Still Birth and Live Birth: The Gift of Holy Spirit (Pentecost)- 5/31/09 – Acts 2:1-13, John 20:19-22

INTRODUCTION

I’m in the kind of work where the line between the personal and the professional is not always clearly defined and sometimes disappears altogether.  I have the privilege and the challenge of telling stories, speaking out of my own journey — recognizing that what I have to say is filtered through my own particular experience of life and how I have sensed God’s presence around me.   Often this appears more in anecdotal form — a childhood story, a book I have read, a conversation I have had.  It’s important not to confuse one’s own story with The Story, of which we are always and only a small part.  But every once in a while there is a personal experience that feels so embedded in the imagery and themes of the Grand Narrative, that its telling and the telling of that larger story become interchangeable, mixed, merged.  In this celebration of Pentecost, and in this season of our grief, this has become the case for me.  What I have to say personally, as a father and husband and friend, and what I have to say professionally, as a pastor, is the same thing.

As the people of Cincinnati Mennonite well know, and as our pilgrim visitors and other guests among us may or may not know, ten days ago Abbie and I and our family underwent a great loss.  Abbie was pregnant with our third daughter, and, due to complications, delivered early, at 22 weeks gestation, before our baby was able to survive outside of the womb.  This has been a time of grief and also a time of reflection and contemplation, trying to be in the moment and recognize it for all that it will mean in our lives.  We have had time to rest and time to be with family, wonderfully supported with meals and child care help from you our friends.

Part of the way I have always processed significant events is to write.  In the days following the delivery of our beautiful little Belle Ruthann, I have cherished the different times I have had to sit down and put into words that which seems almost ineffable.  As important as it was for me to write this, I know that I am not yet able to speak it.  A number of you have offered and provided help over the last number of days, and, in this case, I knew this was another area where we would need another’s gifts to hold us up.  So I have asked Keith if he would be my voice today and he has agreed to do this.

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Holy Spirit

In a speech given at a conference focused on how it is we talk about Spirit, James Alison makes the observation that the writers of the New Testament regularly leave out part of the phrase that has become commonplace for us in the church: “The Holy Spirit.”  (http://www.jamesalison.co.uk/texts/eng47.html)  The various authors of the gospels and letters, those with the task of putting into words what it may mean to be accompanied by God through Christ, just as often speak of “Holy Spirit.”  Mary is not told that she will be with child because the Holy Spirit will overshadow her, but because she will be overshadowed by Holy Spirit.  John the Baptist does not promise that Jesus will baptize people with the Holy Spirit, but with Holy Spirit.  It’s a subtle difference, but part of Alison’s point is that we too often are betrayed by our own grammar, allowing it to limit our perception of that to which it is pointing.  In speaking of The Holy Spirit, we may be tempted to think of God as an object, another item, albeit a large and powerful item, that shows up on the scene.  Here, but not here.  There yesterday, but not today.  Alison hopes to direct us toward a fuller comprehension of God’s Being, and for this, suggests that the use of Holy Spirit can at times be appropriate.  Holy Spirit is not an object in our field of experience but rather, is the Presence which undergirds, surrounds, and illuminates our experience, enriching and enlivening.

Ever since learning that we were expecting our third child, our lives have certainly been enriched and enlivened, undergirded by a sense of Holy Spirit.  Imagine my surprise when, the evening before my ordination, Abbie walked down the stairs, turned to me as I was walking by, and said, “I’m pregnant.”  Just as I was preparing to have my life path affirmed and more firmly established, this little one stepped in and offered her presence as a reminder that one’s life path is anything but predictable.  Surrounded by what was already a holy weekend, we began imagining life as a family of five.

Anticipating her arrival meant more than just preparing to unpack the infant clothes.  This meant big changes.  Our current house was too small.  We would need a larger vehicle.  Plans for the next few years would have to be rethought.  OK, One thing at a time.  Thrilled to find a larger house on the same block, aided by a gracious, and efficient, church moving crew, we began settling into a new place, preparing the space for the life to come.

When Abbie began bleeding a couple months into the pregnancy; when we were soon told, and believed, for a duration of about five minutes, that we had had a miscarriage, only to discover a healthy baby with a booming heartbeat show up on the ultrasound monitor, we were even more mindful of the wonder of this child.  We felt like Mary might have felt, overshadowed by Holy Spirit.  “What child is this?”  Whoever she is, she has already changed our lives, caused quite a commotion, rocked our world.  As Abbie’s complications continued, even as the baby continued to develop in a healthy way, we held on tenderly to this one coming into being in the midst of a gathering storm.

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Breath, or, Home

In Acts chapter two, the coming of Holy Spirit shows up in the form of a sound:  like the rush of a violent wind, filling the entire house where the friends are gathered.  Divided tongues, like fire, appear, swirl through the room, and rest on each one.  Loud shouts of praise burst out of their mouths in a multi-lingual barrage of hallelujahs.

John tells a different story of the giving of Holy Spirit.  If the Acts event is primarily aural, a soundtrack of Holy Spirit presence, John’s is primarily visual.  It could be told with no sound at all, a mime of blessing.  Look at the locked doors, the effort made for safe solitude.  Observe the huddling, perhaps even trembling disciples.  Witness Jesus appearing, somehow, among them, stretching out his arms with a greeting that says, “Peace be with you.”  See him showing them his hands and his side, pierced and broken, signs of death contained within life.  And watch, lean forward, and take in the staggering scene, of Jesus…breathing…on the disciples.  “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”

Breath is a remarkable thing.  Even more remarkable when it is the breath of Jesus.  Something so foundational for life, so given, that we barely give it a second thought.  The earth is our home because it is a place where breath is available. No human can survive without the in-and-out, out-and-in rhythm of breath.  No human, that is, who has emerged from our original home, the womb.  Inside the womb, in the pre-breath stage of life, mother and child have their own way of sustaining and nurturing life.  In the place where we are conceived and formed, water and blood, chord and membrane, provide their own rhythm.  Here, Holy Spirit broods and floats and flows.  Life surrounding life.  Life surrounded by life.

