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Please pray for people who have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. May God’s healing presence give them peace and hope in their time of need.
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To learn more about the situation and the ELCA’s response:
On June 17, 2015, a white man named Dylann Roof entered a historic Black church in Charleston during a prayer meeting and opened fire, killing 9 people and wounding 3 more. Roof did not leave his motive in this shooting to our imaginations. He overtly and explictly espoused white supremacist beliefs and targeted the people of Mother Emanuel Church because of their race and commitment to civil rights.
He drew pictures of a white Jesus in his journal in prison.
I felt my stomach sink when I found out that Roof was raised in an ELCA church.
I imagine that the church Roof grew up in was full of good and faithful people. From what I know, many people there are horrified about what Roof did. Our church may not have taught him white supremacy directly, but like many of our churches and beloved institutions, it did not do enough to teach him to resist it. His formation within the ELCA was not enough to teach him to recognize the image of God in the people who would become his victims. As a board member for the Euro Descent Lutheran Association for Racial Justice(EDLARJ), I have had the opportunity to witness the stories of our siblings of color in the ELCA through our partnerships with the many ethnic specific and multi-cultural ministries within our church. Many of the stories of people of color within the ELCA include painful interactions with white church members. As much as we want to hope that racism is something relegated to the past, the truth is that it is widespread and ongoing.
Many of us who are white grew up with the idea that talking about race is impolite or “too political.” We prefer to focus on things we consider “spiritual” in church and ignore the daily lived realities of our siblings of color. Talking about racism is uncomfortable. It is easy to feel defensive as a white person when we are asked to examine our own biases or be honest about the racism our country was built on. But our lack of courage in confronting these issues and our refusal to dismantle racism has real consequences. White supremacy has a body count. Even though we did not pull the trigger on June 17, our complacency as white people has made us complicit, and we have blood on our hands. The Emmanuel Nine is a part of that.
The ELCA has called for June 17 to be a day of Commemoration for the Mother Emanuel Nine, recognizing Clementa C. Pinckney, Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel L. Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson as martyrs. This commemoration is one step in a process of unlearning our own biases and tearing down corrupt, racist systems. On June 17 we are to remember these victims and to be in prayer, as the Emmanuel 9 were when they were slaughtered.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel who organized alongside Dr. MLK during the Civil Rights Movement has been quoted as saying that when he marched, he felt like his legs and feet were praying. Prayer begins with reflection but true prayerfulness leads to action. Our prayers should lead us into accountability, reparations, and reconciliation. This might look like attending an anti-racism training, getting involved in an issue campaign affecting people of color, or giving financial support to the memorial set up to be built in remembrance of the Emanuel 9.
God asks that we love our neighbor, and love requires justice. Because white supremacy was created for and benefits white people, it is the responsibility of white people to take on the work of unlearning the racism we have internalized as part of our socialization in a racist society. We must actively pursue racial justice, and as white people we have a particular role; to remember, to repair, to right wrongs. Let June 17 be a day we recommit ourselves to this struggle and to loving our Black siblings and in word and deed.
God of All, it is your will for people to be whole and free. We give you thanks for the life and witness of the Emmanuel 9. Grant that their faithfulness may be an example for all of us as we work towards an end to racism in our churches and communities. Remove the barriers that stand in the way of our collective liberation. Put an end to white supremacy and other systems of oppression. Connect us with one another and empower us to build a world where all people are safe and loved. In the name of your Child, Jesus Christ, who lives and liberates with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Bio:
Elle Dowd (she/her/hers) is a bi-furious recent graduate of the Lutheran School of Theology at 
Chicago, an intern at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Logan Square, and a candidate for ordained ministry in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Elle has pieces of her heart in Sierra Leone, where her two children were born, and in St. Louis where she learned from the radical, queer, Black leadership during the Ferguson Uprising.
She was formerly a co-conspirator with the movement to #decolonizeLutheranism and currently works as a community organizer with the Faith and Justice Collective and SOUL, writes regularly for the Disrupt Worship Project, and facilitates workshops on gender and sexuality and the Church in both secular conferences and Christian spaces. Elle is a board member of the Euro Descent Lutheran Association for Racial Justice, an organization that partners with ethnic-specific and multi-cultural ministries in the ELCA.
