Power and Pentecost—A Sermon Somehow Featuring Both the Avengers and Bishop Curry

Grace and peace from God our Creator, hope in our Redeemer Jesus the Christ, and the promised gifts of the Holy Spirit are with you always.

Last week, Leigh and I had a very in-depth conversation about all our theories about what’s next after the wild ending of Avengers: Infinity War. I promise, no spoilers, unless you are surprised to hear that the ending was wild. It’s a multi-billion-dollar superhero franchise that somehow keeps us all hooked, so I think a cliffhanger ending is kind of a given. Leigh and I talked about all these different characters, and their fates, and weird details we didn’t know about them—neither of us has read any of the comic books that serve as source material for these movies, but we have read a bunch of fan theories online.

One of the things that true, deeply committed, lifelong superhero comic book fans tend to know about is the whole complex relationships between the heroes, as well as the heroes’ origin stories. Some of them are more obvious than others, like, Peter Parker became Spider-Man when he was bitten by a radioactive spider on a school field trip. Or Captain America, who was an American soldier during WWII who was given this “super soldier serum” and woke up decades later, essentially indestructible. The narratives and relationships that develop are set in motion by those origin stories, and we can always go back to them to see the motivation of that character, what drives them to be the hero they are.

Pentecost, my friends, is the Christian Church’s origin story.

The reading from Acts—the one we did in various languages—sets the stage for the rest of the work of the apostles, the early Church, and us. The apostles are all together in one place, as the story goes, because it was the Jewish festival of Shavuot, seven weeks after the second day of Passover. Pentecost is the Greek word for “fiftieth day” and is celebrated 50 days after Easter. Shavuot is the celebration of God giving the Torah at Mount Sinai, and God “re-gives” the Torah each year.

In this way, these holidays are deeply linked for us as Christians, as they commemorate receiving something important from God, forging deeper connection between God and God’s people. The gift received on Pentecost, for those first Christians, was the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit showed herself by making it possible for all of the people gathered there—from different regions, tribes, cultures—to hear the good news spoken in their own language. The family of God is so expansive, that language does not limit us.

Each of us, as children of God, carries within us that same power, that same gift. Each of us can—and must—share the story of Jesus with everyone we know. Now, I know what you’re thinking, that sounds scary and your friends are already not sure about your whole Christian thing, and you’re not about to start yelling on street corners about how the kingdom of heaven has come near.

The Most Reverend Michael Curry, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, was the preacher at the wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle last Saturday. I imagine you’ve heard that the royal wedding took place, and perhaps you’ve heard that Bishop Curry brought the house down with his jubilant 13 minutes on the power of love. Did you watch the video? It’s so great. He is a very dynamic preacher, and you can imagine that the congregation at the royal wedding is a bunch of stuffy white British people, who are definitely not used to someone with so much enthusiasm.

After the wedding, Bishop Curry was quoted as saying that he was only allotted 8 minutes, but that he “caught the spirit” and went off-script in the middle. Nobody else has ever gone over their time limit, so there was, apparently, no protocol to stop him. Bishop Curry is an incredible person, and will keep doing God’s work in the world that will be worth talking about, but I sort of want this to remain my favorite story about him, forever. Bishop Curry was given the responsibility of preaching the good news of Jesus Christ on one of the world’s biggest stages. He knew what the parameters were, and he intended to follow them. But once he got going, he still left room for the Holy Spirit to move him. And she sure did!

As a black man preaching in one of the world’s oldest whitest institutions, Bishop Curry quoted the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and an old slave spiritual. In the video of the ceremony, audience members are shown looking at each other sideways, suppressing smiles, raising eyebrows.

In our Acts story, I can only imagine that those who were witnessing the Holy Spirit in action were doing the exact same thing. The story tells us that someone thought the apostles were drunk! Clearly they were behaving outside of the expectations, speaking in all of these different languages, and those in the vicinity did not know how to respond. This may not be convincing you that you, too, should be engaging in this behavior, but I swear I’m getting to the point.