In our home, mother and child have had their months of huddling together; yes, trembling; yes, fear;  hearts pulsing next to each other.  Facing an uncertain future.  Speaking to one another with words only they can hear.  Prayers for breath.  Prayers of blessing: “Peace be with you.”

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Upper Room

The Acts passage is commonly referred to as the birth of the church, the bringing forth of a new creation, whose life will be for the purpose of witnessing to the life of Christ and bringing glory to God.  Luke doesn’t tell us exactly where it takes place in Jerusalem, only that they, the small remnant of Jesus’ friends and allies, were all together in one place, in a house.  Earlier in chapter one, we are told there was a room, upstairs, where the remaining 11 disciples along with certain women and others were staying while in the city.  In the weeks after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, these believers, numbering about 120, were constantly devoting themselves to prayer.  And so this event of Acts 2 has come to be associated with this upper room.  In this small cavity of space in a relatively unimportant region of a vast empire, the church is born.

In our upper room of the maternity ward, windows facing east, overlooking a flat roof of an adjacent building and, beyond that, a small forest of trees, blocking the sprawl of the city, the sun rises on the day that has become the arrival of our storm.  For a few brief seconds I stare at the sun directly, if only to be reminded of the impossibility of the act.  The earth continues its steady path, circling and spinning; and the rays trickle, then pour into the humble space that we currently occupy.  The world is illuminated, and I avert my gaze from its source so as not to be overwhelmed, or blinded by its intensity.   A few feet from me Abbie has begun laboring.  What will be brought forth from this difficult work will soon be made known.

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Universe

“Now there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem…Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes.”

When Holy Spirit arrives, suddenly it’s as if the entire world is present in the room.  All language, all praise that can be formed on the tongue, all thanksgiving, all expression of awe and wonder.  Grown men become like fools, reduced to babbling.  Women act is if they are children, dancing, unable to contain this energy that has entered them.  All comprehending in their native way.  The air is dense.  The entire universe shows up, and presents itself as fire and wind.

Or, as perfect stillness…no movement.  Silence…no speech, no words.  There is no deeper universal language.

Our beautiful Belle Ruthann is here.  The mouth closed and the body calmly, resolutely, motionless.  Such a small vessel of perfection.  No tongue able to capture what is at hand.  Tears and lamentation.  Sadness and grief.  Swelling, burning like flame, swirling.  This too is the fullness of the cosmos, now cradled in your arms.

All who witness it are bewildered, amazed and astonished.  “What does this mean?”  This drunkenness with exaltation.  This intoxication with sorrow.

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Church

Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”  His words draw from the ancient Israelite law code teaching that a case in court is established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.  For a testimony to be credible in the eyes of the law, for it to be true, it must have two or three who have seen the same thing.  The presence of Jesus, Holy Spirit, becomes true, becomes tangible and known, when two or three come together in this way.

I like that.  Two or three.  Three is good.  Three is desirable.  But if not three, then two.  That way if, for whatever reason, the third isn’t able to show up, there is still a quorum for Holy Spirit.  If the third happens to get stuck in traffic, had a last minute change of plans, is having a bad hair day and doesn’t want to come out of the house, loses track of time, or doesn’t make it out alive from the war zone, or the womb, the two who remain still get visited by Jesus.  Are still able to bear witness to the holy presence among them.

And where two are gathered, or three, or many more – a family, a group of friends, a congregation – Jesus is surely there in the midst of them.  Holy Spirit becomes tangible, true, embodied, incarnated through these relationships.  And this is, in essence, the church.  The assembly.  The gathering.

In the church we are entrusted with matters of the Spirit and of the flesh.  Jesus left his followers with the promise of the Holy Spirit, and he also left them with the practice of sharing a meal together around the table.  “As often as you do this, do so in remembrance of me.”  Our life together can at times touch on the ethereal, the ecstatic, the transcendent, but most of the time we are carrying out the most ordinary of work, the most common of activities.  The symbol of our life is here in front of us in the bread and the cup.  In this our bodies, and our souls, find what they need for sustenance.

Our hunger is a hunger for real food.  Food we can touch, food we can smell and taste.  Food we can put our fingers on and feel the warmth.  An invitation to the Communion table.  A meal at the family table.  A chance, during the times when we must ourselves focus on other matters, besides buying and preparing the food, to have the meals brought to us, one after the other.  Our longing is for real flesh.  Flesh we can hold and cradle.  Flesh that shows up with an embrace of comfort.

In our caring in this way, we bear witness to Christ present in the bread and the cup; to the One who hears out laments, bears our suffering, burns with love for creation, sustains us even in our sorrow.

In the bread, feeding.  In the body, gathered.  This is where Holy Spirit has its home.  Eternally.  Undergirding, comforting, birthing, enriching, haunting.  Now fire, now calm.  Now wind and words.  Now silence.  Always “Peace be with you.”  “Peace be with you.”

 