By Rabbi Yehiel Poupko
Today, we, the Jewish People, have finished counting and fulfilling seven weeks of seven days, forty-nine days since Pesakh and the liberation from slavery in Egypt-Mitzrayim. As the Torah records, we were freed from slavery in the sight of all the world.
In Your love You lead the people You redeemed; In Your strength You guide them to Your holy abode. The peoples hear, they tremble; Agony grips the dwellers in Philistia. Now are the clans of Edom dismayed; The tribes of Moab — trembling grips them; All the dwellers in Canaan are aghast. Terror and dread descend upon them; Through the might of Your arm they are still as stone — Till Your people cross over, O LORD, Till Your people cross whom You have ransomed. (Shemot-Ex. 15:13-16)
This evening we celebrate Shavuot-Pentecost. We will arrive at Mt. Sinai, where we will be given the Torah, where we will receive the Torah, and where God will reveal God’s self to us, as recorded in Exodus-Shemot 19 and 20. No one else was present at this revelation and at the giving of the Torah. The liberation from slavery is a universal experience witnessed by all the world. The giving of the Torah at Sinai is absolutely particular and parochial. Only the Jewish People were given the Torah. God and Israel were alone at Sinai, the Rabbis teach, like a bride and groom at their wedding. In order to achieve this absolutely particular, parochial, and private experience God gave the Torah to us in the desert. We were all alone with God. No one was there. No one else was given the Torah.
And then imagine the shock. No sooner than we at Sinai are all alone with the One God, in order to give the Torah to Israel, God begins to read the Torah out loud in the hearing of all Israel so that Moses-Moshe can write it down. What are amongst the very first words that Israel, in absolute intimacy with the One God hears read?
When in the beginning of the creation of heaven and earth…and God said, “Let us make the Adam (the human) in our image, after our likeness…” And God created the Adam in God’s image. In the image of God did God create the Adam. Male and female God created them.”
In a moment of absolute parochialism, an experience shared with no one, God declared to Israel, every person is created in the image of the One God. In this pristine moment of intimacy God declares the absolute universal principle. Every human is created in the Image.
We have a custom, a tradition, to stay up all night tonight, Shavuot, and to read, study, and learn the whole Torah from the beginning of Genesis-Bereshit to the end of Deuteronomy-Devarim. Like all Israel standing at Sinai, what will we experience? So, tonight in our moment of absolute privacy with the One God we will note, on this anniversary of our honeymoon with God at Mt. Sinai as we begin to read the whole Torah from the beginning of Genesis-Bereshit, that just two or three days ago one person created in the image of the One God, an African American, an American citizen, a resident of Minnesota, George Floyd, cried out, “Please, I can’t breathe!” At the same time, another person created in the image of God, for approximately ten minutes with his knee on George Floyd’s neck did not hear him speak these four words, “Please, I can’t breathe.” And tonight, we will also come to that verse in the Torah, and God artistically fashioned the human, dust from the earth, and breathed into the human’s nostrils the breath of life, and the human being became a breathing articulate being. So, tonight on Shavuot, in commemoration of our most particular of experiences, we will, like our parents long ago at Sinai, listen to the words of the Torah declare the most absolute universal of all realities. Every human being is created in the Tselem Elokhim, the Image of God. And into every human being has God breathed the breath of life. As we remember the last words of George Floyd, “Please, I can’t breathe!”
All good to each and every one of you,
Yehiel Poupko
YP/cm
Rabbi Yehiel Poupko is Rabbinic Scholar at the Jewish United Fund/ Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago.
As we approach the fifth anniversary of the martyrdom of the Emanuel Nine, ELCA congregations are encouraged to reaffirm their commitment to repenting for the sins of racism and white supremacy, which continue to plague this church. As part of the 2019 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, voting members adopted a resolution designating June 17 as a commemoration of the martyrdom of the Emanuel Nine. Each year this day will be set aside as a time of penitence for ELCA members through study and prayer. An online ELCA prayer service, including leaders from across the church and Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton as preacher, is being planned for June 17, 2020, to mark this fifth anniversary. Below you will find a collection of resources that will assist you and your congregations during this time of prayerful reflection, remembrance, and recommitment. More is available at elca.org/emanuelnine.
