Listening

 Listening

Last week I sent an email attempting to schedule a meeting with a group that meets fairly regularly that I’m a part of (not one at church).  I said very clearly in the email, “The only day that consistently does NOT work for me is Thursday.”  The first person to respond wrote back immediately with, “Great!  Thursday is perfect for me!”  Grrr.  They clearly had not actually read my email.  Later in the same day I had a similar situation happen with a second email.  I said something that I felt was very clear and the response made it equally clear that the person who responded had not actually read the email but instead had just answered quickly and automatically to what they assumed I had written.  Equally frustrating.  A little while later it happened again, this time with a text message.  

I believe that we are listening less and less clearly to one another.  Part of this is the frantic pace at which we now move.  Part of this is the need to “get things done!” that means we zoom through emails and texts as things that need to be checked off, finished, addressed quickly so we can move on to the next thing.  Perhaps another part of it is that we are all so stressed with the anxiety of COVID and the problems in our lives and in our world that we simply don’t feel we have the energy to attend very clearly to that which is in front of us.  

At the same time, I think each of us has a deep need, in the face of this frantic disconnection from one another, to BE heard at more depth, with more intention, and with more genuine care.  We are isolated and alienated from one another, what with COVID and with our most common means of communication being through texting, emails, and even the phone, but less and less in person.  We have been created to connect.  We have been created to be in relationship with each other.  We need each other, we need relationships, and we need, deeply and desperately, to be heard.  So when we only communicate in these quick, disconnecting emails and texts, our isolation can be intensified, and along with it the desperate need to be truly heard.  The solution to this has to start with each of us, individually.

I would like to challenge all of us, then, to be willing to take a little more time, to be willing to “get less done” for the sake of deeply and truly listen to one another. Even if it is just a scheduling email or text, the need to be heard remains. I invite all of us to “put on the ears of God” or to strive to  be the ears of God in our listening.  How would God listen?  With all presence and with all fullness.  How are we called to listen?  Similarly with all presence and all fullness.  That will take more from us.  We will actually have to read the emails, texts and listen to the phone conversations or in person conversations with more attention, with more commitment of time and with a deeper intentionality.  But my guess is that we will be blessed by the choice to listen more fully and more deeply.  My guess is that we will find ourselves gifted in the listening through seeing deeper into one another, and maybe even seeing God more fully in one another.  The promise is that when we respond to the call of God, we will be enriched.  Listening deeply to one another is another way to love one another.  And we will find ourselves more deeply heard and understood as well.

Thanks be to God for the lives that touch ours, interact with ours and share with us their thoughts, feelings and ideas as well.  In connecting truly with others and in listening deeply to others, we will in turn find ourselves more deeply heard.  

A New Day Is Coming - Pentecost Sermon

 Galatians 4:1-7

Luke 11:11-13

Acts 2:1-4

            Today we once again have this amazing story that we hear every year about Pentecost.  And while it is really only four verses that we hear today, I want to start by once again doing a bit of a word study.  What I read to you today said “they were all together in one place”.  The word translated as “all together” has much deeper meaning than just “being together in one place.  It means more, “they were in one accord” in that place, or they “shared the same ardor, heat or passion”.  In other words, they weren’t just in the same place physically, but also mentally and more importantly, spiritually.  This passage follows the last time they have just seen Jesus.  They have seen him, Jesus has declared to them that the Holy Spirit will be coming upon them, Jesus has left them, they have travelled to Jerusalem, picked the disciple to replace Judas and now they are gathered together in a spirit of prayer and commitment when the Holy Spirit descends upon them. 

           Later in Acts, as we heard in our last month’s study of Acts, that this time is followed by many, many conflicts, and disagreements about who they are to be, who and what the church is and what it will and should do.  But that is not where they are here.  Here it began, with this moment of deep oneness, connection, and excitement about who they were and what they were called to do.  They understood their mission and they were about to begin it. 

            It is often in that space when we are most closely connected, most deeply aligned, excited about starting something new in which we experience the Spirit.  Note once again that this Spirit is not experienced by people alone here.  It comes to them when they are in community and worshiping, praying together.  These are not individualistic experiences.  They are experiences in community, in one-ness, in ardor.  And again, it happens at the beginning, in their excitement and passion about their work.

            As my lectionary group discussed this passage this week some of the pastors in our group talked about beginning congregations, being the start-up pastors for new churches and that in that excitement and spirit of passionate unity, they, too had group experiences of deep and profound movement of the Holy Spirit in their midst.  Everyone was working together towards one goal, the startup of the particular congregation, and the intensity of prayer and commitment often brought about these deep moments of sensing God’s presence in their midst, of feeling the Spirit guiding, shaping, encouraging their work.  But these wonderful and intense highs of the Spirit’s calling, the Spirit’s movement don’t usually last.  They are mountain top experiences of deep and profound joy, wonder, awe that quickly end up forgotten when conflicts arise, when differences of opinion show up.

            They shared that often those mountain top highs of sensing the Spirit can come back during a new pastor search or at the beginning of a new pastorate.  Then you have the “honeymoon” stage for a while, but that too wears off after a time.  And then those moments become harder to find.  But Holy Spirit moments do not have to be big events.  They don’t have to be big highs.  They are just moments when we rest in God, moments when we feel God’s presence, moments when we remember our deep connections to God, and through God to one another.  Holy Spirit moments are times when we are able to put aside our differences and to be united as one body, connected to God and one another.  All were connected, all were united under this Spirit.

            Today’s passage from Galatians is an extension of Pentecost.  To remind you of what we read, Paul writes about the facts of Roman society at the time.  “As long as the heir is a minor, he has no advantage over the slave.  Though legally he owns the inheritance, he can’t claim it until he is officially an “adult”, an age set by a father.  But when they become legal adults, they can claim their inheritance.  Paul says that in a similar way, in grace we have now been set free as adults, able to experience the heritage which God has prepared for us.  We are fully adopted as God’s heirs now.  That once the Spirit was received, we were made full adults, no longer slaves but full children, heirs.  This, too, then is a statement of inclusion and full heirs/adults.  Acts 10 tells us that God has no partiality.  As we read last week from Galatians 3, Paul tells us the walls no longer mean anything.  In Christ there is no Jew nor Greek, male nor female, etc, etc.  Inclusion is no longer limited by walls that need to be broken down.  That Pentecost passion includes everyone, which is why everyone can now understand each other even across differences in language.  That is what Pentecost is about. 

            But we struggle in our regular times, in our down times, when our passion and excitement for our faith, our church, are low.  And much of this struggle begins with the fact that we just don’t hear each other.  We just don’t understand one another.  I thought about starting this sermon with the words, “Hola!  Como Estan?  Estan felices ahora?  ¿Qual día es hoy en la iglesia?”  I know some of you would understand, but some wouldn’t. 