In Bishop Curry’s sermon, he quoted the spiritual There Is a Balm in Gilead. Balm like b-a-l-m, like lip balm. Like healing balm. One of the verses goes “if you cannot preach like Peter, if you cannot pray like Paul, just tell the love of Jesus, how he died to save us all.” What that songwriter, and Bishop Curry, and Pentecost are all telling us is that it doesn’t have to be fancy. Because of this Pentecost daty, we are filled with the breath of God, inspired—literally—to spread the word. We do this each in our own ways, each in our own languages, each according to our own cultures and capacities.

When we treat each other as equal partners in the work of the gospel, we are telling the love of Jesus. When we treat every person with dignity and respect, we are telling the love of Jesus. When we tell the truth about things we have done wrong and then work to do them right next time, we are telling the love of Jesus. When we strive for equity for everyone, we are telling the love of Jesus. When we share in experiences of joy with each other, and sorrow with each other, we are telling the love of Jesus. When we live in response to the grace we know we have received, we are telling the love of Jesus. When we do this authentically, when the love of God shows through us to others in their own language, we can change the world.

The Holy Spirit changed the world on that first Pentecost day, and she hasn’t stopped. Today, we are celebrating that we share in that story and we share in that power.

After worship tonight, it’ll be time for our annual Pentecost balloon launch. Every year, we write our prayers for the church and the world on pieces of paper that we tie to—biodegradable, minimal turtle murder—balloons. We launch these prayers into the sky, in hopes that our words and our work will move far beyond these walls.

This activity may feel silly; we live in a cynical world. Our cynical world routinely disparages or gives up on something before it has even begun, rather than risk being disappointed or rejected. We struggle to trust that any good news is not fake news. In this environment, the bearers of good news are desperately necessary.

You may not ever have the opportunity to tell the love of Jesus from the pulpit at a royal wedding. You may not ever have the opportunity—or desire—to tell the love of Jesus from any pulpit. But you have the power to do so, and you have the power to tell the love of Jesus in whatever way you know how. In whatever languages you speak, in whatever time and place you live, you are co-conspirator with the Holy Spirit!

Hallelujah! Amen.

Great Expectations—A Sermon on Maundy Thursday

Grace and peace from God our Creator, hope in our Redeemer Jesus the Christ, and the promised gifts of the Holy Spirit are with you, always.

Here we are in our holiest of weeks, on the first day of the triduum, the Three Days: Maundy Thursday. There’s a lot of fancy church words happening right there, but Maundy is just a shortening of the Latin word mandatum, which is how the word “commandment” was translated in the Latin version of the New Testament.

The choice to call this Maundy Thursday, or Commandment Thursday, is to underscore that the core of what Jesus offered his disciples at the Last Supper was that new commandment—love one another.

This is maybe like starting with the punch line, but since we tell this same story every year, and I just read the Gospel lesson to you, I hope it comes as no surprise to you that Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

This is where we get our bumper sticker slogans like “Love Your Neighbor” and our camp songs like “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love.” On a really important night—the last of his life—this is what Jesus wanted his friends to remember him by.

Because of the way each culture keeps its calendar, every once in awhile, our Holy Week coincides with the festival Jesus and his disciples were about to commemorate, Pesach—the Passover. The eight day celebration of the Passover this year began on Monday night of this week, and will last until the Tuesday after we celebrate Easter. At the meals that Jews around the world have been sharing this week, called seders, a question is asked. “What makes this night different from all other nights?” The answers to the question are about the various practices of the seder celebration, and how they are different than regular meals shared throughout the year. To be clear, the Last Supper was probably not a seder, because it took place before the festival began. However, I wonder if we can’t still ask the question, what made this Maundy Thursday night different from other nights?

