Pandemic as a time for a Pentecost? (Sunday, May 23, 2021)

 Reading: Acts 2:1-21

The reading is the story of what happens among the disciples Jesus gathered in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost.  The name “Pentecost” comes from the Greek word for “Fiftieth” and it was so called because it is a Jewish Feast on the fiftieth day after the beginning of the wheat harvest – a feast of thanksgiving for God’s continuing care and provision for God’s people. 

By the time of Jesus, Pentecost also included a celebration of God’s ancient covenant with Noah to sustain the cycle of the seasons and all life on Earth.  It was a day to remember and celebrate God’s desire for the well-being of all Earth, and Jews came home to Jerusalem from all over the known world to renew their role in living out God’s on-going love for all the created world. 

When the day of Pentecost came, the followers of Jesus were all together in one place.  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Now God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven were staying in Jerusalem for the Festival. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?”

“We speak in all the different languages of the Empire and beyond, and each of us hears them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongue!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”  Some, however, made fun of the followers of Jesus and said, “They have had too much wine.”

Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

“‘In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

Your sons and daughters will speak God’s truth,
    your young men and women will see God’s way,
    your old men and women will dream God’s dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
    and they will speak God’s truth.

I will show wonders in the heavens above
    and signs on the earth below,
    blood and fire and billows of smoke.”

The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood
    before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.

And everyone who calls
    on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Meditation 

When the day of Pentecost came, the followers of Jesus were all together in one place.  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind filled the whole house.  They saw tongues of fire separate and come to rest on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them. 

How the heck can we celebrate and share in Pentecost if we aren’t all together in one place?  How on Earth are we to know the outpouring of holy Spirit if we aren’t able to gather?

In so many ways we affirm the corporate nature of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of God as a communal reality. 

It’s why at church business meetings we don’t allow absentee ballots.  Our experience is that we come to know God’s wisdom and the movement of the Spirit among us best when we meet face-to-face and we open ourselves to real-time interaction and dialogue.

And when it comes to personal growth and discernment, we also know the value of being open and accountable to a spiritual companion, and part of a spiritual community.  We feel suspicious of people who identify their gifts and God’s calling on their life all by themselves.  Even ministers are advised to have a minister themselves.  Just like the fabled desert fathers and mothers of the third and fourth centuries, who lived as holy hermits and who others came to for advice, also knew they needed to keep in touch with one another, and be accountable to one another to keep from falling into spiritual delusion, temptation or apathy.

So how can we know the presence and purpose of Holy Spirit in our lives, if we can’t be together? 

Unless … if the Spirit really is gift, and the coming of the Spirit is from heaven and by God’s design rather than from our own efforts and practices … maybe the question is not how can we know the holy Spirit in a time of isolation and distancing, but how do we know the Spirit of God in these times?  How does God work through the challenge of the times we are in.

Think of your life right now.  Who are your spiritual companions these days?  Where do you find holy community to support you and hold you accountable in your spiritual journey and your openness to God?  Who or what helps you know you are not alone?  That you live in God’s world?  That you believe in God?  That you are part of a living community of faith?

The answers may be quite traditional – your church, your usual Christian friends, spiritual practices and companions you’ve always relied on to keep you steady, and keep you in touch with God’s presence and God’s purpose in your life.

Or, these days you may be finding support and spiritual nurture and companionship in new ways and from new directions.  From people and things and in places and ways you never before considered to be spiritual, and part of God’s way of blessing your life.

And that’s okay, because there are other ways in which we and other people come to be “gathered together in one place,” other than in a church as we know it, and other than at a prayer meeting or a service of worship as we’re used to having them.  And the experience of Pentecost is not intended a one-time-only kind of thing, but is experienced over and over again in a hundred million kinds of ways.

Back in 2014, Karen Wiseman, Associate Professor of Homiletics at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, preached a Pentecost sermon in which she referred to the international response to the kidnapping of 276 girls from a Nigerian school by Boko Haram as a Pentecost moment.   

In the midst of all the chatter and chaos of sound and sound bytes that we call news, public discourse and social media, she says, this incident was so shocking that within weeks it seemed all the world was united in outrage, in concern, and in efforts to somehow save the girls’ lives.  Every tongue and every media were used to express one simple, holy desire: “Bring Back Our Girls” and everyone heard it in their own tongue and by their own favourite media.

Of course, the moment did not last long.  News channels and social media soon tired of the one story, felt a need to move on to other things.  But still, that moment was real, when an otherwise fractured world was united in a single good purpose in its awareness of evil at work and tragedy suffered.  It gave us a glimpse of what can be, and what sometimes is true of humanity created to live in the in the image and likeness of God.