A Multi-lingual Hallelujah (Pentecost) – 5,27,07

Learning to speak another language is challenging.  A couple months ago Abbie and I bought the Behind the Wheel Spanish language program.  This is a nine CD set that can be played “behind the wheel” as you drive, or in your house, or wherever there is a CD player.  We’ve both had some Spanish classes in high school and college and would like to learn more.  We have the basics down and could probably get by if we were to visit Central or South America, but there is a big difference between getting by and actually communicating with some depth.  You can only go so far in a relationship when you keep asking “Como esta Ud.?” How are you?  “Como se llama?” What is your name?  Donde esta el bano?  Where is the bathroom?  We can go a little further than this, but it will take a while before we’re anywhere near upper level speaking.  Maybe we’ll never get there, but it is an attractive goal to be able to speak to a person of a different culture in their native tongue.   What would you say if I suggested that we are all called to be multi-lingual?  That speaking multiple languages is at the very heart of how the Spirit of God moves through us?                  The passage from Acts would seem to indicate that the coming of the Spirit in our lives leads to a certain kind of diversity of speaking and hearing.  “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.  And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.  Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit game them ability.”  Speaking in other languages is an act inspired by the Spirit.  If you’ve ever tried to understand how your computer works, or if you’ve ever cracked a medical dictionary, you know that there are many different languages even within our own English language.  Many of them as foreign sounding as Spanish, or Arabic, or Chinese.          Think of all of the different wonderful types languages that we have developed.  There is psychological language – the language of the inner world, the language of the business world, technological language, legal language, conversational street language, language on the basketball court, political language.  There’s the language of the farmer who speaks in terms of acres and bushels and crop types and the state of grain markets.  There’s the language of the baseball coach who speaks in terms of innings and outs and strikes and baserunning strategy and batting technique.  There’s the language of the plumber who talks about supply lines and traps and vents and shut-off valves.  There’s the language of the computer technician that I really don’t know what they’re talking about.  Within our own English language are subsets of languages with their own technical words and ways of communicating and expressing meaning.  We are constantly creating, updating, nuancing, and fine tuning these languages.        The second chapter of Acts says that there were devout Jews from every nation in Jerusalem that day for the celebration of the Pentecost festival, and that they each heard God’s good news in their native tongue.  It names some of the cultures they were coming from: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, Cretans, Arabs.  Imagine if the diversity of the gathering were expressed in these terms:  Now there were gathered there teachers, homemakers, nurses, lawyers, business people, social workers, artists, contractors, musicians, engineers,  and others of various professions and life settings.  And they all heard the disciples speaking of the love and justice of God in their own native language.  This event in Acts is often referred to as the birthday of the church.  The day the church was born and came to life.  If this is the case, then what is this telling us about the nature of this church, what is the DNA of this body that has come to life?  One response is that, from our birth, we have always been a multi-lingual people, and that this is fundamental to who we are.  It is noteworthy here that the Spirit doesn’t lead everyone to speak the same language, but to speak in the unique, native language of each person, and for there to be understanding.  We are speaking to our human condition in all its variety and diversity, a diversity that God loves and encourages.  There is no single language that captures or contains the richness of God’s glory.  We’re not confined to theological language or political language or to the English language, but we see the Spirit expressing itself in all the different languages that we participate in.  When I look at this congregation I see a multi-lingual group, with each of us having certain languages that we speak best.  Together we are trying to learn the primary language of faith, the theological language of our Scriptures and church tradition.  We talk of gospel, salvation, discipleship, reconciliation in Christ, the kingdom of God.  This language is our mother tongue.  But we are multi-lingual.  During our weeks we are speaking other languages, and hopefully we are translating this theological language into other ways of communicating.   What is gospel in economic terms?  What is salvation in psychological terms?  What does the kingdom of God look like when engaging the language of politics?  Or, what does reconciliation in Christ look like with language used to confront a fight on the playground?  The Spirit of God is a multi-lingual Spirit, calling us to speak what we call gospel into different languages to communicate good news.  This morning as we covenant together we do so as a community that speaks many languages, all motivated by the same Spirit.  This is what we sound like, a multi-lingual hallelujah. 
 Part II: The Art of TranslationIn the church, our native tongue is theological language.  We draw from the rich language of Scripture and church tradition to communicate meaning and express our devotion to the God of love.  This is the primary language of our worship times and is the primary language that we use in our covenant.  To say “Jesus Christ is Lord” and to say “We choose to follow the way of the gospel and be members of Christ’s church” is to place ourselves alongside the great cloud of witnesses who have made similar confessions.Outside the church setting chances are we aren’t interacting in circles where theological language is primary.  Chances are we’re engaged with a number of the other wonderful languages we have been given to communicate meaning.  The language of our professions, the casual language that happens in the home and among friends.  I have never seen with my physical eyes a divided tongue resting on anyone’s shoulder, but I have seen many people doing what the author of Acts is trying to illustrate: translating the wisdom of God from theological language into another form of speech native to that setting.  Being an agent of the Spirit in the art of translation.  One of the things in this congregation that continually impresses me is the number of talented children’s story tellers there are here.  I’ve never witnessed so many good children’s stories as happen here on a weekly basis.  This is certainly an act of translation.  Children, it appears, speak the language of story, the language of humor, the language of touch – having things to look at and hold and even put in their mouths.  Translating something meaningful into this language is a gift — Communicating love, peace, joy in the native language of children.  I’d like to think that there is a mini-Pentecost of the Spirit that happens right here each week.  Wendel Berry is someone who has been translating the goodness of God into economic and ecological language for some time now.  He is a farmer/philosopher whose words often feel like they are growing straight out of the fertile soil he farms.  He is a critic of any structure of economy that makes us less human and makes the earth less alive.  One of my favorite lines from him is this:  He says  “Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.”  How’s that for an act of translation?  Speaking a prophetic word of the Spirit into the supposedly transcendent and all-powerful theory of economics. Learning recently of Jared Hess’ diagnosis of leukemia brings to mind another language: the language of silence.  Those long hours that his wife Anne and Hal and Chris will sit by his bed without saying a word, but deeply communicating love and encouragement and support, and being the presence of God to Jared.  Sometimes the language of silence communicates most deeply.  It’s a hard language to learn how to speak.  We have to let go of our need to fill the void with words.  Remember Job’s three friends who came to be with him in his suffering.  Most of the book of Job is an arguing dialogue between Job and his friends.  His friends are trying to rationalize Job’s pain, saying that there must be some logical reason why God is doing this to Job.  Job doesn’t buy it.  But before there was any conversation, right when his friends arrived, it says, “They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.”  It’s been said that this was the best thing the friends did for Job.  Their mistake was that they opened their mouths.  When being with someone in difficult circumstances, the act of being with, speaking in the language of silence is often the way that the Spirit best moves through us. If you struggle in being a multi-lingual person, then take heart that this is a gift of the Spirit.  It takes hard work and persistence to learn another language, but the scene in Acts is a reminder that there is more to it than all that.  There is more than simply our striving after it.  There is the presence of the Spirit, a Spirit that is not a tame Spirit and sometimes comes with gusts of rushing wind and tongues of fire, something we can’t plan or contain.  This is a Spirit that works through us, and is also working in between us.  Ultimately it is the Spirit that does the act of translation.  We speak and we act and then the Spirit does the work in others to make that speech and those actions intelligible.  The Holy Spirit helps our words be heard in ways we can’t anticipate.Maybe you’ve had the experience of someone coming up to you and thanking you for a word that you spoke at some point or something you did that was very meaningful to them.    And you can either barely remember even having said it, or remember saying it but not in the meaningful way it was interpreted by that person.  The Spirit translates our words and helps others hear good news even if we don’t know we’re speaking good news.  This is the continuous miracle that the Spirit is working.  The dynamic, alive, active multi-lingual Divine Spirit that is like a fire and a wind between our relationships.

