“When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together.” “Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Spirit.” There gathered a large crowd of “Parthians, Medes and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia.”
Peacemakers bringing together different people, from different regions, crossing different borders is the norm. It is continued in Pentecost and is the basis of early house church gatherings in Jesus’ People’s Movement. People were re-creating a new type of homemaking. It extended beyond the immediate family and gave witness to a communion of all people. It brought joy. This new homemaking was a challenge to ruling warmakers. Warmakers dividing different people, into different regions, controlling their crossing of different borders remains an invented norm – nationalism. Warmakers and people faithful to them, maintain patriarchy and tribalism through nationalism. It keeps resulting not in joy but in misery. In our own day, we see this with refugees, especially at the U.S. southern border. Biden nationalists hinder homemaking, a specific hinderance is Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. He is not bringing refugees together, keeping them safe because he is busy gathering capitalists together, keeping their investments in Latin America safe for U.S. finance. The Biden Administration and specifically Blinken support the (soft and hard) coups of Brazil, Honduras, Paraguay and Venezuela while questioning the people’s attempts to govern in Bolivia, and generally interfering in the internal politics of most, if not all, of the region’s nations. Their warmaking in Latin America may be soft or clandestine but it perpetuates and expands crime and violence. It does so by perpetuating billions of dollars in criminal and violent military aid. The military aid is used to fight against different people, from different regions, crossing different borders to get to the U.S.’s southern border. But no actual wars are being fought between nations to the south. What then is the warfare people are fleeing? It is the warfare waged by an interfering U.S. empire. Different people are fleeing different regions and crossing different borders because the U.S. military that funds internal military / police systems are waging wage war against their own people and destroying the people’s ability for joyful homemaking. Pierre Teilhard once wrote “Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.” Peacemakers receive the Presence of God within each El Salvadoran, Guatemalan, Honduran, Mexican, and others who are joyously making a home in the U.S.
“Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine a pitch black sky with a thousand little stars… my grandmother’s hand tugging at my arm a rush of wind Abuelo leading the way… Abuela’s goals to raise my brother and I into hardworking men… mis viejitos tell me how they had to stuff the four of us under the backseat of a car … I can only tell you about how poor we were living in that small apartment in the Eastside… how proud I was of Abuela who asked me to teach her English scribbled on our refrigerator door you can sometimes see the residue of the markers I used to teach her basic words I wish you would ask of the memories I had before my identity became political about the laughs the joy the things I love about the way I have managed to survive… all I know is that I am here and I am not going anywhere this is home.” (Undocumented Joy – Yosimar Reyes)
Prayer: Spirit, we are filled with joy.
Question: What is the joyful home I am making with people who are different from me?
May 23, 2021 Gospel John 15:26-27; 16:12-15 Feast of Pentecost