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God, take our minds and think through them; take our lips and speak through them; take our hearts and set them on fire; that we might love the world, in Jesus’ name. AMEN. Once there was a little girl who always had questions about God. In church one Sunday, on the day of Pentecost, everyone stood to sing the opening hymn. Suddenly, she saw someone with a long, thin pole leading the procession. As he came up the aisle, he leaned over the congregation, on one side and then the other, back and forth, waving the pole over everyone’s heads. But it wasn’t just a pole he was waving. It had something on the end of it: a big bird, a great white cloth dove, trailing long, red ribbons behind it. The little girl’s mother explained that this dove was supposed to make them think of God. She was quiet for a while. Then she tugged on her mother’s arm and whispered: “Mommy! Mommy! I understand God the Father and God the Son. But I don’t understand this. What’s up with God the Bird?” What’s up, indeed? Today is the day of Pentecost, a day rich with images and symbols. In all that richness, you may be wondering, like the little girl, “what’s up?” Is God the Holy Spirit a sweet, heavenly dove? What the Church teaches through The Book of Common Prayer is a bit different. On this day, the Prayer Book says, “the Holy (Ghost) Spirit came down from heaven, lighting upon the disciples, to teach them and to lead them into all truth; uniting people of many tongues in the confession of one faith, and giving to (God’s) church the power to serve (God)…and to preach (Good News) to all nations” (p. 347 and 380). There’s more to the Spirit than a bird. The Bible says more. Our first reading, that amazing story from the Book of Acts, contains these words: “Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested upon each of them” (2:3). Now, there’s an image for our attention: FIRE. The fire of the Spirit rested on each person in this story. This is not a friendly fire, to use insurance policy language. A friendly fire is found only in a fireplace or other safe, contained space, where it’s supposed to be. On that day of Pentecost, on this day of Pentecost, the fire of God’s Spirit is not where it is supposed to be. It is God’s fire, God’s Spirit. It rests on, enlightens, warms and refines, wherever and whenever and whoever it chooses. Like a dove on the wing, like a mighty wind, God’s fiery Spirit is totally free. The other Biblical image for God’s Spirit we’ve heard today is in our reading from John’s Gospel. It’s the image of truth. The Spirit of truth, John tells us, will come to testify on Jesus’ behalf (15:26). In fact, Jesus must go away. His work on earth is now done. Jesus leaves so that now, the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, can guide his disciples (16:7). He leaves so the Divine Spirit can come down and lead his disciples, then and now, into all truth (16:13). But some of what Jesus wants to tell us, some of those words of truth and fire are words we human friends of Jesus can scarcely take in. When the red, hot Spirit speaks, we can only hear a few words of truth at a time (16:12). In the words of John Robinson written for the Pilgrims before they left for the New World: “We limit not the truth of God to our poor reach of mind/By notions of our day and sect, crude, partial and confined/No, let a new and better hope within our hearts be stirred/For God hath yet more light and truth to break forth from the Word.” What does this image of fire and truth mean to us as Christians, as a church, even as a world? Fire and truth are all about speech. Speech, after all, requires a tongue. Let’s return to the Pentecost story from Acts: “Now there were devout (believers) from every nation…speaking in the native (tongue) of each” (2:5-6). Today, in countless churches around the world, there have been simultaneous readings of Pentecost Scriptures in many different languages. What if we came here today from India or Brazil, the Congo or Russia, and heard someone speak our own language, when we knew that tongue was not their own? What if dozens of us came, each from a foreign land, and all of us had the same experience – hearing about God’s deeds of power, in words we never imagined we would hear, not even at home? Might that set our hearts on fire? Last week our friends from Evangelical United Church of Christ came to worship with many of you here at 10:30. I was away, but I heard wonderful things about that service from several of you. I also heard that my friend Barbara Kershner Daniel spoke of what our two denominations share. In our different ways, we share a fire, a passion for God’s truth. That fiery passion is summarized well in the last question we will be asked today: “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” Our answer is: “I will, with God’s help.” