through our bodies. We don’t see fire, but we feel it, burning from the inside out. We start to speak, rapid, bold, fearless. Our voices are not just our own, they are everyone’s.  And somehow, people outside hear it too.

Out on the street, the city stops. People look up. “What is this?” they ask. “Some kind of Pride Month street theater? Are they high? Are they drunk on cheap wine?”
And maybe we are.
Drunk on love.
Drunk on justice.
High on dreams that feel dangerously possible.
Drunk on the Spirit that says we are more than pawns in someone else’s empire.
They’ll say we’re just 120 people. But if you’ve ever been in a protest that stirred your soul, you know the number doesn’t matter. This isn’t a flash mob. This is a movement being born.

And maybe--
This is the day we stop wondering if we all carry the Spirit.
The day we stop waiting for permission.
The day we stop asking for a seat at the table.
The day we start flipping the tables.
The day we say, “Enough,” and rise up.
We rise up and dance in the streets for trans rights.
We rise up and flow into the clinics for every uninsured neighbor.
We rise up and march at the border, holding signs and holding one another.
We rise up and stand in our churches and say, “We’re here. We’ve always been here.”

Why are we here?
What is the point of Church if we don’t open the windows wide to the winds of justice?
What’s the point if we don’t move—in spirit and in body—toward those on the margins?
Pentecost is not a ritual we observe.
It’s an uprising we join.
It is holy chaos.
It is defiant joy.
It is the refusal to let grief have the final word.
It is choosing to care before anyone gives us permission.
It is creating something new.
It is learning the languages of solidarity, equity, and compassion.
It is the dance we do when we realize:
God is already in the streets, waiting for us to show up.
Pentecost is not a moment, it is a movement.
It is the refusal to sit still in a room that was always meant to shake us awake.
It is our sacred, fierce participation in the Spirit’s holy disruption.
And we are part of it.

"When Pentecost Day arrived, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound from heaven like the howling of a fierce wind filled the entire house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each one of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak.  They were all surprised and bewildered.  Some asked each other, 'What does this mean?'"  Acts 2:1-4,12 (CEB)