People of God, we have received such a Spirit.  We are gathered as a multi-lingual community, united by the Spirit, sent out to translate the love of God into all the languages that we interact with during our days.  As Peter told that diverse crowd, the Spirit has been poured out on all flesh, sons, daughters, young women, old men, slaves, free, so all of us are prophets of the Spirit.  In our signing of the covenant today and in our taking communion together, let us take to heart this calling: a Spirited multi-lingual community, translators of God’s love.

  RESPONDINGPrayer (responsive)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Pastor JoelLeader:    God of power and might,Left:          we rejoice in the gifts of your Holy Spirit, who fills us;Right:       we treasure the Spirit’s witness                          that we are indeed your beloved children.All:            Abide in us and make us fruitful witnesses                          of your power and peace in the world. Amen. RENEWING OUR COMMITMENTSInvitation to CommunionWe’re now moving into a time of renewing our commitments to God and to each other.  And we do so by first of all receiving.  We will be receiving the gift of communion, the table of bread and juice that Christ has set for us to share in unity.  Just a few instructions before we begin.  After our prayer and words of institution you will be invited to come up to both receive communion and sign the covenant.  During this time Hal and Chris will be leading us in some singing together.  The communion table is open to all, even if you won’t be signing the covenant.  It is, quite simply, God’s gift of love which everyone is invited to receive.  So with that, let me say that the table of our Lord has been set, there is plenty for all in our world, and we are all welcome to receive.  Let’s enter into a brief time of silence in preparing our hearts to receive communion, and, if we choose, sign the covenant.

 

