Aurora Celestin - "Raise Your Words" (Sermon for May 26, 2024)

“Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” - Jalaluddin RumiAs Julia Tulloch so cleverly put it last week, we are no longer mere Easter People, but Pentecost People. And as we continue to think about how the Holy Spirit came down to the apostles, fired up their tongues and motivated them out of their stagnation, we must think about how we too are called out of ourselves to use our voices. But with a divine call comes a lot of responsibility.This week, we consider the power of our words. As the Rumi quote reminds us, it is the substance of our words rather than the volume of our voices that can change the world for the better…or devastate it. In our tongues, we have the power to heal and harm. Even Jesus navigated this power in sometimes messy ways. His rough interaction in Mark 7 with the Syrophoenician woman seeking his help to heal her daughter reminds us of the power of words to cut people down, and the power of marginalized voices to resist the status quo.Like Jesus, we too can learn from the Syrophoenician woman. We, too, can raise our words and speak truth to power.See you Sunday,Aurora