permeance

In preparation for officiating at a wedding I consulted a long out-of-print book, The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary, and in the marriage rite I found a prayer that begins,

 

O ETERNAL God, Creator and Preserver of all mankind, Giver of all spiritual grace, the Author of everlasting life;  (1928 BCP Marriage)

Reflecting on that prayer, I realized that it applied well beyond that moment - that special moment indeed when we invite the blessing of the spirit upon the now-to-be wed couple. It applies to all sorts of occasions. And I noted that the spirit, the holy spirit, is there in the marriage rite, as it is in pastoral and episcopal offices of all kinds, from marriage to baptism to burial, reconciliation of a penitent and ministrations to the sick or dying, from confirmation to ordination to the celebration of a new ministry and the consecration of a sacred space. Some of these may come up soon in this congregation. 

And of course in our new (1979) prayer book all of these rites and offices take place in the context of the community that is gathered in the Eucharist. We are one body, and we are one in the Spirit. 

The Spirit gives us utterance in different ways, expressions in different gifts. The Spirit gives us understanding and inspiration in different ways and by different means. This is the one Spirit that God breathed upon the waters at creation, that inspired ecstatic prophesying - dancing and exclaiming in praise - inside and outside the camp on Sinai, that frightened the prophet Joel. 

This is the same Spirit that reversed the babble of the Tower into coherent speech for a diverse multitude on the first day of the church, the day of Pentecost.

It’s amazing! It’s as if you’ve been running around a foreign country and you’ve finally bumped into people who are speaking your language. 

We remember, as every school child must, that the feast of Pentecost expands for us the meaning of an earlier festival, the Jewish feast of Shavuot, that was a harvest feast at first, then became the day of thanksgiving for the giving of the Law to the people, through Moses, on Sinai. 

How is the gift of Law, of Torah, to a distant people at a distant time, almost mythical, to help us today? How is the experience of the gathered disciples and their hearers on the day of Pentecost, two thousand years ago, to make a difference to us now? 

Will we, gathered or scattered, hear, each in our own heart language, the word of God? Will we be inspired? Will we act - apparently crazy - as the Israelites did, dancing and singing and praising God? Will we - apparently sober - go out and do the things Jesus commanded us to do?

Will we visit the sick, pray with the despairing, speak out for justice, reach out to the lonely? Will we listen to each other in solemn assembly, seeking the guidance of the Spirit in our decisions? 

Will we have reason to? And how will we encounter the Spirit in our own life and times?

The Rev. Kaji Douša, senior pastor at Park Avenue Christian Church in New York City, traveled to Tijuana, Mexico, in 2018 to provide pastoral care to asylum seekers. Douša has said, “To reject a migrant is to cast away God’s angels, which I am unwilling to do.” https://theconversation.com/when-faith-says-to-help-migrants-and-the-law-says-dont-203087

On the border now they talk of encounters with migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, and the desperate wanderers who lose their way. Encounters. Better perhaps than simply saying arrests, as many have entertained angels unawares. This week I encountered a man who asked directions to the bus station. I gave them to him. Then I thought, too late, that I could have given him a ride in the heat of the day. 

There is a story in the book of Genesis. In the heat of the day, while he was sitting in the door of his tent, Abraham encountered three men, strangers to him, who came to him at the Oaks of Mamre, and he offered them hospitality. The hospitality of his tent, his household, his family. 

Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7)

Sometimes all someone asks of us is directions. Sometimes we are offered the chance to do much more. If we have eyes to see. The three strangers were indeed grateful for the hospitality they received and in turn gave a blessing only they could give. Your wife, they said, will at last bear to you the child you both have sought. And that child - through its descendants - will become the host of the world.

We do not meet God in the person of three angels, dressed as strangers who wander through the desert. (Do we?) We do not meet Jesus in the flesh. (Though sometimes we wonder.)

The Holy Spirit is the God we encounter. We have not seen the Father, and Jesus, since his Ascension, has left us in the care of the Comforter, the Advocate, the Teacher; the one who comes alongside us, and yet remains unseen. Unseen, that is, except through permeance. 