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 305 My sisters and brothers, the Spirit of God can still set our hearts on fire – to speak in languages we want to learn; to speak with passion, rather than hold our tongues; to speak with truth, in the spirit of the prophets, about “God’s deeds of power” (2:11). As our UCC friends put it, God is still speaking. When I thought of someone who, for me, fits the image of a disciple of Jesus who speaks with the fiery spirit of God’s truth, one person came quickly to mind. She retired a few years ago. While active in ministry, she was NOT where she was supposed to be. A divorced woman of color, someone with no seminary training and relatively little experience as a priest, she became the first woman to be elected and consecrated a Bishop in all thirty-eight provinces of our Anglican Communion. The Rt. Rev. Barbara Clementine Harris was made suffragan or assisting bishop of Massachusetts on February 11, 1989. More than 8.000 people attended her consecration service. Perhaps because of her race – certainly due to her gender – Bishop Harris did not receive a sufficient number of consents (the Episcopal Church requires that half of all other bishops and dioceses approve a Bishop’s election) until ten days before her scheduled consecration date. As Harris herself said in a sermon just after she was elected, it was a time that was refreshing to some and quite frightening to others. Today, we might say that, twenty years ago, the Episcopal Church made a decision to move the fire out of the fireplace. We chose a woman of fire and truth to become the first woman to wear a mitre, that pointy hat bishops put on to remind us of those tongues of fire. On the twentieth anniversary of her consecration, one man said of Bishop Harris’s legacy, “Today we celebrate that we have been changed, that although we are not what God and we want us to be, thank God we are not what we used to be” (the Hon. Byron Rushing). Bishop Harris spoke of God’s transforming the Episcopal Church through the Holy Spirit, using another image from today’s Pentecost story: wind. “The fresh winds I see blowing are in the emerging church movement, new approaches in evangelism, radical welcome, the things that are awakening the spirituality of young adults and young people who are being drawn to an active life in the church. Even such things as the hip-hop Mass!” she says. “(These fresh things) are in the idiom and language of young people who otherwise might not know anything about the Gospel and the love of Jesus Christ. I'm not disturbed that I may say in the 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," and a young person on the streets of the South Bronx says, "Jesus is my homeboy, he's got my back." If that brings (a) young person to an understanding of the love of Christ, then, as the kids say, I'm down with that.” In language you and I might better understand, Bishop Harris has reflected on the best moments of her ministry as bishop: the times she spent baptizing, confirming and receiving people into the Episcopal Church, especially younger people. Youth, she says, give her hope. “I think that young people will not accept easy answers and will demand an accountability of the church and a relevance to the issues with which they wrestle in their daily lives.” In a few minutes God’s Spirit will be poured out in Baptism upon Kayla and Jack, so that, one day, not unlike this day, they might speak God’s truth with the fire of God’s love. How will they do that? As a teacher, a soldier or a dove waver? As a lay leader, a priest or a bishop? As a Senator, a Supreme Court justice or a President of the United States? How will these children show forth God’s mighty deeds of power? Let us pray. Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on Jack, on Kayla and on us. Rekindle the fire of your love within us. Set our hearts on fire with your truth, the truth of the Gospel. Make us aware that it is You and only You, Sweet Spirit, who can make us lively, prayerful and welcoming. Spirit of the Living God, you are still speaking. What enlightening wisdom would you have us hear? What burning truth would you have us speak? What fiery love would you dare pour deep into our hearts, out into your world? AMEN. The Rev. Thomas A. Momberg A Franciscan benediction that the Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris has come to love, because “I think it is kind of marching orders for the church in the 21st century”: May God bless you with discomfort... May God bless you with anger... May God bless you with tears... pain, rejection, hunger and war and to turn their pain into joy. And may God bless you with enough foolishness... to all our children and the poor.
Amen. |
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