Pentecostal Mystery

 Friends, 

Today I present a Pentecost poem, written by St. Mark member Don Beard, a man of many passions and artistic talents. Enjoy.

 

Today

Is Not the Tomorrow

My Yesterday Self

Dreamed OF

Hunger Still Exists So Needlessly.

Lives and Livelihoods Are Still Destroyed by Greed and Wars.

Loving Our Neighbors and One Another

Is Not as Inclusive as it Ought to Be.

Such Truths as These and Others not Listed

Continue to Remind Me

That Today

Is Not the Tomorrow 
My Yesterday Self Dreamed Of

But then I Remember the Pentecostal Mystery

Of How God Brough His People Together

To Speak and Understand a Though With One Voice.

Reminding Us That It Is in Our Togetherness

That We Too Can Be Part of the One Voice

Proclaiming The Power and The Promise of The Resurrection.

My Hope and Prayer for the Here And Now

Is That Someday, Hopefully Not Too Far Away,

By Continuing to Use Our God Given Skills and Talents

Along With Our Combined Voices,

That We Will One Day Be Able To Say,

Today 
Is the Tomorrow 
Our Yesterday Selves

Dreamed Of

 

 

Mark of St. Mark

The Disruptive Holy Spirit

Friends, 

 

I took a break from my Pentecost theme last week to honor Holmes Rolston III and Walter Brueggemann of blessed memory. Now, back to the theme. 

 

I want to talk about the discomfort and disruption that the Holy Spirit often brings in her wake. First, let me nerd out for a second about the term “Holy Spirit.” The Greek term for Spirit is πνεῦμα. As you may know, in Greek – as in many other languages – nouns are often identified as either masculine, feminine, or neuter, and πνεῦμα is neuter. So, if one wants to select a pronoun, one can go with “him,” “her,” or “it.” Translations rarely choose “it” when referring to the Holy Spirit, because Christian doctrine considers the Holy Spirit to be the “third person” of the trinity, and “it” is impersonal, usually referring a thing. I prefer to speak of the Holy Spirit with the pronouns she/her for a couple of reasons. First, I should confess, I like how it catches people off guard and makes them ask questions. But, more importantly, some of the related terms to πνεῦμα are specifically female nouns, such as πνοή, that mighty rushing wind/breath that entered the house on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:2). In addition, the Holy Spirit is often described in ways that “Wisdom” is described in the Hebrew Bible, and the term in Hebrew, as well as its Greek counterpart “Sophia” are also feminine. Proverbs 8 has the most delightful description of Wisdom accompanying God during creation, which the Old Testament scholar Bill Brown says reads like “take your daughter to work day”: “then I was beside [God], like a master worker, and I was daily his delight, playing before him always, playing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.” That is Wisdom speaking, a participant in God’s act of creation. 

 

In addition to the arguable femininity of the term, the word πνεῦμα has a wide array of meanings. It can mean “spirit” as in a human spirit or God’s spirit. It can also mean “breath” or “wind.” When translations speak of the sound of ‘a rushing mighty wind’ entering the room (Acts 2:2), then says they were all filled with the “Holy Spirit” (2:4), we are receiving their best interpretations. Verse 2 could read, “rushing mighty breath” or “rushing mighty spirit.” Verse 4 could read that they were all filled with “the holy breath,” which sounds like the creation story in Genesis 2, or “the holy wind” (although that sounds odd). And the capitalization of “Holy Spirit” instead of “holy spirit” is entirely a judgment call., as is the King James Bible’s phrase “Holy Ghost,” using “ghost” instead of “spirit” for πνεῦμα.

 

What is more important about the Holy Spirit is how disruptive she is. As we heard last weekend, religions are inherently enculturated. They are typically birthed in a particular culture, with particular views of the world, particular languages, and particular authoritative figureheads. And while they may grow and extend beyond the original culture, they tend to privilege certain aspect of their history. Think of how a religious book might describe a war, with God clearly on one side and not the other. Think of how some 21^st century Roman Catholics argue mightily for bringing back the “Latin Mass” that was ended with the Second Vatican Council, even if they don’t understand a word of it. Think about how a classical piece of music, even it is titled Etude in d minor is considered “sacred music,” while “What a Wonderful World” is considered “secular.” It’s not a criticism, but an observation that religions tend to take on a particular culture, sometimes declaring a language to be more sacred than others, and so on. 