Permeating through all of our encounters with each other, and, all unawares, with angels. Pervading too all our days, ordinary and especially significant. 

Look through the prayer book pastoral offices and you will see the Spirit landing upon the baptized, inhabiting the confirmed, blessing the married, consoling the bereaved and accompanying the sick even unto the death bed. And it is the Spirit of God that enables us in turn to comfort, celebrate, cajole, and encourage, the baptized, the married, the bereaved, the sick and dying, the joyous and even the oblivious. 

Look through the Episcopal offices and you will see the Spirit invoked upon the ordained, and the presence of the Spirit called upon to bless new ministries and sacred places.

Listen as we celebrate Eucharist, or say our daily prayers. You will hear the Spirit speaking. For the Spirit is here present among us, and through that invisible permeating influence God is here.

Hear the Word. Touch the cup. Taste the bread. Say “peace” to your neighbor. Come Holy Spirit. Come to us. Amen.

***

Sunday, May 28, 2023: for the Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew, Tucson, Arizona.

permeance

'Cause I feel like I-I've been running around a foreign country and I've finally bumped into two people who can speak English.  (https://transcripts.thedealr.net/script.php/yesterday-2019-XtmS)

Veni Sancte Spiritus (Taizé) Come Holy Spirit... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8yOAxWyfvA 

A meditation based on this sermon appeared on the Arizona Daily Star website June 4th 2023: https://tucson.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/encounters-with-the-spirit-are-all-around-us/article_a00ae510-ff02-11ed-a83c-2788b4905516.html

The Lessons Appointed for Use on the Day of Pentecost (Whitsunday) Year A:

• Acts 2:1-21
• or Numbers 11:24-30
• 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
• or Acts 2:1-21
• John 20:19-23
• or John 7:37-39
• Psalm 104:25-35, 37

O God, who on this day taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.Amen.

Pentecost 2011

The lessons on Pentecost all encourage new openness, openness to the spirit and to ways of being the church, the people of God in the world.

There are many ways of being church. As there are many gifts but one spirit, for individuals, so for congregations, there is one spirit expressed through many collective gifts or charisms - ways of being church, of manifesting the grace of God in the ministry of the church.

Diana Butler Bass, in her book, Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith (Harper San Francisco, September 2006) described her research into the many ways local churches manifest the work of the spirit.

Hospitality, discernment, healing, contemplation, testimony, diversity, justice, worship, reflection, beauty: these are aspects or charisms of ten particular neighborhood churches - Lutheran, Episcopal, and others - that have found in finding and celebrating the gifts God has given them, new ways to be transformed in the renewing of their minds and the refreshing of their faith.

Congregations find ways of being church that are theirs - and yet are gifts to the neighborhoods around them. All the different ways of doing church have a similarity. They are ways of being church in openness to the Spirit and in obedience to the word of God.

Make disciples among all the peoples of the earth, our Lord commanded: baptize them and teach them all Jesus taught the disciples, and remember him - remember him in the breaking of the bread and in the prayers. Be open to God’s leading, leading into new life.

What we find in the lessons of Pentecost, the lessons for today, are invitations, exhortations, and examples, of how to be open to the Spirit.

Open your selves to the spirit’s presence.

Open your self to the experience of God to be had in welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick or the prisoner, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving water to those who thirst.

Open your selves to the continuing work of the Creator, doing a new thing now in the midst of the earth.

Open your hearts to receive God’s love.
Open your hands to give that love on to others.

Open your lips and proclaim God’s praise.

Open the shades and let light stream in.
Open the windows and let the Spirit blow through stale corridors.
Open the doors and go forth to love and serve the Lord.

***

The breath of God that moved across the face of the waters on the first day of creation is still moving, moving where it will. Through the open doors of our souls and churches a fresh breeze is blowing - it is the Spirit, enlivening us, enlightening us, and filling us with the light of Christ.

In the first lesson we hear today Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. Moses, tell them to stop! Joshua says. But Moses says: Are you jealous on my account? Would that all God’s people would prophesy.

