May 24 - “The Holy Spirit in Human Hands”
Meditation May 24, 2026
Kyle Tong
Good Morning!
This is Memorial Day Weekend. First created in 1869 as Decoration Day
to honor those who died in the Civil War, it later became a National
Holiday to memorialize all who sacrificed their lives in War. Let’s Start
off this morning with a throwback to the 1950s and the television
gameshow Name that Tune. I am going to play a brief selection of two
songs based around the Civil War and I want you to NAME THAT TUNE!
The first one I suspect is easy as most of us are either as they say in the
South “YANKEES” or transplants. (Battle Hymn of the Republic)
The second one may be a li[le more difficult...If you don’t know it is
called (God Save the South)
Let’s examine the lyrics for a moment.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
Chorus:
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
God save the South, God save the South,
Her altars and firesides, God save the South!
Now that the war is nigh, now that we arm to die,
Changing our battle cry, "Freedom or death!"
Changing our battle cry, "Freedom or death!"
God be our shield, at home or afield,
Stretch Thine arm over us, strengthen and save.
What tho' they're three to one, forward each sire and son,
Strike till the war is won, strike to the grave!
Strike till the war is won, strike to the grave!
God made the right stronger than might,
Millions would trample us down in their pride.
Lay Thou their legions low, roll back the ruthless foe,
Let the proud spoiler know God's on our side.
Let the proud spoiler know God's on our side.
Two opposing sides of a war. Both invoking God to justify violence
against the other. The end result, over 600,000 deaths, an end to
slavery, and an attitudinal schism that continues to this day. This has
continued in the 20th and 21st Centuries with genocidal pograms
culminating in the Holocaust of World War II and jihadic actions of 9-11
and its aftermath. In our country today we are once again hearing the
loosing of, “the lightning of his terrible swift sword” with the rhetoric of
Christian Nationalism rising all the way to the highest chambers of our
government.
This is a long way away from the optimistic utopia espoused by the
Pentecost.
How did we get here?
As a historian by training, I look to patterns of the past to examine our
present. Pentecost speaks to the Holy Spirit coming to the apostles and
Mary in the “Upper Room”. The spirit speaks in many tongues—
universal language—it is a gift for each individual and their maker—a
personal relationship. In the early church the Good News was spread by
individuals at great risk throughout the Mediterranean basin to tight-
knit communities who were often martyred by Empire. The people
were making a personal choice of accepting the spirit at great mortal
risk.
This changed with Constantine. The Roman Emperor Constantine
“converted”, some say co-opted, Christianity during his reign and
transformed the Church by giving it legitimacy within the Empire and a
structure—hierarchical in nature that mirrored the Roman political
structure. The Roman Catholic Church maintains much of this structure
to this day.
The Church had changed. From a loose confederation based around the
shared experience of belief in God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit to
an institution, the papacy, based on human leadership and decision-
making—divinely inspired.
The Holy Spirit was now in human hands.
Over the next centuries Christianity was used as a rationale for conflict
that then many times erupted into violence and war. The first notable
European-wide altercation involved Jerusalem and Islam. What
followed was an on-again, off-again struggle for control of the Holy Land
claimed by both faiths which lasted for several centuries. The Crusades
and the Crusaders, who came from throughout Christian Europe, were
called to action by the papacy. The end result, was great loss of life and
an on-going antipathy between Islam and Christianity (Onward Christian
Soldiers)
At the time of the Protestant Reformation Christianity’s conflict turned
internecine. The flux over control of the Church and who had the power
led to bloody conflict between states allied with the Catholic Church,
Lutheranism, Calvinism, and the peasant anabaptists in Switzerland.
When the dust settled by the end of the 1600s between 6-16 million
people were dead. In some areas up to a third of the population was
lost. (A Mighty Fortress is our God)
Then Christianity was matched up with Imperialism. By the Treaty of
Tordesillas of 1494 brokered by Pope Alexander VI the non-European
world was divided between Portugal and Spain in the middle of the
Atlantic. The plan was to make the heathen world Christian by
employing the “Cross and the Sword”. Spain conquered much of the
Americas through aggression while Portugal controlled Brazil and parts
of Africa and made inroads in coastal Asia. The population of the
Americas was decimated, and in several cases—Caribbean peoples—it
was genocidal.
France and Great Britain also became imperialists—and also colonists—
by displacing the indigenous peoples in North America, South Africa,
and Australia. The population in North America in particular was
destroyed by war, disease, and displacement. The justification for this
treatment of their fellow neighbors was that they were heathens.
The Civil War was fought over the issue of the humanity of black people
and the justification of slavery due to the belief amongst many in the
south that black people were heathens, thus not privileged to have the
rights of humankind.
Human structures have lethal outcomes. The message of Christ was lost
in the foibles of human systems and the human condition.
Set in this light, this is a brutal tale that causes one to despair about
their Christian faith. I know I have gone down that rabbit hole at times.
But on this Pentecost Sunday the shades are pulled back and the
window is opened with the fresh smells of spring. Its simplicity is the
key to the beginnings of a way forward.
Mary and the apostles were imbued with the Holy Spirit and were able
to communicate the good news universally—through simplicity, the
Holy Spirit.
Where is the Holy Spirit?
It was in the hands of Mother Theresa gently holding the head of a
dying child telling them that they were loved.
It was in the eyes of a Japanese soldier who handed a banana to my
grandmother to give to her children who had not eaten in a long >me as
they were being transported to Bilibid Prison.
It is in the eyes of the volunteers at the Williamstown Food Pantry as
they work with community members to secure them a more stable food
supply and help with energy needs.
It is in the hearts of the congregation when they sing This is my Song
and tears of the spirit spring into their eyes!
It is in a simple embrace or touch. To share your Christian love and
empathy with another!
When we open our eyes, the Holy Spirit is all about us.
How do we share this gift? How do we contribute to the common good?
I frequently think about the last chapter of a short novel by the 18th
Century philosophe Voltaire. After many trials and tribulations, he
comes to a final conclusion, “Cultiver votre Jardin”—cultivate your
garden.
It is within your control to make the world you see and the relationship
you have as positive—as imbued with the Holy Spirit—as possible.
Those moments, both planned and random, are like concentric rings in
a lake. They meet up with others, and others—and your gift is shared
you know not where. It is the Holy Spirit not human hands.
I leave you with a short poem
we live a life of
circles
not of lines
lines are used to
pierce
circles to
restore
