Romans 8:22-27

Pentecost – Year B

Romans 8:22-27

Pentecost often comes down to wearing red clothes and having red balloons. Brother Paul sees Pentecost type events in terms of labor, with all the blood and pain that is associated thereto. In these terms you can hear wannabe Pentecostalists opting for c-sections and epidurals – anything to avoid the pain of a new thing (that is not a comment about safety needs).

Our joyful expectancy, when push comes to shove, becomes a secondary consideration in the face of what it would mean to actually begin living as though all folks are part of and can get the wonder of G*D. Much easier just to sit and wait or simply keep talking to ourselves in our safe little place with our personal ecstatic experience.

Imagine the room Jesus' Friends were occupying as a dilated cervix and we are being pushed along to an unanticipatable new world. Wind and fire, pain and blood, birthing a new life through the old – seeing all in the midst of the partial – Pentecost.

Bonus read: D. H. Lawrence "New Heaven and Earth". Enjoy your death and rebirth, Pentecost as a condensed Easter Triduum.