It makes me think of other moments when people have found themselves “in one place” and on the same page about something of global significance.  In my time, the assassination of JFK – an event so shocking that it united all the world in the deep holiness of shared grief.  The death of Lady Di.  More recently the murder of George Floyd.

And it’s not always “bad stuff.”  There was the Apollo 11 moon landing and Neil Armstrong’s world-famous “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”  A global celebration of what humans can accomplish.  Two years before was the world’s first successful human heart transplant performed on Louis Washkansky by Dr. Christian Barnard in Cape Town, South Africa, using the heart of donor Denise Duvall.  And every four years, do the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics maybe also gather us in to share in something that unites and elevates us as a species beyond the things that divide us and threaten, rather than serve the goodness of life on Earth?

And that’s what Pentecost is about.  Pentecost is a festival held 50 after the beginning of the wheat harvest.  It’s a feast of thanksgiving for the maturing and fruition of what’s been sown, in spite of all the risks and anxieties about it along the way.  It’s a celebration of God’s continued provision of food and blessing for the people, no matter how disastrous any year or how perilous any season may seem. 

In the rituals of the festival, it’s also a time to recommit to taking one’s part in God’s good purpose for the well-being of all the Earth.  To hear once again the call to live on Earth as children of God, in God’s image and likeness, caring together for all the Earth and all its people and creatures.  It’s about the maturing and coming to fullness of the seed of a world and of humanity in it, that was planted in the beginning in the Garden of Eden, and the appearing – the flowering and maturing, even just for a season, of what was intended and envisioned from the start.

I wonder if the pandemic we’re still in has been a kind of Pentecost moment as well.  An experience and a glimpse of a kind of maturing – at least for a moment, of what we are meant to be.  Like the days after the death of Jesus – a time of tragic loss and sorrow, that becomes the ground of holy clarity and wisdom.

Do you remember some of the things everyone seemed to be saying and hearing in any way we could – in every tongue and by every media, in the first few months of COVID-19?  Things like the celebration of simplified living?  The resurgence of nature?  The acceptance of limits?  The realization that we’re all in this together?  That grocery store clerks and cashiers and garbage collectors are as essential to society as firefighters, police officers and medical personnel?  And that none of us really are safe unless all – including the poor and the weak, especially the poor and the weak, are safe and well-cared for?

Can we see that maybe as part of Pentecost 2020 – men and women, young and old, of all classes and levels of society, seeing God’s singular truth, and speaking it and hearing in every language and by every media available to us?  All of us, not physically in one place, but all of us, on the same page.

It hasn’t taken long, of course, for the harvest of a mature humanity to pass, and for us to fall back into division, greed, self-centredness and short-sightedness.

But that’s nothing new, and we needn’t despair.

What’s new once again is the glimpse of a more mature humanity that we had for a while when the pandemic put us all on the same page.  Gathered us all together in one place.  And we felt a new breeze blow among us.  Were warmed by a new kind of fire within us.  And at least for a while we all spoke and heard God’s truth about life in all the tongues we knew. 

And now in the wake of that harvest, we once again have some good new seed to re-sow back into our own lives and into the life of the world as we are able, and as it's needed.

Thanks be to God.

What's in a Blessing? (from Sunday, May 16, 2021)

 Reading: Luke 24:44-53 

Like the other Gospels, the Gospel of Luke ends with stories about the raising of Jesus from the dead, his appearing to his disciples, and his ascending to heaven.  But in Luke, this is not the end of the story.  It’s just the end of Part One.

The same person who wrote The Gospel of Luke also wrote the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, and clearly intended them to be read as Part One and Part Two of the bigger story of the kingdom of God beginning to change all the world.  What begins with Jesus, is continued after his departure by those who follow in his way and live by his Spirit.

The end of the Gospel, then – which is our reading today – is like the end of Act One in a play.  The risen Jesus appears to the disciples, and what he says and does sets up the final working-out of the story after an intermission.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.”  Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things.  And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so, stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.  And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

 

 Meditation 

“He led them out as far as Bethany and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them.”  