Still, we don’t even have to be speaking different languages to fail to understand one another.  One of my lectionary friends told us that when his son was little, their car broke down and they had to have it towed.  He told his son that he would soon get to see the car towed.  But when the tow man showed up to tow the car, the son was very confused and said, “where’s the car toad?  I want to see the car toad!” thinking that there would be a toad hopping around.  I remember when I was a child being told that the world was round.  I kept looking up to see the people on the other side of the world because I thought we were all on the INSIDE, rather than the outside of the earth.   

When we speak different languages, we can look it up in a dictionary when we don’t understand.  But idiomatic phrases still make it hard to understand each other.  Phrases like “don’t have a cow!”  or  “it’s raining cats and dogs”.  What are some of your favorite idiomatic expressions?  I used one the other day that was so familiar to me but that my children said they had never heard before and didn’t know what it meant.  “a Tempest in a teacup”

We also have trouble because we don’t communicate well.  I can’t tell you how many times people have made to me extremely vague unhelpful comments that communicate absolutely nothing.  “It isn’t like that” they will say.  “It isn’t like what?” I will ask.  “It just isn’t like THAT!” they will insist.  “Tell me what it is like?” I will push.  “Not like THAT.” They will say. 

But even more than poor communication, we struggle as a people to listen.  We don’t reflect back to check things out, we don’t ask clarifying questions.  But even more than all of this, we plan our responses while we are listening rather than just listening.  I’ve found this to be especially true in the Bay Area in which we talk so fast that there is no time for listening, for giving space to truly hear and THEN to form our responses.  I’ve shared this with you before but when David and I first met we struggled a bit with communication because he doesn’t listen in this terrible way.  He actually listens to hear.  Then he pauses to determine his response.  Because I was used to the pace of communication here, I would assume he wasn’t going to respond at all when he took the time to respond.  We’ve both learned: but I fear his learning has been in the negative direction of realizing he has to jump in more quickly rather than what he used to do in order to stay in the conversation.

We are divided.  And we make that so much worse than it needs to be.

            When I was in Cleveland there was a music group formed called “Elders of Jazz”.  These were “elders” in two senses of the word: they were all Presbyterian elders (ruling and teaching elders) from different Presbyterian congregations in the area.  They were also all retired, so “elder” in that sense too.  They served together, going around to different congregations with offerings of Jazz music for a Sunday.  However, at one point the founding church had a strong disagreement with the Presbytery.  That disagreement started with a theological difference, but moved then into the church withdrawing from the Presbytery and arguing with the Presbytery over the cost of doing so (as you know, our churches are owned by the Presbytery, not by the congregation, so when a church leaves the denomination, they are required to buy their building and grounds form the Presbytery).  This created a rift.  There was no longer a place for them to meet, to practice.  There was no longer common ground for them to be a united “elders of jazz”.  But they had the vision to see that disputes are temporary if we trust in the Spirit.  And that God’s call to be united in Christ extends beyond our differences and our diversity.  So they put a statement together for the Presbytery that said, “We currently are not meeting, but we are still in existence and waiting for the Spirit to unify us once again.”  With that attitude, they were, indeed unified once again, despite their differences and despite their struggles.  They remembered what it was to be “one in Christ”.  They remembered that the Spirit’s job is to connect us all and God and that if we let the Spirit do that, She will.  They remembered that they did not need to be in charge of everything, or control everything, or fight every time there was a disagreement. And so they prayed.  And they waited for the Spirit.  And they trusted that the Spirit would come.  As it did.

God gives us the gift of understanding each other across our differences – differences in understanding, differences in culture, differences in beliefs, differences in language.  This is the gift of God’s Spirit, uniting us and calling us to be church together, to be one together.  Amen.

Meet the Scapegoat...

     In one of those annoying middle of the night brain attack sessions I woke up thinking about a situation that I experienced 21 years ago now.  At that point in time I had been ordained for almost four years, I was pregnant with my first child and I was working for two different congregations as "music minister".  One of the congregations had Sunday morning pretty traditional services and I was their organist and music director as well as parish associate.  The other church I was serving also had a morning traditional service, but I was hired to lead their evening praise service, so I played piano, directed their praise team and the music we sang and played was mostly Christian rock.  This evening service had been pretty successful, a service for younger adults, in their 20s and 30s, lead by a young charismatic preacher who had been a seminary colleague of mine.  But after I had been there about three years, 21 years ago, the charismatic young pastor had decided to resign and to begin his own congregation.  There were a number of reasons for this, but I think a lot of it had to do with conflict in the congregation.

    Without that pastor there, then, the conflict changed focus and took the form of deciding that they no longer wanted to have two services anymore, but wanted us to all join in for one service.  Two men from session met with myself and the organist/music director who played for the more traditional service with a plan of action.  They told us that their plan was that their organist would continue to be the organist and music director, but that they wanted to hire me as the assistant music director, which meant that I could come and "help" their regular music director, maybe bringing some of the praise music from the evening service to the morning services.  I explained that I had a job Sunday mornings as an organist/music director for another church.  It would not be possible for me to be at their church Sunday mornings.  But these two men (and the male organist) would not listen to me.  "Oh, it's fine!  You can just come to choir rehearsals and you can have Sunday's off from your other job to play for us occasionally!"  

    "No, I can't.  I get two Sundays a year off from my other job.  I cannot come over and play for you occasionally."

    "Oh, it's fine!  We'll just switch and our organist can go play for them while you play for us!"

    "No.  I have a contract with that other church that does not include bringing in substitutes on Sunday mornings.  They have hired ME, not this other person and you cannot assume they will be okay with me sending someone else to lead them."

    "Oh it's fine!  You will just be helping our organist anyway!  It's not a problem at all!"

    I finally just sat there quietly, saying nothing.  They weren't listening.  And several things were very, very obvious to me:

    1.  Their current organist/music director had absolutely no need for an assistant.

    2.  The only reason they were pushing this agenda is that they knew that if they fired me in order to unite the two services, probably all the young people they were hoping to have leave the evening service to join in the morning service would also leave the church.

    I could see the manipulation, but I didn't know what to do about it.  They had no intention of listening to me at all.  

    But about a week later, a young, female member of session who attended the evening services approached me and asked for my opinion on it.  I explained to her exactly what I had tried to explain to these three men: I have a Sunday morning job where I am the music director/organist.  I am also parish associate there which means I get to preach on occasion and am recognized for being an ordained pastor.  I cannot give up a job where I am valued and have meaningful work, a job I have had as long as this one, for a new job as an "assistant" to a man who doesn't need an assistant simply because it feels politically expedient to the session to retain me as an employee.

    Two weeks later at a public meeting discussing the future of the church, the congregation was told that any division in the church was my fault.  The woman speaking explained that I had told the three men (the two session members and the music director) one thing, while going behind their back to talk to another session member with another story all together.  It was MY fault if all the young people left the church because I was not willing to work with them.  I was an evil, destructive person for not doing their bidding, and staying on as assistant to the music director.

    I was shocked.  So shocked that I became speechless.  I was never good in confrontive situations with being able to speak my truth.  I never was.  And in this case, the shock of what they were saying left me absolutely speechless.