When a portion of the spirit that had been given to Moses was taken and distributed to seventy, the gift was not diminished. It is not a limited quantity. There is no scarcity of the grace of God; there is no limit to the power of God.

The gift of the Spirit is a gift that grows in the giving; it is a flame that grows as it touches on each of us.

It grows in blessing God’s people.

And the people of God, gathered all in one place on the day of Pentecost, awaited the coming of the Spirit. All began speaking one message, with many voices, in many languages - so it was for those who heard the word of God, the proclamation of God’s mighty deeds.

Each heard the good news in the language of their own heart. That is the real miracle. Each of them heard the word in the way that reached them, that touched their souls.

The people of God were proclaiming God’s sovereignty, the coming of the reign of God, and to all people. For, as Joel said, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

This is the birth of the Church, in the experience of the Spirit, a gift that grows in the giving.

What it tells us is that we live in a world ruled by a generous God, a life-giving, hope-renewing, boundless God. And the gifts of the spirit are all given for one reason: mission.

The gifts of the Spirit are not an end in themselves, and certainly not an excuse for wallowing in self-importance.

(You are significant, for one and the same reason: you are precious in the sight of God, the God who made you, the God who redeems you in the death and life and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the God who loves you. You are significant because you are God’s child and his Beloved ones.)

The gifts of the Spirit are not a privilege for a select few, but a gift that grows in the giving. They are gifts for the whole church, and for the whole world.

Even in the Gospel story, when wind and fire are hushed and quiet, Jesus comes into the room where they are all gathered and says, Peace. Peace be among you. And receive holy Breath.

He sends them into mission - and he gives the Spirit to carry out the mission.

They were gathered, locked together in fear, but they became open to a new possibility - the new possibility that the continuing presence of Christ brings.

Receive holy breath. Open your souls to the holy One, the one who, through wind and flame, and peaceful presence, comes to you, empowers you, and sends you forth, renewed, to spread the good news - to be the good news - and to bring others into the celebration.

In the spirit’s power. Amen.

+

under weigh

Pentecost 2008 – full sail

Uncle Hugo used to take us sailing. We would go down to the harbor, open up the cabin, and haul out the bags of sails. We took the covers off the winches, the tiller, and the mast. We were ready to go.

If it was a windy day, the boat shifted and rocked in its berth, straining at the moorings. But then we would push the boat away from the dock, get it out into the free water, haul on the lines, and let the wind fill our sails.

You could feel the power of the wind tugging at the moorings, but to move forward you had to cast off and let the wind fill your sails.

This church is built like the body of a ship – the nave; look up: see the beams like the ribs of a ship, and the wide boards like the planks of a ship’s hull.

Like my uncle’s boat, the Pampero, which he named after a mighty wind, to get somewhere we need to be released, set free.

When Jesus said to his disciples, receive holy spirit, what you release on earth is released, what you leave bound, stays bound, he was telling them how it is: what you are forgiven, and what you forgive, you are released from; the sin you hold onto, holds you.

The power of forgiveness, given by God in Christ Jesus, sets us free.

We are all in the same boat – we are all gathered under one roof, in one nave – and we each have jobs to do. Some of them are mundane, some extraordinary; all are needed. At times each of us sticks to our own task; at other times all hands turn out.

We are embarked together on a journey – a pilgrimage – and, as the archbishop of York said in his Easter sermon last year, “our journey is towards oneness with God. As we journey our calling is to make manifest to everyone the compassionate face of God made visible in Jesus Christ."

We begin by receiving the holy Spirit, and by using the gifts of the spirit given to us; by being forgiven, and by being forgiving; then moving forward together, released, in the power of the Spirit, on a voyage together into the open waters of the freedom of God.

JRL+

Pentecost 2008

Fifty days after Easter comes the feast called Pentecost (which means 50 days). The people of Israel celebrated the harvest of grain, and the giving of the Torah, the Law, on the mountain.

Every year at the feast-time of Pentecost the followers of the king would gather together under one roof to await the arrival of a new adventure. They would take again the vows they had made on how they would treat other people, then gather at the table, but wait to sit down to eat until an adventure came to them.

