In this episode of the Voices in My Head podcast, host Rick Lee James delivers a Pentecost‑centered sermon recorded during a cool‑down walk. He opens with a parable of ducks in a church to illustrate how many believers settle for comfort rather than the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. Drawing on Acts 2, he describes Pentecost as a dramatic outpouring of God’s breath—wind, fire, and tongues—contrasting the quiet, dove‑symbolized Spirit with a wild goose that is loud, unpredictable, and messily powerful. He links Jewish mysticism’s view of Yahweh as the sound of breath, inviting listeners to inhale and exhale the divine name. The sermon argues that the Spirit’s arrival birthed a movement focused on justice, communal sharing, and crossing societal boundaries, not merely a theological doctrine. Rick calls listeners to embody this Pentecostal spirit by speaking up against injustice, engaging in public faith, and embracing personal and collective repentance. He concludes with practical encouragement to “fly” like the wild goose, followed by a personal update about his board certification studies and upcoming worship events in Ohio, inviting prayers and participation.
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Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host, Rick Lee James. I'm so glad that you are here with us again today. It is going to be a message today that I record as I do my cool-down walk after my run. This is likely going to be the sermon that I share this Thursday in chapel, so the chapel at the hospital, in our service that we do every week. Um, but I wanted to share it because this coming Sunday, at least at the time of recording this, is Pentecost Sunday. And so today is going to be a Pentecost-centered episode. So first off, welcome back to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of Rick Lee James. I am your host, and today we are going to step into the fire, wind, and breath of podcast. And this is not going to be your typical Dove-printed-on-the-bulletin podcast reflection. Today, we're going to be chasing the wild goose. So buckle up, or better yet, let's go and see where the Spirit leads us today. So let me begin with a story. It's a story you may have heard before. There was once a church full of ducks. Every Sunday, they waddled into the duck church and sat there in their duck pews. They listened to the duck preacher quack from the duck Bible. Week after week, the duck preacher proclaimed, "Ducks, God has given you wings. You can fly, soar like eagles, escape the barnyard fences. You were made to be free." And the ducks all quacked, "Amen." And then they waddled home. That's a story from Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher and theologian. And if you're anything like me, that story, that parable, it hits a little too close to home. Because deep down, many of us know we've been playing it safe with God. We like to talk a big game about being transformed, about walking in the Spirit-filled life, but then we waddle right back to comfort. Now let's go to Pentecost. In Acts 2 is where it takes place in the Bible. It's a day of fulfillment. The Spirit of God shows up not with calm music and scented candles, not with little praise choruses, but not with, uh, quiet times around the altar, but Well, kind of quiet times around the altar that turn into something more. But the Holy Spirit shows up with rushing winds, with tongues of fire, kind of like this dog barking at me out here this morning. And suddenly people are speaking languages that were foreign to them. The crowd is so startled they accuse the disciples of being drunk. There's noise, there's chaos, there's confusion. And somehow that was the moment that God chose to launch his church. If that were to happen in most churches today, we might call security. 'Cause we like our Holy Spirit like we like our Sunday mornings, respectable. Quiet, keeping the schedule. But the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is not polite and quiet in that way. The Celtic Christians, or maybe it's Celtic Christians depending on if you're a basketball fan, they got this. They didn't use a dove to symbolize the Spirit. They used a wild goose. Unpredictableness of a goose. The loudness of a goose. The messiness of a goose. Walk through a yard near geese and you'll see what I mean. The wild goose doesn't ask permission to land. It honks, it flaps, it startles, and it moves. You ever seen a flock of geese walking in front of moving cars and the cars all stop? You ever seen a traffic jam caused by these little geese? Stopping traffic? And maybe, just maybe, we've been trying to cage that wild goose of the Holy Spirit up because the wildness scares us. Well, let's stop for a moment. Going back to last week's podcast episode, let's take a breath, literally inhale the word of God, Yahweh. Inhale. Yah. Exhale. Weh. Jewish mystics have for a long time taught that