    Afterwards a special session meeting was called and I was "invited" to share my story.  I went to the meeting and tried to explain again that I had a Sunday morning job already, at which I was organist and parish associate.  I explained once again that I only got two weeks off from that job and that it was clear to me that I was not actually needed to be the assistant to the music director at this church.

    But my "persecutors" (as I came to think of them) were masters at turning the questions around and making it appear, once again, that I was the bad guy in this situation.  "So, you are unwilling to be an 'assistant'" one said.  "You feel you are too good to work under anyone else."

    "No!" I said.  "At the church where I work in the mornings, I am just parish associate.  That means I work under the pastors of the church.  At my last church I was an Associate Pastor.  I had no trouble working under someone else.  But you are asking me to quit a job I love where I am the music director, organist, and parish associate to start what is basically a new job as an unneeded assistant."

    "Yep! She thinks she is too good for us!"  the response came back.

    I was dumbfounded.  If I had been a man, no one would ever have questioned the choice to stay in a job where I had more responsibility, more consistency, was needed, was valued, to take a new position as an unneeded, unnecessary assistant to someone else!  No one would have questioned that.  But once again, their comments and attacks left me inarticulate, unable to speak my truth, unable to defend myself.   All I could do was say, "I'm sorry.  I cannot take this job."  

    As I woke in the middle of last night I found myself moving, though, from anger to compassion.  This little group of folk had just lost their pastor.  They were about to also lose most of the young people that that pastor had nurtured: a whole congregation of younger folk that had been brought together into a thriving community.  Without those young people, eventually the church would close, as it did a few years later.  They did not have the vision to make different choices.  And they needed someone to blame.  It no longer served them to blame the pastor who had left.  The decisions they were making now were their own to make.  I was an easy scape-goat.  I didn't know most of them and they didn't know me because none of these folk except the one female session member who had talked to me, had ever attended the evening service that I had played and directed the music for.  Self-reflection in this situation would simply have been too painful.  Thinking of solutions outside of the box was too much a stretch for them when they were stressed and grieving.  And they couldn't do these things.  

    These memories also led me to think about the many ways in which people manipulate truth.  As we've watched over the years, but especially in the fairly recent past, people believe what will most validate their already held beliefs.  They will even deny their senses, proclaiming things didn't happen that they saw with their own eyes if doing so will help them to uphold their old beliefs and values.  I was stunned to hear, the other day, that some people are now denying the attack on the capitol that happened in January.  But I shouldn't have been.  Despite the video coverage, despite the fact that it was caught live and we all saw it, when threatened with a truth that will make people have to re-evaluate their stance, many will choose to ignore their own senses and own experiences.  And again, it comes back to the reality that self-reflection for many folk is simply too painful.  It's just too hard for many people to have to change their ideas, their understandings, their beliefs.  They'd rather deny their senses than have to change ideas that have grounded them for so long.  

    None the less, I think the pursuit of truth is a valuable endeavor, even if it is painful, even if it is hard.  I don't want to live a lie, personally.  I don't believe it ultimately serves me to hang on to things that are not real, just so I can tell myself I was right in my former opinions.  Why are we here if not to grow?  And that growth requires looking deep, being willing to change, being open to learning that we were wrong and may have to evaluate situations differently.  

    I still strive for compassion for those who cannot see, who choose not to see.  I would wish for them something better.  But that is each person's decision to make.  For myself, I will take the reminder of what I experienced 21 years ago as a call to listen and a call to look with honesty.  I will take it as a gentle push to be willing to self-reflect and to not scape-goat others when I have fault in a situation that is hard or painful.  I will use it to remind myself that not one of us has the whole story, the whole truth.  There is always more to learn, more ways to grow, and more hope for bridging.  

We just plain don't hear one another.

       We don't really hear each other.  I think the older I get the more aware I am of the truth in this.  

    Of course we see this most clearly with little things.  For example, I asked my husband to please take the trash from our bathroom outside and instead he moved the trash from our room to the kitchen.  When I asked him why, he said "Oh, I didn't understand what you said!"  Okay.  Actually I think he just didn't hear me.  Not really.  I had been careful to use the word "outside" to make it clear that I wanted it to go all the way out, but he didn't hear it.  He undoubtedly heard what he wanted to hear, but it wasn't what I meant and it wasn't what I said.

    Other times, we hear the words but we make assumptions about what they really mean.  I told Middle I thought he should look at other colleges since he seems to be changing his idea about what he wants to study.  Later he told me that since he was just going to community college next year it would save us a bundle.  I asked, "What do you mean?" To which he responded, "Didn't you tell me I shouldn't go to the colleges I've been accepted into already?"  No, that's not at all what I said, and it certainly wasn't what I meant to communicate.  I just said he should look at other colleges to see if there is a better match for what he is wanting to do.  But he assumed I meant something else.  He took what I said and expanded it to mean something different.  In this case he heard what he expected to hear.

    But I think there are other, much more profound ways in which we do not hear one another.  I cannot count the times I've thought that I've said one thing in a sermon only to have people respond in ways that make it clear they've heard exactly the opposite of what I was intending to communicate.  This has worked both for me and against me at various times.  I've had parishioners say, "That's exactly what I needed to hear today!" after which they have "said back" to me the exact opposite of what I thought I'd said.  I've also had parishioners say that they really disagreed with me and then explain to me a belief that I have in common with them.  When I've tried to tell them, "that's actually what I just said" usually their response is to argue... (sigh).  I'm not alone in this.  My pastor friends talk about this happening to them pretty regularly and I remember one time when I was able to witness it first hand.  I was standing with a pastor friend of mine and one of his parishioners.  His parishioner was telling him very excitedly that she was going to see the replica of Noah's ark in Kentucky.  She said that this proved the ark had been real and she couldn't wait to see it.  He responded, "Well, actually, I don't really believe that."  She said, "Oh, I know.  People shouldn't really have to see the replica in order to know that it historically happened!"  It was beyond her vision, her understanding, and her comprehension to believe that a pastor, her own pastor, especially, might not believe in the historicity of Noah's ark.  So even when he told her that he didn't, she morphed what he said into something that made sense to her.  In these cases, I think people are hearing what they've heard others say who are in similar roles or positions, so they are transferring others' thoughts and ideas onto another, usually because of the role or position that person has.  They have expectations or assumptions about others' beliefs and they can't hear otherwise.  

