Rest for the Wordy—A Sermon on Spelling and Sabbath

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, the last Wednesday of classes, the last worship together for this school year. You are, presumably, busy with writing and reading, as usual, and with planning for moving and with logistics for your summer. Let’s take our semi-annual last-week-of-classes deep breaths, shall we? All together now, breathe in….and out. And another one, breathe in….and out. And once more, breathe in….and out. Excellent. Keep breathing.

You may be aware that last week contained an extremely important sporting event, shown live on ESPN in primetime. No, not the NBA Finals, the Scripps National Spelling Bee. You are probably not surprised to know that I watched several hours of the Bee, including those prime time final rounds. I love spelling and I love learning and I love the drama of kid geniuses. I watched these kids—aged 7 to 14—spell words like haecceitas (heck-see-uh-tas), chaudfroid (shoh-frwah), bewusstseinslage (buh-voos-tines-lahga), and paucispiral (poss-iss-piral).

In the end, 14-year-old Karthik Nemmani correctly spelled “koinonia” and won $40,000 and a humongous trophy. It was awesome. Dozens of spellers stood up there one at a time, pretty awkwardly, and—after hearing their word—asked the pronouncer a series of approved questions: the language of origin, to use it in a sentence, any alternate pronunciations, the definition. They hope that one of these answers will clue them in as to how it’s spelled. One kid, Jashun Paluru, showed off his skills by turning the questions around. He asked, more than once, something like “does the word contain the Greek root philo meaning love?” before asking for the language of origin or definition. The commentators—oh yes, there are commentators in the spelling bee—were very impressed.

I’m telling you about this in part because I just wanted to say all those fancy words, and because our reading today came from Deuteronomy, which is a hard word to spell, and is actually a kind of erroneous translation. Deuteronomy is book five of our Bible, the last book of the Pentateuch—from the Greek words penta meaning “five” and teuchos meaning “scrolls”—also known as the Torah. The word Deuteronomy contains the greek word nomos, meaning “law”. It also contains the Greek word deuteros which means “second”. It has been assumed that this is because it is the second book of laws, but it may actually have been because the manuscript that got translated was a copy of the original law scroll, hence, second law. Aren’t you glad you know that? I sure am.

The texts this week from Deuteronomy and from the Gospel According to Mark are both pretty straightforwardly about the Sabbath. In Deuteronomy, we’re on commandment four of ten: “Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you” (Deut 5:12). The author goes on to explain just how that is done and why. Six days of the week shall be devoted to work, and the seventh shall be a day of rest.

I am reading a book called Mudhouse Sabbath, by Lauren Winner, a former Orthodox Jewish woman who converted to Christianity, but maintains many of the rituals that ordered her life. She wrote that, “There are, in Judaism, two types of commandments (mitzvot): the mitzvot asei, or the ‘thou shalts,’ and the mitzvot lo ta’aseh, or the ‘thou shalt nots.’ Sabbath observance comprises both. You are commanded, principally, to be joyful and restful on Shabbat, to hold great feasts, sing happy hymns, dress your finest….The cornerstone of Jewish Sabbath observance is the prohibition of work in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5….Over time, the rabbis teased out of the text just what the prohibition on work meant, first identifying thirty-nine categories of activities to be avoided on Shabbat, then fleshing out the implications of those thirty-nine.” [1]

We are not going to go over the thirty-nine categories, but the point of this is that the prohibition of work is not messing around. Anything that seems like it might be work is work. Rest is mandatory.

We squirm a little when we read the rest of this commandment, because it includes mention of enslaved people among those who should not work on the sabbath. But! Think about that! Even enslaved people should cease work one day out of the week. God’s intention is not that one day out of the week people with power will do no work and everyone who works for them will do double work. The day of rest is for everyone. “The fourth commandment is counter culturally egalitarian...and the sabbath comes as a weekly reminder that all are equally valued in God’s economy.” [2] You deserve to do meaningful work, and you deserve to rest, and so does everyone else.

