am I confused?

Homily

Solemnity of Pentecost

5 June 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Am I confused?

I hope I am.  I hope you are too.  

Not hopelessly and helplessly confused, mind you, but confused in such a way that I yearn for the Spirit's gift of understanding to reveal deeper truths than I could ever figure out on my own.

I was certainly confused a couple weeks ago talking to Diane.  On a mission trip to Peru, the language barrier was tough. But like the Pentecost narrative, in the end, Diane and I arrived at understanding!

I traveled to Peru with 12 KU students and missionaries. The real miracle of the trip was 26 negative COVID tests out of 26!  Praise God!  

Yet guess how many of us spoke Spanish?  None of us, of course.  Silly Americans!  We had all piddled with languages but mastered none.

Well, on the rocky hills overlooking Lima, we couldn't rely on others to speak English. Diane, as I came to find out, is a mother of four and grandmother of four.  There she was with us, grandma, building a retaining wall by hand trying to make these desolate hills a little safer and better.

During a lunch break, the Spirit told me to go talk to Diane, despite the language barrier.  I was scared too, but I did anyway.  I am fascinated with the politics, history, economy and faith in Peru.  Yet all these things ran through the story of Diane in a very personal way.  As different as we were, it turned out that we are the same. Imagine that.  As St. Paul says, we are both children of God through the Spirit of God dwelling in us, both of us united in caring more about the life of the Spirit than that of the flesh.  In the end, the Spirit guides both of our desires to live not for ourselves but for love and relationship.

So we had a chat, though most of the communication was non-verbal.  Thank goodness I had a data signal, and could look up a few farming words on google to keep the conversation moving.  We talked for an hour, maybe my best conversation of the year, the one that converted me the most.  We ended the communication with communion, the Spirit's gift of understanding.

Am I confused?

The gift of going to Peru was the gift of confusion.  Why go so far, when there are plenty of problems here at home?  It's to be confused as much as possible, to be disoriented so that I can unlearn my own limited self-understanding.  Being bothered, confused and uncomfortable is a good place to be, for the understanding the Holy Spirit can gift from this experience moves me beyond my self-reliance on what I can figure out on my own.

Kyler, one of our students, was bothered by people who were not ashamed to share their poverty with us.  He learned how not hiding my weakness allows the Holy Spirit to reveal new things.

That's Pentecost, friends.  A new understanding that is gifted out of confusion, a truth that is encountered in relationship that is far beyond my default selfish quest to figure out how to get greater control of my life.

The way of the Spirit instead is to engage the questions I don't have the answers to yet.  It's to rely on the Spirit to reveal the hidden mysteries of God. It's ever more amazing to me what God chooses not to be in control of, that He might, as Jesus says, make His dwelling with us, experiencing things as we do.  God could control whatever He wants, yet the Spirit guides a path of patience and weakness, revealing a greater love and understanding out of the messy circumstances of life.

I hope this Pentecost I am more confused that ever.  That would bring a new hunger not for what I can get figured out by myself, but for the Spirit's gift of understanding.

I invite you to ask yourself this Pentecost.  Am I confused?