    Finally, there are times when a person will hear something, they'll be able to repeat it back, but within a week or so they've forgotten it.  It will be said again, they'll again be able to repeat it back, but another week will go by and they will have forgotten it again.  I have found this to be particularly true with discussions of theology or deep self-reflection.  I have two examples of this.  I had a parishioner who really struggled against the idea of God as a man sitting in the clouds cursing some and blessing others.  We had really good conversations about why I didn't believe this either.  At the end of each talk, she would say, "Wow.  That's so helpful.  I have a much better understanding now.  And I don't feel bad anymore about not believing in that kind of God.  Thank you."  A week would go by and she would approach me again, "I don't understand how people believe in this God in the clouds who curses some and blesses others."  And again, I would take it on but try using different words.  "I don't understand that either.  That doesn't match what I believe either.  My God is not 'all powerful' but has given us free-will and interacts with us through relationships."  "Oh, that's helpful," she would say.  "You've really cleared that up!"  Another week would go by and she'd come back again, "I don't understand this image of a God who makes terrible things to happen to some but not to others..."  Around and around and around it kept happening.  I started to feel that perhaps I wasn't understanding the real issue, so I'd just ask more and more questions, trying to get underneath it.  But nothing really new or different was expressed.  Somewhere between us in this communication we were not hearing each other.

    My second example is more personal.  When we were going through our hardest time, I was seeing a wonderful therapist to help me navigate those waters.  Usually she just helped me to understand my own thoughts better, to hear my own insights more clearly.  But there was a time when I asked her point blank for her opinion about something.  She paused thoughtfully and then said to me, "I don't think that you are ready to hear what I think about this.  And my experience is that if I tell people things that they are not ready to hear, that they can't take it in; can't hear it, can't retain it, can't remember it."  This, of course, made me more curious.  So I asked her to tell me anyway.  She did so, and my memory was that I responded with, "Wow.  Well, thank you for that.  I will sit with that and really ponder it."  But I'll tell you the truth, by the end of the day I couldn't for the life of me remember what she had said.  I hadn't been able to hear it, retain it, or take it in, just as she had predicted.  I still don't remember it.  I remember only that the interaction happened.  This mirrors some early childhood parenting classes that I had taken which said that if a young child starts asking questions about things like where babies come from or other things that we feel are beyond their age of understanding, it's okay to answer them because they will only retain what they are old enough and mature enough to retain.  This was true for my own children.  They often asked huge or deep questions.  But as they grew they would ask those questions again, repeating back to me only a tiny part of what I had told them before.  Each time they would retain more as their own ability to do so grew with their age and experience.  But they could not retain the whole of what I was saying until they had matured enough to take it in.

    My point here is that sometimes we just aren't ready to hear or retain certain pieces of information.  We can't comprehend it or make it part of our understanding of the world, so we simply don't.  And this, too, greatly reduces our ability to hear one another.  

    Finally we often fail to hear one another because we are starting at different places with different values.  I was listening to some talks recently on the difference between liberals and conservatives.  One of the key findings was that liberals and conservatives start with different basic value systems.  But because we don't understand or we fail to hear those really innate, underlying differences, we continue to try to "persuade" using our own set of values.  Of course this fails, every time.  If we don't start with the same understanding we will never be able to hear with understanding those who start at a very different place with different base assumptions and values. 

    The truth is that our ability to hear one another is crucial.  Relationships are built on communication, and communication must start with hearing.  We cannot begin to understand, to relate, to truly care for one another without starting with hearing.  But obviously, hearing is not simple.  It is not easy.  There is a reason good listeners are sought out for counseling, spiritual direction, guidance, coaching.  They are sought out because most of us struggle to hear and be heard.  But perhaps that choice to really hear has to begin with us.

    So what do we do with this?  People don't hear one another for the reasons I mentioned above.  They don't hear because they hear what they want to hear, hear what they expect to hear, make assumptions,  hear what they can hear, hear what fits with their basic world views.  How can we improve hearing? With practice. We ask clarifying questions.  We repeat back what we think we have heard to see if we are really getting down to the gist of it.  We admit when we are struggling to understand.  We write down what the other has said so that we can go back to it and try to hear it again.  We ask more questions.  We try to understand where the thoughts and ideas and expressions are coming from.  We ask for clarity again.  

    In this age where we have become more and more divided, the only hope for bridging those divides will be to start with hearing, to open up to grow deeper in our understanding and our willingness to learn from each other.  It is a choice we must make to strive to listen, to close our mouths to hear more clearly and deeply.  In a world of increasing division, isolation, fear and anger,  it is essential that we make that beginning today.

Changing Sense of Call

 

Luke 5:1-11

Mark 1:14-20

               Today we have two stories about the call of the fishermen disciples.  

               In the story from Luke, we see that Jesus initiates the call by asking for a favor: “Jesus boarded one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon and then asked him to row out a little distance from the shore.”  After preaching to the crowds, he makes another request, “Row out farther, into the deep water, and drop your nets for a catch.”  Jesus initiates, and it is possible at any point that Simon Peter could have said no.  He does resist in response to that second request, “Well, we’ve already worked hard all night and caught nothing!”  There’s no guarantee that he will answer the request, the call, the initiation from Jesus with a “yes”.  That is the risk that God takes when approaching us, as God always does.  The risk on God’s part is that we will say “no”.  But Simon Peter, though grumbling, does not say “no”.  He answers with “well, I don’t think will work, but because you are asking me, I’ll do it.” 

               The result of his saying “yes” to Jesus then is a catch that far exceeds expectations, that is far beyond even any hopes that he might have had.  The catch is so big that it is, literally, overwhelming their boats and threatening to sink them.

               And then Jesus calls them to follow.  And again, despite what they have just seen, the abundance they have just witnessed, the overflowing-beyond-expectation catch they have just made, they still have the option to say “no” once more.  And Simon Peter again has his doubts, his fears.  “Leave me, Lord, for I am a sinner” he declares.  But in the end, remembering all that has come to pass, he again says “yes” expecting that their catch, this time of people, will continue to be huge.

               There is so much in this story.  Their fears, their hesitations, their responses are reminiscent of the prophets, almost all of whom have similar beginning stories.  The stories of Isaiah, Jonah, Jeremiah, etc. all begin with God’s call: a relationship and an invitation into a calling that is initiated by God.  All of these prophets, too, respond with doubt, with hesitation.  But in spite of their doubt, in spite of their hesitation, in spite of everything they, too, ultimately say “yes” to this call from God.  As a result, with all of them, the catch is huge, the expectations that they had are far exceeded.  The unexplored areas of potential beyond their ideas of what is possible, of the limits of resources, knowledge and energy are far beyond their vision. 

And so, the question is brought back to us: in what ways do we limit ourselves, see walls that maybe aren’t really there, see limitations or declare, as Simon Peter did, “We already tried that and it didn’t work!”?  In what ways, when new ideas or possibilities are presented to us, do we roll our eyes and squash those visions, those opportunities and invitations before they have been given space?  How do we fail to remember that past times are not this time, and situations that maybe made things fail before may be different now?  That specific calls are for a time, for a season, and while a new vision may sound like the old one, if God calls us to try again, it’s just possible that God’s ideas are in fact for now, and that they might be new, stemming from new visions, and new hopes for what might be done now, in this time and in this place, even when they sound similar.  In what ways, then, have we limited where and how we will find God?

