This time of year there are many who are graduating and stepping off in to new adventures. I keep coming back to this prayer, by Merton:
My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot knonw for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact
that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please You does, in fact, please You.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this You will lead me
by the right road through I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust You always though I may seem to be lost
and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear,
for You are ever with me,
and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.
John 20:19-31, Acts 4:23-37 and Psalm 133:1 
On bright warm days like today, I remember swinging peacefully on the wooden swing on the wide porch of an old house. This was on the Phillips University campus, my senior year of college, in Enid Oklahoma. My friends, Robin and John, seminary students, had renovated the old farmhouse. They voluntarily served the community as the Disciples’ Peace House. Their front door was always open, literally. They left the key in the door, so that anyone was welcome to come in, share food, study, discuss theology, philosophy or politics and the world. That hot, muggy summer, I lived there, with Ruby and Bindu, two young Hindu women from Bombay. And with communications professor, Bill Randle, who was famous in the mid-50s as a top DJ in the United States, out of Cleveland and Detroit. (He loved to make chocolate milkshakes!) The house was an unconventional arrangement in a very conventional community. It was a Christian community striving to live in a radically welcoming way. Some people called it reckless. I treasured that community as recklessly generous of heart.
An unlocked door, open to whoever may come! Then, and now, and even in Biblical times, it’s a practical challenge: welcoming the stranger and at the same time, being wise stewards of what we have. Really, nothing is a better illustration than our locked church doors. Over a year ago, because of safety issues for our preschool children, members and staff, we installed a system that secures our doors when we aren’t holding worship services. If you come to Westminster during the week, we will buzz you into the locked building. Or, if you have a regular meeting here, you will get a code to punch in, to unlock the door. From time to time, we have strangers drop in, people who simply want to sit in the sanctuary and pray. When we are able, we accommodate that, with supervision. We strive to be as welcoming as possible, but we are also trying to be safe and good stewards, protecting people and resources. Locked doors can be helpful, but they are not without problems.
On this second Sunday of Easter, our Gospel reading shows that Jesus is not stopped by the locked doors. He seeks out his friends, his loved ones, afraid for their lives, fearful of the religious-political authorities. But the fear and the locks are no bar to Jesus’ presence and power and life.
Christ’s resurrection makes possible our bold living and true generosity. Perhaps the strongest testimony to the resurrection isn’t a well-orchestrated Easter Sunday pageant, or an egg-cracking reminder of the empty tomb, but a group of people whose life together is so radically different, from the way the world builds community, that there can be no other explanation than–Resurrection!
As people of faith at Easter, perhaps the most important question is for us is not: “How could a thing like resurrection happen?” But rather, “Why don’t we look more resurrected?”
Thanks to blogger Peter Wood, who noticed the connection in the Greek text between “kleiso” and “ekklesia.” Kleiso means closed. The called ones, the disciples of Jesus, were afraid, and locked away behind closed doors. So, here John presents us with a closed room containing a closed community. “Kleiso” is linked etymologically to “ekklesia”, the Greek word that came to describe the church! The ekklesia (translated “not closed”) came from the idea of Greek democracy. The ekklesia was one of Greek society’s greatest gifts to the modern world. It was a concept that celebrated freedom from systems of dominance and oppression. It is powerful that the early church mothers and fathers chose ekklesia- not closed, to describe the community of Jesus’ early followers. In the upper room encounter with Thomas, it was clear that the tomb-breaking resurrected savior is not to be cocooned by fear, and neither were the disciples.
In ekklesia: we are summoned out. Not closed, but unsealed, out-ed and free. Called out by God to listen to the voice of God. Jesus breathes his life giving spirit-breath into us. It is as if he is saying “You are not to remain “klesio” you are “ekklesia’. Come out!”
We don’t have to look far to see the negative effects of fear in our lives. We wonder: would things have been different between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman without Florida’s “Stand your ground” law? How was that law, and how much of our nation’s violence, is motivated by fear? There are other fears, too: fear that makes us feel stuck, and fear that shuts out new possibilities. “If I truly express my feelings, will this person judge me?” “If I fail at _____, will I still be loved?” What fear keeps you from fully being yourself?
When do we stay closeted, in our thinking and practice, and in our heart? Closed rooms, closeted disciples, closed minds. It is dreadful what fear will do to disciples.
Cultural anthropologist and writer Ernest Becker noted that as belief in God eroded in Western culture, money assumed a god-like quality in our lives. That leads us back to the passage we heard from Acts.
“Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.”
Well, honestly, preaching on this could label one a communist! The writer of Luke/Acts was not Marxist, but was a realist, knowing that there is a good chance that wherever our possessions are, there are our hearts, also. The same Spirit that made the lame walk, also enabled Barnabas to sell his fields and give the proceeds to the apostles, who then gave to those most in need. Could the power which rolled the stone from the tomb, and broke the bonds of death, also release the tight grip of private property?
The early church was called to be an alternative community. A sign to the world that Christ makes possible a way of life together unlike anything the world has seen. This early church was a gathering of real people who are pulled in different directions by the same real tendencies which tug at us.
Hmm. . .couldn’t we just focus on the hope and beauty of spring, this Easter? Do we really have to get into property and money and such? As we try to get at the heart of why it is so difficult to live by faith, it may be that deep down, we only trust ourselves. Martin Luther wrote that security is the ultimate idol. We are vulnerable people who seek to secure our lives in improper ways, living by our wits, rather than by our faith.
I’ve learned a lot about faithful living in another community: the Benedictine Sisters at Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Indiana. A key part of St. Benedict’s Rule is hospitality. Each person should be welcomed like this: “How happy we are that you have arrived at this very inconvenient moment!” Sr. Joan Chittister, who wrote Wisdom Distilled from the Daily, says that hospitality is not a finishing school activity. It’s not Martha Stewart. It’s not a series of grand gestures at controlled times. Hospitality is an act of the recklessly generous heart. Christian hospitality is a willingness to be interrupted and inconvenienced so that others can get on with their lives as well.
One sign of resurrected life may be reckless hospitality! When we immerse ourselves in Lectio, in God’s good news, and when we let the scripture read us, and our lives, we can’t help but open our minds in ways that radically change our priorities and caring.
Resurrected life together makes us a place where the truth of the oneness of all things shatters all barriers. A point where all the differences of the world meet and melt, where Jew and Gentile, slave and free, woman and man, all come together as equals. When we let unfamiliar people and new ideas into our hearts, we are beginning to shape a new world. Hospitality of the heart could change American domestic policies. Hospitality of the heart could make my world a world of potential friends, rather than a world of potential enemies.