the name of God, Yahweh, is the very sound of our breathing. The first sound we make when we enter the world as babies is God's name. The last sound on our lips as we die, it's God's name. The breath in our lungs is a reminder. We live and move and have our being in the God who is revealed in the Holy Spirit, who is this wild goose. So what happened at Pentecost? God's breath became wind. God's presence became fire. God's Spirit was poured out on everyone. Old men dreamed dreams, young women prophesied, as Scripture says. Poor workers and foreign travelers alike. They suddenly belonged together. The church didn't just gain a new theology that day, The church was birthed. It got a new identity. It's not a building, it's not a doctrine, it's not a particular theology. It's a movement. It's a people that are set on fire by the Holy Spirit. And this fire was not about emotional highs. It burned into justice for the people. It led them to share their goods together, to hold all things in common, to confront injustice, to cross boundaries of race, gender, class, and tribe. It was the Spirit in action. Socially and politically, it was in action. It was the Kingdom of God made real on earth. Now I said in action, two words, not inaction as one word. It was in motion. It was action, like Action Comics, my favorite Superman comics. It was full of life and power and strength. So here is the good news, the gospel for us today. We don't have to stay in the barnyard. Being tame animals. We were not meant to waddle like ducks down the street when we were given wings. The Spirit of God is not waiting in the rafters in the sanctuary. The Spirit is already out there, spilling into the streets and the margins, into the mess. And when we step into that space, when we move with the Spirit, It's a little scary, but it's also thrilling. Not because it's easy, but because it's true. It's scary and thrilling. You and I are called to be Pentecost people. People of breath. People of fire. People who fly when others waddle. And this is what the flying looks like for us, because we're not literally ducks. When we fly as followers of the Holy Spirit, this wild goose, it looks like speaking up when injustice is normalized. It looks like loving when hate seems easier. It looks like creating when the world says destroy and cut. It looks like marching, voting, protesting, and praying for the kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. So what can we do now? We can fly. We can follow this wild goose. We can open our lungs to the breath of God willingly, breathing the name Yahweh. And we move where the wind leads us. Sometimes that means going public with our faith. Not in a way that is a performance, but in an embodied way, a way that looks like Jesus, even if we don't speak any words at all. Sometimes it means repenting personally and collectively for ways that we have tried to cage the Holy Spirit. And sometimes it means stepping into conversations we've avoided. Standing with people we have ignored, using our voices to comfort the disturbed and to disturb the comfortable. But all this means that in order to do that, in order to truly be filled with the Holy Spirit, we have to be willing to be ducks who will fly instead of waddle. It's time to stop waddling. It's time to take flight because Pentecost didn't end back in the book of Acts. It wasn't a one-time event. It's a daily invitation to breathe deeply of the Spirit and to act with fire. So wherever you are today, take a moment to breathe. Inhale. Aah! Exhale, "Wey!" You are already speaking God's name. And just a closing thought today. Pentecost, the celebration that happened in scripture, it was actually a celebration of the day the Ten Commandments were given, when the law was written on stone tablets. But as scripture reminds us, When the Spirit comes, the law will not be written on stone tablets, but on hearts of flesh. And that is what we see on the day of Pentecost. Well, thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host, Rick Lee James. I've got things coming down the pike. I don't know exactly when. I'm working on my competencies right now so I can head for board certification and I would appreciate your prayers. I would covet them. It's a lot of work. The degree is done, but certification is a whole other animal, and I assume it's going to take me at least another year to be ready to go before the boards. So please keep me in prayer on that. But this weekend I'll be playing on Pentecost Sunday in West Moulton, Ohio. We'd love to see you there. I've got a couple dates coming up in Springfield, Ohio, and some others beyond that I think that we're working on down the road. But doing some recording in the studio again as I have a chance. And, uh, just busy with family and life. So have a great day. Thank you for listening to Voices in My Head. And God bless you as you go. Keep following that wild goose of the Holy Spirit today. Amen.