               In my lectionary group, one of our pastors shared that at his church they have a food pantry.  And one week when one of the men came to pick up his food, he asked if he could use the kitchen to cook a specific meal.  The man was without house, and he did not have the ability to make himself the food he wanted.  Using the kitchen at the church, though, was off limits.  It had “never been done before” and at another church where the pastor had served it “had been tried once and had failed” so the invitation to open that door again was unappealing and, frankly, against that church’s rules.  But my friend decided to make an exception this one time.  The man invited my friend to stay with him while he used the kitchen, while he cooked his meal, and they began to talk.  The man was cooking a wondrous meal with his hands, but his words, my friend discovered, were also a rich feast in which he was  creating real visions based on understanding and insight.  They ended up discussing scripture, talking through that week’s sermon and this homeless man gave my friend new insights and new examples to use.  And as my friend listened to this man, he heard God’s words in new and different and empowering ways.  This simple decision on the part of my friend to allow this seemingly uneducated, dirty, lost man access to the kitchen led into new understandings from a man who was extremely intelligent, but more, very wise and who had gifts to give in terms of vision, ideas and insights.  My friend was given a glimpse of God, simply because he said “yes” to an unusual request. 

Just as the catch that the would-be disciples drew was big enough not just for the fisherfolk, but big enough to feed the community in its abundance, the gifts given to my friend were for his whole church community as well. 

I want to point out something else here: fishing for people, calling the disciples, offering call to us, is never coercive or domineering.  Jesus did not insist that they do what he asked.  He did not insist that they follow.  He initiated, engaged, but in the end, the choice was theirs.  Call from God as we see in this story is personal, relational work. The result of following is healing and abundance.  So when one starts to say yes, the results are impossible to ignore: the catch is so big and so clear that, while we still always have choice, the reality of the call is made abundant.  I think about the times when I have heard God urging me to do something.  Even with something as simple as donating money, I have often found that when I have answered a call to give, when I have felt that tugging at my heart to be generous, that whatever I have given has been returned to me in abundance.  Just like with the disciples, that doesn’t make the next time I am asked to do something necessarily easy.  It is hard, even with proofs offered again and again of the abundant response of God, it is still hard to trust that when we are asked again to do something, to give something, to follow something, that God’s abundance will still carry us.  That’s what faith is: trusting that when we answer yes, that God will be with us and will be there to carry us even when there is risk, danger and potential injury.  God will be with us.  And the promise is that no matter what struggles we face, that following with God is better than saying no and going the journey alone.

At the same time, I also want to be clear here that there is a cost to saying “yes”.  While the abundance of God abounds, there is also a cost.  In this story, the men had worked all night.  They were tired, probably exhausted, frankly, and they were being asked to set out in their boats once more, to a deeper area, to go out again.  Then after they have worked hard again to bring in the fish, Jesus calls them to follow him in all that he does: not to rest, not to go back to their families, but to leave everything and follow him.  They did leave everything, staring with and including the huge fish catch that they had just had, to go with Jesus.  Eventually many of them follow Jesus to the cross and end by losing their very lives.  While the catch is huge, the abundance of God is beyond compare, there is also a price to be paid in this world for following on the way of Jesus, and that cost is sometimes everything that we are and have.  And still, God’s promise remains that this choice is better than to say “no”.  But that is something we can only learn for certain through the doing, through the experiencing of it.

I want to note here that the son’s of Zebedee who fished with their family boat and supported their family left that family to follow.  As we heard at the end of the story in Mark, “At that very moment he called them. They followed him, leaving their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired workers.”  What is interesting here is that the name “Zebedee” means “gift giver” and when we discussed this this week at my lectionary group, one of my colleagues pointed out that all names in the Bible have meaning. “What gift did Zebedee give in this situation?” he asked, to which I quickly responded, “what he gave was his sons!  He released them to go with Jesus, to follow their calls, despite the great loss to himself.”  Sometimes, perhaps often, our children have calls, have a sense of a passionate calling from God that takes them away from us, that takes them into areas that frighten us or that we don’t understand.  But part of our call, and our gift to God and to the world in which they live, is in letting them go: letting them take the paths that God has for them.  Our gift, as was Zebedee’s gift, is our children to the world, and to God’s kingdom, even when we don’t recognize or understand it.  That too, comes with a great price: the call to launch our children and allow them to follow their own call.  I think about the movie Billy Elliot in which the father did not understand the call of his son to be a dancer.  I think about Bend it like Beckham, in which the girls’ parents similarly did not understand their daughter’s call to play soccer.  It is the hardest part of a parent’s call, to allow our children to follow their own paths, their own calling.  But that is a call that we as parents are often given: we are called to send them with love, to support them in their dreams even when we don’t understand, to look for God’s presence and God’s actions within their choices and to let them go.  Not easy, but it too is part of following God, trusting God to lead them in their own path, their own calls.

I also want to point out that while the translations of both say “I will make you fish for people” the actual words in the Greek should be translated more accurately, “I will make you become fishers of people”.  This is not just about actions, this is about one’s very identity.  In following Christ, in following our call, it is not just simply that what we do, how we work, our jobs, actions or behaviors might change.  Our very identity changes.  We become something else, something new.    

The journey of call and response is a journey of relationship.  As I said, Jesus initiated with the disciples as God initiates with us.  And while it was a one-time event of saying “yes” to Jesus, it was also a life-time process.  Just as Jesus’ coming was both the kingdom is here and the kingdom is coming;  just as our relationship with Christ is both now and a journey forward, our call is a choice we make now but also a continued choice.  Also, call changes as we change and grow and as times change and grow.  The needs of the world change, we change, and our call changes with it.  That means we don’t and won’t always get it right.  It also means that it is very important that we continue to deepen in our study, in our commitment to learning and growing in our faith.  Too many churches emphasize the one time joining and forget the process then of deepening, studying, growing in our faith.  But both are important, for all Christians.   

Remember that the Simon Peter who said yes to Jesus’ call was also the Peter who was deeply and mistakenly confused at the transfiguration and who denied Jesus at the end.  Jesus ministry was affected by those he was with; those who needed him in specific ways, who thwarted him in specific ways, who were human with him in their own individual, unique ways.  The path of call is two way: our decisions to say “yes or no” end up affecting the path that Jesus walks too.  And for that reason, our choices to say yes or no are extremely important and should not be taken lightly.

Finally, I want to point out once more that Jesus final words of invitation to the disciples in the Luke story begin with the words, once more, “be not afraid”. We are always called to step forward in faith, to leave fear behind and risk saying “yes” when a call presents itself to us.  Listen for God’s call for you today.  It will be filled with abundance, but it will also require risk, and possible sacrifice.  Be not afraid and step into your call with faith, with hope, and with love.  Amen.