 

With that in mind, look at the disruption the Holy Spirit causes on Pentecost! Suddenly every language becomes a medium for declaring the mighty works of God. Every language, hence, every culture. The language of friends; the language of enemies. The language of the educated; the language of barbarians (seriously, “Cretans” are mentioned in the story!) After the litany of cultural identities present, the story says, “in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” The Holy Spirit tramples on the unspoken rule of religion by bypassing the presumed privilege of culture and language by making God’s story accessible to everyone. Jesus once likened her to “the wind (pneuma) which blows where it will.” That Holy Spirit, she does what she does!

 

It seems that the church has been trying to shove the Holy Spirit back into proper cultural, linguistic, and theological boxes ever since the Day of Pentecost. Our faithfulness lies in setting her free and trying to keep up! 

 

Mark of St. Mark

 

  

In Life and in Death, We Belong to God

This past week, two significant figures in the Christian academic world died, both at 92 years old. Holmes Rolston III and Walter Brueggemann had very different, long, and influential careers, for which I want to give thanks today. 

 

From Union Presbyterian Seminary, where I attended, is this writeup about Holmes Rolston: “Rolston has been a part of the UPSem story for decades. Born November 19, 1932, in Staunton, Virginia, Rolston was raised in a family deeply rooted in Presbyterian ministry. After earning a B.S. in physics and mathematics from Davidson College in 1953, he followed in his father's and grandfather's footsteps by enrolling at Union Theological Seminary (VA), where he received a Bachelor of Divinity in 1956. His wife, Jane Wilson Rolston, earned an M.A. from the Presbyterian School of Christian Education in 1955. Rolston went on to complete a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Edinburgh (1958), and an M.A. in the philosophy of science from the University of Pittsburgh (1968).

 

Rolston is widely considered the 'Father of Environmental Ethics' for his work in recognizing the intersections between nature, religion, philosophy, and ethics. In addition to teaching for over 40 years at Colorado State University, Dr. Rolston published multiple works, including Philosophy Gone Wild (1986), Environmental Ethics: Values in and Duties to the Natural World (1988), Conserving Natural Value (1994), Genes, Genesis, and God(1999), Three Big Bangs: Matter-Energy, Life, and Mind (2010) and A New Environmental Ethics (2012, 2020). His argument that nature possesses intrinsic value beyond human utility reshaped environmental philosophy and religious thought alike. His work served as a moral compass in an age of ecological crisis, offering a framework in which care for creation is not only a scientific necessity but also a sacred duty.”

 

Walter Brueggemann was one of the most influential biblical scholars of our time, for me and for a large host of students of the Bible. He retired as a Professor Emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary, in Decatur, GA, after a widely published and sought out career as a preacher and teacher. I will share a prayer he wrote called, “On Controlling Our Borders.” 

 

“Jesus – crucified and risen – draws us into his presence again, the one who had nowhere to lay his head, no safe place, no secure home, no passport or visa, no certified citizenship.

We gather around him in our safety, security, and well-being, and fret about ‘illegal immigrants.’ We fret because they are not like us and refuse our language. We worry that there are so many of them and their crossings do not stop. We are unsettled because it is our tax dollars that sustain them and provide services. We feel the hype about closing borders and heavy fines, because we imagine that our life is under threat.

 

And yet, as you know very well, we, all of us – early or late – are immigrants from elsewhere; we are glad for cheap labor and seasonal workers, who do tomatoes and apples and oranges to our savoring delight. And beyond that, even while we are beset by fears and aware of pragmatic costs, we know very well that you are the God who welcomes strangers, who loves aliens and protects sojourners.

 

As always, we feel the tension and the slippage between the deep truth of our faith and the easier settlements of our society.

 

We do not ask for an easy way out, but for courage and honesty and faithfulness. Give us ease in the presence of those unlike us; give us generosity amid demands of those in need, help us to honor those who trespass as you forgive our trespasses.

