Readings

FIRST LESSON

The first lesson is from An Improbable Gift of Blessing by Maren C. Tirabassi and Joan Jordan Grant

Unfolding God—jagged granite souls you tumble, breaking in upon the world as Word. Do you come to make us cobbled beaches pummeled smooth by tidal chargers wearing down our edge to round? Left to time’s life-grinding rhythms even granite slips away.
Come and finish what you started. Seal your truth into our body. Pour your scent upon our hands. Rug your spirit deep down, shining, splendid spirit fire shining, seeping inwards—shine our soul.
Come from the depths that break upon us—not a new-set spinning orb—loose the bound up borrowed grain of gladness shared at birth before we fall.
Finish shaping fullness in our nature; perfect image moistened to completion, not a hurried pounding to submission, but a slow step waxing into love.
May the tumbled stone unfolding, perfect shape of God unknown, be the ground-down stillness rising, lifting up the face of God.

SECOND LESSON

The second lesson is from Psalm 104, Verses 24 to 34

O God, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
Yonder is the sea, great and wide,
which teems with things innumerable,
living things both small and great.
There go the ships,
and Leviathan which you formed to sport in it.
These all look to you,
to give them their food in due season.
When you give to them, the gather it up;
when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
when you take away their breath, they die
and return to their dust.
When you send forth your Spirit, they are created;
and you renew the face of the ground.
May the glory of God endure forever,
may God rejoice in God’s works,
who looks on the earth and it trembles,
who touches the mountains and they smoke!
I will sing to God as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
May my meditation be pleasing to God,
in whom I rejoice.

This Week's Sermon

Date: May 23, 2010

Title: Are You Drowning Yet?

Message Delivered By: Joan Higgs

When Rev Joe asked me last week if I could bring the message for today, he reminded me that today is Pentecost.  I immediately took him up on it because to me…the story of Pentecost is one of the best stories in our scriptures.  Let me explain a bit…

Acts, chapter 2:1-4 tells the story…”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 gave them ability.”

This is our Wisdom (Capital W) story! 

All of the ancient religions and myths have their Wisdom stories.  The Hebrew testament contains many beautiful texts in what are known as the Wisdom  books… Among them, Proverbs, Wisdom  and Sirach  (or Eccliasticus.) 

Let’s try something, when I say Wisdom, you say Holy Spirit…

We read in Sirach, “Wisdom [Holy Spirit] sings her own praises, before her own people she proclaims her own glory; in the assembly of the most high she opens her mouth, in the presence of the hosts she declares her worth.  From the mouth of the Most High, I came forth and mist-like, covered the earth.”

In Proverbs 8,   Wisdom [Holy Spirit] tells us, “From of old, I was poured forth, at first, before the earth, when there were no depths, I was brought forth.  When there were no fountains or springs of water, before the mountains were settled into place, before the hills, I was brought forth.”

So, finally,  today we include a Wisdom [Holy Spirit] story in Christian texts, although Wisdom [Holy Spirit] is clearly clothed in rather harsh terms  (images of fire and violent wind?) 

To me, finally we can make sense of John’s opening discussions about the word, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  Could the Word be Wisdom [Holy Spirit]?  Was Wisdom [Holy Spirit] incarnate as the Christ?

Nowhere,  of course,  in the Christian texts does Wisdom [Holy Spirit] get her due, not even after the Pentecost story.
 
Galatians  5:22 says… “By contrast, the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

 Anyone remember from Sunday school or catechism class the fruits of the Holy Spirit?

In our misogynist texts, we call Creator God, Father, Redeemer God, Christ and leave the Holy Spirit nameless, rather than invoking the name or Wisdom [Holy Spirit]. (Although I must say, I do prefer Holy Spirit to the Holy Ghost terminology I learned in my youth.  Yikes!)

So now you’ve heard my short commercial for Wisdom [Holy Spirit].  Next, allow me to give you my view of another possible meaning of the Pentecost story…

 Some have interpreted the Pentecost story to tell of the miracle of the people to suddenly speak in languages they never knew…The Charismatic /Pentecostal religions of today support this idea.  Have you ever been in the midst of frenzied people talking in tongues?  (Just as an aside…The Pentecostal movement was the fastest growing Christian movement of the 20th century… Amazing to me that these groups are the very ones engaged in so much hate speech at the same time they claim to be possessed by the Holy Spirit.)

Back to the Pentecost story… In contrast to those who believed the story is about people speaking in different languages, others believe that the miracle was that the people were able to understand speakers of other languages.

