peanut butter

jelly

crackers (Ritz, 

Saltines, Club)

pancake mix

pancake syrup

100% juice boxes

100% fruit/vegetable

juice bottles

Pentecost may be my favorite feast day.  I love the fact that we wear bright colors that day, and that our sanctuary is filled with red balloons and lots of candles.  There's always special music, and most years we celebrate baptisms and recognize young people who have been exploring the Eucharist and may be receiving Communion for the first time. 

Sometimes the celebration of Pentecost looks and feels a lot like a birthday party.  Oftentimes, the preacher will explicitly name that, focusing on Pentecost as "the birthday of the Church."  I can remember attending church services on Pentecost in which the children were invited to lead the congregation in singing "Happy Birthday, Dear Church," and one of the churches where I served had the tradition of sharing a big sheet cake to commemorate the day.

Pentecost falls fifty days after Easter.  The feast commemorates the day in which the disciples received the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The story of that first Pentecost can be found in the Acts of the Apostles, but Jesus had promised the disciples that God would send them an Advocate, or a companion, who would guide and help them.  On that first Pentecost, Acts tells us that the Spirit descended as with tongues of fire, resting on the heads of all who had assembled to hear Peter and the others preach.  The crowd contained people from many countries and cultures who were visiting Jerusalem for a religious feast.  Suddenly, everyone could understand what Peter was saying, and they heard him as speaking in their own language.  Each person was able to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.

The Church has long celebrated Pentecost as the day on which the Church began.  It was after their experience on Pentecost that the disciples truly found the courage to keep Jesus' commission to them: go out into the world and proclaim the Kingdom of God.  They realized that the good news of God in Christ is meant for 

everyone--and that the good news must be shared. 

It's great that our celebration of Pentecost feels like a party.  But as we celebrate the Church and recommit ourselves to our mission and ministry, it might be well to think about who is invited to the party--and who might feel excluded.  Who get the places of honor and who might feel shunted off into a corner?   

Many churches have a painful history of making people of color feel unequal or even unwelcome.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in 1963 that "church is still the most segregated institution in America," and noted that Sunday morning church time may be the most segregated hour in America.  Sometimes it seems that that has not changed much in the fifty years since Dr. King made that observation.  In our own Episcopal Church, for instance, it wasn't very long ago that women could not participate fully in the life of the church.  Women were barred from lay leadership and from ordination; in some churches, girls couldn't serve as acolytes or sing in the choir.  We continue to struggle with the issue of how (and in some quarters, whether) to invite and welcome lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.  As we begin to face this painful legacy and work to include fully the people who have suffered exclusion (and worse), I believe our church is strengthened and enriched, and we begin to live into our baptismal promise that we will seek and serve Christ in all people, respect the dignity of each person, and work for justice and peace.

It seems to me that God's guest list is incredibly expansive.  Everyone is welcome.  Everyone is wanted.  Everyone is invited.  The good news is that God in Christ can and will breathe new life and peace on our church and our world, and the Spirit can and will bring hope and courage in the midst of despair and fear.  No one need be excluded or left behind.  Each one of us is needed in God's Kingdom.  Surely that's cause for celebration.  Let us rejoice in the power of the Spirit!