Sermon - Rev Judith Perry 

So how many of you have read the current Good Tidings? Hands up. How many of you read my little essay? Hands up. Remember honesty is a Christian virtue. 

I think, in order to get the message to sink in, I am going to present it to you all again today. 

Pentecost as a spiritual beginning, an ignition point. The account in Acts describes rushing wind, descending flames and a cacophony of voices and languages that somehow are both understood and life enhancing. 

Today is the feast day of divine disruption. God is insisting that the world can change and that human beings can change with it. 

The account in Acts is 2000 years old. We would not be here today if it had not happened. Let that sink in. We are here today because those people in that room opened themselves to the power of the Spirit. 

How can this Divine Disruption upset our status quo today?  

Because I was writing for the Earth, Spirit, Action collective in this congregation, I looked at how the Pentecost Energy affects us and our very real environmental tragedy. 

What about today? The climate catastrophe is accelerating. Pentecost speaks to this with a renewed urgency.  

The same Spirit who once filled a room in Jerusalem now presses against the walls of our complacency, calling us to breathe differently, speak differently, and act differently. It is a summons. 

The story begins with wind—violent, unsettling, impossible to ignore.  

In Scripture, wind is never just weather.  

It is the breath of creation hovering over the waters, the force that parts seas, the whisper that reaches Elijah in his despair. At Pentecost, the wind is the Spirit’s way of saying: You cannot stay as you are. 

Climate catastrophe is also a wind—though not a holy one. Hurricanes intensified by warming oceans, wildfires driven by shifting jet streams, droughts that turn fertile land to dust.  

These winds expose the fragility of the systems we have built and the illusions we have cherished.  

They shake our foundations, not to destroy us, but to reveal the truth: the world we have made is unsustainable, and the world God desires is still possible. 

The same can be said of fire. In the Pentecostal account fire is somewhat benign. The auras of the people in that upper room lit up as if each had flames in the air above them. 

With the warming of our planet comes unendurable heat and raging fires. 

Climate catastrophe is also fire, and its consequences are profound.  

But something else happened on that first day of the Christian Pentecost: people communicated. Language barriers came down and people of like mind joined together, and their witness changed their Roman world. 

But what about us? The Spirit is not finished with us. The same power that raised Christ, the same breath that animated creation, the same fire that sent the disciples into the world—this power is still at work. 

Pentecost hope is fierce because it is shared. It is communal. It is sustained by the Spirit who refuses to abandon creation. 

All over there are small groups of folks banding together with this holy communication. The destruction of creation as well  the extinction of God’s people is foremost in their minds. 

These are the groups who together are cleaning up the coast line and the beaches.  

Those who draw our attention to the massive use of plastics which are destroying our oceans. This plastic is within our bodies; in the food we eat and the plastic bottles from which we drink and the plastic within mother’s milk.  

People who band together to save our forests and our waterways. Those who care the injured wild animals. The folks who work tirelessly to limit our use of automobiles; promoting public transit, bikes and safe walking. 

Pentecostal energy is rampant whether they know it or not. It is in the woman walking down Agricola with the T-shirt reading: “Let there be peace”. 

People who meet and plan to prevent the increased use of fossil fuels. And then there are the solarpunks,  

You don’t know about them? Here s the definition: 

Solarpunk is a cultural, artistic, and literary movement envisioning a  

sustainable, community focused future powered by renewable energy and ecological harmony. 

The Holy Disruptive Spirit is moving. 

Pentecost hope is fierce because it is shared. It is communal. It is sustained by the Spirit who refuses to abandon creation. 

The Spirit is waiting for you.