Which brings us to the story from the Gospel According to Mark. There are two different stories in here, one where Jesus maybe breaks the rules by quote-unquote harvesting grain on the sabbath, and the other where he heals a man with a withered hand. The religious authorities who are present are very concerned about this man who dares not to break the rules of the sabbath, per se, but to claim that he understands the sabbath more clearly than they do, as he shares in the authority of God. “Jesus is making a bold claim, aligning himself with the creator of the Sabbath.” [2]

When God created the universe, the story goes that God spent six days working and then, on the seventh day, rested. God designed life to include rest. God made our bodies and minds to do all sorts of incredible things; chief among those things is sabbath. “The sabbath represents a time for healing and wholeness of humanity.” [3]

Theologian Diane Chen wrote about these stories from Mark’s Gospel, reminding us that “God’s original day of rest precedes the law that regulates its observance. The sabbath is God’s gift to serve people; people are not to serve the Sabbath. The issue is therefore one of priority, not whether Jesus is playing fast and loose with God’s commandments….if assuaging his disciples’ hunger brings restoration, then the prohibition against reaping is overridden. To do otherwise actually undercuts the true purpose of the Sabbath.” [2] Since the sabbath is for restoration to wholeness, feeding your body is a reasonable thing to do. Jesus’ disciples are hungry, and he feeds them. Since the sabbath is for restoration to wholeness, healing a physical ailment is a reasonable thing to do. This man has a withered hand, and Jesus heals him.

And the man’s withered hand is not only a physical ailment, “it also has social and economic dimensions. His ability to earn a living is hampered by his physical limitations, and his standing in the community is diminished. Jesus wastes no time in healing the man, because even a few hours to the end of Sabbath is too long a wait to restore a person to wholeness.” [2]

I want to be careful here, because physical disability should not be looked at as a problem to be solved. Bodies of all kinds are created in the image of God. Jesus cannot, with the snap of his fingers, reorder the society to not ostracize people with disabilities, nor can he reorder the economy to support this man even though his labor is minimal. People with all types of bodies are beloved of God, and it is us as a society that need restoration in this case, need to be made to understand the wholeness and goodness of people who do not contribute to capitalism. What he does in this story is heal the man’s hand, so he can be embraced by his community. What we can do is embrace every body in the Body of Christ. If everyone is equally valued on the sabbath day, we can move toward equally valuing everyone the other six days of the week.

You may be thinking that this whole understanding of the sabbath as a time for us to restore ourselves and one another to wholeness sound a bit like...work. Providing adequate time and space for all of God’s beloved creatures to rest, relax, and recharge does not require work on the sabbath, but it requires preparation for the sabbath. If the work that we are doing the other six days of the week is good, and just, and righteous, we can spend our sabbath knowing that all is well.

Sometime in the next several days, you will turn in some pretty important work, and then you will be done with school for the quarter. I hope that you are able to spend and least part of this summer resting. If you are going to be working, I hope you are taking care to have some days off and some sabbath, for your body and for your mind. For LEVNeers, I hope you are making good use of your days off, and not cramming too much into your minds and hearts. It’s important that we honor the God who created us by following God’s example of balancing work and rest.

Lauren Winner’s chapter about sabbath contains this great quotation: “‘What happens when we stop working and controlling nature?...When we don’t operate machines or pick flowers or pluck fish from the sea? When we cease interfering in the world, we are acknowledging that it is God’s world.” [1]

That’s the work of sabbath—giving over our own labor, power, and privilege as a reminder that the world and all its creatures are beloved of God. Breathe deeply, rest well. Amen.

_____

[1] Lauren F. Winner, Mudhouse Sabbath: An Invitation to Spiritual Discipline, 4-7.

[2] Diane G. Chen, “Proper 4 [9]” in Preaching God’s Transforming Justice: Year B, 269-274.

[3] Emerson B. Powery, “The Gospel of Mark” in True to Our Native Land, 127.

It's Okay If You Don't Get It—A Sermon for Trinity Wednesday

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.

On the sign out front, it says that the Belfry is a Lutheran and Episcopal Ministry. Not everyone here identifies as Lutheran or Episcopalian, which we’re actually pretty into, right? But what we’re up to is certainly Christian—we focus our learning and our worship on the stories about Jesus, and how Jesus relates to God the Creator and to their Holy Spirit. We’re not always sure about the meaning of those stories, but we’re in it together—we learn from each others’ stories, too. I don’t know if you go home from here each week and wonder about the things we read and sang, but you keep coming back, so there’s something happening that’s of value to you.

Being UC Davis students, or LEVN volunteers, you’re in a developmental stage known as “emerging adulthood”—you’re still in the process of becoming yourself, differentiated from your family of origin. You’re absorbing information about the world and yourself at breakneck speed, processing and processing and processing. That’s enough to keep anyone lying awake at night.

I’m just moseying my way out of emerging adulthood into regular ol’ adulthood—boring, not recommended—and I occasionally find myself experiencing something called “night dread.” Waking up at some ungodly hour like 2:37am because my brain has chosen that moment to run through the whole list of things that need resolving IMMEDIATELY for some reason.

