Last week’s Ascension story at the very beginning of Acts tells us that Jesus’ friends were looking up at the sky after he ascended to the heavens. Messengers dressed in white appeared and said why are you looking up? He’s gone now. The mystifying reality and the energy of the Jesus movement had come to a halt.With Jesus gone the disciples went upstairs and locked the door, so afraid of being found. So afraid of what would happen if the wrong people found out that they were associated with the one who had been crucified. The fear was tangible. It was consuming. So they hid.

My privilege is such that I don’t know this fear. But I do know that many do. This experience of locking the door as a barrier from the threats that lay behind it has become a bodily reality for far too many. At this very moment far-away neighbors are hiding in shelters from threats of warfare. Neighbors nearby are hiding in churches, desperate to keep their families together. Women are hiding in safehouses from partners turned abusers. Friends are hiding their identities in order to keep their jobs or their families. Our broken world is full of fear that hides behind locked doors. The threats are real. The fear is real. And the reality is, not everyone is in a place to break free from those shackles. We’ve got a lot of work to do until that day comes.

But this Pentecost message today is for those who have locked our doors out of another kind of fear. For those, like me, who are so overwhelmed sometimes by the need that it is just easier to shut the blinds and lock the doors. This message is for those of us who cower away from the threats that keep our neighbors suppressed, because there just seem to be too many of them. This message is for those of us who too often choose fear over courage, not out of necessity, but out of convenience. And the message for us on this holiest of Pentecosts is this: let the Holy Spirit in. If you still yourself and quiet your heart, you can hear the knocking. The Spirit is ready to bust down the door. She is actively waiting to animate our very selves, to set our hearts on fire, to lead us through a thrown open door into a world that desperately needs our ministries. The Spirit is here, the Spirit is ready, and a closed door is no barrier— but a closed heart is. We have to choose to let her in.

While the apostles were no doubt surprised by the Spirit’s grand entrance into the upper room, the concept of a Spirit would not have been new for them. In Hebrew Scripture the term used to define Spirit was Ruah, meaning breath, or wind. Liberation theologian Leonardo Boff describes ruah as “a primitive force that breaks the conventional patterns of human behavior.” Ruah is the force that stirs things up. That works outside of convention. That pays no mind to the way things have been. Ruah is uncontrollable– it blows where it wills. It is the great animating force that defies convention and breathes new life. It fills all of creation—  and it can be embodied in humanity… if we are receptive to its nature. If we open ourselves to creativity, to a new kind of courage, to possibilities yet to be named.  If we let it in.

So while the apostles were left stunned at Jesus’ sudden absence, they were given the greatest parting gift: his animating Spirit. The force that flows through all of existence, the force that animates and creates and stirs things up, channeled by the divine love of God into their very beings. And with the Spirit on their side, how could they be afraid? They opened the door and they never looked back. Can we do this too? Can we make the choice, on this Pentecost Sunday, to open our hearts to the Spirit who has come a’knockin’, to see that our fear is no match for what we can do when we are empowered by her animating force? Lift the window shades. Throw open the door. The world needs you, and the Spirit will show you the way.