But this hospitality is more than thinking new thoughts or feeling new feelings. . . It’s about opening our lives to others. Opening our doors and our lives requires that, instead of simply turning the newspaper page, or surfing away from the aching need in the world, we try to determine what it is about our own lives that is affecting those who are in need. We have to wonder how we can help the poor at our doorstep, and the poor who live thousands of miles away. Not be overcome with guilt, but to acknowledge that the problem is mine, not someone else’s. It is my door and my heart upon which people are knocking for our attention. Open lives means making a haven for the helpless, being a voice for the voiceless. We learn to take our own sense of home to others. What I would do for my own family and friends, I will do for others.
Hospitality is the way we come out of ourselves. It is the first step in dismantling the barriers of the world. It is the way God turns a prejudiced world around, one heart at a time.
I’m not forgetting that we all have our own lives to live, our own obligations to meet, our own schedules to run. But if we are to receive the breath of the Spirit that Jesus wants to breathe on us, we are going to be living in this world in a different way. In a world where some ministers are too busy to minister; where some wealthy never even see the doorman or cabdriver or cook; where some of the powerful never hear the powerless; in a world deprived of a spirit of hospitality, we are called to open doors and lives with deep, loving hospitality.
Into our moments of fear and surprise, Jesus comes with a message of comfort, “Peace be with you.” And then, Jesus breathes Holy Spirit, so that loved ones become messengers of the good news of what God in Christ. We are empowered to proclaim God’s love for the entire world. Strengthened by the Holy Spirit we can fling open the locked doors of fear.
Margaret Wheatley tells the story of visiting a South African island prison where Nelson Mandela and many others were imprisoned for more than twenty-five years because of their struggle to end apartheid. On Robben Island, there was a long narrow room that had been used as a prison cell for dozens for freedom fighters. They lived in close quarters—no cots or furniture, just cement walls and floors with narrow windows near the ceiling. As she was getting a tour of this closed room, the guide said he had been a prisoner in that very room. The cold came up through the floor as he spoke. They stared through the bars of the door as he described the constant threats they had suffered. Then he paused and said, very quietly: “Sometimes, to pass the time here, we taught each other ballroom dancing.”
That is thinking outside the box! Not closed, unsealed, open and free!
We are all summoned out. And today, especially, Nora May Higgins is summoned out. We will welcome Nora, our newest sister in Christ. Her baptism will be after the silence and hymn. In baptism, we are reminded that it is not that we have chosen one another, but that God has summoned us out, to be the body of Christ, together.
What doors need to open in your life? What fears keep us closed? What would our lives look like, if we were “more resurrected?” What would Westminster look like? What breath of new life is Jesus breathing into you? Into us?
Audio: Fox, Hen and Worm, preached at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 2/28/10
Luke 13:31-35
2nd Sunday in Lent Feb. 28 , 2010
There is an old Spanish proverb that says “An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.” The imagery from scripture this morning of the mothering hen may speak to that. But there are a number of us in this congregation who raise chickens, and have a much more vivid understanding of the lives of chicks and hens.
Mark Neimann Ross, one of our musicians this morning, and the keeper of the hen we met with the children, told me the story of a frizzle hen who had a brood of chicks. In the warm evening light, that sharp-eyed mother hen happened to notice a hawk in the distance. She put out a loud call to her babies to come to the safety of the coop and her wings, and the chicks scattered. Unfortunately, there was one little chick, wandering around in the field, flustered and alone. The hawk was bearing down fast. The mother hen didn’t hesitate. This frizzle sailed to the little one and put her body between the hawk’s talons and her baby. The hawk nailed the hen. Wham! The owner saw the drama unfolding and ran out. She drove away the hawk and found the baby chick, unharmed, under its mother’s wings. Amazingly, the mother hen lived, too.
In the text for today, Jesus laments: “ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 
the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”
The Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor wrote about this passage from Luke: “If you have ever loved someone you could not protect, then you understand Jesus’ lament. All you can do is open your arms. You cannot make anyone walk into them. Meanwhile, this is the most vulnerable posture in the world—wings spread, breast exposed. . . Jesus won’t be king of the jungle in this or any other story. What he will be is a mother hen who stands between the chicks and those who mean to do them harm. She has no fangs, no claws, no rippling muscles. All she has is her willingness to shield them with her own body. If the fox wants them, he will have to kill her first; which he does, as it turns out. He slides up on her one night in the yard while the babies are all asleep. When her cry wakens them, they scatter. She dies the next day, where both the foxes and the chickens can see her—wings spread, breast exposed, without a single chick beneath her feathers.”
The most vulnerable posture in the world. For whom have we opened our arms? And can we accept arms opened for us? Can we follow Jesus in that vulnerability?
This season of Lent, the forty days before Easter, is a time for taking a long, deep look at ourselves, at the dark corners, at the hard truths. Some of that came up for me as I looked carefully at the words we sang in our hymn this morning: “Beneath the Cross of Jesus”, particularly the phrase: “Two wonders I confess: the wonders of redeeming love and my unworthiness.” The “unworthiness” part caught my attention. Is this just an example of the old “worm theology”, you know: “Forgive me God, for such a worm am I?” Is this a vulnerable truth, or just dated theology? To modern ears, this may ring of self-debasement and clashes with the idea of being made in God’s image. But then I thought about how we DO measure our worth. Despite good intentions, don’t we often act as though our worth is based upon the things that we achieve: I’m worthy because of my success, my affluence, my ability to _______ (fill in the blank.) I think too often, we are driven by perfectionism and the need to NOT fail. When we do fail, and we DO, mercy is hard to find.
I think the point of the hymn, is just this: None of us can earn the sort of love and abundant life with which Jesus hopes to enfold us. Nothing we can do merits that grace. We don’t earn that love, we just receive it, like the vulnerable chicks.
Do you find it difficult to walk into those open arms? Whois it that we have a hard time opening our arms to? When do we resist receiving that self-poured out-love? And why? What is it that makes us always want to be the ones in control? Not only did Jesus lament over Jerusalem, but he was also alert to that clever and destructive “fox”, Herod. Herod was the one who beheaded John the Baptist. Another murderous threat was Jerusalem itself, the city of the house of God. A touchstone of the holy, for those within and without the city, the place where Jesus journeyed every year as a child, with his parents for the feast of the Passover. It was in Jerusalem that the prophet Jeremiah was condemned, and barely escaped death. Zechariah, the prophet was killed there.
The Jesus of Luke’s gospel shows that he understood the danger of being a prophetic voice. And while he knew the danger waiting for him in Jerusalem– that place of religious hierarchy, he yearned with love for the people there.
