Pentecost, the birthday of the church. The day when the Holy Spirit visited the followers of Jesus with the touch of flame. As United Methodists, that flame, the flame of Pentecost, is embodied in our logo. This is a big deal to us.

And so every year we read the same scripture, and we chuckle about whether or not the people thought the disciples were drunk, ha ha, but no, it’s only 9am!

But there’s something else going on there. A kind of desperation to disparage anything that might have sprung from the message of Jesus. Because the nay sayers only had one response to hide behind, and it didn’t make any kind of sense at all.