Pentecost Sunday, Morning Worship, June 8, 2025
Sermon: “In a Moment” by Judah Brown
Accompanying Scripture: Acts 2: 1-21

In a Moment

A Pentecost Monologue by Judah Brown

I stood at the edge.
Not just the edge of the crowd—no—
the edge of belonging.
The sort of edge you don’t see
until you’re leaning too far forward,
hoping someone, anyone, will pull you back in. Or push you off.

They were talking.
But not to me.
But not like me.

Their words curled around each other like smoke—
foreign, fragrant,
beautiful in ways that burned
Like an evident incense that is hidden in a corner.

I always follow.
Well, I always try.
But their language is a locked door,
And I’ve never been given the key,
Never been given the chance to fly.

My mother’s tongue is soft—
earthy, guttural, old, comforting.
Here, it rolls unwelcome in the throat,
like a stone that refuses to smooth.
Here, I swallow it.

But something changed.
There was a wind—
Not all too loud, but altogether present,
The way grief is present at a birth.
The way peace is present at a funeral.

And then—
A sound like fire, but without the fury.
Like warmth before it burns.
Like royal walls beaking open
and not being afraid of the sound.

They say it was tongues of flame.
But no—
It wasn’t fire I felt.
It was recognition.
It was me.

A language that burned in my heart,
Not with fire and hostility,
But with warmth, comfort, and familiarity.

One of them—his face was cracked with light—
he looked out, past the men in robes,
past the ones who’d already found their place.
He looked and his eyes caught mine.
Not like I was strange.
Not like I was other.
Like I was waiting.

And then he spoke.
And the light switched on.
My tongue—my true tongue—heard him.
Not filtered. Not flattened.
Not translated like a second-rate truth.

He said:
This is for you.
Yes, you.
The girl on the edge.
The one whose name was never written down,
But is always sung softly by heaven.

I wept.
Not because I was overwhelmed—
But because I was seen.
Like how fire is made to rage hot,
But is often comforting in warmth

Many don’t know what it’s like
To live a whole life
As an unfinished sentence,
Found in the run-ons and the comma splices,
To speak and not be heard.
To listen and never understand.
To feel the hush of the sacred
always just out of reach.

But then, suddenly—
no gap.
No guesswork.
Just God
in the rhythm of my language.

It was a light switch.
Not a sunrise.
Not a slow reveal.

But a sudden flick—
a “yes” in the middle of all my “maybes”.
A voice that didn’t ask me to climb higher
but stepped down into my world,
wearing my words like holy robes.

And I knew—
this wasn’t a story for the chosen few.
This was for the cracked,
the waiting,
the silent.
For those with ashes in their mouths
and songs in their bones.

For me.
And maybe—
if you’re still listening—
for you.