As we move from Easter through Pentecost, we witness the Spirit of God very much alive and showing up, often where we least expect. Taken together, these reflections pay attention to the ways God keeps speaking and the ways we are tempted to silence, dismiss, or police those appearances.
My daughter and I recently watched Zootopia 2. The utopia created there starts to show its cracks as Judy Hopps uncovers the truth about how reptiles were forcefully erased and pushed out of the land. A daring adventure and reclamation ensues, all because Judy, a rabbit, is willing to listen to a snake—the very animal everyone has villainized. I was reminded of the movie as I read these lectionary passages, because what happens to our own scriptural story if we listen to Stephen, to Mary, to Eldad and Medad, to Hannah? What happens if we stop gatekeeping who gets to have a voice? Where might we uncover God if we were no longer covering up those we have deemed unworthy?
Again and again in scripture (and in life), humans find it easier to preserve order than to risk disruption, easier to protect authority than to make room for revelation. But these lectionary texts bear witness to a Spirit who does not wait for permission but breaks through barriers in order to be heard.
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