I propose a third interpretation…To me, it is clear that the messageis the vocabulary of the people changes from war and conquer speech to love and kindness speech.  The Spirit enables and empowers them to see and to hear,  to experience and deeply understand,  both the joy and the pain of their brothers and sisters.  In short they are opened to the working of the Spirit in their lives to live life in love.

I believe the Pentecost story  had nothing to do with language and everything to do with a turning tolove, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.  At this time after the God they expected to come down from heaven and slay the enemies of Israel was crucified like a helpless criminal, they suddenly GET IT!  It isn’t about power and conquest, but love!  It’s about illumination and revelation.  How many times did Jesus try to teach this concept?  And still Wisdom [Holy Spirit] has to try again!

 So how do we change from a life  “all about me” to a life “all about love and compassion”?  How do we move  to a life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

I believe that this transformation comes directly from Wisdom [Holy Spirit].  Whether you believe that Wisdom [Holy Spirit] comes from without and is bestowed upon us, or whether you believe Wisdom [Holy Spirit] comes from within, to well up and fill all our places doesn’t really matter. 

It doesn’t really matter either whether you see the Hebrew and Christian testaments as literal truth or myth stories teaching a universal, timeless and Holy truth.

What matters is a welcoming of the force for change, for turning about, for softening us, for molding us into loving beings, not just in name but in the totality of how we live our lives. 

I suppose this can hit a person, slam bang and they are changed, but I have never seen it.  In my own life it is a constant struggle to look up, not down; to open arms, not close them, to embrace  and not push away, to risk being vulnerable not safe - To live in love and compassion.   I like to think I have learned a thing or two in life (some of those things right here!).  I like to think I will continue to learn and change.

I was listening to NPR last week and heard a retired fireman talk about a painful event in his life.  He choked up as he told the story of some years ago rushing into a burning building and finding two toddlers in the under sink cabinet, clutching one another.  They were dead by the time he found them but he took them outside and tried valiantly but unsuccessfully to resuscitate them. Neither he, nor the paramedics that followed were able to save the young boys.  Shortly afterward, their young mother came upon the scene and was overcome with grief, shrieking and crying. 

This firemen told how he screamed at her, “You weren’t so concerned about your boys when you left them alone to go to the store, were you?”

All these years later he told of his own torment.  He told the program host that if there was one single thing in his entire life he could change, it would be the way he responded to the distraught mother.

Upon hearing this story, I immediately realized that Wisdom has been patiently working on this fireman, caressing him and re-molding him.  I don’t think this man’s transformation happened in an instant.  I think he must have been on a long journey allowing Wisdom [Holy Spirit] to embrace him and bring him along…to turn him from judgment to understanding; from condemnation to compassion; from striking out to embracing.

Last year on our adventure with our grandson in the Grand Canyon, I was speechless at the expanse of the canyons.  I was dumbstruck to imagine both the abrupt upheaval of the earth and the action of the relentless rush of water carving stone.

And… I was in awe of the small round, smooth river stones that had been smoothed from the endless flow of water in the creeks and rivers.   These actually made more of an impression upon me as I can’t pick up and hold, examine and caress the Grand Canyon.

I can pick up a river rock and imagine the rock it used to be.  I sometimes find it comforting to look at the person I was yesterday and to anticipate and welcome the person I will be tomorrow, thanks to Wisdom [Holy Spirit] .

 I think of myself as a jagged rock, constantly subject to the flow of Wisdom [Holy Spirit]...  That this constant flow is sometimes a crashing, like a huge waterfall traveling long distances before crashing onto me, but mostly a slow and relentless caress. 

A gentle urging, a coaxing by Wisdom [Holy Spirit]…

  Come on, it’s OK…step out into love… live  in compassion… enter into  gentleness… stretch forward into generosity… open your possibilities to patience...  welcome joy into your life.

Paul’s letter to the Galatians says , “ If we live by the Spirit, let us be guided by the Spirit.”  He goes on to instruct the church to “take care of one another”, to “bear one another’s burdens”.

Is it any wonder that Wisdom [Holy Spirit] has been called the Advocate or the Comforter throughout Christian history?

Please take a river rock or 2 ( more if you want them!).

I invite you to see yourself as this small river rock.  Carry it with you and touch it/hold it often, reminding yourself that Wisdom [Holy Spirit] in constantly caressing you, urging you forward into love and compassion.  Welcoming you into gentleness and kindness.  Leading you into faithfulness. Smoothing out your sharp edges.

I like to altar things, so you might find that helpful as well…put your stone in a place you see often...I spend way too much time at my computer, so that is a perfect place for my altar, but you will have to chose your own sacred space to altar your rock, your reminder each time you look at it, that the Divine One gives only love and wants us to live only in love. Your reminder to welcome Widson into your life to re-mold you in to love…

Shalome