The Universal Language - Pentecost

Numbers 11:24-30

1 Corinthians 12:1-13

Acts 2:1-21

               Today we hear the Pentecost story as we do every year.  We also heard two other scriptures, both of which are focused on gifts of the spirit, and in particular, the recognition, naming and celebrating that those gifts are not just given to a few, but given to all people, for the common good.  Pentecost in many ways focuses on this as well.  The gifts of hearing and understanding, of crossing the lines of difference in culture and ethnicity and even religion: all of these, too, were gifts of the spirit and all of these, too, were given to the entire community of people.  I loved hearing our scripture this morning in all the different languages and our service parts led by different people because I felt blessed by those different voices, and the recognition of the different gifts that each of them have: in this case, the gift of languages and crossing divides of understanding with people who speak those different languages.  In today’s readings, they were “All filled with the Holy spirit” we are told.  So there are two messages here.  As Paul tells us in the Corinthians passage, “A demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good.”  So first, each person is given gifts.  And second, all these gifts are for everyone’s good, for the common good.

               But we struggle with both of these things, don’t we?  And, frankly, this is a human problem that has been in existence from the very beginning.  In this passage from Numbers, Joshua had trouble with the fact that other people besides Moses were given spiritual gifts, that they could prophesy too.  He wanted Moses to stop these other people, to prevent them using their gifts.  Of course, Moses was able to see a bigger vision, “Are you jealous for my sake?  If only all God’s people were prophets with the spirit on them!”  And this happens in the New Testament too.  In Mark 9 (and in Luke 9), we hear the story of the disciples getting upset with Jesus because someone other than them was throwing out demons in Jesus’ name.  The scripture reads, “John said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, we saw someone throwing demons out in your name, and we tried to stop him because he wasn’t following us.’  Jesus replied, ‘Don’t stop him!  No one who does powerful acts in my name can quickly turn around and curse me.  Whoever isn’t against us is for us.’”

               But we have trouble with this, don’t we?  And I’d say our trouble with this is on both ends.  First, we don’t like others being able to do what we feel is for us to do alone.  Like in the PCUSA there was a huge debate about whether or not Commission Lay Preachers (so people who don’t have the same kind of theological training as our pastors) should be allowed to serve churches, to serve communion, to moderate session, to do baptisms.  Many pastors felt that they did not want to share what we ourselves have been trained to do.  On the other end of this, then, is people who feel they don’t have the rights and privileges of serving God in the same way or to the same degree as those of us who are ordained.  One of my pastor friends this week was sharing that he is struggling with his congregation because people are not stepping up to help.  They are all asking him, “What should we do?  Lead us!”  And he is burning out.  Their need for his leadership is understandable.  When things are different and difficult, when people are in grief and in pain, they want leadership.  They want answers.  They want someone to guide them and tell them what to do.  But what all of these stories show us is that, as we say in the Presbyterian church, “the ministers are all the people.”  Too often in our churches, people become used to being an audience rather than a participant.  And when that happens, they fail to see their own gifts, their own callings within the church.  We have different gifts.  Maybe you are not comfortable with public speaking, but you are comfortable with listening to someone.  Maybe you are not comfortable teaching, but you have gifts for seeing the big picture and looking down the road for what is best to be done.  Maybe you don’t have the gift of comforting others, but you are able to tell stories in such a way that people are touched and moved.  Maybe you don’t have the gift of seeing what is to come, but you are an artist of some kind: a musician, a painter, a dancer, or a storyteller who can tell deeper truths through your art.  We all have these gifts.  If you don’t know what your gift is, this is a wonderful time to take space to figure out what it is.  Try new things, explore the callings, the tuggings, the urgings of your heart and see what you can learn.  But each of us has gifts.  And it is not right for us to think that one gift is more important or more valuable than another gift.  As the Corinthians passage said, “Christ is just like the human body – a body is a unit and has many parts; and all the parts of the body are one body, even though there are many.”  In other places Paul says that the weakest parts of the body are to be honored the most.  And truthfully, we are only as strong as our weakest link.  That goes for our families, our churches, and also our country, and our world.  All of your gifts figure into the leadership of the church, not as watchers, not as people being entertained, but as participants in worship, in the life of the church, in service, and in the community.  The new language, then, of Pentecost, is a common language of everyone being touched by the flame of the Spirit in shared leadership within the church and without as well.

               The second part of this then, is that all of the gifts we are given are for the COMMON good.  They are not for you, they are not for one person or for one family.  They are all for the common good.  During this time, we look for a difference between social distancing and spiritual distancing.  And we find that we are being called to use a different language, or different languages within the church.  We are not, during this time, speaking in languages of being together in body, but we are learning to speak a new language in the church of being together on-line, and in prayer, and through bible study.  We are learning new languages of being together virtually as we figure out how to care for one another even from a distance and how to care for those most impacted by the virus whether that be because of disease, or lack of work and resources.  The languages of our activity are different now.  Our activity is more “home based.” But still, the language of Pentecost, the language of prayer, the language of faith, is a universal, communal language for all people, no matter how we are speaking it, no matter where we are speaking it, no matter in what way we are speaking it. 

               Without Pentecost, Easter is not participatory.  Without Pentecost, Easter itself is just something we see, that we watch, that we hear about.  But with Pentecost, the church is born.  And the church is community, it is action.  It is the speaking of a new language, a language of prayer, a language of singing, a language of caring for one another both within the church community and without, but in new ways.  The language of Pentecost is putting aside the individual in favor of the communal.  What is best for all people?  What is best for community? 

               I think about the times that we are in.  I read an article that was talking about how people were much more willing to shelter in place and be careful and protective when they thought that the people affected by the disease were people like them.  As soon as they came to see that the people being affected were different or other than them, people have moved to reopen, to not be afraid to risk the lives of “those people over there.”  You may have all seen on the news the sign held by someone at one of the protests against the shelter in place “sacrifice the weak: reopen.”   He didn’t see himself as part of “the weak” so he was willing for others to be sacrificed.  Or another one, “Sacrifice the elderly: reopen.” As we learn that people of color are being more deeply affected by this than white people, I have heard things much worse.  But as the church we are called to care for everyone.

               I saw a video this week.  A man was asked if he thought that it was okay if people died in order to reopen things.  He said he thought it was.  The interviewer asked him how many people he would think it would be okay to sacrifice in order to reopen the community.  The man said, “between 70 and 700.”  I don’t know where he came up with that number.  But the interview repeated back to him, “So, you feel it would be okay if 70 people died in order to reopen things around here?”  “Yes,” the man replied.  The interviewer then said, “well, we just happen to have 70 people.”  And around the corner came 70 people, in the front of the group was a child, about 5 years old.  And as they rounded the corner, the little girl starting running towards the man being interviewed.  He looked stunned and he said, “That’s my family!”  The little girl who’d started running towards him yelled “Daddy!” and threw herself in his arms.  At that point the interviewer asked him again, “how many people did you say could die in order to reopen this area?”  To which the sobbing man replied, “none!”

               Again, we may think this is hokey. And it was a bit: it had me sobbing by the end, which was the intention, I’m sure.  I also realize that things are much more complicated than this.  As businesses close, people are losing work, losing income.  They are struggling to put food on their tables and to care for their children.  These are real problems too and the answers to these problems are not as simple as “stay closed or re-open.”  It’s just not that easy.