It seems that we live in a time where there is polarization between some who would relativize faith and fear to claim any sort of religious truth; and between those who are so clearly certain of their correct belief that they’re willing to condemn all others. As Yeats wrote: “The best lack all conviction and the worst are full of a passionate intensity.”
But in Jesus, we have a model of passionate commitment to God’s purpose. He will knowingly journey to Jerusalem, to carry out his mission, knowing how dangerous it will be. He is willing to undergo suffering and death, all for love’s sake. It was thirty years ago, next month, that Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador was assassinated. Moments before a sharpshooter felled him, reflecting on scripture, he said, “One must not love one-self so much, as to avoid getting involved in the risks of life that history demands of us, and those that fend off danger will lose their lives.”
This reluctant prophet, Romero, was a surprise in history. The poor never expected him to take their side and the elites of church and state felt betrayed. He was a compromise candidate elected to head the bishop’s episcopacy by conservative fellow bishops. But something happened–within three weeks of his election– that would transform the ascetic and timid Romero.
As a new archbishop, Romero’s first priest, Rutilio Grande, was ambushed and killed along with two parishioners. Grande was a target because he defended the peasant’s rights to organize farm cooperatives. He said that the dogs of the big landowners ate better food than the campesino children whose fathers worked their fields. The night Romero drove out of the capitol to view the priest’s corpse and the old man and seven year old who were killed with him, marked his change. In a packed country church Romero encountered the silent endurance of terrified peasants. Their eyes asked the question only he could answer: Will you stand with us as Rutilio did? Romero’s “yes” was in his action. The peasants had asked for a good shepherd and that night they received one. Oscar Romero gave his last homily on March 24. He was shot as he said the mass. In the movie about his life and death, Romero was standing at the Table, arms extended like wings, in prayer, and his heart vulnerable to the bullet that found him. He had wisdom for the people of his day, and for us. He said, “If some day they take away the radio station from us . . . if they don’t let us speak, if they kill all the priests and the bishop too, and you are left a people without priests, each one of you must become God’s microphone, each one of you must become a prophet.” The most vulnerable posture in the world.
Just this week I read in the Oregonian, that a skinhead group was trying to locate its headquarters in John Day. But the response of the community living there was overwhelming in its opposition to the white supremacists. Hundreds of people in the town of 8,000 or so rallied. Meliana Lysne, who had moved there a couple of decades ago, admitted that when she first came to John Day, she had concerns about racism. But at the meeting she said, “The people of Grant county are beautiful people. They are standing against this. Loving one another is going to break this hatred.” Loving one another–the most vulnerable position.
In this passage from Luke, we have two contrasting pictures of religious zeal–Jerusalem and Jesus. Religious passion drives Jerusalem to murderous ends. Religious passion moves prophets and Jesus to fulfill God’s mission at the cost of their lives.
What sort of posture will we have? Will the church today follow the example of Jerusalem or Jesus? Will we raise our voices to assert our power to defend our turf? What would the world be like if we adopted the most vulnerable posture in the world? What would the world be like if we adopted Jesus’ model of faithfulness to God’s purpose, no matter what? Who would be sheltered in our arms? “A home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way. . . From the burning of the noontide heat, and the burden of the day.”
“Dazzling” audio preached 3/6/11 at Westminster, Portland, OR
Matthew 17:1-9
Transfiguration Sunday
Preached at Westminster, Portland, Oregon
One of my favorite spots on the planet is Point Reyes National Seashore in Marin County in the San Francisco Bay area. Karl and I were visiting the area one March, late afternoon—the time of day when most people have left the beach, and sometimes creatures are out to feed. It was a warm spring-like day. Whale migration was happening, and as we walked along the beach, we were looking for whale spouts. As we walked, something very black and white and dazzlingly shiny caught my eye. It was very near to the shore. I grabbed Karl’s arm and we stopped walking to stand still and look.
After a few minutes, suddenly, a black and white Orca suddenly popped its head out of the water, and looked directly at us. It must have only been about 200 yards away from us. (I’ve learned that this is called spy-hopping.) The orca looked at us and we looked at him: we were nearly eye-to-eye. It seemed like everything was on hold and silent for a few moments. Then the orca simply vanished. Vanished. I kept watching, but there were no spouts, no ripples. No breaching or spy-hopping. The orca simply vanished. I was thrilled! It was “close encounter” that left me breathless. From different worlds, we had seen one another. I still remember that moment. My world became brighter, clearer and more hopeful.
Poet John Ciardi once wrote that we shouldn’t ask “what does a poem mean?” but “how does a poem mean?” The concern is not to arrive at the definition of a poem, but to arrive at an experience. This scripture today—the story of the transfiguration of Jesus– is like that. As I wrestled with how to preach it, it came to me that I should not try to explain the meaning, (which is impossible) but to explore the wonder of it.
As we grow from children into adults, we lose many things. Sometimes, wonder is one of them. I heard recently of an author, Mike Gecan, who went into his child’s kindergarten class and saw a bulletin board illustrating what the students wanted to learn in school that year. Most of the statements were like “behave”; “learn to sit still,” “follow the rules” and “listen to the teacher better.” One child said “I want to know why the ocean shines like fire.” WOW! Now there’s a kid who has the gift of wonder and joy in all of God’s works. We can say a lot about the Transfiguration. But if there’s ever a “WOW” moment in Jesus’ earthly ministry, this is it.
Perhaps that is our invitation this Transfiguration Sunday, the last Sunday of Epiphany, and on the verge of Lent. We are to live like this: we’re to look around and search for those places and events where God reminds us of God’s power and glory and splendor. And it reminds us of our appropriate response: worship. Giving thanks and praise where it is due!
In the shining glory of seeing Jesus changed, transfigured, Peter quickly responded by thinking of a way to prolong the experience. “Lord, I will make three dwellings here. . .” Theologian Karl Barth, said, about Peter’s response is that in experiencing the Holy, the first impulse is to stabilize, to seal shut. But our living, mysterious and glorious God is dynamic, moving and won’t be contained. Can’t you just imagine the awe, confusion, fear those disciples must have felt in that bright cloud? And, their deeper fear as they heard Jesus words: “Tell no one about this vision until after I have been raised from the dead.” Change that would touch each of their lives in the most profound way.