What We Pass Down – 5,13,07

When I meet new people or am talking with someone from outside this congregation it sometimes comes up in conversation that I am a pastor.  One of the next questions usually asked is, “So, how many people are in the congregation you serve?”  Rather than saying a single number like 90 or 100, I have gotten into the habit of answering, “About 60 adults and about 30 kids.”  The response is consistently one of surprise and almost awe.  “Wow, that’s great.”  Sometimes people will talk about themselves being one of the youngest in their church even though they are middle aged.  Sometimes people will simply say that this amount of kids is a great gift.  Yesterday evening a number of us, mostly parents of youth, met together to talk about ways that we can nurture our young people as they grow up in this congregation.  Along with the ways this is already happening, the hope is that we can establish some regular practices of celebrating different passages in our youths’ lives and blessing them in their growth in faith and maturity.  One example of this is the giving out of Bibles to nine year olds that Christian Education has regularly done and will do next week during our worship together.  We also discussed having a coming of age celebration for youth when they turn twelve years old.  This would involve setting aside a time when we acknowledge the gifts and interests of each youth and also offer them our encouragement and blessing for their adolescent years ahead.  Since there are a number of youth who have already turned twelve we will have some catching up to do.  Questions of baptism and catechism were also discussed.  It was agreed that it is important to teach youth the historical beliefs and practices of the church, while at the same time giving them space to question and think on their own about such things.  We want to encourage youth to consider baptism as a way of publicly marking their acceptance of a life of discipleship, but, in keeping with our Anabaptist heritage, we want to see that this is a decision on the part of the youth and not just something that happens because that’s what is supposed to happen when you are high school age. Overall, I would say, there was a sense of excitement and anticipation for how we all can contribute to the character and faith formation of our children.  With the amount of young people this congregation has been blessed with, and with the great need in the world for compassionate people able to think critically about what kind of world we are making for ourselves, this will be one of the most significant missions for CMF in the years to come.  The timing of this meeting wasn’t intentionally planned for the weekend of Mother’s Day, but I suppose it is a fitting time for such a conversation.  The question that was underlying our discussion was essentially a question of mothering: “how do we pass on the best of ourselves to the next generation?”  This is a question that includes moms, but recognizes that you don’t have to be a mom to be a mother.  All of us have the mothering role of passing down the best of our humanity to the next generation.   The original vision for having a Mother’s Day was very much along these lines.  In 1870 American Julia Ward Howe had become sickened by the devastation of the Civil War in this country and was troubled with other international conflicts.  Seeing that the men who were leading the world were not doing so hot a job of creating peace and equality for future generations, Howe believed that it was up to women to lead the way.  In that year, 1870, she wrote a Declaration for a Mother’s Day of Peace which called for an international assembly of women to gather to discuss how they may work toward peace together.  There are copies of this declaration in your bulletins, on the flip side of the Lullabies description.  I’ll read the first few paragraphs:Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!Say firmly:
“We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: “Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.The tone here is a call to action for all concerned in hopes that our mothering instincts can speak stronger than our tendency for violence.  I would like to think that this congregation is a weekly local “great and earnest day of counsel” for this small group of people who have decided to follow in Jesus’ way of peace.  We meet to celebrate the Christ who is alive among us and we work to pass down our faith in a God of peace to the next generation.  This is an act of mothering on all our parts.  How do we pass on the best of ourselves to the next generation?The reading from Acts tells the story of a woman, Lydia who may or may not have been a mother in a biological sense, but who became a spiritual mother with many descendants.There are some aspects of this story that set it apart from what has yet occurred in the book of Acts.  Right as this story is beginning, there is a shift in point of view of the narrator.  Until here Luke has been narrating these stories with the third person, “they;” they did this, and they did that.  Then in verse 10 of chapter 16 he shifts to saying “we.”  “When he, Paul, had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.”  Although we can’t know for sure why this is, in what follows it is very possible that the narrator is not just reporting what happened to other people, but is personally involved in what is happening.  There is a more intimate feel with the reader, like we are reading someone’s personal journal or diary.   Also, at this point this is the farthest west anyone has traveled in the book of Acts.  The gospel keeps spreading in all directions with rippling effects out from Jerusalem and Paul and Silas and perhaps our narrator appear to be the leaders for the northwest regions of this rippling.  What began as a desire to revisit some of the cities they had previously stopped in turns into an extended tour beyond the reaches of Asia Minor.  This is actually the first recordings of the gospel being preached in Europe.The apostles had typically been giving their message in the synagogues on the Sabbath, but there are apparently no synagogues in the city of Philippi where they are.  It appears they had recently been listening to an Allison Kraus CD or the soundtrack to ‘O Brother Where Art Thou’ as they get the notion to go down to the river to pray.  V. 13 says, “On the Sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer.”  It’s nice to hear that the apostles were able to pray just as easily out in nature as they could in a religious building.  As the passage goes on, it looks like some women had already beat them to the spot.  “Oh sisters let’s go down, come on down”  The passage reads, “and we sat down and spoke with the women who had gathered there.  A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth.  The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.”The early Christian movement was an urban movement, based originally in Jerusalem and moving out to cities like Damascus and Antioch and here in Philippi, which Luke calls “a leading city of the district”.  It had also been a movement made up largely of the lower class of society, reflecting the motley crew of fishermen and lepers and beggers who followed Jesus around.  It makes sense that a message about the all-embracing love of God would attract those left out of the embrace of society.   But here the apostles meet a woman of the business class.  To mention she is a dealer in purple cloth is to signal that she is dealing with high dollar sales.  Her home city of Thyatira had long time been a center for the production of the expensive purple die and she has found a market in Philippi for her business.  So like most of us in this congregation, she has relocated to a new city because of work.  And this wealthy woman of influence becomes the first convert on European soil.  I suppose we could call her the mother of European Christianity.  Usually households were under the leadership of the male, the paterfamilias, but v.15 refers to her household.  Again, details are impossible to know for sure, but at the time of this story she is almost certainly not married.  Her household could involve children, but could also simply involve servants who take care of her household affairs.  She has a large enough house with some extra rooms to house the apostles.  Her home becomes the base of operations for the mission to the city of Philippi.  At the end of chapter 16, after the apostles had gotten themselves thrown into prison in the city it says that they returned to Lydia’s home and encouraged the brothers and sisters there before they departed.It is quite possible that Lydia had no children of her own, but she becomes a mother in contributing to the birth of the Christian movement in a new continent.  I like the fact that the scripture for Mother’s Day just so happens to be about a woman who we don’t know whether she was a mother or not.  Because that isn’t really all that important.  What is important is that she became a mother in deciding to pass on the best of what she had to offer so that a new generation could be nurtured into faith.  The task of passing down the best of ourselves to those who will outlive us remains one of the defining aspects of our humanity.  What will we pass down?  What kind of world do we want to help form?  What kind of faith do we want to share with our young people who will most certainly be living in a world with great challenges.  Part of what I like so much about this Lullabies from the Axis of Evil CD is that it speaks to these questions in a very practical way.  Singing lullabies to our own children and other’s children is a simple but profound way of passing on peace.  It’s one way of being a mother.  So is treating any child with respect and listening to what they have to say.  So is opening your home, like Lydia, as a place of hospitality and welcome, to people you know well and perhaps people you don’t know so well.  So is being supportive of different organizations or “great counsels” that Julia Ward Howe spoke of.  Groups that work for justice.  All of these are acts of being a good mother to our world.There are many ways of being a mother right here within our congregation.  Our society in general is quite age segregated.  But here we are blessed with people of many ages learning and worshipping together.  And there are opportunities for each of us to mother each other by sharing of ourselves and passing along what is most valuable to us.  Opportunities to be a mentor, opportunities to be a teacher, to share whatever gifts we may have, opportunities to be a loving presence.  This fellowship is blessed and can be a blessing as we form people of strong faith to serve others.  All this comes from the One God, the great Mother of us all.                       

 