               But in some cases, the situation is a lot more clear cut.  I am shocked by how many churches, church communities, for example, have decided to put what?  Their pastor’s needs?  Above the needs of the community.  Churches across the nation are becoming the hot spots of the virus: spreading disease not only among their members but then out into the larger communities because they are reopening too soon.  And why are they doing this?  What is the loss to the church if we learn how to stay connected through the internet, through phone, through the mail, through our prayers rather than gathering together in person?  But churches seem to have forgotten to love their neighbors as themselves.  We are called to be Christian first and foremost, called to love our neighbors as ourselves, and churches, of all places, must remember to love their neighbors, their members, those people their members interact with, and the needs of the larger community for healing, for some time and space to figure out cures and vaccines, for some time of social healing, as themselves. 

               I think about the story of Abraham confronting God when God wanted to wipe out the city of Sodom.  In Genesis 18, Abraham approached God and said, “Will you really sweep away the innocent with the guilty? What if there are fifty innocent people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not save the place for the sake of the fifty innocent people in it?  It’s not like you to do this, killing the innocent with the guilty as if there were no difference.  It’s not like you! Will the judge of all the earth not act justly?” The Lord said, “If I find fifty innocent people in the city of Sodom, I will save it because of them.” Abraham responded, “Since I’ve already decided to speak with my Lord, even though I’m just soil and ash,  what if there are five fewer innocent people than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city over just five?” The Lord said, “If I find forty-five there, I won’t destroy it.” Once again Abraham spoke, “What if forty are there?”  The Lord said, “For the sake of forty, I will do nothing.”  He said, “Don’t be angry with me, my Lord, but let me speak. What if thirty are there?” The Lord said, “I won’t do it if I find thirty there.”  Abraham said, “Since I’ve already decided to speak with my Lord, what if twenty are there?”  The Lord said, “I won’t do it, for the sake of twenty.”  Abraham said, “Don’t be angry with me, my Lord, but let me speak just once more. What if there are ten?”  And the Lord said, “I will not destroy it because of those ten.” When the Lord finished speaking with Abraham, he left; but Abraham stayed there in that place.

               We too, should spare the city, or the church, or the world, because there are at least ten folk among us who are vulnerable and do not deserve to be put at risk.

               We forget that God is in all places and in all situations.  We forget the spiritual truths that connect us, the spiritual practices of prayer, sabbath, study.  We forget that God is bigger than this time and that this time, too, will pass.  We forget the importance of healing to Jesus, and of times of sabbatical for all people.  This virus is calling us into these spiritual practices.  And calling us to learn new languages of connection through conversation which can be done on phone, mail and on-line.

               Our challenge is to be tree-planters, which we plant for other people: for our children’s children.  Olive trees take 100 years to bear fruit.  But people planted them for their children’s children.  We tend to be people of “now”.  We forget to think of others and we forget to think ahead.  But this time is calling us to remember. 

               The story of Pentecost is a story of understanding, of all people across all differences coming together and speaking and understanding a universal language.  That language is the language of the Spirit, the language of God.  That language is the language of Love.

Trinity Sunday

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Romans 5:1-5

John 16:12-15

            Today is trinity Sunday, when we look at and celebrate the fact that God is one but also somehow three.  But today, rather than focusing on the whole trinity, I want us to spend some time focusing on the third person of the trinity, the Spirit, the one who is most neglected, least understood and often ignored by Presbyterians in particular who feel that anything that touches on the spirit is somehow too “catholic” and therefore is scary or unorthodox or too “mysterious”.  Presbyterians are traditionally the most intellectual or thinking oriented of all of the denominations.  We are the only one that insists that its pastors learn to read both Hebrew and Greek so that we can read the Bible in its original languages.  We are one of the few denominations that have a four year master’s of divinity program rather than three.  Our study focuses on history and historical critical biblical interpretation.  We study, study, study.  And we are taught to preach sermons that are very serious and very academic.  That’s what it is to be Presbyterian.  And this works great with our understanding of two persons of the trinity.  We can intellectually understand God the creator, the one who is ultimately in charge of everything, who creates, who bends, who acts through history.  We can intellectually understand the teachings of Jesus and his commands to follow through the concrete actions of caring for one another.  We can understand at a head level that keeps it all above our hearts, above our souls, above our spirits, these two persons of the trinity. 

But the Spirit, the third person of the trinity cannot be understood this way.  So, many Presbyterians tend to ignore the spirit except as an intellectual concept, as an idea about something that is part of the trinity.  We feel suspicious of anything religious that is more experiential.  And there are good reasons for this.  We don’t want to be misled by our feelings, and we certainly don’t want to be out of control in any way.  We know that being out of our heads and into our feelings or experiences can and does lead people astray.  The power of most cults is that they tap into and manipulate our feelings.  We know that the Pentecostals are all about the experience of the mystery, of the divine and we choose, intentionally, not to be Pentecostal in any way.

            But we have gone too far.  There is a reason why Presbyterians are called the “frozen chosen”, and while we may laugh at this name, there is far too much truth in it.

            We are called to love God with all of our being – all our strength, all our mind, all our soul, AND all our hearts.  And that means engaging the mystery at times, inviting in the third person of the trinity, the Spirit, spending time with this third Holy person and listening for what the Spirit may have to say to you.

            It’s not that this is easy…including for me.  I had a friend who was very involved in more traditionally ritualistic church service styles such as are practiced in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.  We had several discussions about how important and meaningful the rituals of those practices were for him, and for me how much they felt like “magic” actions – unreal, pretend and lifting up pastors as capable of doing divine magic in some way.  But still, engaging the mystery, dealing with the third person of the trinity, exploring the gifts of the Spirit is an important part of our faith journeys. 

            So, how do we do this?  Well, spirit experiences tend to be more mystical, as I said.  Getting ourselves into a place where we can sit and listen for and to the Spirit is not as easy for us as listening to someone talk about God, or studying God through Bible study, or singing about God.  But inviting the Spirit into our life necessitates taking time to listen.  We can do this through lectio divina (a guided practice of listening to scripture in a different way)– or meditation of different kinds.  And Clayton Valley P.C. regularly offers many different ways to do this.  We have the labyrinth, which invites an active meditative practice of listening for the Spirit.  Tai chi can also lead us into this as well as music, both of which we offer and practice here.  We have Taize services which invite us to sit and listen.  Sometimes simply creating a different space – one with candles or scents such as incense or flowers, involving more meditative music such as is used in Taize services invite us into a new space of listening for the spirit.  Today because our focus is on the Spirit, we are using more candles and will conclude today’s sermon with the singing of a Taize songs.  This may feel uncomfortable for some of you.  If so, I think that is a good thing – a gift.  Because the Spirit does not leave us comfortable, but challenges us to grow, to move and listen and hear in a different way.  It calls us to listen with our hearts as well as our heads, to love God with our experiences as well as with our attendance, to connect with the third person of the trinity, the one we often ignore, because that third person is also God – and also calls us to ourselves and invites us into relationship with Godself.

