SHE FLIES ON
Pentecost Sunday and Mother’s Day

Acts 2:1-18

St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church

Rev. Gary Paterson

May 11, 2008

Well, happy Mother’s Day to all who are gathered here today. It’s a day to remember, and to give thanks; a day for the heart. How many mothers do we have here today Are you willing to stand up? Give them a hand folks, and maybe offer a silent prayer for your own mother while you do so.

Mother’s Day is a big deal on this continent… busiest day in the year for eating out, lunch and dinner; we North Americans will drop 3.5 billion dollars today in restaurants. And 2.5 billion dollars on flowers. No, you don’t mess with Mother’s Day. It’s a day when preachers take great care… you’ve got to talk about mothers; and it had better be good. You need to be careful not to ruffle feathers, nor to give offense – for instance, it’s not a day to talk about dysfunctional families, teen-age pregnancies, abuse. Nor to ask questions that are probing and pushy… like, “Do you remember times when you actually weren’t getting on with your mother?” No, keep it simple; keep it sweet… and, oh yes, keep it short… remember those lunchtime reservations.

But today is doubly complicated for the preacher, because it also happens to be Pentecost – it’s that oh so early Easter in March that creates more problems down the line. Pentecost… the Sunday we celebrate the giving of the Holy Spirit to the disciples; one of the three great church festivals. It’s a day of wind and fire; of speaking in tongues; when the service should be wildly exuberant and flamboyant; and look, I even have my red socks on. Tim said I looked goofy with red socks, but hey… it’s only once a year. But how do you preach Pentecost without stirring up trouble? Which is precisely what you don’t want to do on Mother’s Day.

So for the past few weeks I’ve been trying to figure out how to do a “combo sermon” – which has been a challenging task. One approach that I thought of was to recognize that the word for Spirit in both Hebrew and Greek – “ruach” and “pneuma” – they both were “feminine” nouns. We English-speakers don’t apply gender to most of our nouns, so we don’t recognize the linguistic possibility of thinking about the Spirit as a female presence. And it is a fact that very quickly the church presented the Spirit as male… “He did this, then He did that…” and even though they frequently symbolized the Spirit as a white dove, it was a male dove. But here and there you will find theologians and poets who are willing to suggest that perhaps the Spirit is one of the cracks in what appears to be a monolithic patriarchal presentation of God as Father and Son. But sometimes we can sing, “She flies on….” and perhaps suggest an identity between “mothers” and “spirit”… the power that brings breath, life.

Not a bad beginning, I thought, even if a couple of years ago we celebrated Mother’s Day with a sermon entitled, “God is our Mother” so that this “combo”wasn’t really breaking any new ground. So I thought, perhaps we can push this a step further. For instance, Pentecost is the day we celebrate the birth of the church. There were Jesus’ followers, at a loss really, as to what they were to do next. Yes, they had experienced Jesus’ resurrection, but now what? They stayed put in Jerusalem, kept a low profile, were probably discouraged, puzzled, despondent. And then it happened… wind and fire sweeping though an upper room transformed them into a vibrant, confident community of hope… and the church was born. So… the Spirit and mothers… both in the “giving birth” business. And indeed, John in his gospel talks a lot about being born again… the first time as children of our mothers – our physical birth; and then, the second time, as children of God – our spiritual birth. Maybe this is a day to think about what it means to be “born,” for despite the vaunted individualism and independence of our culture, we are so dependent upon outside energy, grace… our very lives are a gift, and we have done nothing to “earn” being alive. Maybe this a day simply to give thanks; maybe it’s a day to recognize that “being born” is an ongoing process.

Maybe we can go even further. For giving birth is only the inital step in becoming a mother – after that first labour comes a lifetime of giving, of loving. From sleepless nights and dirty diapers, through schooling, adolescence, into seeing our children become strong and independent. This is the work of biological mothers, adoptive mothers, step-mothers and a thousand and one honorary mothers… every one of us who offer care and nurture to young human beings. Maybe this is the moment to reclaim that ancient language of “Mother Church.” We Protestants have veered away from this kind of imagery, but maybe it can remind us of the deepest purpose of church… to nurture human beings into becoming the people that the Spirit would have us be. The church is not an institution that should have “power over”, control, and make demands and threaten punishment. The church is to be our mother, nurturing, caring… giving everything possible for the well-being of human beings who are growing into the fullness of God.

So… this is where I was at the beginning of the week. And it felt … well, not bad. But it didn’t do much for my heart. So… it was back to the text, taking another look at that first Pentecost. Think about it… the first result of the Spirit’s coming was that all the disciples began to speak in different languages, so that everyone who was gathered in Jerusalem heard them in his or her own language. Strange, no? Now, don’t get caught on a literal interpretation of this…. some kind of miraculous United Nations’ instantaneous translation service. No… Luke was speaking metaphorically, suggesting I think, that a primary work of the Spirit was to enable us humans to transcend the differences that we have created between and among ourselves… the differences of language, ethnicity, gender, race… the kinds of things that separate us, that lead us into strange value judgments, and the pointing of fingers, and distrust and... finally, conflict. Maybe this is another way to say that in Christ there is neither male nor female, Greek or Jew, slave or free, for we are all one in Christ.