The Emanuel Nine
On June 17, 2015, Clementa C. Pinckney, Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Lee Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson – the Emanuel Nine – were murdered by a self-professed white supremacist while they were gathered for Bible study and prayer at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (often referred to as Mother Emanuel) in Charleston, South Carolina. Our relationship to the shooter as well as two of the slain reminds us of both our complicity and our calling. Together we confess that we are in bondage to the sins of racism and white supremacy and, at the same time, we rejoice in the freedom that is ours in Christ Jesus who “has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (Ephesians 2:14). May God continue to guide us as we seek repentance and renewal, and racial justice and reconciliation among God’s precious children.
Worship resources
The resources referenced below are provided to help congregations navigate this commemoration and day of repentance. Many of these materials were recently produced for this first year of marking the commemoration; among the others are helpful ELCA websites and documents as well as resources from our ecumenical partners.
In this time of pandemic, many of the resources will need to be adapted for virtual worship, online conversation, or individual reflection and devotion. You are invited to use them in whatever ways are most helpful for your local context.
Ecumenical partnership
For many decades, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the African Methodist Episcopal Church have been ecumenical partners through coalitions such as the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC). In the 1990s, our two churches entered into theological dialogue seeking full communion and co-published a congregational resource. Our churches have also engaged in various forms of cooperation and public witness together and with other ecumenical partners. We have participated together in the cross-racial dialogue of the Conference of National Black Churches since 2015 and in the NCC’s A.C.T. Now to End Racism initiative since 2018. As the Office of the Presiding Bishop tends to church-to-church relations nationally, vital relations have been cultivated across the church by bishops, rostered ministers and lay leaders, with key leadership from Lutherans of African descent. We continue to seek ways to deepen and expand our ecumenical partnership across various ministry contexts and communities as part of our ecumenical commitments and churchwide resolutions. You can access an overview of ecumenical relations between the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America here.
You can learn more about the ELCA’s Emanuel Nine commemoration and day of repentance along with accessing additional resources by visiting elca.org/emanuelnine.
White folks – we need to get past the idea that we need to fix white supremacy for other people – that we can be white saviors coming in to save the brown and black folks in our church. The truth is that we are the ones that are broken. Now don’t get me wrong – White supremacy DEFINITELY needs to be dismantled in order to improve the lives of our brown and black siblings. I just don’t want you to get it twisted. I want you to realize that we too are harmed by white supremacy. That what we need is collective liberation. That we are not the savior. A brown skinned Palestinian Jewish man named Jesus is.
About our brokenness. We are seriously lacking in empathy. When we hear about another black body being shot on the news, we wait “to hear the whole story” before we can lament about the situation. We find some way to justify what was done. We find some way to assign blame to the victim. “Well if he wasn’t walking in the street.” “If he didn’t speak that way to the police.” “Well he shouldn’t have been selling loose cigarettes.” “Well he did have a realistic toy gun in his hand.” Somehow we have become okay with state sanctioned executions in the street. Where oh where is our empathy? White supremacy tells us that objectivity is possible – that emotions shouldn’t play a role in decision making. All too often we get stuck in our heads and we forget about our hearts. We rationalize away some pretty awful things. White supremacy has us do these things.
White supremacy also tells us that we have a right to comfort. In church. White supremacy tells us that we have a right to comfort in church. What?! Jesus was about flipping power structures, lifting up the lowly – he was executed by the state for standing up for his friends. Jesus was intensely political. But we want the church to “not be political”. We want the church to be comfortable. We think talking about race is racist. We wonder if we could just use some words other than “white supremacy”, which after all isn’t really that big of a problem. So without thinking about it, we have created the equation that white comfort is more important than black lives. OUCH. I know – its a shocking realization.
I know – some of you are probably super mad right now. You’re mad because you think I am accusing you of being a white supremacist. You’re mad because you can’t possibly be a white supremacist – you’re a good person – white supremacy tells you that you have to be perfect. You can’t have some flaw like white supremacy or racism. The thing is, white supremacy is not so much about you as an individual as it is about this insidious evil system that we are ALL caught up in and that we ALL suffer from – though in different and unequal ways. The evil genius of white supremacy is that it operates without you noticing or doing anything to keep it in place. It is so deep and entrenched that we don’t even notice it or realize that we have anything to do with it.
