Rev. Wesley Menke

5 June 2022

Pentecost

Every day during the week I look forward to chapel. I lead chapel with the Grace Lutheran preschool usually three to four times each week at 10am. If you would ever like to attend, you are most welcome. Preschool chapel is a lot of fun because the children say what is on their hearts and minds. They don’t sugar coat it, or filter out what is polite or what is not. I’ll give you an example.

Me encanta cada dia entre samana hacer el servicio de la capilla con los niños de la preescuela. Ellos dicen lo que quieren, sin filtro. 

A couple of years ago I was teaching them a song, “Shine Jesus Shine.” This is a contemporary Christian praise song. It goes like this:

Shine Jesus Shine, fill this land with the Father’s glory:

Blaze Spirit blaze, set our hearts on fire,…

When I taught this song one little girl started to cry, and looked very upset. I asked her: What is the matter? She said, I don’t want my heart to catch on fire! I tried to explain that it was a different kind of fire, that it didn’t hurt, but it was about feeling God’s love. 

Una vez enseño una canción que dijo, enciende mi corazón. Una niña me dijo, “no quiero.” Era chistoso porque ella pensaba que Dios iba a lastimar su corazon. 

It was kind of funny. It made me think about how at church we have a peculiar way of talking about things, that sometimes just doesn’t make any sense if you haven’t been taught it. Like a heart catching on a fire! Today we remember when the Holy Spirit came to the believers and it looks like tongues of fire resting on each person’s head. Again, who wants their head to catch on fire? It sounds kind of strange!

Es chistoso porque las palabras que usamos en la iglesia son distintas. Y las historias, tambien, como el dia de hoy la historia de lengua de fuego puesto arriba de cada cabeza de los creyentes.

The other thing that happened in the story was the miraculous ability to speak in different languages. Many congregations have a tradition of inviting members to recite a verse in as many different languages as possible on Pentecost Sunday. This highlights the diversity and international composition of the church. It’s fun!

También en el dia de Pentecostés repartieron el don de hablar en idiomas diferentes.

When the Holy Spirit came down from heaven as a sign of God’s grace, it did not just allow the people to speak in different languages. I even wonder if that was not the point. The miracle of Pentecost was that many people who already spoke many different languages could understand each other. So the gift of the Holy Spirit is the gift to be able to understand what other people need, want, suffer from, and desire. You have been given this gift! The gift of the Holy Spirit is freely given to you through both baptism and faith. This allows you to understand your fellow human beings. 

En mi humilde opinión, el milagro no es hablar idiomas, sino de entender al prójimo aunque hay diferencias entre nosotros. 

Grace is like the gift of the Holy Spirit. In the Pentecost story in the book of Acts, the tongues of fire are distributed evenly among the believers. Each person has a tongue of fire resting on their head. Nobody is left out. The prophet Joel also says that the Spirit of God will be poured out on all flesh. That is grace. Grace also appeared to the people of God when they wandered through the wilderness after they had escaped Egypt. Manna was a sign of God’s grace. There was enough for everybody to have some. Nobody needed or was even allowed to take more than they needed for their household. Holy Communion is also a sign of God’s grace. We all come to the table and receive the same thing: bread and wine. That is how God’s grace works: everybody gets some. It’s a gift of God.&n