This part of the story makes me think of the huge statue of Christ the Redeemer on the peak of a mountain overlooking Rio de Janeiro.  The statue is 30 metres high, and stands on a pedestal another 8 metres high.  The arms stretch 28 metres wide – helping us imagine the risen Jesus reaching out to embrace, hold, and bless all the world, its people, all life.  The statue has been voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

The image of hands lifted up in blessing over us also makes me remember being twelve years old standing in a tankful of water in the sanctuary of McDermot Avenue Baptist Church, to be baptized, blessed and welcomed into the church.  Twelve was the age at which many of us felt a need for God’s salvation of our souls, and ready to give our lives to following the way of Christ.  About a dozen of us were being baptized and welcomed into the church that night.

The minister waiting for each of us in turn to wade out to him in the middle of the tank and to stand in front of all the congregation, was Rev. Stein.  I had mixed feelings about him.  I was twelve years old, and on one hand he represented order, authority and judgement; he seemed old; he preached about the evils of rock-and-roll.  On the other hand, he was the one who phoned in to a local radio talk show to criticize a decision of City Council to reduce funding for support programs for families in poverty; he cared about the poor.

In all his ambiguous fulness of meaning he reached out that night to welcome and to steady us all in the water of baptism.  In turn, he asked each of us to affirm our faith in Christ, and our willingness to follow and serve Christ in all our life.  Then he held each us tight, lowered us under the water, raised us up out of it, and lifted up his right hand over us to declare a blessing and welcome us into the fellowship of the church.

With me, though, he added one more thing.  “This one is going to be a minister,” he said.  Eight words that have stayed with me all my life, and have shaped my life.  Eight words that have been a surprising joy to hear, a burden to bear, a light to guide, and a call to grow into.

That, I think, is how we need to read this story of the risen Jesus lifting up his hands to bless his followers.  Blessing and being blessed are often understood as a matter of gifts given and received.  We sing “count your blessings – name them one by one,” making blessing just another word for “gift” – some nice thing God gives us, like any generous and rich parent gives their child.  A blank check.  A winning ticket.  A get-out-of-jail card when we need it.

But blessing also has something to do with being ordained to service, like when a king or queen consecrates and raises a soul to the ranks and responsibilities of knighthood with a ceremonial tap of a sword upon the shoulders of the one kneeling before them. 

More than just “I am lucky to have so many good things,” being blessed also means “I am called to a way of life, invited into partnership with Christ, and empowered to live out God’s will in the world in his name and in his stead.  I am given an identity and a purpose in life that I would not have apart from Christ lifting up his hands to bless me as I follow him, and God laying a holy hand upon my shoulders as I kneel before and submit myself to the Holy One.” It’s an unexpected joy to receive, a heavy burden to bear, a holy light to guide you, and a life-long calling to grow into and live up to as best you can.

I recently read of someone who has borne this kind of blessing, and who in her own little way stands out in the world as remarkably as the statue of Christ the Redeemer does in a big way.

Wilma Derksen’s 13-year-old daughter, Candace, was assaulted and murdered in 1984.  It took weeks for her body to be found, and when Candace’s body was found, Wilma and her husband Cliff consented to a press conference.  Wilma describes the end of the press conference in the book she has written about her soul’s journey from that point on.  The book is titled The Way of Letting Go: One Woman’s Journey towards Forgiveness. 

Lights from the TV cameras had dimmed, and I thought the press conference was over.  We had spent the entire time talking about our daughter – relieved that we had found her, shocked that she had been murdered, and thankful for everyone who had been searching for her. 

Just as we were about to leave, someone asked the question.  “And what about the person who murdered your daughter?”

The reporter who had asked the question was standing in the back, his black note book in his hands, pen poised.  The question hung in the air for quite a while as we just sat there deliberating about what we should say…

Cliff … was the first to answer it.  And he said it with a kind of fait-accompli assurance: “We forgive.”

…I envied my husband’s confidence.  I still do [she is writing 33 years later]… I answered honestly.  “I want to forgive.”

The lights that had dimmed had come back on as they asked us what forgiving meant.  I have no idea how we answered them.  But to me it felt like I had dissolved into a conversation with friends as Cliff and I began to explore the concept with them.

I was stunned the next day that our choice and our attitude was what had grabbed the attention of the city.  I had thought the stories would focus on the murder.  They didn’t.  The articles highlighted our statement of forgiveness. 

And Wilma’s life from then until now and probably until the day she dies has been focused on an incredibly hard journey of learning about, growing into, living out, and writing about what forgiveness really is, what it means, what it costs, and what it gives.  Like a knight charged with a particular responsibility in the world, like a disciple blessed with an identity and a mission they would not have had otherwise, Wilma and her husband felt the hand of God on their shoulder, and knew the hand of the Christ lifted over them blessing them with an identity and a purpose greater than any they would have known otherwise. 