It’s going to take a lot to root white supremacy out of church folks and its going to be hard, but we HAVE to do the work. Much harm has been done because we have failed to do the work. (I often wonder what Dylann Roof learned in his church about racism. I wonder if he had pictures of white Jesus hanging in his ELCA congregation. I wonder what role did our denomination play or not play in his formation.) We are going to have to offer each other an ABUNDANCE of grace. We are going to have to be okay with not knowing what we are doing and forging ahead on faith. We are going to have to ask other white folks to give up their comfortable positions because the truth is that white comfort is NOT more important that black lives.
Shari Seifert with her friend David Starks together at Calvary Lutheran Church – Minneapolis following the murder of Philando Castile.
The truth is that we are all the body of Christ together and when part of the body hurts, the whole body should feel it. We shouldn’t wait “to hear the whole story”. We should feel it with our whole heart. As Bishop Eaton said tonight – until white folks care about the death of black lives as if they were their own, nothing is going to change. Can you join me in hoping and praying for the holy spirt to enter our hearts and move us to compassion and to action? Can you join me in calling for the dismantling of white supremacy?
Bio: Shari Seifert lives in Minneapolis with her wife, two sons and the cutest Golden Doodle you have ever seen. She works as a Realtor and is committed to working towards dismantling white supremacy in the ELCA. Shari is currently vice-president of the European Descent Lutheran Association for Racial Justice (EDLARJ), a member of the Minneapolis Synod racial justice table, her congregation’s Race Equity Committee and Multi-faith Anti-Racism and Healing (MARCH) She is also on the core planning team the Multicultural Youth Leadership Experience (MYLE).
As we approach the twentieth anniversary of our full communion agreement, “Called to Common Mission,” we give thanks to God for the partnership we share with The Episcopal Church. In the coming months, we will pray for and with one another, seeking spiritual renewal in these challenging times, and revival for the common mission we share.
From Pentecost Sunday through the first Sunday in September, Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton and her Episcopal counterpart Presiding Bishop Michael Curry welcome congregations and individuals to regularly pray “A Prayer for the Power of the Spirit Among the People of God.” This prayer – crafted by a team of Lutheran and Episcopal prayer leaders in light of the COVID-19 pandemic – will connect us in common prayer and revive us for common mission, wherever and however we may be gathered.
Congregations might wish to incorporate the prayer into worship following the Prayer of the Day, as part of the Prayers of Intercession, or at the conclusion of worship before the Blessings or Dismissal. Individuals may pray it anytime as part of their own personal prayer discipline. Please feel free to print, publish, post, and share it widely.
At Pentecost, we celebrate the power of the Holy Spirit. In our diversity, we are united through God’s presence among us. We are amazed and astonished. United in Christ, and joined by common prayer, the Advocate calls and sends us out in common mission. Come, Holy Spirit.
A Prayer for the Power of the Spirit among the People of God
God of all power and love, we give thanks for your unfailing presence
and the hope you provide in times of uncertainty and loss.
Send your Holy Spirit to enkindle in us your holy fire.
Revive us to live as Christ’s body in the world:
a people who pray, worship, learn, break bread, share life, heal neighbors,
bear good news, seek justice, rest and grow in the Spirit.
Wherever and however we gather,
unite us in common prayer and send us in common mission,
that we and the whole creation might be restored and renewed,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Oración por el Espíritu en tiempos de incertidumbre y desplazamiento
Dios de todo poder y amor, te damos gracias por tu constante presencia y por la esperanza que brindas en tiempos de incertidumbre y de pérdida. Envía tu Espíritu Santo a encender en nosotros tu fuego santo. Revívenos para vivir como cuerpo de Cristo en el mundo: un pueblo que ora, adora, parte el pan, comparte la vida, atiende a sus prójimos, es portador de buenas nuevas, busca la justicia, descansa y crece en el Espíritu. Dondequiera y de cualquier manera que nos reunamos, únenos en oración comunitaria y envíanos en una misión común: que nosotros y toda la creación podamos ser restaurados y renovados, mediante Jesucristo nuestro Señor. Amén.