Beyond Us and Them – 5,06,07

Well, it’s been a long day.  I’ve gotten in the habit of getting up early on Sunday mornings and spending some time in solitude and quiet prayer, and stillness in preparation for the service.  But with the Flying Pig run this morning I spent a couple hours next to thousands of other sweaty people, surrounded by cheering and clapping, and instead of all that stillness, plenty of constant movement.  I think next week I’ll go back to my normal routine of solitude, quietness, and stillness for preparation, but for today my prayers for the service involved a lot of sweat and grunting and muscle depletion.  Maybe you’ve heard this line before, “there are two kinds of people in this world…”  I’ve heard this line go a number of different ways.  A couple examples: “There are two kinds of people in this world: the givers and the takers.”  Or “There are two kinds of people in this world: those who do the work and those who take the credit.”  A quick Google search of the phrase revealed some other interesting variations.  “There are two kinds of people in the world: complexifiers and simplifiers.”  “There are two kinds of people in this world: Beatles fans and Elvis fans.”  One of my favorites was: “There are three kinds of people in the world: those who can count and those who can’t.”  There was another that seemed to be one of the most quoted: “There are two kinds of people in this world: those who think there are two kinds of people and those who don’t.”  Believing that there are two kinds of people in the world has been especially prevalent in our country these last number of years.  Being attacked has a way shifting people into this way of seeing the world, almost as if it is some kind of automatic reflex encoded into our DNA.  The world becomes very black and white.  There is us and there is them.  Evil lies within ‘them’ and must be destroyed.  You’re either with us or you’re against us.  As much as we disagree with this philosophy, we peace-loving people are hardly exempt from us/them thinking.  We can just as easily fall into thinking “There are two kinds of people in this world, those who want peace and those who want war.”  It’s still us and them, the lines are just drawn differently.There is a remarkable line in the reading for today that comes out of the mouth of Peter.  Peter had been used to drawing the us/them line between Jew and Gentile, but was a witness to a work of the Spirit that made this line collapse.  He essentially has a conversion experience where the Spirit enabled him to move beyond the us/them mindset into a new place where it was just “us.”  From what was read earlier, Acts 11, verse 12 Peter tells this to his fellow believers of Jerusalem, reading from the NRSV: “The Spirit told me not to make a distinction between them and us.”  What was it that happened to Peter for him to make a statement like this?  What kind of world is it where we no longer make that distinction between them and us? As every teacher knows, repetition aids learning.  Many times we have to hear the same thing said six or seven different ways before it actually starts to sink in.  Being the teacher that he is, Luke, the author of Acts, is well aware of this.  We have already looked at Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus.  Saul who drew the lines so sharply between the insiders and the outsiders only to discover that he had placed God on the outside.  Blind Saul becoming Paul who begins to see the world in a whole new way, that God is present in the outcast and the ones he had considered “them”.  That how you treat the outsider is how you are treating God.  This story actually gets repeated two more times in the book of Acts, in different contexts, as Paul tells different people about this experience.  For the reader who has already heard the story it is a notice to pay attention and recognize the importance of this event.  In case we hadn’t experienced the conversion with Saul the first time, Luke gives us two more chances for the scales to fall from our own eyes.       This reading from Acts chapter 11 is actually somewhat of a flashback, with Peter recalling an event that had already happened.  This is the second time in two chapters Luke is letting us hear this same story.  So it is probably fair to say that he would like us to pay attention.  The story is that one day around noon Peter was hungry and instead of sitting down to a nice proper meal, he has a vision, which involved a whole bunch of animals that the law of God declared unclean to eat.  They were off limits and considered profane.  Sticking with the idea that repetition aids learning, Peter is given this vision not once, not twice, but three different times.  Each time he hears a voice saying “Get up, Peter, kill and eat.”  He refuses each time.  There are boundaries he simply can’t cross in keeping true to God.  But each time he refuses to eat, the voice says to him, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”  This happens three times, and then it’s over.  The animals are gone and Peter hasn’t eaten anything.  At this point Peter is rather confused.  The NRSV says he was “greatly puzzled.”  Was this God telling him to violate what he thought was God’s law?  Maybe this was a vision from the devil, a temptation.   Whatever it was, it was commanding him to violate a core principle of his faith based on scripture: there are animals for eating and there are animals which must not be eaten, period.  While he’s confused, and still hungry, three men come to him and invite him to come with them into the house of Cornelius who is a God fearing man and wants to hear Peter’s message and who, by the way, is a Roman centurion, a Gentile.  Sometime during their walk to Cornelius’ house it begins to dawn on Peter that this vision wasn’t so much about animals as it was about people, unclean people, or at least people he had thought were unclean.  When Peter arrives he makes this statement, “God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.” Chapter 10 v. 28.     Theologian James Alison suggests that there is a particular moment in this story that we should freeze frame.  A certain moment where there is a depth of experience that relates directly with our own experience in breaking down barriers in our minds and relationships.   Peter’s statement here feels like the point of a breakthrough, like the us and them between Jew and Gentile is being broken down.  But this moment Alison would like to freeze hasn’t happened yet.  