On this night, Jesus ate a meal with his friends. Not that different from all other nights. On this night, Jesus spoke cryptically about his friends’ behavior and confused them about his impending death. Not that different from all other nights. But during dinner, Jesus did something different. He got up from the table and knelt in front of his friends and began to wash their feet. This sounds like a super weird thing to do, for us, because we do not routinely have our feet washed as part of the hospitality provided by our dinner hosts. In Jesus’ time, however, this was something that people expected, but they expected it from the servant of the household, not the Rabbi. This flipping of expectations is Jesus’ signature move.

To a world that expects isolation and individualism, Jesus says, “love your neighbor.”

To a world that expects its leaders to show strength through military might, Jesus says, “love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.”

To a world that expects illness and suffering, Jesus says, “your faith has made you well.”

To a world that expects death and destruction, Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

And to a room full people who expect to be served rather than to serve, Jesus says, “I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”

In our world today, just as in the time of Jesus, there are a lot of competing systems of morality and authority. This week we consider the power of the state and the power of the people. We contrast the reality of death and the reality of life. We ponder the uses of violence and the uses of forgiveness. This is a week of wonder. So on this night, Jesus makes it as simple as possible: love one another.

Amen.

Love Your Housemate as Yourself—A Sermon at the end of a Program Year

Wow, here we are, on our final Monday night in the Belfry together. What a year it has been!

When I look at your faces and think back to the first week we spent together in this room, 11 months ago, I remember the infamous group photo, now plastered all over our social media and marketing. I remember our first retreat to Camp Noel Porter in Lake Tahoe; the adventures you went on around town, the murder mystery film you made. I remember the long car ride to and from Diocesan Convention, and all the hard work you did to such praise from the event coordinators. I remember our Reformation Day games, pinning the theses on the door, lovingly painted by a handful of you for years of future Belfry students to roll their eyes about. I remember our Advent craft party and the Star of Bethlehem collage we made out of advertising, which I am keeping in my office forever. I remember our Liberation Theology retreat at the Bishop’s Ranch, a heavy weekend of films and essays and hard conversations. I remember sending Pastor Jocelynn off on her sabbatical, and wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into. :) I remember the Monday we tried and failed to make rosaries, and then the other Monday where we tried again, and still didn’t really manage to get it just right. I remember Holy Week and Easter, where we were sadly not together, since it was also Spring Break. I remember our spring retreat to my beloved Berkeley, where we wondered aloud about the movement of the Holy Spirit.

It was certainly the movement of the Holy Spirit that brought you here, to this yellow house. You probably wondered a few times about what you’d gotten yourself into, and it may be still quite some time before you figure out what this year even was.

From my perspective, this year has been one learning experience after another. I am blessed beyond measure to be in community with the eight of you, here in this place. This is not to say that it has been a walk in the park. Y’all have challenged each other. Y’all have challenged me. Y’all have challenged yourselves.

Working in ecumenical ministry, in general, is full of challenges for me. For example: we Lutherans do not have the same relationship with saints that Episcopalians have. I had to spend some time noodling around online, and eventually just texting a friend, to find out what it meant that today we celebrate Saint Bartolomé de las Casas—let alone if there was anything problematic about him. He lived in 16th-century Spain, and is considered a human rights activist, but didn’t have it totally together. He was opposed to the developing practice of enslavement of the native people on the island of Hispaniola, currently the Dominican Republic and Haiti. However, he advocated for the enslavement of Africans instead, so, not really a winner. Once he became a priest—the first one ordained in the Americas—he realized he’d been wrong, and that slavery of any kind was contrary to the Gospel. So deep was his conviction, Saint Bartolomé spent 50 years of his life arguing for the full humanity and emancipation of enslaved people, and went so far as to refuse absolution—the forgiveness of confessed sins—to slave-owning Catholics. It is for this that he is celebrated. [1]

Like Saint Bartolomé, we’re all learning on a spectrum. There’s a steep curve sometimes, especially when it comes to matters of deep human suffering and our personal convictions. Sometimes, we take what we believe to be principled stands, only to discover that we’ve inadvertently excluded or offended someone. We can also learn from Saint Bartolomé, though, just how strong we are when we stand on the Gospel. When we look out into this messy society, and read tonight’s lessons, words repeated throughout scripture—“love your neighbor as yourself”—we can see that it doesn’t match up. We can see that our neighbors are not listening, and our neighbors are not being heard, and our neighbors are not loving, and our neighbors are not being loved.