            I encourage you strongly to attend a Taize service if you haven’t.  I encourage you to come to the Tai Chi classes if you haven’t.  I encourage you to find ways to daily spend time listening and connecting to the Spirit who loves you and calls for connection with you. Walk the labyrinth.  Journal.  Walk in the park.  But spend time, not only with the God above (or parent) and God in Jesus.  Spend time with the Spirit as well, for Jesus sent us this advocate to be with us and in us and to speak to us when we listen. 

            A pastor friend once said to me, “the less we understand, the more true it is”.  The less we understand, the more true it is.  And again, I think he is pointing out that the deep truths, the deepest truths are things we experience in mystery – are truths we encounter through our hearts and actions rather than just through our thoughts and conversations.  Not that our thoughts and conversations aren’t important.  They are.  But they may not lead us as strongly or clearly into the heart of God.  If we connect with God only intellectually, we are missing the heart connection to God.  And, just as with our human relationships, it is our heart connections that lead us to each other, that bind us and make us strong together, more than our head connections. 

            Towards that end, I would like to invite you to sit for a few minutes of silence, to listen for God today in the quiet.  When thoughts come into your head, listen, let them go and listen some more.  Try to experience God in a new way.  For that is what the Spirit it all about.  Amen.

Pentecost and Music

                                             Acts 2:1-21

Ezek. 37:1-14

Today we celebrate the birthday of the church.  And we do so by recalling days when the Spirit took hold of things, changed things, lit the place on fire.  Both the Ezekiel passage and the passage from Acts tell us stories of the spirit, stories in which the spirit blows in with great force and in doing so ignites the miraculous, the amazing, and the unexpected.  In Acts, when the Spirit blew in, the people could understand one another even across language barriers.  I think it’s very important here to note that it is not that the people all started speaking the same language.  They were still each speaking their own languages, though it says here that some were speaking languages they did not formerly know.  But while still speaking different languages, they were able to understand one another.  This is a miracle indeed.  For we know that even when we speak the same linguistic language, we often still don’t understand one another.  In previous Pentecost sermons I’ve shared with you personal examples of those misunderstandings.  Times when we are speaking the same language and really not understanding one another. 

One more story for you:  There was a woman in one of my congregations who spoke or understood the world completely differently from me.  I would say things that I thought were unoffensive, were kind, were reaching out: things like, “You seem a little down.  Are you okay?” And would be met with anger, “I am NOT down!  Why would you say that! I was fine until I talked with YOU!”  We just missed each other at every turn.  We both were speaking English.  But we were never speaking the same language. 

I’ve been thinking about this idea of understanding one another across languages in terms of music since today is the last Sunday the choir will sing for the summer and I’ve been especially aware of the amazing gift of music that the choir gives to us.  I think it is very appropriate that we remember the miracle of Pentecost in relationship to music, because many would say that music itself is still that language that crosses language barriers.  Would you say that’s true?  But as I’ve reflected on it, I’ve also realized that music can also sets up new barriers, new language problems, as it were, if we let it.  It isn’t just that we don’t all like the same kinds of music, at times I would say we simply cannot understand the same kinds of music.  Personally, while I enjoy many different kinds of music, I still find that there are certain types of music I simply don’t understand: for example, certain types of punk rock and the more aggressive rap music.  Also, I struggle to understand and appreciate certain kinds of music from different countries: certain types of Asian cultural music, for example, is harder for me to relate to or appreciate.  And I think that just as when we don’t understand different languages when we have not grown up around them, have not listened to them in our formative years, the same can be true of different kinds of music.  We often understand best the music we were raised with.  And while we can grow into an appreciation of other kinds of music and even an enjoyment or love of these, many times it takes long-term exposure and experience - study, I would even say, just as with different languages, to learn and understand these different types of music. 

As I continued to look at this passage in Acts, the more it seemed to me that the experience of the community in Acts, responding to the Spirit moving in such a way that people could understand each other across languages, is very similar to today’s church community responding to the Spirit moving through music.  In the story in Acts, there were people who understood each other across the different languages.  They heard the words in their own languages.  So, too, in our communities, many do experience the universal language of music.  We are moved and hear things in new pieces that touch us, that speak to us in the language of our hearts.  In the community in Acts, there were also people who didn’t like what was happening, who sneered and assumed that too much alcohol was involved.  So, too, when the Spirit speaks through new music, especially new kinds of music, there will always be other people who, hearing a piece for the first time will be uneasy, uncomfortable, assume impropriety, and so attack it.

Throughout our church history there has been controversy over what is appropriate church music.  Before the Protestant Reformation the Catholic church went through various different positions on music.  At the time of the Reformation only the priest sang in church.  One of Martin Luther’s issues with the church was that at the time worship was not a participatory event.  Everything was done in Latin and only done by the priest since the common person did not know Latin.  In response Luther invited congregational participation through singing, and singing in the language of the people, which in Luther’s community was German.  Luther took common, popular music, popular tunes of the time, the music of the youth, some have even said bar tunes, and made them into hymns.  The equivalent today would be taking hard rock, hip hop, EDM (electronic dance music), ska, rap, death metal, punk music and putting Christian words to it for worship.  Can you imagine how the people reacted?  Many felt scandalized that secular music was coming into their holy places.  It is the same reaction many in our churches have today when the popular music of our youth comes into the congregation.  Luther believed that these tunes would first attract the young people, but second, he believed in providing Christian lyrics to the tunes they already knew, filling their minds with those words when they chanced upon the tunes in other settings.  Interestingly, Luther did not allow organs or other music accompaniment in his churches and instrumentation was allowed in Lutheran churches only about 50 years after Luther had died. 

In John Calvin’s church, Calvin hired a lyricist and a composer to rework the

Psalter.  The lyricist re-wrote the psalms, and the composer set it to music.  The queen complained about these “Geneva jigs” because it, too was a departure from the Latin plainsong.  And yet again, by today’s standards, we would also see Calvin as very strict and austere.  He would only allow psalms to be sung in worship, and he insisted not only that these psalms go completely unaccompanied by instruments but that they also be sung without harmonies.  It was not until the end of the 17^th century in the Presbyterian church that some churches began to allow instrumental accompaniment.

We understand music differently.  We speak music differently.  And yet again, we are given the Pentecost story in which people continue to speak different languages, but some are speaking languages that are different from their own, and others are hearing those voices spoken in their own languages.  The Spirit brings in something new, something different, but it is always something that helps us be more connected, if we are open to it.  Literally, we begin to understand and hear in our own languages... in the languages of our community, in the languages of our media, in the languages of our music, in the languages of our children.

In the Ezekiel passage for today God promises that the very bones will be raised.  What has been declared dead will rise to new life.  This is not a comfortable or easy thought.  But again, the Spirit is not promising to be easy or comfortable.  The Spirit is promising to be alive, and to live in unexpected though glorious ways.

Today we celebrate the Spirit’s movement through music.  And I invite you to listen for the Spirit in a new way, to celebrate the new life that the Spirit can raise in all of our old bones, to live through song.  Amen.