Une prière pour l’Esprit en une période d’incertitude et de déplacement
Dieu de toute puissance et de tout amour, nous te rendons grâce pour ta présence indefectible et l’espoir que tu nous donnes en cette période d’incertitude et de perte. Envoie ton Saint-Esprit allumer en nous ton Saint feu. Ravive-nous pour vivre comme le corps du Christ dans le monde : un peuple qui prie, adore, apprend, rompt le pain, partage la vie, guérit les voisins, porte de bonnes nouvelles, cherche la justice, se repose et croît dans l’Esprit. Où que nous nous réunissions et de quelque manière que nous le fassions, unis-nous dans une prière commune et envoie-nous dans une mission commune afin que nous et toute la creation puissions être restaurés et renouvelés à travers Jésus-Christ notre Seigneur. Amen.
The ELCA recognizes June, 17 as day of Commemoration of the Emanuel 9 and a Day of Repentance of Racism. This blog is featured as part of a series to call the ELCA to address white supremacy and racism. To find additional worship materials for June 17, please visit https://www.elca.org/EmanuelNine
3 Then I turned to the Lord God, to seek an answer by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. 4 I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying,
“Ah, Lord, great and awesome God, keeping covenant and steadfast love with those who love you and keep your commandments, 5 we have sinned and done wrong, acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and ordinances. 6 We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our ancestors, and to all the people of the land. (Daniel 9:3-6)
I love living and serving as a pastor in rural communities on the Great Plains. I have spent most of my life in this environment, and my family has been part of this landscape for generations. My identity is tied to this place, and that comes with complex realities and shameful truths. Like anywhere in the United States, has been present in this space since the arrival of white people. It takes different forms in different settings, I cannot speak to how it manifests in other rural environments. Rural spaces are not monolithic.
There are, of course, overt displays of white supremacy. People fly confederate battle flags, hang racist symbols in bars while claiming they are, “just being country,” whatever that means. Hate groups hold rallies to intimidate immigrant communities. We have an abundance of statues and landmarks named after men who committed genocide against our indigenous neighbors. Those obvious examples give cover for the quieter, more prevalent, and just as pernicious ways that white supremacy manifests itself into the daily rhythm of our lives.
This landscape is defined by openness. That this openness has tragically created space for my people to hide how white supremacy is alive and well. It is easy not to see migrant workers when they are the only people standing in a field miles from the nearest town or behind the walls of factories processing our food. It is easy to not see the indigenous communities that our presence has forced onto reservations or to ignore the people of color who live in our communities as our neighbors. It is easy to claim that issues facing communities of color don’t affect us because there is just so much space.
The reality is, regardless of how easy it is to look another way white supremacy damages us all. The stories we pass down from generation to generation about how our rugged ancestors came from Europe with nothing. How they were tough and brave enough to “tame the land.” Those stories live on in us, a constant nagging sense of inadequacy. These prideful narratives center on white exceptionalism and yields shame that creates a hardness within us and our communities.
As a result we gloss over the honest parts of these stories, where people were faced with a choice of starvation, conscription, or a boat to a place they had never been. We don’t tell how whole communities shared one window so that everyone’s sod home was up to code when it was to be inspected. We exempt the reality that people of color have been present in every wave of immigration to this area. We certainly don’t spend enough time sitting in the discomfortable truth that we live in this vast and beautiful space only because of the systematic extermination and removal of indigenous people.
I love living and serving here. I delight in meeting our new neighbors who much like large parts of my family, have come fleeing dire situations to find some measure of peace. I am honored when I am invited into holy moments where those whose families have been in this space for thousands of years share their experience with me. I have hope that we can stand against this damaging and pervasive narrative. We value humility, let’s commit to taking an honest look at the ways in which we have participated in the oppression of our neighbors. We value steadfastness, let’s commit to the long process of dismantling white supremacy. We value community, let’s commit to creating a world where those who have been excluded for so long are shown the dignity, justice, and love.
