As we move from Easter through Pentecost, we witness the Spirit of God very much alive and showing up, often where we least expect. Taken together, these reflections pay attention to the ways God keeps speaking and the ways we are tempted to silence, dismiss, or police those appearances.
My daughter and I recently watched Zootopia 2. The utopia created there starts to show its cracks as Judy Hopps uncovers the truth about how reptiles were forcefully erased and pushed out of the land. A daring adventure and reclamation ensues, all because Judy, a rabbit, is willing to listen to a snake—the very animal everyone has villainized. I was reminded of the movie as I read these lectionary passages, because what happens to our own scriptural story if we listen to Stephen, to Mary, to Eldad and Medad, to Hannah? What happens if we stop gatekeeping who gets to have a voice? Where might we uncover God if we were no longer covering up those we have deemed unworthy?
Again and again in scripture (and in life), humans find it easier to preserve order than to risk disruption, easier to protect authority than to make room for revelation. But these lectionary texts bear witness to a Spirit who does not wait for permission but breaks through barriers in order to be heard.
May 3
Open Your Ears
Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 31:1-16; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14
“INCLINE YOUR EAR to me,” the psalmist prays (31:2). In the book of Acts, shortly before Stephen is stoned, he cries aloud, “but they covered their ears” (7:57). I hadn’t noticed that detail before. Before the men rushed him, before they laid coats at the feet of Saul and picked up their stones, they covered their ears.
Stephen wasn’t even begging for mercy. He had simply named what he was seeing: “Look! I can see heaven on display and the Human One standing at God’s right side!” (7:56, CEB). Strange, isn’t it, that he tells them to look, and they respond by covering not their eyes but their ears? I imagine it is because they cannot see what he is seeing, but they don’t even want to hear about it. They don’t want any hint that the man they are about to kill for blasphemy (see Acts 6:11) could be seeing the face of God. And so, they shut their ears. We miss so many sightings of God because our ears are closed. Or worse, rush to violence because we refuse to stop and listen.
Jesus’ own disciples didn’t think they knew the way to God (see John 14:5). “Look,” I can hear Jesus saying. “Listen. The way is clear. I’ve been here all along.”
Where in your life do you need to unstop your ears? Slow down? Detach from the angry mob and listen? Perhaps the way is more obvious than you realize.
Humans find it easier to protect authority than to make room for revelation.
May 10
‘I Will Not Leave You’
Acts 17:22-31; Psalm 66:8-20; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21
“I WILL NOT leave you orphaned; I am coming to you,” Jesus says (John 14:18). To me, this promise is the best part of Eastertide. Not just that Jesus came back to life, but that we are never getting left again. I look out at the world and all that is going wrong, and it’s easy to feel abandoned. In so many ways, it feels like evil is overcoming good and injustice is winning the day. It makes sense to wonder, “Where is God?”
Honestly, I am not immediately comforted when the author of 1 Peter says that if we suffer for doing what is right, we are blessed (3:17). I’d rather just not suffer. I’d rather the bad guys squirm instead of me. And yet, it is just when we feel most defeated that we can know most strongly that Christ is indeed with us and will not leave. Christ, who went all the way to death, is not easily deterred, and God is not taking leave simply because times are tough. If anything, God is leaning in. Jesus’ death and resurrection tell us this: Nothing is too much for God to endure beside us. Nothing is enough to stop God’s love and God’s presence. No matter how overwhelmed we feel, we are not alone. Even if we are going through fire now, God will bring us out to a spacious place (Psalm 66:12).
May 17
Matthias Who?
Acts 1:6-14; Psalm 68:1-35; 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11; John 17:1-11
I AM ANNOYED every time I read the first chapter of Acts. Jesus ascends, and it is time for the remaining disciples to figure out what next. Verse 13, listing the names of 11 apostles, reveals their dilemma: They need a replacement for Judas Iscariot. Verse 14 is reassuring because a replacement should be no problem—many of the women who followed Jesus are there in the room, including Mary. Though they aren’t all listed by name, “certain women” surely includes those who first saw and proclaimed the resurrection. The selection pool is rich.
But if you keep reading, the men nominate two men, and the winner is Matthias. We’ve never heard of Matthias until now. The Marys, on the other hand? We know all about them. Their bravery, faith, and proclamation. But somehow, they get overlooked for their rightful place among the 12.
The lectionary selection ends with the women in verse 14, creating a pause. Yes, please, let’s pause here before we-have-no-idea-who-you-are Matthias enters the scene. Let’s remember who was faithful to Jesus all the way to death—who didn’t deny him, betray him, nor hide in fear. It’s egregious that the rest of the story overlooks them.
But gosh, it makes me glad that Pentecost is coming. People may overlook one another. The Spirit of God will not. As the psalmist declares, “Father of orphans and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. God gives the desolate a home to live in; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity” (68:5-6).
May 24
Be an Eldad
Numbers 11:24-30; Psalm 104:24-35; Acts 2:1-21; John 7:37-39
ELDAD AND MEDAD are two of my favorite Bible characters, but for some reason no one ever talks about them. If you haven’t read this story recently, you are missing out. Eldad and Medad are these two rogue prophets. Moses gathers the other elders at the tent, i.e., the holy place. But not Eldad. Not Medad. They’re back at camp, regular ole commonplace camp. And the Spirit finds them there, in the non-sanctioned place, and they begin prophesying, which the rebel in me adores.
Joshua—who, at this point in the story, is committed to helping Moses lead by being a stickler for the rules—is aghast. Prophecies coming out at the wrong time in the wrong place by the wrong people? It’s an outrage! It’s a scandal! And obviously, it must be stopped.
Only, Moses doesn’t stop them. “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets!” he pines longingly (Numbers 11:29). Rather than gatekeep, Moses gate opens, and it’s beautiful. It is the meaning of Pentecost centuries before Pentecost happened.
Here is the message: Open the floodgates. Unclamp all tongues. Anoint all willing mouthpieces. In a world full of Joshuas, be an Eldad. Be a Moses. Be a Medad. In a world full of censorship, bellow. In a place where voices are silenced, hand out megaphones with abandon. In the swirl of voices claiming to be an authority, take time to listen to the ones on the fringes, who haven’t been fully sanctioned.
No matter how overwhelmed we feel, we are not alone.
May 31
Revolutionary Message
1 Samuel 2:1-10; Psalm 113; Romans 12:9-16; Luke 1:39-57
I LOVE A good statement shirt—half my closet is filled with wearable sermons.
Last year, an organization I co-founded released a new sweatshirt that said, “Tis the season ‘to bring down rulers, to fill the hungry, to send the rich away empty.’—Mary, Luke 1:52-53.” I like to imagine the conversations that shirt may have stirred up at the office Christmas party or family reunion.
Throughout history, Mary’s Magnificat has been deemed dangerous by various oppressive regimes—by the British during their rule of India, by Argentina in the 1970s, by Guatemala in the 1980s—and it isn’t hard to see why. Mary is downright feisty and unabashedly political.
It is worth noting that her plucky prophecy doesn’t stand alone in scripture. Mary is in good company, echoing the words of Hannah’s song from 1 Samuel, “The bows of the mighty are broken ... . Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. ... He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor” (2:4-5, 8). The psalmist also echoes Hannah, “He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people” (113:7-8).
Mary isn’t a solitary radical. God’s message for us has always been and continues to be revolutionary.
Rev. Kyndall Rae Rothaus is a preacher, spiritual director, co-founder of Nevertheless She Preached, and author of Thy Queendom Come: Breaking Free from the Patriarchy to Save Your Soul.
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