It Was Pentecost After All

It was the Day of Pentecost. 

The scripture lessons in worship pointed to the Holy Spirit’s appropriation of human speech in a way in which believers become the mouthpieces of God’s purposes.  Going out.  Telling others.  Communicating the stories of Jesus and God’s kingdom. 

It was no surprise that after worship, during fellowship, several people wanted to testify about their experiences of the Holy Spirit—where people communicated and understood using other, non-native languages.  One person shared how this passage had recently been a topic of conversation within her family; and then there was my other conversation. 

The “tradition” in our congregation is that we don’t talk about politics—at Church.  But occasionally it comes up in one-on-one conversations.  Amongst pentecostal pleasantries, someone commented how inappropriate it seemed for the United States to have ever entered the Paris climate accord, since it turned out to be economically unfair and that the standards the United States agreed to were far more tough on our country than others. 

At least we did it to ourselves. 

But I said I was particularly sad, in response to the news that the President intended the United States to leave the Paris accord,  because as far as I could tell, the United States was relinquishing its leadership on the world stage—which for me, is a preference for sitting in the back of the bus rather than driving it.  My counterpart suggested that at least now, he hoped the agreement might be renegotiated. 

I was thinking of my friend, Bill Davnie (the Stated Clerk for Twin Cities Area Presbytery, and a former foreign service officer in the State Department) who wrote in response to the President’s announcement online: 

Some other ways of looking at withdrawal from the Paris Accords:

1.    An unhappy U.S. inside the Accord, but undermining it in various ways, would complicate its implementation more than our being outside of it. The signatories will likely be able to work more effectively without U.S. whining.
2.     Market forces will continue to support at least some transition to renewable energy in the U.S. Utilities won't be building coal-fired plants when natural gas, wind and solar are better options.
3.     Trump has just complicated any renegotiating of trade agreements he wants to do, because countries can now use greenhouse gas issues against us in negotiations. As we complain about intellectual property rights, say, they will complain about our carbon emissions.
4.     Our abdication of leadership in this area will move the international community in the direction of a broader, multi-polar rebalancing in international relations. The world is moving in this direction anyway, but American politicians either don't see that, or can't talk about in public because it sounds "declinist".
5.     More people know more about the Paris Accords now than a few months ago. That's good.

My friend and conversation counterpart was excited about the end of the agreement on our part, not for any of these reasons, but out of a sense of fairness—that we all share and contribute to the problem of climate change and should share more equally in the burdens of resolving it. 

I was thinking about how I wanted Jesus, or our love of Jesus, to somehow be the answer. 

My friend’s concern was the inherent unfairness of a climate agreement that gave clear advantages to the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, and others, who—he was sure—would continue to pollute in massive amounts having an economic advantage over the

United States.  Indeed, this always smacks of unfairness; it is surely unequal; but MY frustration is that rather than see it as the carrot that helps the world get to a better place, we see it as “woe is us,” or in this case, that we had given away too much economically, politically, and practically by entering an agreement that treated our nation or others, “un-equally.” 

But then, what occurred to me was maybe, just maybe, our willingness to boldly enter into an accord that asked a lot of us as the United States, was ultimately because we dared to believe we ought to be doing as Jesus did.  “If the United States gave too much away at the conference table,” I said, “maybe it’s because we took our allegiance to Jesus seriously and we did the kind of things Jesus would do.” 

I’m not sure at all what I meant.  Feeling for a moment like I had to answer something “reasonable” it’s all I could come up with.  We loved Jesus.  Therefore, we took the shorter straw. 

“It could be,” I said, “that we’re in this kind of place, where we actually see the need to ‘give away advantages at the bargaining table’ that we were called to make ‘bad deals” as the President calls them, because we really do love Jesus.  That sounds like something Jesus would do, and would want us to do, too.” 

This kind of reason rarely makes any practical or “reality” sense—and it connected with my conversation partner in the way you might expect—it was a crazy way to suggest what our national motivations might have been or could have been.  Pigs might be flying in Iowa or hell might be frozen over in Texas, too.  But this does seem to be how the gospel works—when someone makes an economic sacrifice for another’s gain, because that’s the kind of thing Jesus does. 

I know this will not make any sense at all to TV pundits or bureaucrats enacting the President’s “tweets.”  I’m afraid they can’t possibly hope to get it.  Not even after years of therapy and education.  They don’t believe like I do! 

But, the people of Jesus—the whole world over—do get it.  And we should not be deterred in the meantime. 

It was a fleeting moment of clarity. 

It was Pentecost, after all.