c. 2003 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C.)

(UNDATED) Sunday brings two surprises.

In morning sunshine, we visit our almost finished house and discover two men climbing ladders. They are installing gutters.

This is manna for us. It means our builder can call for final inspection tomorrow. If the house passes, we can close on Friday and move in on Saturday. A 10-month ordeal might end.

Along toward evening comes the second surprise. A friend invites our youngest son to attend a church youth group event. I sense a door opening. Something we have wanted for our son might come to pass.

Which, if any, of these events comes from God? I am grateful for both, and it is tempting to see God’s smile in both surprises. But is that the way God works?

The gutter project might be termed a “closed-economy” event. This work crew chose to be here, rather than someplace else. If this was already a work day for them, they chose to complete our project, rather than someone else’s. Is there another prospective homeowner gnashing his teeth over gutters not yet done?

Or if Sunday work is outside the normal schedule, are there wives and children wishing dads were home? Do we have gutters because someone else had breakfast alone?

Life poses such choices all the time, but are they of God? Would God build our house at the expense of someone else’s dream? Would God keep two men away from their families? In a closed economy, you see, one gets and another doesn’t get. One consumes, and another goes without.

The youth surprise, by contrast, is an “open-economy” event. This group has room for more. My son’s friend has a generous spirit. I doubt that anyone will be denied entrance so that my boy can attend. At church suppers, casseroles tend to multiply.

Many believers see God’s providence in all events that please them, and God’s judgment in all events that displease. But I think we need to be more discerning than that.

Closed economies are our creation, not God’s. It is we who manipulate supply and demand. It is we who invented contract law, property ownership and political systems grounded in self-interest. It is we who divided humankind into haves and have-nots. In a world of not enough, it is we who worry about someone else taking what we have.

If God were in the business of blessing one segment of humanity at another’s expense, I seriously doubt that God would choose white Americans driving SUVs over children starving in Africa. Those are our choices.

God’s Spirit, according to the Pentecost account, filled the room to overflowing, so that goodness had to flow out into the streets. The disciples, like most people most of the time, were hiding from a hostile world. The Spirit invaded their safe place and lifted them beyond a need to hide.

God’s Spirit is like a fire that transforms and energizes. God causes people to move beyond barriers like language and race. In a world of not enough, God creates more _ more love, more decency, more kindness, more healing, more honesty.

On the Day of Pentecost, God inspired his disciples to speak in every language of the world outside their door. Not four of the 16 languages, or eight, or all but one, but every language, from Parthian to Arabic.

Worldly politics will always be concerned with allocating limited goods and services. In the competition for benefits, some will claim God as their special champion. They will argue that their race, their class, their gender or their religious conviction deserves a larger share. Many of the prosperous routinely count themselves among the angels.

But God, I believe, is sending fire into closed rooms to transform closed hearts and to open closed minds. Although Pentecost became the occasion for yet another form of elitism _ an open-economy initiative turned into closed-economy one-upmanship _ the day itself was about more, not less.

God’s dream is a garden where all are fed, a transformed land where the meek and poor are lifted up, where leopard and lamb lie down together, where personal well-being is grounded in equity, not jealousy, and no one fights to keep someone else out.

DEA END EHRICH