Has this happened to you? What do you do? Do you will yourself back to sleep? Do you toss and turn until the sun comes up? Do you watch a movie on netflix? Do you scroll through tumblr? Do you get up and try to do some of the stuff you’re worried about; answer some of the questions your brain won’t stop asking?

In our Gospel story for this week, I think Nicodemus had night dread. The story says that he came to see Jesus by night. This is probably for a few reasons—no one would see him, he knew where Jesus would be, and perhaps he just couldn’t sleep without going and asking. I imagine him half-whispering, “Rabbi, we know you’re a teacher come from God, for no one can perform the signs and wonders you do, unless by the power of God.” To say this out loud, as a Jewish religious leader, is to admit that this rabble-rouser just might be for real. He has probably been tossing and turning about this since he first encountered Jesus.

As usual, Jesus does not simply say yes or no, but says, instead, that the truth of the matter is that in order to truly experience the beloved community of God, one has to go through spiritual transformation. Nicodemus doesn’t know what to do with this, either, because he takes Jesus literally, assuming he needs to be re-born, which even in the first century, they understood could not be done. Three times, Nicodemus speaks to Jesus in this encounter, and all three times, he focuses on the logical possibility of explaining what God is doing, and all three times, he gets more confused. And he’s not alone.

This week, our liturgical calendar brings the focus to the Holy Trinity, our favorite confusing Christian paradox. God the three in one, one in three. We name God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. We name God the Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. We have countless names that could go on this list—Savior, Rock, Shepherd, Prince of Peace, King of Kings, Source of Life, Fountain of Mercy, Wisdom, Healer, Mother, Advocate...I imagine you have a favorite or two. Our scripture and our hymns are full of these images and metaphors and names for God. Are there any I left out that you love?

Trinitarian monotheism is a critical component of our Lutheran and Episcopal Christian theological heritage. Councils have been called, creeds have been written, heretics have been burned, and wars have been fought over this and other doctrines of our church. You may be a person who is very concerned with orthodoxy—and you are not alone—and so you are committed to understanding the sticking point of the Son being “begotten, not made, of one being with the father” in the words of our Nicene Creed. Or perhaps you are drawn to the Gospel According to John, in which it is written than “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the word was God” (John 1:1).

You may be unsure what any of that is that I’ve just said, and are pretty okay wrapping your head around just that God the Creator, Jesus the Christ, and the Holy Spirit are fine by you. Often, I find myself safely in that camp. Yep, I have a seminary education and so am technically proficient in explaining that the Holy Trinity is consubstantial, and that the words “person” and “substance” in their ancient languages are not quite direct translations to our clumsy English. I could point you toward the writings of Martin Luther and many others about the delicate intricacies of this divine dance, to try to ensure that you’re not committing a heresy in the process.

But several years ago, a pastor of mine reminded me that the Holy Trinity is not merely a complex theological concept to be comprehended, but a relational reality to be lived. God-for-us, God-with-us, God-in-us. [1]

It is awesome—and by that I mean the slang of my Southern California home and the literal inspiring of awe—that God relates to us in these varied ways. God created this universe and everything in it. God came among us, their beloved creation, as one of us. God continues to move through us and inspire us.

We need not be able to explain why or how this is so in order to respond to it.

There’s a famous old diagram of the Trinity that attempts to express how it is possible that God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but also that the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father. They are all of one being, but they are not the same.

That’s helpful, kind of. But theologian Kee Boem So says that “the Trinity is not an abstract doctrine but a practical reality with implications for Christian life.” [2] Nicodemus came to Jesus hoping to understand who Jesus was, in order to assess those implications. Coming to believe that Jesus was the Son of God would mean radically transforming his life, his community, and his religious practice. The same is true for us! Recognizing the community built into the God who loves us—God the Creator, God the Redeemer, God the Sustainer—should lead us to build a community, too. If God is multi-faceted, and co-creative, we ought to be, too.

Throughout our lives as Christians, there will be times when we understand most deeply God as Creator, and then there will be times when we really dig into relationship with God as Redeemer, and there will be times when we really feel the movement of God as Sustainer. This is the beauty of our Trinitarian monotheism. God is always doing a new thing, making us new, keeping us moving.

God-for-us, God-with-us, God-in-us.

God-for-you, God-with-you, God-in-you.

That’s awesome. Amen.

_____

[2] Kee Boem So, "The First Sunday After the Pentecost" in Preaching God's Transforming Justice: Year B, 259.

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.