 

You are the God of all forgiveness. By your gracious forgiveness transpose us into agents of your will, that our habits and inclinations may more closely follow your majestic lead, that our lives may joyously conform to your vision of a new world.

We pray in the name of your holy Son, even Jesus." 

Prayers for a Privileged People, Walter Brueggemann, Abingdon Press, ©2008

 

In life and in death, we belong to God.

 

Mark of St. Mark

Pentecost and Zeal

I want to repeat my comment from last week that we Presbyterians do ourselves a disservice by leaving Pentecost to Pentecostals. When I was being examined for ordination by the East Iowa Presbytery thirty years ago, most of the questions were concerned about my Pentecostal upbringing and whether I would try to impose Pentecostalism onto the congregations I served. I understood where the concerns were coming from and actually shared many of them. At the same time, I didn’t want to throw the story of the Day of Pentecost under the bus in order to demonstrate that I was a safe candidate. Growing up Pentecostal offered me a host of positive experiences, along with negative experiences that I’ve been trying to work through spiritually and theologically during my adulthood. I will save the negative experiences for a memoir or a comedy routine at a later time, but some of the positive experiences may surprise someone unaccustomed to the tradition: Women preachers (not pastors, but preachers) were common; we called one another “brother” or “sister” instead of “Mr., Mrs. Miss, or even Rev.”; men were unafraid to hug one another, even before the “bro hug” became a thing; and within the Christian life there was an expectation of zeal. Today I want to think about what it means to honor zeal as an important and valuable part of the Christian experience. 

 

First, the necessary caveat. Zeal comes in many forms, some of them awful. Unbridled zeal has often led to a fanatic willingness to commit atrocities in the name of some supposed commitment to a greater end. Zeal blurs the lines between sacrificing oneself and sacrificing another. Zeal often makes us unreasonable, unable or unwilling to see things from another perspective. Zeal justifies bombing villages, driving a truck into a crowd, conversion therapy, banning books, or declaring war. Just as emotions can often seem antithetical to reason, zeal can often seem antithetical to basic human decency. So, zeal rightly takes on a very negative connotation in many cases. 

 

Still, there is a lot to be said for zeal, enthusiasm, ardor, and an “all-in” level of commitment. Dr. King’s zeal for justice and human rights is what drove his feet to cross the Edmund Pettus bridge, despite the dangers that awaited him on the other side. Jesus’ zeal for God’s house is what compelled him to turn over tables and drive money-changers out of the temple. Any commitment to justice, peacemaking, inclusivity, or transformation that lacks zeal tends to flame out, because there are so many barriers that one needs the energy to push through. That might be a great definition of zeal: The energy to push through, especially when the initial euphoria has worn away. The word “zeal” brings to mind exclamation points, loud voices, adamant stances, and the like, but true zeal is often a matter of showing up, faithfully, time and time again. 

 

As zeal pertains to worship, the Presbyterian Book of Order has long described worship as containing both “order” and “ardor.” The wisdom of our tradition says order and ardor are not antithetical to one another, rather, they enhance each other. The “order” ensures that our zeal does not descend into fanaticism but is ever held accountable to other forms of God’s wisdom and grace. That’s how we ensure that our Pentecostal fire does not become wildfire, destroying everything in its wake. The “ardor” ensures that our propriety does not reduce our worship to rote, lifeless pronouncements that don’t recognize the presence of the living God right there with us whenever we gather. It is the Pentecost fire that stokes the engine to life, at times in a flash and at other times in a constant heat. 

 

I so appreciate those of you who show up again and again, ready to serve, ready to worship, and ready to lift one another up. That, to me, is the constant heat that the fire of Pentecost brings, which enables the church to be the church through thick and thin. I also appreciate those of you who “get fired up,” whether you express it by clapping or nodding or saying “amen” during worship, or by jumping in and making sure that we do what justice calls us to do. The fire of Pentecost is what keeps us writing that letter, making that call, marching that march, and telling that truth. 

 

So, while wearing red may feel a bit gimmicky, it will be a reminder to us that we are empowered, enflamed, energized by God’s own Spirit. What a beautiful gift that is. 

 

Mark of St. Mark