Kelly France is the interim pastor at Swedlanda Lutheran Church in rural Hector Minnesota. In his ministry he seeks to build communities that address the injustices of white supremacy and religious intolerance in the rural Midwest. He serves on the board of the European Descent Lutheran Association for Racial Justice (EDLARJ).
Dave Delaney, Salem, VA
Warm-up Questions
Love in Many Tongues
A recent news story emphasizes the importance of interpreters in the dealing with the current pandemic. In a place such as New York City, where more than 800 languages are spoken, one can only imagine how hard it must be to make sure someone with any medical emergency can provide a description of their condition, as well as receive understandable instructions. If we add to that the restrictions that accompany our current reality, where an interpreter might not even be in the same room to provide a sense of comfort to a disoriented or otherwise distraught patient, or where the patient may not even be able to speak due to medical apparatus, the task of sending and receiving clear messages in the patient’s own language becomes overwhelming.
In addition, while the wholesale introduction of new technology into medical care can make a positive difference for the patient, there have also been unexpected effects on the interpreters, bad as well as good. Health care interpreter Helen Sweeney says of a recent patient, “We just kind of had him do like a thumbs up or thumbs down for ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ And we just simplified the communication.” Her story – communicating remotely by screen and having to improvise on the spot – sounds at first like a grand success for the kind of creativity and commitment that would make these interpreters even more “essential” – to the point of life and death!
But interpreters have also had trouble maintaining their revenue in the face of technology and other struggles associated with the pandemic. So-called “tele-health” practices do not provide the same income for these interpreters as does on-site interpretation. Since this could easily become the norm rather than the exception, even after the pandemic passes, analysts wonder whether this will affect the availability of good interpretive services for the most vulnerable patients.
In addition to the doctor-patient interaction, interpreters are often the only ones who can also communicate the condition of a patient to their family members, or even inform them that the patient has sadly died. Helen Sweeney has, however, managed to preserve some very human elements of these somewhat impersonal screen-based translation encounters. She describes a call with an older, Russian-speaking woman who was stressed about her health care and had symptoms of COVID19. Later, Helen ended up being put back on the call with the same woman, who she says remembered her instantly. “It’s very rarely that you’re interpreting for someone in a very dark situation, and then you’re able to catch them again,” said Sweeney. “She recognized me, not by my face, but by my voice.”
Discussion Questions
Day of Pentecost
(Text links are to Oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings for Year A at Lectionary Readings.)
For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.
Gospel Reflection
Although Acts 2 is not the gospel reading for the day, it is the centerpiece reading for The Day of Pentecost. Some phrases may jump out at us right now because of the restrictions surrounding the pandemic: “…they were all together in one place…” “… at this, the crowd gathered…” – things we cannot quite do as the church yet!
The words describing the reaction of the crowd also feel familiar: bewildered, amazed, astonished, perplexed, sneering, and so on. These gathered visitors in Jerusalem would never have seen anything like this before and did not know whether to be terrified or excited. They did not think about this as possibly God’s work, until Peter informed them. The spoken word of the gospel had to accompany the experience they were having, which remains true throughout the book of Acts. Over and over again, the apostles have to awaken their listeners to the activity of God among them in the midst of a confusing experience.
As if to address the confusion head on, the nations and languages represented indicate the church’s view that this movement of the Spirit was to be a worldwide phenomenon! In the same way that the current virus has tragically spread to nearly every part of the world in a short time, so the gospel was to be proclaimed throughout every nation. Peter’s sermon goes on to cast the same very broad vision later articulated by St. Paul in Galatians 3:28, that none of the human distinctions we observe – heritage, sex, age, etc. – matter when God’s Spirit is poured out.
Discussion Questions
Activity Suggestions
Closing Prayer
God of wind and fire, we thank you for sending the Spirit to those first disciples and to all believers throughout the centuries, giving us peace, hope, and courage for service and witness. Make our faith strong and our words clear to those who know and hear us. Give us listening ears to the cries of those who need you most, and bless our outreach with an abundance of joy and an ever-increasing body of those who call on the name of the Lord. In the name Jesus, our Savior and Lord, Amen.
