We Can’t Stay Here
Pentecost Homily – We Can’t Stay Here
Molly Riley is a name that probably means nothing to you. You’ll not find her mentioned in any history text book; there are no memorials to her anywhere in the city she has called home for almost 70 years. When she walks down the busy streets of Kansas City, she is just another face in the crowd. Riley will undoubtedly return to the Lord one day with very few knowing the force she was on a humid Friday evening in July 1981.
On that night, it seemed as though the entire city turned out to watch couples dance to the latest hits and some golden oldies in the glamourous gathering area and ballroom of the newly-opened Hyatt Crown Center Hotel. For a struggling downtown that needed some new-life injected into its future promise, the Hyatt offered hope and endless possibilities. Molly wanted to be a part of that.
As she stood along the perimeter of the dance floor, having just come from her shift at St. Joe’s Hospital, Ms. Riley was nursing a drink and waiting for a friend when, without warning, the entire atrium ceiling – with its zig-zag system of upper-level concrete walkways – came crashing down onto the dance floor below. By the time the dust settled, 114 people were crushed to death beneath the weight of the upper decks. Molly was almost 115.
When she found herself almost entombed in the debris and the smoke, she clearly remembers thinking to herself in that moment of disaster: “It might just be best if I stay here. I don’t know if I can face what’s out there. I don’t know if I can do it.”
But then, something within her spirit – and her training as a nurse – kicked in. Climbing out from the wreckage, she immediately began looking for survivors, assisting those she could, directing the Kansas City rescue squads that had arrived on the scene, and comforting those who were actively dying. In a moment of complete disaster, Molly brought light and hope. Molly chose to enter the unknown and bring life again, wherever and however she could.
As I see it, this was a true Pentecost moment.
The world will never call it this. Molly wouldn’t, either. Even the Church would steer away from using such terminology to describe Molly’s actions that July evening at the Hyatt. And yet, at the heart of this Solemnity, what is Pentecost but the celebration of Love that overcame fear and reached for the lost, the broken and the dying in order to bring God to a world seeking healing and help. To me, that captures the “spirit” of that first Upper Room moment – no pun intended.
Now, admittedly, I don’t pretend to know what that first Pentecost must have really been like.
John’s Gospel emphasizes that the Risen Christ appeared to a frightened lot of followers who collectively failed him in his hour of greatest suffering and, despite his being abandoned, still offered them His peace — not once, but twice. In Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, there was a noise from the sky that entered the room like a driving wind along with tongues of fire.
Could this really be so?
Most definitely. The Creator of the Universe can do all things, and so even in our skeptical age, we must allow for a Pentecost moment in which holy fire and life-changing breath could, in fact, swirl around a group of scared men and women clinging to the Mother of God for courage.
Something happened in that Upper Room 50 days after the tomb was found empty. Something so amazing and life-changing that it caused this rag-tag group of confused doubters to instead become bold proclaimers of the Risen Christ and His Good News. It didn’t matter anymore that the religious authorities were hunting them down. They would die for Truth. It no longer concerned them that the civil authorities and populace of Jerusalem thought they were some weird flesh-eating cult. They kept proclaiming His Message.
These remnant disciples – the 11 Apostles and others who stayed in that room initially in fear – now by the power of the Spirit faced the world with a boldness that could only come from God.
A boldness that we call Christ-love. Authentic lay-down-your-life, serve-others-as-Jesus-did-love. A Love that touched their lives and hearts so deeply, so incredibly that there was never any turning back to their former ways of selfish, hateful, unforgiving, sin-centered living.
Did they still stumble and doubt and give-in to the wiles of Satan? Of course.
But this time, however, that Pentecost moment in the Upper Room forever reminded them that their sins and failures, stumblings and brokenness are not the end of their story.
No. Rather, all of these very things that once kept them shackled in fear are now redeemed by the Blood of the One who Loved them – and us – enough to go to the Cross. To literally give everything so that we may have true freedom, authentic love and lasting peace. Not as the world gives it to us, though.
And that may be one of the greatest gifts of this Holy Spirit of God: the constant nudge that peace means more than comfortableness.
That is a hard pill to swallow for most – if not all – of us. We want our faith cozy and not-too-challenging. We want Jesus to be our “buddy” and the rules of religion to suit our current mood, whatever that may be this week. In a word, we want freedom on our terms, not God’s.
And yet the Holy Spirit reminds us from that first Pentecost to the end of time: Christ’s peace looks exactly like the wounds of nail marks that come from Crucifixion.
Christ’s peace is that voice crying out in the wilderness: Make things right with God again. Forgive others. Stop seeing people as things to be used or destroyed on a whim. Speak out when there is injustice of every kind — from racism and sexism to the callous destruction of life inside abortion clinics.
Christ’s peace means that there are truths worth giving your life for, and that His Gospel must be at the very core of that understanding.
Ultimately, Christ’s peace must transform each of us into these flames of love that are no longer afraid to admit that we’ve found the reason why we do everything we do: the Love of Christ and His Spirit at work within us, His Church.
So, yes, while it is true that I don’t pretend to know what happened that First Pentecost in that Upper Room, I do know is this: This formerly-frightened small band of lukewarm, doubting disciples climbed down that ladder to the ground below and faced the world with the Spirit of God now burning within their hearts – and that very Spirit transformed the world around them.
They never let fear or sin or brokenness have the final word anymore. Instead, they allowed the Love of Father for Son and Son for Father transform the very place where they were standing: their homes, their neighborhoods, their hearts.
And the world was never the same again.
I can’t help but think that as we reemerge as Church after decades of clergy abuse and the lockdowns of Covid, we have yet another moment of real Pentecost: a reminder that even in our most challenging times of our faith and in our world, the Spirit was and is still at work in our lives in very powerful and significant ways.
At the same time, there remains the challenge to “live Church” in a very concrete way moving forward: by offering the peace that comes from having a genuine relationship with Christ. It starts by opening one’s heart to the Spirit: by claiming that fear and sin have no room in hearts and lives where Christ now reigns.
And then, together as Church, we must climb down the ladder from our Upper Room of Fear (and circle-the-wagons mentality) and tell the world that we have found the Answer: that Love exists … that Love transforms … that Love climbs out of the rubble and begins to help others. Even if it isn’t perfect. Even when it seems hopeless and frightening. Even when we aren’t sure where God is in all of this.
Pentecost Love reaches into the rubble of others’ disasters and offers a willing hand and generous heart.
Just like Molly Riley did in a Kansas City Hyatt on July 17, 1981.
The Spirit of sacrificial love and courage is still present, often in our most challenging and heart-wrenching moments, as long as we choose not to stay behind locked doors and locked hearts…