Pentecoastal

email from Gaspar Stephens [dateline: San Francisco. May 19, 2018]

Pentecost. The birth of the [expletive deleted] Church. When the Holy Spirit, till May ad 33 not even a silent partner in the Trinity, a metaphor (for God’s sake), wafted in on his sticky scent and the disciples, sniffing the air, first pondered becoming bishops.

     Pentecost. On which Peter had the first inkling he could be Pope. And he came up with the “Rock” fairy tale and “the keys of the kingdom” scholium and the next day began telling it everywhere to insinuate it into the memories of people who couldn’t have been there but wished they were. Matthew’s dad, for instance.

     And contrary to folk wisdom, or by yet another “miracle,” the Rock picked up moss as it rolled down the hill, and the moss added soil and grass, and stones grew out of the stone, from which a great palace could be built, and out of the soil came a bush that bore fine clothing instead of fruit, white robe and golden slippers and tiara, that whoever put them on would become Pomposus I, the new Chief Pharisee.

     And that, Teddie, is why we go to church.*

05.20.18

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 * You know how bad I am at this. But I cobbled together this illustration for a summer’s Vacation Bible School, “The Book of Acts, or How the Church Became God.”