Another reading for today, from 2 Peter 1, considered to be one of the last bits of the New Testament to be written, came to the Christian community that had been waiting two generations for Jesus’ second coming. Why was it taking so long? Change was happening, and the people were impatient and beginning to have doubts about their faith, because of the uncertain future. Here’s verse 18-20 “We ourselves heard this voice from heaven: “This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased. . ..” So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”
What about you, right now? And what about Westminster? How are we with change and uncertainty? Here’s the thing: change is always imminent. Life never stays the same for long. Will we embrace the beautiful, but reject the difficult? Or can we, during the difficult changes, to recall the beautiful? To remember the moments when God seemed close, when light invaded dimness, when some glimpse of what could be broke through the ordinary? Carl Jung said that “All true things must change and only that which changes remains true.” How do we recognize the signs God sends us? Like Jesus, bringing his close friends up the mountain with him, we need our friends to be a witness. To see the signs.
Two weeks ago, I spent eight days of continuing education time at a Presbyterian CREDO conference. Our focus was on assessing where we are at this point in our lives, vocationally, spiritually, physically and financially. We all wondered, before we gathered, what it would be like to explore these areas with 35 other pastors. We came with some fear about what might be revealed, what might change for us. The heart of it all, though, was in our small groups of four. Though we came from very different backgrounds, and viewpoints, we were able to listen carefully to one another. We practiced discernment: that is, we tried to recognize and understand the signs that God is sending us. We were able to see and hear for one another, things we might have missed, on our own. And there were moments, of clarity. Moments when the light dazzled. Moments when we could see a bigger and brighter picture.
I’ve read that in Africa, certain forms of greeting mean, literally “I see you.” This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, and with it the beginning of forty days of Lent. During this season, we hope that you will join one of our small groups that will meet in these days before Easter. It is our hope that in these groups you will “see” one another. Using the resource that David, Melissa and I have created, we hope that you will be able to tell your stories, to listen with the ears of our hearts, and to recognize the signs that God has sent.
I’d like to close with this blessing by John O’Donohue from his book “Anam Cara”, which means “soul-friend.” As we prepare ourselves for the Lord’s Supper, and as we prepare to gather in fellowship and worship, during Lent, I offer this as a blessing for each one of us:
A Friendship Blessing by John O’Donohue
May you be blessed with good friends. May you learn to be a good friend to yourself. May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where there is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness. May this change you. May it transfigure that which is negative, distant or cold in you. May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship and affinity of belonging. May you treasure your friends. May you never be isolated. May you be good to them and may you be there for them; may they bring you all the blessings, challenges, truth and light that you need for your journey.
Matt. 25:31-46; Ezek. 34:11
Sermon delivered at Westminster, Portland, OR on Christ the King Sunday, November 20, 2011
Has anyone here ever raised goats? As I wrestled with the scriptures appointed for today, I became very curious about the differences between sheep and goats. Apparently, goats are more curious than sheep, and they climb. Where the sheep eat only the soft grass, goats tend to trample the grass down, as they are reaching up for twigs and other vegetation. Behaviorally, goats will usually dominate sheep, especially if they have horns. I learned this from an interesting blog, about raising sheep and goats, from someone whose blog-name is “Rosepath.”
“. . . I had no end of trouble raising goats. I finally transitioned to sheep. Goats will constantly test your fences and break them down if they can. While shearing sheep is something of a pain, it is NOTHING compared to constantly finding the hole in the fence where the goat got out, returning the goat to the pasture, fixing the fence, repeat until you go crazy. Like your trees? So do the goats. They’ll eat a circle around the tree bark about goat-head high and the tree will die. Goats just have no fear of God and no regard for man. . . .(Really, that came from the blog—and it wasn’t a religious site!)
This passage from Matthew is challenging in several ways, isn’t it? The judgment is not about right doctrine or good theology, not about personal piety or sexual ethics, not about church leadership or about success in ministry. It’s about how we treat the most vulnerable people in our society. Jesus is basically saying, I’ll know how much you love me by how you treat them. Loving them, you love me. Ignoring them, you ignore me.
Jim Wallace, of Sojourners magazine tells about one of his mentors, Mary Glover. She is from the Pentecostal tradition and lives in Washington D.C., where they both have served many meals to the homeless. She prays this, as a long line of hungry people wait outside in the rain and cold, for a simple bag of groceries, a mere twenty blocks from the White House. This is her prayer: “Lord, we know that you’ll be comin’ through this line today, so Lord, help us to treat you well.”
This is a challenging passage, partly because it is about accountability and judgment.
The Old Testament passage for today, Ezekiel 34, echoes the theme: “For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep. . . I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice. As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God: I shall judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and goats. . .Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? . . .I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged, and I will judge between sheep and sheep.”
I don’t know about you, but this makes me squeamish: the condemnation of the fat goats to eternal fire. Part of what makes me uncomfortable is our human tendency to judgment and separation into groups of those who are “in” and “out”. I can remember quite clearly drawing an imaginary line on my desk at school between me and Matthew Westbrook. I was concerned about “boy-germs” and he was, about “girl-germs.”
And then there those other separations: Rural and Urban. Blue State and Red State. Democrat and Republican. Over 30 and under 30. Gay and Straight. Conservative and Liberal. The 1% and the 99%. And there Jesus stands, not in a stance of forgiveness, but separating the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on his left. The damned and the saved. Not exactly warm and fuzzy scripture on Thanksgiving Sunday.
Did you notice though, that both the righteous, who had fed the hungry, visited the sick and prisoner, and the unrighteous, who did not—both, were surprised by the idea that they had been helping (or not helping) Jesus? This suggests that those who fed the hungry and thirsty, did so, not to avoid eternal punishment, but out of compassion. It was not fear, but love that motivated them.
Lord, help us to treat you well.
Perhaps they understood what German mystic, Meister Eckhart knew: “What happens to another, whether it be a joy or a sorrow, happens to me. . .All things are interdependent.” “There is no such thing as “my” bread. All bread is ours and is given to me, to others through me and to me through others. For not only bread but all things necessary for sustenance in this life are given on loan to us with others, and because of others and for others and to others through us.”
Jesus said, “just as you have done this to the least of these, my family, you have done it to me. Charity can be a benevolence from a “superior” to an “inferior.” But Jesus invites us to give from the love of family, and a sense of one-ness.
Saints and mystics through the ages have known this, that compassion is “feeling with”. Thomas Merton wrote, “The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another and all involved in one another.” Gandhi said, “I am a part and parcel of the whole, and I cannot find God apart from the rest of humanity.” And “. . .for the poor, the economic is the spiritual and God appears only as bread and butter.”
