The 'Blessing' of the Holy Spirit

This is Pentecost Sunday. The Lesson reading during last evening's service was from Acts 2:1-21. It relates the coming of the Holy Spirit to those gathered. and says in part: "All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability." And later in this passage the author references ancient Hebrew writings that proclaim, "God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams." This sounds like an idyllic way to live, doesn't it...knowing the future, seeing visions, dreaming dreams? Yet, Mary's homily put a different face on this blessing of the Holy Spirit. In a voice thickened with emotion, she told us of her last conversation with Father Samuel Peni, our friend and visitor from the Sudan, as they breakfasted before he and his wife left for their long trip home. Fr. Samuel is blessed by the Spirit; God has led him by the Spirit to speak out for peace and reconciliation within his war-torn homeland, the Sudan. He speaks to bring an end to the violence, the killings, the fear there and to reconcile all within God's love. And as Mary said, this has made him a 'marked man.' His life will be in danger every moment when he returns home. He could be killed by enemies who don't embrace his mission of peace. It's hard to imagine what life would be like when a walk home from church or out to your farm fields could be filled with the real possibility of death, just because you have been blessed by the Spirit with a vision of peace. For me today, it's easy to celebrate Pentecost and God's outpouring of the Spirit to his people. For Fr. Peni who has also received this gift from God, the joy of Pentecost has an entirely different meaning.

Photo Album

I've added a link to the photos that Fr. Peni shared with us. Click here to see them

In the Face of Danger

I'm still digesting last evening's church service and homily delivered by Fr. Samuel Peni, an ordained Episcopal priest from Sudan. His sermon was about hearing and heeding God's call in our lives; more on that in another post. After the service, Fr. Peni showed a few slides and talked a bit about Sudan, especially southern Sudan where he has his parish in the Yambio Diocese. Many things to think about...lack of schools, dismal literacy rate, poor and absent healthcare facilities, poor nutrition, lack of clean water, and a very complicated political environment that has not been much improved by a tenuous peace agreement that will be in effect for only another two years. What really hit home to me, though, was the dangerous environment in which he and his family live. Civil war rages throughout the countryside. He told a story of his wife gathering up their six children in the middle of the night and fleeing to the bush to hide from a group of marauding soldiers. He talked about the Lord's Resistance Army that marches boldly across the border from Uganda maiming and killing. The picture above is from a protest in Yambio against these atrocities. He spoke of his own life being in danger because he dares to speak out and tell the truth about what is happening in Sudan.. While he is in the United States studying for the school year, his family is in Uganda because it's not safe for them to stay in Sudan while he is away. When he was asked what he'll do after he finishes his Master's degree, he didn't hesitate: "I will go back to Sudan to my church. It's home." Fr. Peni is a quiet, soft-spoken man, a devout Christian, and a loving and caring husband and father, yet he and his family will return to the danger and hardship of his war-torn country. I worried about this as I fell asleep last night; I was worrying about it still this morning as I opened my daily devotional, The Upper Room. As He frequently does, God left a message for me there.

The message is that nothing...not hardships, not governments, not things to come, not even death...can "separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Fr. Peni believes this, and it makes him strong in the face of danger. Am I faithful enough to believe it too?