05/22/2026
Weekly message from our Pastoral Care Minister; Rev. Larry Amiro:
May 24, 2026
Day of Pentecost
Acts 2:1–21
Psalm 104:24–34
1 Corinthians 12:3b–13
John 7:37–39
1 Corinthians 12:3b–13 (paraphrase)
No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit gives different gifts to each person for the common good — wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, prophecy, discernment, tongues, interpretation — all from the same Spirit. The body of Christ is one though it has many parts; we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body and given the same Spirit to drink.
On Pentecost we remember wind and fire. We remember a crowd gathered, ordinary people suddenly speaking with boldness, and strangers hearing the good news in their own languages. We call Pentecost the birthday of the church. That image comforts us: a single day when everything changed, when the church was born fully formed and ready to go.
But the story is more complicated and more honest than a single birthday. The people who first believed were mostly Jews who continued to worship in the synagogue, who continued to keep the rhythms and practices of their faith. What changed for them was a belief that reframed everything: Jesus is the Messiah promised by the prophets. That confession — “Jesus is Lord” — is not merely a slogan. Paul insists that it is the work of the Spirit. To confess Jesus as Lord is to be reoriented at the deepest level. It is to begin to see covenant, scripture, and community through a new lens.
So Pentecost is a beginning, not a finished product. It is the first contraction in a long labor. The Spirit has come, but the church is not yet complete. The early believers were still learning what it meant to be followers of Jesus. They were still arguing about table fellowship, about how Jewish law and the new confession fit together, about who could belong and how. Pentecost is the birthing pain of a new way of life — noisy, messy, hopeful, and full of uncertainty.
Think of an ordinary fisherman who becomes an orator for the gospel. Peter, who once mended nets and counted fish, stands before a crowd and speaks with such clarity that people are moved to faith. That transformation is not about making everyone into the same kind of leader. It is about the Spirit enabling ordinary people to play new roles in the life of the community. The Spirit equips the humble, the hesitant, and the hidden to bear witness.
Paul’s letter to the Corinthians helps us see how the Spirit works in the messy middle of this process. He writes to a church that is baptized and gifted, but also fractured and confused. Paul does not demand uniformity. He offers a different vision: unity in diversity. The Spirit distributes gifts — many kinds, many functions — and does so for the common good. The Spirit’s economy is not scarcity or competition but mutual dependence.
When Paul says the Spirit gives gifts, he is naming a reality that is both theological and practical. The Spirit is the presence of God that reorients our confession, reshapes our relationships, and equips us for service. The Spirit is wind that moves us into new places and fire that purifies and warms. But the Spirit does not do all the work for us. The Spirit invites us into a long apprenticeship: learning how to use gifts, learning how to argue without destroying one another, learning how to include those who are different.
Birth is noisy and painful. There are contractions, adjustments, and moments of doubt. The early church experienced similar pains as it learned to be Christian. They were still Jewish in many ways; they were still working out how the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus reshaped covenant and community. The Spirit had begun a new thing, and the community had to learn how to receive and care for that new life.
This is our story too. The church here and now is not a finished product. We are still learning, still changing, still growing. New ministries will feel awkward at first. Leaders will make mistakes. Old
patterns will be challenged. That is not a sign of failure but a sign of life. Growth is messy because it is real.
Pentecost gives us wind and fire, a Spirit-formed confession, and the beginning of a long, beautiful, and sometimes painful work of becoming the body of Christ. We are not yet complete. We are still learning, still changing, and still growing — and that is exactly where the Spirit wants to meet us.