Isn’t it interesting, as over the past months the “Occupy” movement has finally caused some national discussion about economic inequality, the discussion focuses mostly on the middle class, and not the poorest? I think there’s a reason for that. I think it is because we are culture that celebrates the strong. We don’t want to be vulnerable. We don’t want to imagine that we too, could be homeless, sick and hungry, in prison. It is very difficult to look at stark injustice eye-to-eye. I can say this because it’s one of the feelings I have whenever someone on the street approaches me for money.
Lord, help us to treat you well.
We celebrate this Sunday before Advent, as “Christ the King” Sunday. But Jesus redefines kingship and redistributes it, so that each person is king or queen, a royal person with dignity and responsibility to one another and to God. Jesus is a royal person calling especially the poor to their royalty.
The “least of these among us” in our human family may be our primary spiritual directors; they reveal where of God is hidden. And they challenge all of us to a change of heart and lifestyle.
Last month, on the drive toward our staff retreat, I was in my car, waiting for the light to change, right next to an elderly man who was panhandling at the intersection. I usually don’t carry change in my car, but I just happened to notice that I had some money in the car console. So, I rolled down my window, gave him the money, and was about to say to him “God bless you ”, when he beat me to it, looked me directly in the eye and said, with a beaming smile: “God bless you, honey.” It was a moment that felt genuine. I felt that if the roles had been reversed, if I were the one in need, he would have been there for me. And then, after that sweet moment, there was a long, long. . . long pause before the light turned green. That moment of unity was very brief!
Lord, help us to treat you well.
At the Benedictine monastery, my friend, Sister Cecilia says that in each one of us, there is some inner homelessness or longing that is a basic human desire. We extend hospitality by giving attention to one another. That’s how we meet Jesus in the other. We are most welcoming when we are aware of the gifts the guests bring. We can give them charity or attention. Not just a handout, but home, and family and welcome.
Lord, help us to treat you well.
In Tanzania, one of the world’s poorest countries, there is a custom that families eat outside, so that they can welcome the stranger who walks by, to a meal.
What would change in our lives, if we began to look for Christ among the hungry and thirsty? What would be different if we were more aware of seeing Jesus in the sick? Who would we be eye-to-eye with, that we’ve not really seen before? What blocks us from our feeling kinship with the poor? What would change if we asked God to free us from that obstacle? How would we, how would Westminster, and how would our world be different, then?
Matthew 21:33-46 Isaiah 5:1-8
I wanted to belong. I wanted to know what the answers were to the big questions of my life: Would I marry? Would I have children? Would I have a home? Those were the yearnings that simmered inside me when I was graduating from college in Enid, Oklahoma. College life was wonderful, but the summer after graduation, the path ahead was unclear. I was thrilled when a music professor asked if I wanted to house-sit for a month. He and his wife had one young son and a dog. Their home was a lovely, older house in the part of town with big trees and shaded yards. They invited me to make myself at home: eat what is in the kitchen and freezer. I did, and with gusto!
There was so much to enjoy: a wonderful collection of music recordings; a washer and dryer, an outdoor hot tub; a spacious home, filled with light and art. I made omelets that melted in the mouth. I lit all the candles in the living room. I was living the good life—a life that, at age twenty-one—I was eager for, and that seemed so distant. Even the housecleaning was enjoyable. I took pride in knowing that I was leaving their house cleaner than they had left it. But, as the weeks passed, I got a little too comfortable in that borrowed home.
At some point, I realized that the wife and I were near the same size in clothes. It started with wearing a pair of her socks. Then a jacket. And so it was, one evening when I was wearing one of her lovely turquoise blouses, drinking a glass of wine and reading in the den. I didn’t hear the family come in the back door (they were back a day early.) We were all surprised when they walked in and found me looking like I owned the place and everything in it! They were kind, but I could see the question in their eyes. I still blush to think of that moment. Looking back, I realize, I was just a bit too eager to use what wasn’t mine.
Whose is the vineyard? Whose is Creation? To whom do we belong?
Have you ever taken what wasn’t yours? Or maybe a sense of entitlement took hold and you crossed a boundary that you knew you shouldn’t cross? If we zoom out and ask these questions at the global level, about our sense of ownership and entitlement, it gets uncomfortable, doesn’t it?
Covetousness: wanting what someone else has. Some of us wrestle with the demons Covetousness and Envy more than others. As we look at human history and current events, isn’t it evident that there is something in humankind that tries to possess as much as we possibly can, regardless of the cost to others? Writers over the ages have played on this theme—Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Also, Joseph Conrad’s character Kurtz, in The Heart of Darkness: Kurtz was “. . .a hollow man to whom the wilderness has whispered ‘irresistibly fascinating’ things about himself. As a result, he came to belong to the powers of darkness and to believe that ‘everything belonged to him.’ He was a man who knew no restraint. . . He wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men before him.”
Whose is the vineyard? Whose is Creation? To whom do we belong?
When we forget that we belong to God; when we believe that it all belongs to us, there is an emptiness in our hearts. It is the opening through which powers urge unrestrained greed and sometimes–violence against others.
When we forget we belong to God, we have a state with too many hungry children, and nations at war. When we forget whose we are, we have centuries of violence by peoples claiming the same ground; and hatred based on religion. When we forget whose is the vineyard, we eventually destroy the environment.
This passage from Matthew (which is also in Mark and Luke) makes us squirm for a variety of reasons. The parable suggests an absentee landlord who might have been exploiting the workers on his vineyard. There would have been hearers of this tale who would have cheered for the tenants’ revolt! If we allegorize this parable, and cast God as the landlord, we’re uncomfortable, because what kind of landlord repeatedly sends servants (and his son!) to die? Another reason this story makes us uncomfortable is that, even if we think the tenants are entitled to justice, their murder of servants and the son– is extreme and immoral! Where and how can we see ourselves in this violent story?
Whose is the vineyard? Whose is Creation? To whom do we belong?
This passage is also uncomfortable because it has been used to justify anti-Semitism. Jesus said to the chief priests and elders, “the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruit of the Kingdom.” Over centuries, that has been interpreted to mean that God’s kingdom will be taken from the Jews and given to the Gentiles. But given the context of Matthew’s early church, made up of Christian Jews, the “unfruitful people” probably referred to the religious elites, who were questioning Jesus’ authority.
Jesus begins the story with an image of the vineyard from Isaiah 5, that would have been very familiar to the religious leaders.
My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.
He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
and hewed out a wine vat in it. . . He expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. . .
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry! Ah, you who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land!” (Is.5: 78)
When Isaiah denounced the “wild grapes,” he spelled out the wildness in terms of society-wide covetousness. God “expects justice but sees bloodshed.”