[They met in a great castle in an enchanted kingdom. They were a mighty fellowship, a great group of friends, who met every year together, 50 days after Easter, on the feast day of Pentecost. There, gathered all together under one roof, they awaited and adventure. One year, a green knight rode into the midst of their banquet and challenged anyone brave enough to chop off his head with one blow. Another year, a damsel entered in tears; and the kitchen knave followed her on a quest. And there was another group of friends, followers of a king, who gathered every year at Passover and Shavuot, the harvest-festival 7 weeks later...]

One year, the king himself was not there; and they gathered in great fear, huddled together for safety. They were all together under one roof, all right, but they were worried because their king was gone – would he ever come back?

And yet -- That year the adventure was greater than ever. That was the day that the greatest adventure of all began.

Before he left them, their king had promised to send them a comforter, a counselor – a spirit like a strong wind or a powerful storm, the breath of God. That is what ‘spirit’ means – breath, or wind. (It is from the Hebrew word ‘ruach’ which means breath or spirit or wind.)

What entered the room that spring was the sound of a strong wind – like the wind that blew when Elijah was on the mountain – and a fire – like the burning bush that Moses saw on the mountain – like tongues of flame that rested on their heads.

The promise of the King had begun to come true. For soon they were no longer afraid.

Each of them found they could speak in a language they didn’t even know; but other people could understand them. They spoke boldly, of great things their Lord had done.

What they told, and what they heard, were stories of the mighty deeds of the king – their teacher, their master, and their leader, who was the Son of God.

There were people there from all around, near and far, listening – and even though the first followers of the king were all from the same country, these new people heard the stories of the great deeds of God each in their very own language. Wherever they were from, far away across the earth, suddenly they were at home, there in Jerusalem – hearing the words they’d heard back home at their own firesides. And the words were like flames, warming their hearts and brightening their eyes, until they, too, sang of the great things God had done – and was doing.

What is Pentecost? It is Shavu’ot, the Festival of Weeks, held seven weeks after Passover. It is a harvest festival for spring grain: the feast of the first fruits of the field. And it is the day the Jewish people remember the giving of the Law to Moses on the mountain. It is the feast-day 50 days after Easter Sunday – and it is the day that the followers of Jesus received, together, God’s presence in this strange, new, mighty way.

Who are the followers of Jesus? Back then they were Peter and Paul and Mary. And Persis and Salome and James. And John and Mark and Joanna … who are they today? Look around you! They have all gathered together, under one roof. They are the people in this room, and that includes you.

What do Jesus’ followers do? Back then they talked about the great things God does. They talked about the world God has made. They talked about the people he has loved. And they talked about what he has done for them. And they talked about the great things God was doing, right then and there.

And now … we talk about the same things! What a wonderful world this is, the love that Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit have for us, and how that helps us treat each other better.

And what adventures did they have back then? They spread the word of God’s love for his people through out the world.

What else do they do? Back then, the power of the Spirit came upon them – and they went out into the world, spreading the good news of the kingdom of God, and showing what it meant by how they lived. They followed what their Lord had taught them: Love God whole-heartedly, with your mind whole and your spirit strong. Love your neighbor just as you would love yourself. Love one another.

What adventures do we have now? What adventures have you had already? What adventures are waiting for us, right around the corner – or even right now, while we are all together under one roof?

What the Knights of the Round Table were charged to do, the first day they gathered at the Round Table, on Pentecost, the day they swore their oath, is very much the same as what we are called to do:

“For the glory of the realm of righteousness do not ever depart from the high virtues of the realm.

“Do no outrage nor murder nor any cruel or wicked thing; fly from treason and all untruthfulness and dishonest dealing; give mercy unto those that seek it – and always give all the help in your power” to those who require it: the weak, the poor, the powerless.

Go out to help them, right the wrongs they have suffered, and never do any ill to them or allow it to be done. Be the voice for the voiceless; speak out for righteousness, and work for justice, that peace may reign upon the earth.

O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh; and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.


JRL+

___________________

Roger Lancelyn Green, King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table (Penguin, 1953) 63. Given me by my great aunt, Carol Mattingly: my first ‘real book’: I was about six.