This Gospel text is part of the Sunday lectionary during the season of Lent. During Lent, we are prepared and we are preparing. Sacrifice, discipline, work, prayer. We sit in the desert and wallow in our existential desperation, right? Though we are far from Lent, the world around us these last few months has been dreadful. Terrorism at home and abroad have relentlessly overwhelmed our television screens and twitter feeds. The epidemic of gun violence in this country has somehow worsened from the last time we thought it was as bad as it could get. We have been flooded with anxiety as a nation, as a church, as a community here in this room. All of us are operating, maybe even without noticing completely, with an added layer of fear and distrust of our neighbors. This generalized anxiety rubs off on even our smallest interactions, whether it’s with a barista or our coworkers or our housemates. We bristle, and we put up walls, and we protect ourselves.

We know, though, that living in community cannot, fundamentally, be done alone. Eight isolated human persons do not make an intentional Christian community. Renita Weems, a womanist scholar, reminds us that “As human beings, we are all mutually connected to each other and dependent on one another for our emancipation and our survival.” [2]

Eight people who are learning together, struggling together, eating together, praying together, laughing together, arguing together, singing together—that’s what you’re made of.

And conflict in community is unavoidable. Never has there been a community without conflict—never has there been even a singular human being without an internal conflict! When we read these words of the Apostle Paul, written millennia ago to a community in Rome, we might ask, “What are the lessons for those of us who are church today?” Well, “conflict in the church is not a scandal or a shame; rather, living that conflict, together in love, has been the work of the church from its beginning.” [3]

Every time we read the letters in the New Testament, there’s some issue that the Apostle Paul is trying to help a community solve. Their problems aren’t all unique to the first century—though some are—and our problems are not all unique to the 21st-century—though some are.

The questions continue. “How do we live when we hurt and anger each other? How do we live the gospel daily?”

This is what you’ve been working on all year. What does it look like when we talk the talk and walk the walk of Christian life? What does it look like when we don’t agree about all the ways we talk and walk the Christian life? We go back to our fundamentals. We listen to the words of Jesus, quoting the Torah, cited by Paul: love your neighbor as yourself.

Show up for your neighbor. Commit to your neighborhood. Commit to your common life. Be present, here, in this chapel, at this table. Shelley Douglas puts it beautifully when she writes:

“We maintain our common meal, our sign of unity and redemption. We love each other and follow God’s commands. When relationships break down, we do our best to resolve conflicts in love….We are reminded here that as a community we are not only to nurture and affirm each other, but also to guide, teach, and remonstrate. Behind every action, however, must always be the rule of love.” [4]

When you leave this yellow house next week—though you may come back—you will be leaving the community specific to the 2015-2016 LEVN program year. Never again will all eight of you live and work right here in this place. You have one week left to love these neighbors in this way. You have been doing it, for the most part, for the better part of a year. After next week, you’ll never again have the opportunity to live this particular common life with these particular beloved children of God.

But you’ll have the opportunity—for the rest of your life—to forge Christian community with your new neighbors. Your new housemates. Your new coworkers. Your new friends. Your new siblings in the family of God. Every time you come to the table, you’ll be in community with everyone else who has ever and will ever.

I am so grateful to have been in this particular community with you for this year, and I look so excitedly forward to how I’ll continue to be in community with you after you leave this place. Keep up the good work, dear friends. Continue to nurture and be nurtured; continue to affirm and be affirmed; continue to guide and be guided; and when you continue to protest each other’s actions and to have your actions protested, remember the love that underlies your life. Love and be loved.

Amen.

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[2] Renita J. Weems, "Womanist Reflections on Biblical Hermeneutics," in Black Theology: A Documentary History, ed. James H. Cone and Gayraud Wilmore (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993).