God’s dream for the harvest, for creation and humanity is sweet. It is abundant life. It is a dream of binding up what is broken; a dream of mercy. A dream of rootedness, home and belonging.
Throughout the Bible, the grapevine symbolizes abundance, life, rootedness and hope. A few weeks ago, we heard Beth preach on another parable about the vineyard laborers who received generous wage from the landowner: all were paid the same wage, whether they had worked one hour or three hours or all day. That parable was showed the generosity of God, lavishly bestowed. But some laborers begrudged that grace given to others. That parable, alongside todays reading, suggests that the envy of others can lead to a murderous separation from one another. Our unwillingness to rejoice in God’s generosity to others can lead straight to violent rebellion against God. We forget we belong to God, and we belong to one another.
What’s our honest answer?
Do we believe that we have only ourselves to count on? That is a common way of life for our culture. What’s your answer?
Before Karl and I had kids, I had read about the importance for children of having family meals together. Studies showed that it develops confidence and character and strength. Since have children, though, I can think of many times when I’ve scurried to get a meal on the table, and sat down with the family, not feeling particularly thankful, as we reached out hands to one another to pray. But think about it: maybe eating together is important because we are showing, every day, that we belong to one another. And as we pray at the meal, we are remembering: we belong to God.
In a few minutes we will hear from the Revetts, missionaries and educators in Paraguay. They are members of Genesis Fellowship, a church here in Portland that we are in partnership with. Genesis and Westminster belong to one another. Look around at the people sitting next to you—we belong together. That belonging is visible when we share a meal, in a time of hunger. It’s visible when we are there, as a listening friend, in a time of grief. When we are there, as a volunteer and voice for children, when the needs are great and small.
On this World Communion Sunday, we get to taste the sweetness of Peace in Christ through our meal shared with sisters and brothers near, and far. Despite all that separates us, in this meal, we are one in Christ. We belong to God. And we belong to one another.
What if we knew in our bones, that we belonged to God? What if we lived as though we belonged to one another? What priorities would change, across political, class and economic lines? How would our community change? What would the world look like, then?
I am from musty damp creek-side
with yellow-striped salamanders.
Tuna-noodle casseroles and celery with peanut-butter.
Sunday night hymn-sings in the jewel-stained-glass church.
Sticky-making bing cherry tree
So tall, I could see the whole neighborhood.
Sack-racing champion.
Sick with bronchitis so often,
I felt like a misfit at school.
Red-clay digging by the creek.
Firefly catching with friends.
by Laurie Miller Vischer at 10/10 Women’s Retreat
Waiting
The hard plastic of the hospital chair,
the too-chilly air-conditioned room
make it uncomfortable
to sit and wait,
wait for the last breath.
Her breathing is labored,
and her grip on my hand strong, but unconscious.
The strength in her body
brings to mind an image of her labor,
giving birth to two boys over three decades ago.
And through my mind floats
another image:
Her own birth.
A small, dusky-skinned
and luminous-eyed infant
with more wisdom in her gaze
than any grown adult.
Her breath, ragged and shallow,
becomes a sound we no longer fear.
But still, we are waiting.
Waiting for the last breath,
with sorrow, with gratitude
and soaked in sacred thanksgiving.
by Laurie M. Vischer, August, 2011
John 10:1-10; Acts 2:42-47
My son Aaron and I are reading a favorite book together: The BFG by Roald Dahl. In case you’ve not read the book, BFG stands for Big Friendly Giant. At the beginning of the story, though, you don’t know that the giant is friendly. The first chapter has one of the scariest scenes. The young girl, Sophie, wakes up in the wee hours of the night: “the witching hour” when you are all alone because everyone else is asleep. She sees the shadow of a gigantic figure coming toward her house. The enormous, tree-like figure turns to see her at her window. She scrambles to her bed, hiding under the covers, and a long-fingered, giant hand, reaches in through her window and snatches her from the safety of her bed!
The fear of some unnamed terror, stealing us away from the safety of home, of security and love and familiarity—it strikes us to the core, doesn’t it? Locks, alarms, security businesses, government agencies, police forces are built on this fear.
In fact, this week, as I was studying and contemplating the passage from John, about the “thief and robber stealing the sheep from the sheepfold,” I had a nightmare myself. The part I remember, is my door being ripped off the hinges, and there being confronted by a large, scary-looking man, holding a mostly-drunk bottle of vodka. Invasion, lack of security, theft and loss . . . These are fears that we wrestle with as vulnerable children. And, maybe, buried a bit deeper, we experience them at an unconscious level as adults.
But sometimes fears of loss arise because of the simple fact of change. I like to think that I’m a person who enjoys change. But honestly, when change comes, especially change I didn’t choose–despite my best intentions, sometimes, fears arise. The “what-ifs” begin to stream through thoughts and conversation. Worst-case scenarios begin to play out in brilliantly colored high definition on the screen of the imagination. I’m not alone in this, am I? You can fill in the blanks: What if I made the wrong choice about _______? What if my child’s illness takes a turn for the worse and ___? What if I don’t find another job and ____? What if the outcome of surgery isn’t what we hoped and _____? How will life change for me, and for my loved ones? What if my new boss and I don’t fit? What if the new pastors don’t want to continue something I care about? Or worse—what if they don’t like me?
Take a deep breath. It’s normal. It’s part of being human. Changes large and small may make us feel just the same as we did as children: we long for the security of our own small room, or even the safety of being under the covers, where we think we can’t be seen or threatened.
Every week our staff studies the coming Sunday’s scripture. This week, we noticed a couple of problems with the passage. One is that like other parts of the Gospel of John, it can be read as “us versus them”. Yes, the writer of this Gospel was addressing a community that had essentially been expelled from the synagogue. . . There is an echo of defensiveness that can come through the text, centuries later. Another problem for readers today, is that most of us don’t have experience with sheep. And truly, isn’t it a bit offensive, to be compared to sheep?
Melissa Olmsted shared a book with me that helped in this regard. Scouting the Divine: my search for God in wine, wool and wild honey, by Margaret Feinberg is about a real-life shepherd in Oregon. The author visited the shepherd, Lynne, to learn what sheep and shepherding is really like.
She wrote, about sheep: “From the outside, a lot of sheep’s behavior looks dumb. And it’s true that they aren’t always aware of the consequences of what they’re doing, but to describe all of their behavior as dumb is a broad generalization. They aren’t dumb. They’re defenseless. There’s a big difference. . .”