Peter begins speaking rather eloquently about the inclusive nature of God.  In verse 10:34-35 he says, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”  He goes on to tell about the life of Jesus and his death and resurrection.  But before he can finish speaking, something very unexpected happens.  V. 44 phrases it that “the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.  The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.”  This is what Alison says: “The frame I would like to ask you to freeze is the frame where the Holy Spirit is falling on the gentile listeners, and Peter is looking stunned, trying to work out what on earth this means.  There is much, much more going on here than meets the eye.  What looks, in cinematic terms, like a straightforward scene from a Pentecostal or charismatic rally, is in fact a cultural earthquake of immeasurably greater proportions.”  Alison suggests that this still frame of Peter watching, with a dropped jaw, the Spirit of God at work outside the previous boundary of pure and impure people is a key for us coming to allow God to break through our us/them mentality.  If we are willing to watch for God’s Spirit at work we may begin to feel the tremors of this earthquake.     In the summer of 2004, after my first year of seminary, I had the chance to go to Barcelona Spain and attend the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions.  Being a theology student, a major part of my interest was in learning about the ways these different philosophies would find common ground and how people would deal with the differences.  I attended some fascinating seminars: “Middle East stories: The significance of the Holy Land in our Sacred Texts,”  “A Buddhist-Christian dialogue on responses to environmental violence,” “Interreligious dialogue and non-negotiable dogmas.”    There were many opportunities to talk with others about their faith and my own.  But one of the highlights of the week for me had very little to do with dialogue or abstract theology.  Every day of the Parliament for lunch those from the Sikh religion prepared, cooked, served and cleaned up after a free lunch for everyone who wanted to eat with them.  They had set up a huge tent for their kitchen and dining area.  Being a poor seminary student, I went every day.  So did many others.  The food was great.  Each time I went it sunk in a little bit more just what this was all about.  Rather than going off on our own to different restaurants in the city, the Sikhs were providing hospitality and food for many people to eat together metaphorically and actually “under one tent.”  This would be a time that I would say that I experienced this freeze frame of Peter observing the Spirit at work in the “other” people, the hospitality of the Sikhs.  Although I never stood there with my jaw wide open in amazement, it was essentially a similar experience to Peter.  It was clear that the Spirit of God was being poured out through these Sikhs in a way that was breaking down barriers between us and them.  Going back a few years before this, while I was still in college I got a letter in the mail from my brother, Luke.  It said, essentially, “Joel, I think I’m gay, and I’m not sure what to do.”  I wasn’t quite sure what to do either.  I had recently been thinking about wanting to get to know my brother better, like we hadn’t really connected below a surface level in our young adult lives.  So here was an invitation to go deeper.  But I didn’t know at all what I thought about gay people and whether or not they were really gay or just confused heterosexuals.  Over the course of the next few years there were chances to talk one on one with Luke, chances to talk as a family, chances to read and think and pray and observe.  And what I observed I would again characterize within this freeze frame of Peter watching the Spirit descending on the Gentiles.  Over the course of these years, within the life of my brother, I watched as he came to embrace his identity as a gay man and began to experience healing within himself.  He has come to have a fullness of personality that I can only see as a gift from God.  He has made a covenanted commitment to his life partner, Christian.  I continue to observe the Spirit actively working in Luke.  Not the charismatic showing of the Spirit that Peter observed, but the kind of the signs of the Spirit that Paul would call the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, Galations 5:22-23.  This has been for me again an experience of God’s Spirit breaking down a barrier between us and them and overcoming previous notions of what is clean and what is profane.   I recognize this is a controversial issue within the church.  Probably the hot button issue of this decade.  And people of genuine faith have strong convictions that differ from one another.  But this is the way I have come to see my interactions with the gay community and see God present there.   James Alison also says this: “In the frozen frame we see the dawning realization that God likes the ‘impure’ people, that God wants them to be on the inside of God’s story just as they are.  God is not confronting them to get them to repent, or even inviting them to become something else.  God is possessing them with delight, and they are delighting in being possessed.”Peter saw God loving Gentiles as Gentiles, and when he shared this with the other disciples in Jerusalem, they agreed that the Gentiles need not become Jews to be on the inside of God’s story.  In our pluralistic culture it can be difficult and confusing to know whose on the inside and whose on the outside of God’s story.  Even though we’re usually in the business of drawing lines between us and them, God doesn’t seem to be so concerned about this.  God is much more interested in moving in the midst of what we consider to be profane to making it clean.  The Spirit is active outside of boundaries we draw to contain it.  Active in people of other faiths, active in people of other nationalities, of other political and theological persuasions, even within fundamentalists.  Active within gay, straight, bi, trans, everyone confused about their identity, everyone assured of their identity.  The Spirit is active to make us, “us.”  A human family where Gentiles are loved and saved as Gentiles.  Because the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, grows on all sorts of trees.  Trees we thought God didn’t want to include in the orchard.  Strange trees that look and act different than us, but are bearing the same recognizable, visible Spirit fruit.