These reflections are a part of ELCA World Hunger’s Sermon Starter series which is published via email every Monday. You can sign up for the weekly email here on the right side of the page if on a computer or near the bottom of the page if viewing from a phone. This reflection was written by Rev. Dr. William Flippin. Rev. Dr. William Edward Flippin, Jr. served as an ELCA parish pastor in Columbus, Ga., and Atlanta, Ga., for eleven years. He was the first African-American pastor at both churches. He currently serves as Assistant to the Bishop, Director of Evangelical Mission for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod. He served on the ELCA Church Council 2013-19 and is on the Lutheran World Federation Church Council as Co-Chair for Advocacy and Public Voice. He received the “Prophetic Voice” Award in 2016 for Faith in Public Life, Washington, D.C., and serves on the Alumni Board for Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. He also was inducted in 2017 to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers and Laity at his alma mater Morehouse College. He has been married for seventeen years to Kedra Phillips-Flippin, a nurse care manager, and are the proud parents of Shamel Emani.
Today is Pentecost, a day for remembering where the church came from, how the church came to be, and for asking what on earth the church is for and where in heaven’s name the church is headed. This is the day when we should envision what the Church could be, what its field of dreams would look like — and to start working to bring that dream to reality.
The disciples who were situated in the Upper Room, as the poet Langston Hughes described, had a 
“dream deferred” vaporized in their Messianic expectations. Despite their realities, Pentecost came with the gift of the Holy Spirit poured out on them in a topsy-turvy world. How can we still have hope for a field of dreams?
We must pour out our hearts: Jesus always reminds religious leaders, spectators, and followers that humanity examines them from the outside, but the spiritual dimensions are found in the heart. Pentecost reminds us that the authentic expressions of disbelief from the disciples were the catalyst of transformational change. This birthday celebration of the church reminds us that we do not need a lovely building, a good choir, a well-run church school, or any ordained clergy to be a church. Instead, we need the Spirit of Christ in order to be a Christ body community. This allows Christ to be enfleshed, incarnated, embodied through a Spirit-filled community, the Church must pour out a heart filled with self-sacrificing love.
Even in our present “dreamless” state, the church has managed pretty well to offer to helping hands to people in need. We run soup kitchens, stock food pantries, and provide showers, online worship and devotions, and shelter. But there should be a difference between being a “good citizen” and being the church. In the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, ELCA World Hunger is expedited and advocated through the means of sacrificial giving through accompaniment and trustworthy service to neighbors. Through being the embodiment of God’s hands, the works of love are manifested in the global realities of hunger being minimized. To find stories about ELCA World Hunger’s transformative work, read the reproducible stories found here: https://www.elca.org/Resources/ELCA-World-Hunger#Stories
There is a new field of dreams that are endless for those to hear the clarion call of leadership. Jesus 
affirms that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Why is the church stagnating? Could it be that the church, which began as a field of dreams for the outcast and outsiders, has become a field of keeping the status quo? An area of ideas seems outside the reach of even the highest imagination.
Nearly two centuries ago (August 18, 1807), someone watched as Robert Fulton tested his steamboat. He kept yelling, “It’ll never start! It’ll never start!”
Just then, the steamboat pulled away from the dock and moved majestically up the Hudson River. That observer quickly changed his tune.
He yelled: “It’ll never stop! It’ll never stop!”
We all know these people. They go by different names: the failure-predictors, the trouble-warners, the obstacle-visionaries, the problem-imaginers, the “we-can’t-afford-it” cost-estimators.
The truth is that the church — no matter how stodgy and out-of-shape it has become — is still in God’s hands. The church’s future is never predictable or plotted out because the Holy Spirit, the animating 
breath of the church, blows up storms and whirlwinds without any notice.
The Spirit must be allowed to circulate through the sanctuary, pushing us to our knees at unexpected moments. Does anything ever bring tears to our eyes in Church (besides the annual budget report)? Can the Spirit make us smile, or even laugh out loud in church?
Just as found in the impetus of the Spirit, it is time for the church to spread her wings in being willing to “trust the Spirit.” We cannot take flight under our own power. Peter Pan’s “flying song” in the Disney version of this childhood dream story still offers sound advice. To soar, “all it takes is faith and trust … and a little bit of pixie dust. The dust is a definite must!”
