Sunday, June 9, 2019

June 9, 2019 - Pentecost - The Story Continues....

Pastor Ray and Eric are still on their honeymoon so Pastor Alyssa Augustson presided again and the liturgy, again, was Call Me Home. The choir, led by Jon, sang a medley, Where the Spirit of the Lord Is at the beginning of the Offering. The choir came up and also helped drive a powerful performance of I'm So Glad Jesus Lifted Me.

Pastor Alyssa preached in today's sermon how speaking a little German greeting, when she was there to teach theology in German, inspired  a number of conversations where either she or the other person introduced, or was introduced to, something they were passionate about.

She preached that the only way humankind can communicate about God to one another is through words used as metaphors. For example, last year's Pentecost for Creator was all about the obvious season's metaphor of the Holy Spirit - fire. Some might argue that on Pentecost the tongues of firm were not metaphorical but they must explain why everyone did not see the flames. In any case that fire is a metaphor now.

Last year Creator had recently gone through an Adult Forum on Lauren Winner's book Wearing God where she explores a number of metaphors used in the Bible for God, including fire. Winner pointed out the duality in using fire as a God image as a primary vision.

At times fire is destructive and dangerous. It can become too intense and burn too quickly before going out. When this happens fire radically changes what existed before. Considering more deeply the inspiring image of a cloven tongue, the metaphor also associates the flames with the images around the word cloven which suggests snakes. From that comes the all associations we have, and fear, with snakes.

There is also fire of the kind that Cleopas notes during the Emmaus story when he asks "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”. When our hearts are burning  there is an intensity that is engaging and infectious.

There is also the possibility that a fire cools down and flickers out over time because it is not intense enough or loses that intensity over time. I found myself missing the Glocal music the youth have sung during the last two Pentecost celebrations of 2017 and 2018. I missed hearing something being sung or spoken in another language in today's service besides the brief German greeting Pastor Alyssa alluded to in her story. She invited us to say the Lord's Prayer in other languages if we could but no one took her up on the offer.

The youth are making a trip to New Mexico next week and we will hear about their experiences in an upcoming service. With all this in mind I thought about the 1 Kings 3: 9 verse: "So give your servant a listening heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?”

The listening heart was what Solomon asked for as God's gift. I continue to consider Pentecost as a hearing miracle as deeply as a speaking miracle. Can we listen to someone speak in another tongue and hear it as our own? There was a film shown by Creator's Sanctuary a group yesterday that documented the harsh life of refugees and immigrants trying for a better life crossing the southern border of the United States. The dialogue was more in Spanish than English. I would hear the word SeƱor and think about God differently because of that word.

Celebrating Pentecost in June struck me this year as a little out of step with the yearly life cycle of the church. We celebrate the birthday of the church and immediately go into summer where attendance and planned events are more anemic during the lean summer months and are expected to remain that way until our "regular" church life returns with Rally Day.

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