Fortunately God gives us time to allow for this reorientation.  God knows that repetition aids learning.  This isn’t something any of us learn all at once.  But we do keep observing, keep listening, to places where we believe God’s Spirit is moving, and slowly we allow ourselves to be changed by these experiences.  We live within this freeze frame of Peter: watching, astounded, as the Spirit of God moves us all beyond ‘us’ and ‘them’ toward becoming simply, “us.”   

 

Saul Becoming Paul – 4,22,07

There once was a man named SaulThe followers of Jesus he tried to kill allUntil on his way to DamascusA light around him did flashcusAnd straight to the ground did he fallStraight to the ground did he fallAnd heard a divine voice to him callIt said ‘hey you’re killing me manWe’ve got to redirect your plans.’And so began Saul becoming Paul.                 Think for a minute about some of the images of God that you have in your mind.  Some of those pictures or metaphors that serve to give you an overall sense for who God is.  A common image for God is that of a father figure.  This is how God is portrayed in some popular works of art.  I think particularly of Michaelangelo’s ‘Creation of Adam’ painting with God reaching over down from the clouds to touch the spark of life into the human he has just created.  Although we know that God isn’t just a large, old, bearded father in the sky, this image has had a powerful effect on the human imagination.  Some of the biblical imagery of God pictures God in this way, like the prophet Daniel’s picture of an Ancient One seated on a throne with white clothing and hair white like wool.  Some of the language for God as father in scripture is more intimate.  Jesus uses the familiar ‘Abba’ for God, perhaps best translated “Daddy.”  This is a common image, but there are many images.  Perhaps you picture God more like a mother.  A nurturing presence.  One who carries the world within her body and gives birth to new possibilities.  One who holds us within her embrace.  Scripture also pictures God in this way.  Isaiah says, “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.”  Jesus pictures himself as a mother hen, desiring to gather together all the children of Jerusalem under the protection of her wing.God as judge seems to be a rather pervasive image in many people’s minds.  Or God as warrior.  You may carry images of God that go beyond a human image, seeing God through other aspects of creation.  Native American spirituality saw the Great Spirit as being present throughout the created world.  In the animals, in the wind, in the trees.  In scripture Moses has a plant revelation of God through a bush burning yet not consumed in the middle of the desert.  At Jesus’ baptism the Spirit of God is seen to be revealed in a bird in flight, a dove that descends on Jesus as he comes up out of the water.There are also less concrete images of God.  Like God as peace, as love.  God as the higher power, God as forgiveness, God as presence.  We probably carry with us a combination of images for God although one or two may be more dominant than others.  Whatever these images may be, they inform our spirituality and how we see the world and our place in the world.  The way we imagine God subtly, or not so subtly affects all other parts of us.  We may be acting out of an acceptance and embracing of these images, or a rejection of these images.  But one thing is for sure.  We all have God images that influence us.This was also the case for Saul of Tarsus, the man later known as the Apostle Paul.  To put the most gracious spin that we can on the person of Saul, let’s call him a committed person of faith.  Deeply committed to the God of his ancestors to the point of allowing his understanding of God to be the driving force behind his entire life.  In his letters that he wrote later he referred to himself as “zealous for the Lord,” as “blameless” in his careful observance of following God’s ways, as he understood them.  And Saul was not only committed, he was concerned.  Concerned about maintaining boundaries between faithful Israel and the faithless.  Concerned that God’s name not be misused or abused by those within Israel and that the true faith would remain strong.  There is nothing wrong, per se, with being a committed, concerned person of faith.  The image of God that dominated Saul’s mind, however, was that of a God for whom there was an inside group and an outside group and who acted as a policing agent between the border.  Those from the outside were welcome on the inside, as long as they followed all the rules and practices.  And once on the inside there must be obedience and submission to God’s ways.  Whenever this group, God’s group, was threatened, it was the duty of the leaders to do what was necessary to maintain security, and purity within the group.And so we meet up with Saul on his way to the city of Damascus to deal with what we may call a disturbance from within.  Acts 9:2 says his plan was that “if he found any who belonged to The Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.”  At this point the word ‘Christian’ hadn’t even been invented, there was simply a group of Jews who considered themselves to be followers of Jesus of Nazareth who were finding themselves at odds with other Jews, sort of like a difference of practices within the same denomination.  Mentioning that Saul was after the ‘men and women’ could well indicate the important role women were playing in this community.  This group of Jesus followers had come to be know as “The Way” and in Saul’s eyes they were blurring the God-ordained boundaries between the in group and the out group, between the sacred and the profane.  And Saul is remaining committed to his image of a God who demands clear distinctions between the inside and the outside, the pure and the impure.      On the road, he has an encounter which shows a number of signs of this being a divine appearance.  There is the presence of light, often identified as a symbol for God.  Saul falls to the ground, similar to Ezekiel and Daniel in encounters they had with God.   There is the repeating of the name Saul, Saul, much like God calling out Abraham, Abraham, Moses, Moses, Samuel, Samuel.  We’ve got here the makings of a classic divine appearance, only with a rather shocking twist.  On the other side of the line, in the place where God is supposed to be, is a suffering human being.  Saul has a revelation of a God identified with a suffering human being, Jesus.  This encounter of the Risen Christ is the beginning of a great unlearning within Saul, who is now on his way to becoming the apostle Paul.  It is an unlearning of the pervasive, persistent notion that God is one who calls for defending the purity of the group.  An unlearning of a God who has anything to do with violence.  Unlearning of a God who blesses only those on the inside.  It is the beginning of learning about a God for whom there is no outside, for whom ‘the sacred group’ includes everyone.  A God for whom there are no outsiders, and as soon as we construct an outside, it is God whom we have placed on the outside.  And so Saul’s revelation is one where he sees God on the outside of his own sacred world, being the very one that he has been excluding, often rather violently.  V. 4  ‘Saul, why do you persecute me?’  Saul had to answer the only way he knew how, “WHO are you?”From this revelation, Saul’s world goes dark.  The man who thought he could see so clearly, is now blind, unable to see anything, his whole world completely incomprehensible.  V. 8 and 9 “Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him to Damascus.  For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.”  Saul’s sight isn’t restored until he is visited by Ananias, one of those followers of The Way.  Ananias’ first words to him are “Brother Saul.”  After this one whom he had considered to be an enemy calls him “brother,” and invites him to receive the Holy Spirit, the text says “something like scales fell from (Saul’s) eyes, and his sight was restored.”This event is often referred to as Saul’s conversion, which is quite true, but it may be a misleading name.  This really has nothing to do with Saul being converted from Judaism to Christianity, since there wasn’t even a thing called Christianity at the time.  If Saul is simply being converted from one religion to another then there is nothing particularly extraordinary about the power of the resurrection that he experienced.  Saul’s conversion wasn’t a transfer of religions, but an exploding open of his own religion such that the boundaries and fences he had believed to be in place around him simply collapsed.  If I have drawn up a world in my mind where there are holy and right people on the inside and unholy and evil people on the outside, and then if it is revealed to me that in this world that I have drawn up I have in fact placed God on the outside, among the bad people, “numbered with the transgressors” scripture says of Christ, then I have got a lot of unlearning to do with what this God is all about.  Jesus, who occupied the place of shame, the place of the outcast, had been vindicated by God and was now revealing that it is God’s own self who is that outcast.  For Saul, on his way to becoming Paul, the crucified, risen Christ would become a central image of God.  In all his letters he writes in this way.  The Anabaptist movement of the 16^th century saw itself as trying to recover what has been called a Christo-centric view of things.  That all of our images of God must be seen through the lens of Christ and that Jesus is our central icon, our central image for who God is.  We cannot ever get away with constructing an outside, of those who are outside God’s care, because as soon as we have done this, as soon as we have excluded any, it is God whom we have excluded.    This has been a difficult week for our country.  The killings at Virginia Tech were brutal, senseless, and downright scary.  The circumstances are worlds apart, but there is still the voice of the Risen Christ calling out on behalf of those who were killed saying, “Why do you persecute me?”  Why do you continue to kill and injure and destroy?  Why do you continue to cut short the lives of those who are just in their youth?  Why?  There is a tendency for us to ask Why in these cases.  Why God did something like this happen.  Through Christ God asks the same question back.  Why?  Why do you persecute me?Living in an era that has seen two world wars, the Atomic Bomb, the Holocaust, And Lord knows how many other outbreaks of war and violence, we desperately need this image of God that is revealed to Saul.  The evils of our time do not flow from heaven to earth, as if God were unleashing this violence on us, but flow from earth to heaven, a direct assault on the God of life.  Central to our images for God must be the crucified and risen Christ who suffers by human hands and is made alive in God.  “Why do you continue to persecute me?”  This risen Christ teaches our blind eyes how to see.  How to recognize a brother and a sister where before we saw an enemy.  How to see God present in the most God-forsaken situations.  With the Risen Christ on the loose, it is not a safe, predictable world.  With this image of God imprinted on our minds, we can’t hold on to our normal categories of who’s in and who’s out and whose side God is really on.  Whenever we encounter one who has been excluded, or one who has been counted as an enemy, or one who has been harmed for whatever reason, we must believe that we are encountering the face of God.  Whenever our nation tries to define a group as outsiders or evil, we simply can’t go along.  With eyes that have seen the light of the resurrection we believe that God dwells on the margins of our structures of order and control, in solidarity with those who are considered cursed.  This is what that little band of disciples who were followers of The Way came to believe.  Those people who would later be called Christians.  That group that Saul who had become Paul so deeply influenced in his travel and preaching and writing.  Paul for whom the crucified and risen one came to be identified as a central image of God.  Our images for God subtly or not so subtly influence all other aspects of our lives.  May we see with opened eyes the Risen Christ among us.