Not as big as one of the Seven New Wonders of the World.  But clearly one of the myriad wonders of the New World – the world that Christ the Redeemer calls us all to bear witness to.

And Wilma does not say we should all respond as she did to the violence done to her and her family.  When she writes, she is not a doctor writing a prescription for us all to follow.  She is a fellow patient suffering the human condition, describing as honestly as she can her own experience, strength, and hope.  And maybe that too is faithful to the way of the Christ, and the kind of relationship with others and witness to others that he blesses us with.

Aiden Clarke, a bishop to the Lindisfarne Community in Northumbria, England tells a story he read “about a boy who lost a dog in New York City.  As he walked up and down the streets, systematically and slowly, a friend complained that he wasn’t even looking for the dog.

“He answered, ‘I’m not looking for him.  I’m letting him find me.  Sooner or later he will discover the trail I am putting down and follow it until he comes to me.’

“In the same way, Jesus is not looking for converts.  He sets down a trail which different people pick up at different points and follow until they find him.  The person who bears witness is also not looking for converts but setting down a track which others will find and follow to Jesus.  Maybe a perfect evangelist is one whose work and love is never recognized, who is never acknowledged or thanked by anyone this side of the grave.  May Jesus bless the millions who bear witness quietly and humbly in secret.”

We are not all Wilma or Cliff Derksens; thank God we don’t find ourselves in that extremity of sorrow.  We are not all ordained ministers; there were a dozen others besides me baptized that night into following Jesus.  And all of us in our own way stand under the outstretched arms of Christ the Redeemer who blesses us with a way of living we would not have otherwise.  All of us at times feel the hand of God upon our shoulder, and hear the voice of God calling us to rise where we are to an identity and a purpose of God’s design, that we would never have apart from being blessed with it.

There’s only one statue of Christ the Redeemer; one is enough.  What’s needed beyond that is simply people who know the gracious joy, the constant burden, the guiding light, and the ennobling call of his blessing upon their life.

Can you see yourself as someone going up and down the streets of your life and of your community, step by step laying down a track of God’s love, for others to be able to find it and follow it until they too find God and God’s love for themselves?

 

A Mother's Love ... when the mother is God (6th Sunday of Easter, May 9, 2021)

 Mothers Day:

In some churches, today is celebrated also as “Christian Family Sunday,” and as one minister puts it, “Christian Family Sunday is not just about the nuclear family that goes to church together, nor about family related by blood or adoption and who likely live in the same house; it is about the family of God, above and beyond that nuclear family.”

Reading: John 15:9-17 

The reading is part of what is known as The Upper Room Discourse in the Gospel of John.  Jesus and his disciples are sharing the Last Supper, and he is preparing them for his death, his resurrection, the flowing of his Spirit among them, and their continued mission for the rest of their lives to reveal the kingdom of God at work in the world as he has made it known to them.

In this story, the disciples express grief at the looming death of Jesus, mistrust about themselves, suspicion about one another, and anxiety about the future.  Jesus speaks of his continuing love for them as his friends, and of his faith in them as fruitful servants of God’s love at work in the world. 

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.  Abide in my love.  If you keep my commands, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and abide in his love.  I have told you this so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. 

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.  I longer call you servants, because a servant does not know their master’s business.  Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last – and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.  This is my command: Love each other.

Meditation 

Play nice!  Don’t fight!  Don’t hit your sister!  Take care of your little brother!

Might those four be among the Top Ten Things you might hear a mother say?  Or any parent?

What mother – or father, for that matter, does not want their brood to get along?  Be helpful to one another?  Supportive of one another?

And is there any greater heartbreak for a mom, or any parent, when their children are at odds and estranged from one another?  Or even just at a distance and out of touch?

Over the past six or seven months one thing that’s happened in my family on my dad’s side is that the cousins – all the children of my dad and his five sisters, living across the country from Vancouver to Peterborough, have been having Zoom reunions.  For some of us it’s been decades since we’ve seen one another, talked, or been in touch.  And every time we all meet now by Zoom and visit for a few hours at a time, somebody says “Our moms would be so happy to see us doing this.  Being together as family was always so important to them.”  And we all agree.

It’s like Jesus says to his disciples at the Last Supper – which was a Passover meal, the epitome of family-based faithful practice among his people – “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.  Abide in my love … that I may be happy in you, and your happiness may be complete.  This is what the Father desires, and what the whole business is about: to love as you are loved.  So, this is the command: Love each other.”

