Pentecost Story

Some of my friends have asked me to share the Pentecost Story that I wrote last year. It can be read in the voices of Clement Moore, Dr. Seuss, or Lin-Manuel Miranda. I did all three, wearing a top hat then a cat-in-the-hat hat, then one of my normal hats as I switched voices. Maybe that was too hokey.

It's a great story and needs to be told in ways that are creative, imaginative, and fresh. Enjoy

Pentecost Story 

‘Twas the day of the fiftieth, the Sabbath of Sabbaths

when they were all gathered, an annual habit. 

They saw their Lord buried then risen then taken; 

they had had their hearts broken but now were awakened! 

When all of a sudden there ‘rose such a clatter, 

the people in town came to see what’s the matter. 

The sound of strong winds, tongues dancing of fire, 

the gathered ones filled with their true heart’s desire. 

With languages, idioms, dialects empowered, 

they each found their tongue and they used it that hour.

And those who had gathered were astonished and wondered, 

“What is this strange thing onto which we have blundered? 

Are not these folks common, unlearned, unlettered, 

how do they speak in the tongues of their betters? 

We’ve traveled the world, in Parthia and Rome, 

we call Cappadocia and Media our home, 

Now these ignorantia are trying to say 

that God works in this mysterious way?” 

All of them wondered, but some of them thunk, 

“These people are babbling because they are drunk!” 

Then Peter stood up and had something to say, 

“You know we’re not drunk at this time of the day!” 

This thing that is happ’ning, that makes us awoke, 

is that very thing that the prophet Joel spoke. 

‘In days that are lasting, the true God declares, 

I’ll make me a people, a people who dare, 

We dare to see visions of justice one day. 

We dare to have dreams like my man M.L.K.

We dare new equalities, not classes of old, 

we’re benders of genders and breakers of codes! 

This thing you see here, how we are behavin’, 

is God being present in a world that needs savin.’” 

Don’t sit there and wonder how commoners babbleth, 

wonder instead that this is true Sabbath!  

A people on fire, all Spirit-inspired, 

living the true path that God has required, 

Led by the one who was unjustly killed, 

by hands with violence honed and skilled, 

but then he was raised, ‘cause death has no might, 

to hold down the one who does what is right. 

He is the one who is breathing this breath, 

whose Spirit’s unleashed and the world is refreshed.