And maybe this is the moment to remember the origin of Mother’s Day on this continent, with its roots in the peace movement. It began with social activist Julia Ward Howe, in the aftermath of the American Civil War, and in response to the Franco-Prussian conflict in Europe, as she called women to unite against war, to find a way to transcend the differences that brought humans to kill each other. Her work was subsequently picked up by Ann Jarvis, a young Appalachian home-maker, who organized women throughout the Civil War to care for the young troops of both the North and the South, working for better sanitary conditions, to preserve health, and to speed healing when soldiers were wounded. And after the war, well, she didn’t stop her efforts, but tried so hard to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbours. This sure sounds like Spirit work to me… people suddenly discovering that beneath our surface differences we speak the same language. Listen to Julia Ward Howe’s 1870 Mother’s Day Proclamation; can you not hear the Holy Spirit filling her words with fire and power?

Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts,

Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

 

Say firmly:

“We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,

Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn

All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

 We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country

To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

 

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.

 It says: “Disarm! Disarm!

The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”

Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,

Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

 

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

 Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means

 Whereby the great human family can live in peace,

Each bearing after his/her own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,

 But of God.

Now those are words that feel full of Spirit. I am reminded of all the women who gathered in Greenham Common in the 1980’s to protest the arrival of Cruise Missiles in England; of all the women who stood silently in the public squares in the cities of Argentina to protest the disappearance at the hands of the military Junta of their sons, husbands, brothers and fathers – the Mothers of the Disappeared they were called. I wonder what would happen if the mothers who live in our neighbour to the south were to gather with cries of outrage at what is happening in Iraq; and what about the mothers of Canadian troops in Afghanistan… would they have words for the young human beings, Canadian and Afghani, caught in what seems like an endless war? But wait, this is Mother’s Day, and I need to be careful about getting carried away, becoming political, giving offence. But surely, inspired by mothers and Spirit, we can talk about peace on such a day as this.

So friends… this is where I had gotten to in sermon preparation by last Wednesday. And yet something still didn’t feel quite right; the dream of peace is so needed, but how do we even begin to move in that direction. And then I came across a little story about “Holy Spirit Holes” – ahhh…. Yes. Supposedly, in medieval times many churches had a hole deliberately built into the roof. Imagine… a hole in the roof of this church. It was covered up during most of the year, but on Pentecost it was opened up – a reminder that there needed to be an opening, a space, for the Spirit to begin its work. Far too often, as institutional church, and yes, as individuals, we have built firm walls and defenses, that end up constricting our dreams, preventing new wind and ideas and energy from entering and sparking change and transformation. Oh, we build and maintain them with the illusion that we will keep ourselves safe and secure… but God knows we need Holy Spirit holes in the church… and in our own lives.

It got me thinking… one of the joys of apartment living is that I no longer have to worry about the front lawn. But I do remember the late spring ritual of aerating the lawn. You know, when you go rent those hole-diggers from some gardening shop, and you bounce up and down all over the lawn digging out those small plugs of grass, root and dirt. Well, I had to read up on it to be convinced that it was necessary… but it seems that without proper aeration, the soil gets compacted and thatch builds up on the surface of the lawn, an intertwining of root, rhizome, and stolon, which becomes a thick, almost impenetrable fibrous mat. Air and water cannot penetrate – and there is no health in said lawn. Holes are needed… in lawns and lives. Holy Spirit holes…. I guess the question is, where are yours?

I read an article just the other day about church fights… we all know something about fights. Well, it was suggested that the Spirit was to be found in the gaps, the pauses, the impasses and parentheses… in the silences when all the yelling had finally come to a pause, if not an end. That’s when you had to listen… oh so carefully.

I was talking to a woman yesterday, whose husband I had buried last year. And she shared with me her discovery that grief can sometimes be a Holy Spirit hole. Not one that you ever wished for… her husband’s death had felt like ripping something, someone, out of her life; it’s like a wound she said. And yet, in the weeks and months following, there had been deep though painful learnings, about love, life… her life. She said, “It felt like the Spirit was touching me in places and in ways that I could not have imagined before. And I am a different person now.” Her story reminded me of a fragment from Leonard Cohen’s poem, “Anthem”:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

A crack, a hole, a wound… where in your life are there openings for the Spirit to touch you? And in this church… where are the cracks, the spaces that will allow the Spirit to bring life… new life, a rebirth with all its changes and growing pains?

Perhaps prayer is a way to create space… after all the words are spoken, the thanks, the hurts, desires and hopes… then comes the silence, the waiting, the openness… the hole. We can become so busy; I can become too busy… perhaps prayer can create a stillness, an opening for something new to arrive, to occur.

In those medieval churches, they had a special ritual on the day of Pentecost. The hole in the roof was open… and at the height of worship a flock of doves would be released, and with wings slapping they would twirl up, up and out… a reminder that the Spirit which lives within the church, within each and every one of us, the energy of God that we have been given, -- this Spirit needs to be free to re-enter the world, with white wings; she needs to be able to fly on, not confined within us, but released in wonder and love to soar throughout the world. And… I love this part… at the same time, some young people would have been stationed up on the roof of the church, at the edge of the hole, and as the doves sailed up and out, they would scatter handful after handful of bright red rose petals into the church…. the petals would twirl down, caught in gentle air currents, like tongues of fire falling on everyone, old and young, men and women, servants and free, God’s never-ending, ever-flowing gift of holy energizing, transforming love. Ours for the receiving… and the sharing.