The Holy Spirit plays right field

 

Numbers 11: 24-30
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
May 24, 2026 – Pentecost Sunday

Photo of a baseball glove with a baseball tucked inside, laying on a grassy field with trees in the background and blue sky with puffy white clouds.

Anyone here ever get picked last for the team, or at least not in the top five? Maybe you know what it’s like to sit on the bench or to be not included at all. It’s not a great feeling, but as I’ve heard it said, “Sometimes it's the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine."



In 1986, Peter, Paul, & Mary released a song entitled “Right Field”. It’s about a kid who gets stuck in the baseball equivalent of exile, where they can’t do any harm to the team. The kid is resigned to their place in the world—“you can be awkward, you can be slow, that’s why I’m in right field”—and because not much is expected of them, they don’t pay attention to the inning or what the score is, so they’re just watching the dandelions grow. Then suddenly the whole team is yelling, everyone is looking their way, they’re pointing up to the sky, the kid looks up, and a baseball falls right into their glove.



It’s how I imagine these two characters in the story from Numbers—Eldad (el-dawd) and Medad (meh-dawd), names that essentially mean no one in particular but beloved by God. Why this story for Pentecost? Because there are times the story from the book of Acts feels sentimentalized and domesticated, which is so not the Holy Spirit.



The book of Numbers is truly less than sentimental and more than domestic. It’s about the messy process of how we form community. It’s not all that different from today’s world. People grumble about leadership, whose voices will be amplified, who can be trusted, and not surprisingly there’s a lot of pushback. They’re in the desert, so naturally food and water are an issue; there are dangers to be faced. And so it all begins with a census in which all the members of the tribes of Israel are counted.



Moses has led the people from Mt. Sinai to the land bordering Canaan. He has help from his sister Miriam and his brother Aaron as well as Joshua who will eventually succeed him. He also has a group of seventy men subordinate to him, in effect a large group of elders who have been registered to receive the spirit from God after it comes to Moses and to then prophesy—to assist in proclaiming God’s vision for God’s people—but also to help put a lid on their rebellious ways. Moses and the elders leave the people in the camp and gather in the tabernacle or tent to commune with God and receive revelation. Above the tent a cloud of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night signify to the people that God is present and power and authority rest with those under the tent. It creates an expectation that this is how things will go down. This is how God will speak.



Except for one day when two of the elders are still in camp and the others have gone to the tent with Moses. Eldad and Medad are in the biblical equivalent of right field when the biblical equivalent of a baseball falling into a glove happens to them. Even though they were not with Moses in the tent, they still prophesied. The spirit of God rested upon them without it having rested on Moses first. In the camp, among the people. One rabbinical scholar speculates that these two were not included in the seventy; another interpretation is that God bestowed the spirit upon Eldad and Medad because of their humility, in that they stayed behind because they did not seek leadership.

Rabbi David Frankel offers a third approach: Eldad and Medad were defying Moses and his leadership, that they refused to go with him and the other elders. Rather than be counted as sycophants, as part of the God squad that would in a sense police the crowd, they stayed in the camp with the people and prophesied from there. God rewarded them not for their humility but for their audacity to claim spiritual authority without an intermediary. Others who witnessed this cried foul—they’re speaking out of turn, they don’t have permission, we can’t control the spin—but Moses himself recognized that indeed it would be better if all God’s people were prophets and capable of vision.



We are currently living through a time in which there are people claiming that there is only one right way to be Christian. Those who ascribe to that one right way, could say one White way, are working vigorously to silence the voices of women, immigrants, queer and trans people, people of color, First Americans, disabled and neurodivergent people, those without wealth, and the unhoused, anyone who is not part of the dominant class.



In her poem “Liturgy for Empire”, the Rev. Allison Burns-LaGreca laments:


“Tell me,
When did we trade the basin and towel for golden platforms?
When did we confuse domination with discipleship?
Who taught us that cruelty could wear the face of righteousness
if spoken loudly enough?”


She goes on.


“I am tired.
Tired of Christianity that performs holiness while children starve.
Tired of prayers that rise beautifully to heaven
while justice suffocates below.
Tired of churches more comfortable with power than prophecy.”



The Spirit cannot be, will not be contained. She speaks when and where she feels like it. She is, They are loud and quiet, shouting at a protest and on social media, singing with drag queens, whispering comfort to a child crying for a deported parent, breathing calm in the voting booth. The Spirit does not elevate one above others but levels the playing field, poured out on all ages, all genders, all flesh.



What we are living through is a spiritual movement, one that cannot be contained by one religion or any religion. Author Brian McLaren calls it a meta-movement, an epoch in the making, from the old humanity marked by war, oppression of the poor, self-interest, concentration of wealth and power, nationalism, and self-destruction, toward a new humanity of wholeness, liberation, solidarity, renewal, and interdependence.



What the old humanity cannot abide is a new humanity whose sole foundation is love. Love that is expansive. Love that is extravagant. Love that is unconditional. The CEO of the King Center in Atlanta, Dr. Bernice King states that social justice is love applied to systems, policies, and cultures—something we have only begun to learn and to apply. Love that heals us instead of hate that wounds us. Love that calls us to rise up instead of self-interest that only makes us sink lower. Love that unites us instead of fear that divides us.



Rep. Justin Jones of Tennessee says that “we must send a message that if they come for one of us, they come for all of us”. He goes on to say, “Our struggles are connected. We must have an intersectional movement that lifts up racial justice, that lifts up queer justice, that lifts up immigrant justice, that lifts up gender justice, that lifts up economic justice. We must stand united.”



All of us, all ages, all genders, all flesh, the very earth herself, we are all prophets, we are all truthtellers. All of us have been given that spirit of truth and love. All of us can speak truth to power. All of us are capable of proclaiming, imagining a vision of wholeness for all people. The Holy Spirit plays right field not only because she’s a team player, but because it's the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine.



“Here in right field, it's important you know
You gotta know how to catch, you gotta know how to throw
That's why I'm here in right field, just watching the dandelions grow.”

Benediction – enfleshed.com


We go in faith that the Spirit is moving, even when we cannot perceive it.
She is stirring in quiet places.
She is luring hearts with beauty and desire.
She is growing like a fire, embers burning brighter each day.
Let us open our hearts to her work of love,
readying ourselves for endings and beginnings.
For God’s work is always simmering,
and the holy potential for the renewal of all things surrounds us.
As the Spirit goes with us, peace will be our companion.