As Christians, we can provide the faith and trust — while still admitting that we are mere dust and to dust we shall return.
At its heart, this is what building a church that is a “field of dreams” takes — the willingness to spread our wings and step off the edge, believing that the breath of the Spirit will bear us forward into the future.
In 1999, I was a Peace Corps Intern for Mickey Leland Institute of World Hunger and Peace, residing in the remote villages of Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). My primary task was health education and the building of water latrines. On the surface, the water looked clean, but the children kept getting sicker and 
sicker. Malaria was the cause of this dilemma, affecting sixty percent in the village and within a fifty-mile radius. As I was treating water sources with chemicals, I would always think that new life begins with just one drop.
Jesus knows this, which is why he cries out, “Let anyone thirsty come to me and let the one who believes in me drink. As the Scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water'” (John 7:37-38).
Whenever the Bible speaks of “living water,” it is pointing us in several directions. Living water can mean fresh, running water – water from a spring, as opposed to a container. It can also mean life-giving water. In this case, Jesus is suggesting both because he knows that fresh, running water is also life-giving water – something everyone needs for a life of health and vitality. Just ask the residents in countries I witnessed in the remote villages of West Africa.
But John, the gospel writer, offers a third meaning in the very next verse: “Now [Jesus] said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit because Jesus was not yet glorified” (v. 39, emphasis added). John believes that living water Jesus offered is nothing less than the fresh, 
running, life-giving Holy Spirit of God, which comes to Jesus’ followers on the day of Pentecost.
Living Water. Holy Spirit. Both change our lives. Both give us hope for the future. Clean water and the Spirit of God can flow together in some powerful ways in the mission of the church today. The simple presence of one clean-water well can transform a community. Clean water leads to health, which leads to productivity, which leads to education and commerce and forward progress.
It isn’t just about a cup of cold, clean water. It’s about the future.
Jesus tells us the power of the Holy Spirit has the same effect. When we turn to Jesus in faith, we receive a free-flowing and life-giving Spirit who can transform our lives. The Spirit makes us happier, healthier, and better able to serve God with passion and purpose.
Just one drop. That’s where it begins. Then the flow of the Spirit in Pentecost and Christ’s divine breath becomes a river of living water.
All were together and filled with the Holy Spirit. The river of living water drenched all.
Our transformation begins with just one drop – a drop of concern for a child in poverty. If the Holy Spirit is working for health, welfare, and education, then we should too. We can volunteer at a free 
medical clinic, deliver food to a low-income family, or tutor a child requiring help with homework.
Such a drop turns into a trickle – a trickle of help for a neighborhood in need. If Jesus is the embodiment of divine power, overcoming the evil forces that inflict calamity and sickness on humanity, then our challenge is to be Jesus’ healing and helping hands in our communities. We can support dental clinics for the homeless, affordable housing for the working poor, and English classes for immigrants.
This trickle can become a river of living water – a river that carries the good news of God’s love around the world, washing over people with improvements to their spiritual and physical health. Whether
fighting cholera in Haiti or installing water filters in my own experiences in
West Africa, Christians are changing lives as they follow the Holy Spirit’s leading. Jesus’ words are coming true: “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38).
It can start with just one drop. The installation of one water filter. The digging of one well. But once the water begins to flow, nothing can stop it. Same for the Holy Spirit.
Pour a pitcher of water into a bowl and let the children watch and listen to the flowing water. Explain that this is what the Bible means by “living water” (v. 38) – water that’s fresh and running freely instead of sitting still. Then ask if everyone needs to drink water in order to stay alive. Nod your head yes and say that a person can live for only about three days without water . As you put your hand in the bowl and stir the water, share this second meaning of “living water” – life-giving water, the water we all need to stay alive. Then say that Jesus defines “living water” in a third way: He says that it is the Holy Spirit, which believers in Jesus receive from God (v. 39).
The world is mostly water, but most people can’t drink safe water that we can get at home in the United States and use for drinking, cleaning or bathing. Emphasize that this Spirit is like water because it’s running freely, and it gives everlasting life to us in this world and in heaven. Let them know that each of us has a soul and a body, and our soul needs the Holy Spirit just as our body needs fresh, clean water.