It’s not always easy.  Just being a disciple of Jesus doesn’t make it easy.  In fact, being a disciple of Jesus makes it especially hard, because Jesus has this habit of drawing together the most disparate people as his family.

There are actual brothers among Jesus’ disciples.  Two sets of them, actually – Simon and Andrew, and James and John – two sons of Zebedee.  And that’s actually where some of the trouble starts, like the time when Jesus is about to enter the city of Jerusalem, people think he’s about to bring in God’s kingdom, and James’ and John’s mother comes to Jesus and asks him to make her two boys his special lieutenants in the kingdom by giving them a place on his right and left side.  Make the kingdom a nice family affair.

This is one of those times when a mother’s special love for her own flesh and blood above others isn’t what Jesus has in mind.  Because he keeps expanding the circle.  He keeps opening the door to let others in, adding all kinds of other people to the roster of brothers and sisters with a place at the table.   Tax collectors and sinners.  People they meet along the way.  Lepers and lame folk.  Women, too.  In one case, a woman of Samaria!  And even more unexpected, a Syro-Phoenician woman!!

Jesus doesn’t make family life easy.  And after his death and resurrection, it only gets more challenging.  After ascension to heaven, one of the first things he does is call Paul – still known as Saul of Tarsus, super-persecutor and even killer of his followers, to become part of the family, too.  To be an honoured and leading member no less!

How hard was that for Peter and the others to accept?  He was their sworn enemy.  Their greatest nightmare.  And they were to accept him now as a brother?  A brother, it turns out, who begins began to take the whole family in a new direction – out among the Gentiles!  Step by step he changes the family’s whole identity and self-image.

And there are others along the way.  The Ethiopian eunuch – a foreign bureaucrat of another land and culture, who gets entrusted with the good news of God for his part of the world without any “family supervision” or vetting.  The warden of the jail in Philippi who actually locks Peter and John into their cells, then gets feted as a beloved sibling.  One after another, there are people so different from – even opposed to the disciples, of whom Jesus says, “Oh, by the way, he’s your brother, too.  His whole family, in fact, are part of us.  So, share with them what you know and what you’ve been given.  The circle and the table are a bit bigger – and quite a bit different, than you thought.”

One of Japhia’s favourite stories about her daughter Tiffany is from when Tiffany was still in public school and was telling her mom about her new friend at school.  She said he was really neat and a lot of fun and she liked playing with him.  So, one day in the park Japhia said, “Which one is your new friend?  I’d like to meet him.”  Tiffany pointed and said, “He’s over there.  The one in the green shorts.”

Japhia looked.  And there he was.  The only kid in green shorts.  And, what Tiffany neglected to mention and either didn’t notice or think worth mentioning, is that he was also the only kid of the bunch who was black.  But it was the colour of his shorts, not the colour of his skin, that was significant.  One of Japhia’s proudest moments as a mom.

This is the same Tiffany who years later when she was working at a group home for mentally challenged adults, brought them all over to our house for a barbecue, and in the course of the afternoon oh-so-naturally introduced us to one of the group who was sitting on the kitchen floor mewing like a cat, as “Oh yeah, that’s Charlie; he likes to mew like a cat sometimes.”

At another point, learning we gave someone named Tim a drink of water because he said he was thirsty, she immediately and happily took Tim by the hand and led him to the bathroom because she knew he’d need to pee almost right away, and would do it wherever he was.  Later in the afternoon she nonchalantly advised us to put away a fancy chess board because Charlotte was likely to put the pieces in her mouth.  Just before she burst out laughing long and hard with Jimmy when he let out a big and smelly fart.

To her, they were all family.  She accepted each one for who they were.  Each one was part of the circle and had a place, equal to hers and equal to ours, at the table.  She not only welcomed them with open arms and heart; she let herself and the family be transformed by them.

Not surprising that years later, married and a mom with two kids herself, living in a town house condo development it was her and her husband’s driveway that had the barbecue rather than a car in it as a constant gathering spot for neighbours, with a standing invitation to anyone to drop by as they wished for a beer or a hot dog, and open door that all kinds of people felt easy about entering, bearing witness in her own way to an understanding and a practice of family, of community, and of kingdom whose inclusivity, fluidity and welcoming openness are still more than I’m entirely comfortable with in my own life, but that remind me of what Jesus says:

“This is the command.  This is what this business of God is all about.  This is what makes me happy in you, and makes your happiness complete.

“Love one another.  Love whoever we meet, and whoever I lead you to along the way.  Love them as brother and sister.  Love them as you have been loved.”