Flaming Disciples

The story goes that the disciples were on fire that day.
They were celebrating the day of Pentecost, which commemorates the day Moses brought the commandments down from the mountain of the Lord. When Moses came down from the mountain, his face was radiant with the presence of the Lord-- so shiny the people couldn't bear to look at him and asked him to cover his face. Moses was the one who first heard the voice of God coming from a burning bush that was not consumed. God was present with Moses, and through the law which Moses brought to the people, God was present with all the people who followed Moses, and with their descendants forever.
As they were all together, praying, and celebrating how God was present with Moses, suddenly they experienced the powerful presence of God for themselves, first-hand, in the wind and the fire. It was the gift of the Holy Spirit, the same spirit which was with Moses and Elijah and Jesus.
That is the second chapter of Acts, the Acts of the Apostles, which really ought to be called the Acts of the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit is the power that inspires and moves (sometimes literally moves) every act in the book. The Spirit moves like a fire, setting hearts aflame with passion for God and for each other and for all the people, friend and foe, slave and master, prisoner and jailer. The Holy Spirit seems to have no standards at all. Whatever, whoever is combustible will catch the Holy Spirit's fire.
The real wonder is why some people seem to be flame-retardant.
When the apostles received the Spirit they began to tell the story of God's saving love, and everyone could hear and understand. Except those who couldn't. Some people just thought they were aflame with a different kind of spirit, the kind that comes in wine skins.
But note that the apostles didn't spend a moment agonizing over those who didn't "get it." They continued to move with the Spirit, to speak as the Spirit gave them the ability, to go wherever the Spirit led, and to allow that they did not own the Spirit of God, rather, the Spirit used them. As the Spirit of God uses us, to reach others.
We burn with the Spirit and yet we are not consumed-- like the burning bush in the Moses story. When we come together to worship, we devote yourself to prayer, which is perhaps the drying room for damp tinder, and perhaps lifting our voices in song is the bellows that makes the flame burn brighter. So we can go out, flaming with the Spirit of the Lord, ready to share the love of God, in ways that all people can hear and understand, and catch fire. Amen.