Posted by stpauls on May 31, 2009 under Bible Readings, Webmaster Blog | 
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15 ~ Gospel reading for May 31, 2009
Jesus said to his disciples, “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning. I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But, now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, `Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
Acts 2:1-21 ~ 2nd reading for May 31, 2009
When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples 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 gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 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, Cretans and Arabs– in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”
But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: `In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”
Posted by Priest on under Sermons |
I have a confession to make. Shhh! Don’t tell anybody. It’s a secret: But, yes, I have a tattoo. I am one of those GenX-ers who had his skin permanently inked. It’s nothing unique, I know. In fact, during a discussion on an email list for GenX Anglican clergy, i.e. Anglican priests and deacons born between 1965 and 1985, a multitude of my sister and brother clergy admitted they either already had tattoos or were thinking about getting one.
I have had my tattoo for well over eight years – and I have yet to see the day I regret getting it. For most of my youth, however, I never dreamed of acquiring any body modification. No, that is just not me, I thought. And while I still cannot see myself being pierced or branded, my opinion about tattoos has obviously changed. It took a while, though. Yet, when I finally entered a tattoo parlour, I knew exactly what I wanted to get.
You know the design. It graced the cover of our bulletin a few weeks ago. (Little did you know how sneaky I can be, eh?) Do you remember?
At the beginning of May, we celebrated Earth Day here at St. Paul’s with a liturgy and music from the Iona Community in Scotland. The Iona Community was founded in the last century by Scottish Presbyterian minister George MacLeod. It was originally centred on the isle of Iona, one of the cradles of Scottish Christianity. St. Columba landed there some 1600 years ago to preach the Gospel to the Picts. Today, the Community is an international, ecumenical Christian fellowship committed to sharing the good news of God in Christ by word, prayer, and action, by teaching the love of our triune God in the Celtic tradition, by proclaiming and celebrating God’s healing love for all, and by manifesting God’s love through peace-building, justice-work, and advocating for the preservation of creation.
Using liturgical material from Iona to advocate for eco-justice in the Christian context wasn’t just a coincidence. There is a prophetic edge to the Iona Community, which often stirs up controversy, unsettles the comfortable, messes up idyllic perceptions of reality, disturbs the current order, questions preconceived notions of the truth, and puts on edge the high and mighty, those who advocate for the status quo. The people of the Iona Community are definitely trouble-makers!
Some time ago, the Community chose as their symbol my tattoo. I’m sorry, it was the other way round. I picked as my tattoo a symbol used by the Iona Community: A Celtic wild goose. You recall? It is in your bulletin again, on page 19.
The wild goose is an ancient metaphor used in the Celtic world for the Holy Spirit. And I love this symbol!!! (Otherwise I wouldn’t have had it inked on my left arm for all prosperity!) I love it, because there is something profoundly true about using a wild goose as a symbol for God’s Holy Spirit, even though it is a peculiar and non-biblical symbol.
Most of the times in Christian art, the Holy Spirit is depicted as a dove. It is right here on my stole. We find the Spirit described as fire, too, which is based on today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles. But an overwhelming majority of paintings, stained-glass windows, sculptures etc. feature the Holy Spirit shown as a dove. And if you look around here at St. Paul’s, I wonder how many doves you can spot…
Of course, there is scriptural precedence for this: At the baptism of Jesus, the Spirit descended upon him “like a dove.”1 But, isn’t it interesting? It doesn’t say the Holy Spirit is a dove. It says: The Spirit descended “like a dove.” Yet, we have made the Spirit a dove and I wonder, if the prominence of the dove in our depictions of the Spirit speak much more of our conscious and subconscious desires to tame the Holy Spirit. The biblical witness, however, is full of imagery that is quite different from that of a gentle dove.
Just look at today’s text from Acts again: The apostles encounter a noise, like a violent wind, a violent wind that drags them out of their hiding places, to which they had fled, overcome, once again, by fear. The Holy Spirit then descends upon them, not like a dove, but like tongues of burning fire, as She pulls them with force forward into the light and into the future. The Holy Spirit ain’t so gentle when you consider what She did to the poor apostles today! You can almost see them kicking and hear them screaming as the divine fire takes hold of them, setting them ablaze with heavenly flames. They will be marked forever! Nothing will remain the same! Their eyes will see a new reality, an upside-down reality. For the disciples, the old order, the order of this world, has been consumed for ever.
And this is why I love the image of the wild goose. It goes along with this prophetic revelation.
I suspect most of you have encountered wild geese. They are far from being gentle or peaceful creatures. But wild geese are disturbing and loud, everything but gentle. They make a mess of our carefully manicured front yards – quite literally. And they have this rather unpleasant habit of biting you, sometimes right in the tush. And it hurts!
Not unlike the Holy Spirit!
She too has a tendency to nip us in the behind, so that we get off our rear and leave darkness, fear, and complacency behind. She too makes a mess of our gardens, of the world that we so carefully create to keep things in order, to keep life in check, and to never get pushed beyond our comfort-zone. She too disturbs our lives, upsets our power-games, and reminds us that we are fools to think we are in charge and can just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride!
The Spirit sets us ablaze with the darkness-consuming fire of the Divine Love, so that we may love back with all that we are and all that we have, so that we may spread this very fire to the ends of the earth. The Spirit utters prophetic words of truth, so that we may finally recognize the injustice we create and the strife we foster. The Spirit opens our eyes to see and grasp the beauty that God created us to be and to recognize what God expects of us.
And it hurts to be nipped in back. It hurts to be confronted with the places in our lives that keep us from living deeper into the mystery of God. It hurts to see the reality of the world’s oppressions and wars held up to us as in a mirror. It hurts to realize that we, like the apostles, have a tendency to lock ourselves away from the world, despite its desperate need for healing and despite its constant search for meaning.
Today’s feast is no easy feat. It is a day when things change for the apostles – and for us. No longer is it just about us. But today, the Spirit pulls us out of our darkness. Today is the church’s coming out to find her true identity. And all of us here in the West End know how scary and how painful a “coming out” can be. But once you have done it, once you have come out of whatever closet you might have been hiding in, freedom and life in abundance await.
This is exactly what the apostles experienced on that first Pentecost: The Spirit pushed, pulled, and dragged them out of their closet, out of their darkness and fear, to be God’s agents in the world. The disciples – and we with them – are thrown into the world, not to condemn or to judge it, not to be better or superior, but to be agents of hope and compassion, agents of truth and redemption, agents of justice and peace, and agents of eternal and abundant love, which we have experienced in the Spirit already.
My tattoo is a constant reminder that the Spirit will not leave me alone – not when I need Her to be comforted and held close in Her bosom and not when She needs me to do the work God has given me to do. The Spirit really does not leave me alone. And the Spirit does not leave you alone either! As difficult as it may be to have our peace disturbed by God’s Spirit, in the end, it is good indeed, good for us, and good for all of creation.
Oh. And just in case you wondered: I am thinking about getting my second tattoo, but that’s for another sermon…
[1] Matthew 3:16, Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22
[The Reverend Markus Duenzkofer delivered this sermon on the Day of Pentecost, Sunday, May 31, 2009.]