And apparently, it is true that sheep know the sound of their shepherd’s voice. The author describes how Lynne, the shepherd, goes out into the pasture and calls “Sheep, sheep, sheep.” Piaget, and Manuel, Mario, Dove, Opal, Iris and Meggie come running, expecting food, and attention. These same sheep do not trust the author, Margaret, a stranger, until it is clear that she is with Lynne.
Lynne said that being a shepherd has taught her about compassion. She says, “Generally, even if a sheep is aggressive or a total brat, you still provide and care for it. You don’t give up. You persist. You accept the differences between the sheep.” Her favorite qualities of her favorite sheep are those who“. . .come when I call their names. They love me. They paw me and want my attention. They are responsive to me.”
Which makes me wonder about our own “sheepliness.” How responsive are we to God’s voice? How do we hear the voice of Jesus?
In a world where even computers generate letters and phone calls in which we are addressed by name, always seeking to gain something from us, there is a promise here that when God calls to us through Jesus we dare to trust that we will be fed and that we will be loved.
We are here, because somehow, God’s voice has gotten through the static of our hectic, noisy, modern lives. We are part of the flock, because the “still, small voice,” of God has slipped in underneath the busyness of our existence has whispered, gripping our attention and moving our souls.
Perhaps our faith is not so much a matter of believing certain things as it is of hearing Jesus’ voice and trusting it with our lives. Jesus calls to us in the Scriptures, “Come to me all who are heavy laden and I will give you rest. . . I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. . Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”
Jesus entered the straw and mud of our world for one reason: Love. Love alone is what makes the shepherd good.
The passage in John warns of bad shepherds, those who would leave the sick or injured sheep in distress or allow the flock to fall to predators. Shepherd Lynne said “I’ll have people tell me they want to buy a sheep to cut their grass. I’ll ask if the person has a barn and they’ll say they have a tree. Or the man who kept sheep for tax profits. They’re not bad shepherds. They’re non-shepherds. The good shepherd cares for the sheep because she cares. The good shepherd lays down his life because he loves.
Love alone is what makes a shepherd good.
The crooked shepherd’s staff is still a symbol used by churches for the pastor.
Which makes it so appropriate now, as Westminster stands poised to call new pastoral leadership, next weekend. In my time here at Westminster, I’ve noticed some parallels between ministry and shepherding. David and I and the other staff who minister here are constantly scanning “the flock”—looking for absences, changes in behavior, sickness, vulnerability. It teaches us to pay attention to a lot of different things. Caring for a big, multiple flock multiples the need for many skills, including learning to anticipate, schedule, organize and strategize.
Lessons from Shepherd Lynn also suggest that:
“Shepherding teaches you to lead from the front rather than the back. Whenever the sheep are pushed, they’ll respond with fear or anxiety—even when their shepherd is doing the pushing. . . Pushing a sheep produces agitation. But when I go ahead of the flock and call them by name, they follow me peacefully. They trust me and they want to follow. Anyone can lead by agitating, but leading in such a way that those behind you want to follow is an art form.”
We are community about to choose and welcome new co-pastors. Our elected Pastor Nominating Committee chose the Neels because they have discerned them to be pastors who will lead with care, love and joy. In the coming months, if the congregation affirms this choice, a big part of our life in ministry will be getting acquainted—knowing and being known. And our mission as a congregation will flourish as we are able to trust them, and one each other. We may be nourished and we hope to nourish our community and world in brand new ways.
Writer Sarah Heinrich tells about a preacher in Africa who told about how the people of a village knew each other’s sheep the way we might know one another’s children. As he sat in a group in the village, a person would stop by, “Have you seen my sheep so-and-so,” identifying his own sheep by name. Through the dark night he heard villagers calling out names. “They are calling their sheep,” one of the locals told him. “They will all find each other.”
This image of the villagers finding and caring for one another ties into another reading for today, from Acts 2:42-47:
42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
43Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
I wonder if our faith is not so much a matter of believing certain things as it is of hearing Jesus’ voice and trusting it with our lives.
How do you hear God’s voice? How do we hear Jesus speak to us? It’s the same voice that speaks through the Scriptures and through the liturgy and through hymns and through the choir anthems. It is sometimes what we hear from the sermon, not the preacher’s voice, but that Holy Spirit in us, allowing us to hear God’s voice. It is the voice of deep crying out to deep, of Christ’s spirit seeking out our spirits and calling us home.
A while ago, after graduating from school in Chicago, I spent some time working for an educational foundation in Hyde Park. It was an intensely lonely time. I was seeking community but had many reservations about the institutional church and about God. One of my friends put it like this: “Jesus and I were on the skids.” Despite my questions, doubts and fears, University Place Christian Church welcomed me. They took the time to get to know me well. No snap judgments. There were members of the church who were transparent and honest with their own questions. They did not make me ascribe to black and white doctrine. The church had the compassion to see that I was on a journey, and they were open to the Holy Spirit working in that unknown part of me. After a class and discernment with the pastor, the church welcomed me into membership with the same words that we use in welcome to our new members. And they called me by name: “Welcome, Laurie! You are one of us!”
Jesus calls us by name, to abundant life: a life directed, not toward fear, but toward love. A life in which our cup is running over with an awareness of the goodness of God so much so that it naturally spills out and spills over and intersects with every aspect of our lives. Abundant life, means quite simply, a life full of God: a life full of love!
What if Jesus, the good shepherd is speaking to us today? What if he is opening the gate of our hearts, what if he is opening wide the doors of Westminster, spreading his arms wide and his heart and saying: I love you! Follow me! What then?
Acts 2:1-21
This day of Pentecost reminds me of the story of the visitor in a Presbyterian church (not this one!) who was very moved. As she listened to the music and preaching, she suddenly shouted out: “I’ve heard the Lord! I’ve got the Spirit!” An elder of the church, sitting next to her said, “Yes, I can see that. But you didn’t get it here!”
God declares: I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh. . .
What do we make of this powerful and mysterious passage from the book of Acts? We may feel uplifted, intrigued, and maybe even a little frightened. First, I want to point out that glossolalia, speaking in tongues as mentioned in other places in the New Testament, is not what is described in this passage. Whereas that mode of “speaking in tongues” is intelligible only to God, the language and hearing in this passage is just the opposite: On the day of Pentecost, people from all nations were suddenly able to hear the Galilean apostles speak in their own native tongues. Through the Holy Spirit, people speaking different languages were unified through hearing and understanding.
People from all nations, people with different languages, cultures, experiences: All of these people receive the good news of God’s boundless, saving love, as it is poured out in a new way! This is the same creative love of God that is the source of creation. The same power that freed the people of God in captivity, the same mystery behind the teaching given through Moses.
The same love that suffered on the cross and was resurrected to new life. This is the pouring out of God’s love, across all human divisions of nation, language, age, power and gender, sexual orientation, ability and race.
Sometimes the lack of understanding is even our own language. New Testament Scholar, Marcus Borg has a new book out, called Speaking Christian. He wrote that “ . . .Knowing and understanding the Christian language, is in a state of crisis in North America. . . For an increasing number of people, Christianity has become an unfamiliar language. [Words like redemption, salvation, grace, blessing are foreign]. Many people either do not know the words at all. . .Even many of those who think they speak “Christian” fluently; think they are speaking the language as it has always been understood. But what they mean by these words and concepts is so different from what these things have meant historically, that they would have trouble communicating with the very authors of the past they honor.”
Borg tells how he moved from teaching in Minnesota–where Christian language was in the “air that we breathed” –to teaching in Oregon, the least churched state in the country. On his first day of class, he said “we can’t understand Christianity without understanding Judaism.” A hand shot up: “What’s Judaism?” As he sought to define Judaism, he mentioned Moses. Another hand shot up: “Who’s Moses?
At the beginning of a course, Borg asks students to write a 10-minute essay on the topic “Me and the Bible” or “Me and Christianity” Some questions to answer are “What has been your exposure to Christianity and the Bible? Did you grow up in church? Whether you did or not, what have you heard about the Bible and Christianity?”
Here is a sampling of answers:
“I don’t know much about the Bible, but I think there’s a story in it about a guy in a fish.”
“I don’t know much about Christianity, but I think Christians are really against trespassing.”
Borg wrote: I knew I wasn’t in Minnesota anymore.
The students are intelligent. It’s just that many have grown up with little or no involvement in church. Of those born since 1980, 25 percent describe themselves as having no religious affiliation. What might the pouring out of God’s Spirit look like for that 25 percent?
I would venture to say that not only does our culture in Oregon, not “speak Christian”, but that for the most part, even for those of us who show up regularly for worship—we have a hard time believing that God is still speaking to us today. Do we? Do we believe that God is still speaking today?
If God IS speaking, how well do we hear? I believe that God has always wanted our relationship with God to be so much more than a set of rituals we go through or a list of doctrines in which we believe. God has always wanted to be in us, to live in our hearts and restore us to God’s original dream of who we would be.
It’s what the prophet Joel predicted when he said, “And afterward, I will pour out my spirit on all people” (Joel 2:28). Peter quoted that passage here in Acts 2.
The celebration of Pentecost comes from Judaism. It was celebrated fifty days after the Passover, and was another remembering of liberation from bondage in Egypt. It marked the gathering of the people of God at Mt. Sinai, and the dramatic cloud-capped, thundering mountain, where Moses heard and received the Torah. The people gathered heard the “trumpet”—the Ram’s horn, the shofar. If, then, God’s voice was heard in the midst of the sound of the shofar on Mount Sinai, it too must be calling the world to freedom.
It is this freedom we taste when we hear God’s voice; when we feel God’s presence; and when we experience ourselves as spiritually alive!
In the passage in Acts, the apostles are gathered together, and with the sound of rushing wind and the drama of flames, the thousands people gathered could suddenly hear these Galilean apostles speaking—in their own languages! On Pentecost, we celebrate Spirit, Breath, Presence of God: what we celebrate in Jesus, can be present in human community. When this happens and we let it happen, the ancient curses which divide us are undone and we connect with God in a new way and we gain a new sense of identity.” Can we? Connect with God in a new way? Can we receive what God wants to pour out in us?
I recently had a conversation with a young adult who is teaching in Mississippi. We spoke of poverty and poverty’s effect on students and communities. He wisely noted: “True poverty isn’t about material resources, but about seeing yourself as limited. When you can only see your limits, you can’t begin to imagine things differently.”
Where do we feel “poor” as individuals? Where are we weak, in need of new life, as a congregation? What makes us feel limited? What stops imagination and hope? What is your longing? Could God be pouring Holy Spirit into that?
God declares: I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. . .
It is this freedom that we taste when we hear God’s voice and experience ourselves as spiritually alive. For when we are stirred by the awareness of God, whatever oppresses us releases us temporarily from its dominion. . .
Trying to hear God’s voice, is an invitation to focus on what matters, on what stirs your heart and awakens you. And to what serves others!
I’m reminded of a Mission Trip with Senior High kids I organized at another congregation. Unfortunately, as we prepared to travel, all I could seem to see were our limits! We were to travel to Warm Springs reservation—to repair and build a fence, and to do some serious clean up around the houses. As we prepared for the trip, I was already concerned because the advisors who were coming were elderly and a bit frail. We were missing our strongest, older youths. And then, at the last minute, the youth intern whom I was counting on—the real muscles in the group—came down sick and had to cancel. Much of the work I had planned for us to do seemed like it wouldn’t get done. Or worse: that we would try to do work that was too much, and do a poor job at it.
Our work began slowly. And my concerns were shared by kids in the group. On the first two days, there was lot of griping. Why were things in such a mess? Why weren’t there more adults helping? But near the end of the second day, something unexpected and new happened. Several of the youth on our team were magnets for the children of the reservation. These young children came out to be with our group. Pretty soon they were cheerfully helping, playing, singing and sharing stories. The best part was in the evening, around the campfire. With these children and some of their parents, we shared endless mugs of hot cocoa and a joy of new friendship. What had seemed limited at first–grew into abundance. Deep friendships trust and love overflowed.
God declared: I will “pour out my spirit”—filled to overflowing—beyond the limits of what we expect, know, believe, hope. . .
London Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg wrote: “For God speaks to every person all the time in a voice limited only by the capacity of each one of us to apprehend it.” He wrote that “when God spoke at Sinai all the world was manifest with such intensity and we all had the capacity to perceive it in that way. God still speaks today; God speaks in all creation all the time. Now, however, the task of seeing the world like that is up to us.”
God the Holy Spirit wants to live in us, fill us and empower us, just as the Spirit filled the apostles at Pentecost. The Spirit calls us to live the life of Jesus in this world: to be unbounded in love and joy! to be on fire with compassion, to live with forgiveness, to be recnciled. To be restored to God’s original plan for us, that we may live in wholeness with all people and creation!
What deep pain aches in you? Or what hurt in the world cries to you? What is it that you most long for? God says “I will pour out my Spirit upon you. . .” What would your life be like if you heard the Spirit calling you in that pain and longing? How would your life change if you heard and followed? What if each of us heard the Spirit calling through our longing? What would the world be like, then?
