Sit and Eat

Notice Your Breath

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Pentecost Sunday, June 12, 2011.  The text is Acts 2:1-13; read it here. 

 

I wonder if I'm the only one who's been a little confused when people talk about being filled with the Spirit, or being moved by the Spirit, or being led by the Spirit?

 

What, exactly, are they talking about?

And have I ever felt anything like it?

 

In this story, the movement of the Spirit is dramatic and palpable: a wind that fills the whole house, that alights like tongues of fire on the heads of the disciples, and causes them to understand one another, though they all speak in different languages.  It is a moment when diversity of culture and language is drawn into sudden and momentous unity.  When difference is not wiped away, but brought into harmony.  It's big -- and everyone who was there will never be the same again. 

 

Does the Spirit always move so visibly?  And while we're asking questions, what is the Holy Spirit, exactly?  It's by far the most slippery third of the trinity.  We're pretty sure about God the Creator, pretty sure we know who Christ is, but the Spirit -- what is that?

 

 

Looking for answers, we might turn all the way back to the beginning, to the book of Genesis, chapter one, verse one.  

In the beginning, 

when God created the heavens and the earth, 

the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep,

while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

 

A “wind from God,” the ruach in Hebrew, which means God's breath. 

 

God's breath moved over the face of the waters, 

God's voice is what separates the water from the land, 

and the darkness from the light. 

 

God's breath, God's Spirit, God's ruach,  

is that part of God that is active and moving among us, 

a wind from God that sweeps over the face of our lives. 

This idea is played out throughout the texts of the Hebrew Bible,

and our New Testament texts. 

 

 

So, breath is kind of a funny thing, isn't it?  Our breathing is coordinated by a part of our brain that keeps all our systems functioning.  We don't have to think about beating our heart -- our brain takes care of that for us.  Our breath is the same way -- whether we're aware of it or not, we'll keep breathing. 

 

Perhaps the breath of God is not so different. 

Most of the time, 

we don't even notice the gentle in and out 

of the Holy Spirit,

breathing in our lives. 

 

But if we stop for a moment, 

cultivate an awareness of God's breath, 

we begin to perceive the quite rise and fall 

that's been there all along. 

 

 

Part of developing spiritual practices in our lives 

is learning to sit and listen 

for the movement of that wind. 

At times it is imperceptible. 

At times we see its movement only in retrospect.

At times we feel it's rhythmic movement in and out: 

God's steady breathing. 

At times it is the rush of wind 

palpably moving through our lives. 

 

 

I've felt the movement of God's spirit 

in all of these different ways as St. Lydia's has grown and changed. 

At times, it has felt like Pentecost: 

Sitting on a train with Rachel and sharing with her the idea for this church. 

Knowing that she absolutely shared the vision,

the world of possibilities 

that were beginning to open before us. 

Knowing with certainty that our lives had suddenly shifted.  

 

At other times, I have lost track of the rhythm of God's breath.

In the moments when St. Lydia’s seems stuck with no where to go, 

when there's not enough money in the bank to make next week's payroll,

or when we face conflict or difficulty,

I've been able to discern God's steady breath only in retrospect. 

 

And at times, 

like at yesterday's community meeting,

I've felt that steady, dependable, gentle moment, 

in and out, 

as we move forward together, 

building trust and sensitivity and compassion

slowly but surely, 

God's Spirit breathing into all of it. 

 

 

 

Part of our call as a community 

is to learn to listen for God's breath:

God's Spirit in our midst. 

To learn to sit, and listen, and discern, 

wait for the invisible weathervane of our community 

to shake, then turn, 

pointing the way forward. 

 

We will listen each Sunday in worship, 

in moments of grace,

as well as moments of conflict. 

In Community Meetings. 

Over budgets and constitutions. 

And eventually, 

leases and contracts. 

In the most mundane or frustrating moments, 

and the most elevated, mystical moments,

We'll be asked to listen as the wind stirs,

then lifts,

as God exhales 

and the weathervane turns. 

 

God's breath is moving over the face of this Church:

of St. Lydia's. 

 

The question today is for you -- 

where do you see the Holy Spirit moving 

in your lives

and in this community?

Bigger

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, June 6.  The text is Matthew 28:16-20; read it here.

 

This week was my first week working as a pastoral care intern at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.  This summer I’ll be visiting patients in the hospital to attend to their spiritual needs.  It’s a daunting task -- knocking on someone’s door, introducing yourself, asking them if there’s anything they’d like to talk about. 

 

Each room is the scene of a particular, private drama.  You step in for a moment, play a small part, and step out again, as that drama continues to unfold. 

This first week has been mostly orientation -- learning our way around the hospital and talking about how to begin conversations and learning how to chart and fill out paperwork, but on Friday we shadowed a chaplain and watched her do her work.  And next week, we’ll be out on the floors, whether we feel ready, or remarkably ill equipped. 

 

The disciples in this story have been doing a lot of shadowing too.

Up until this point in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus has been the teacher. 

And the disciples have shadowed him. 

They’ve watched as he’s taught,

and they’ve watched as he’s healed. 

They watched as he butted heads 

with the religious authorities in Jerusalem, 

and continued to watch as he was put on trial,

put on a cross,

put in the tomb. 

 

All this time, they’ve been watching 

and listening 

and learning 

and waiting,

and now, 

meeting him on this mountain, 

in the wake of a brutal and chaotic week, 

he’s saying, 

Okay.  Time to get out there on the floors. 

Go and teach, and baptize.

Go start the church.

 

There’s a certain shock that comes with taking on authority, no matter how much you’ve prepared for the task ahead.  There’s still a voice in your head that says, “Oh...I can’t do that!  I’m not prepared...I’m not equipped...I’m not...”  All sorts of reasons you might not feel up to the task that’s currently before you.  

 

And honestly, it seems that Jesus could have chosen a slightly more qualified bunch. Throughout the gospels they’ve been willing but bumbling students.  They’ve done their best to follow, but certainly gotten turned around along the way.  Some have rejected their teacher, some denied him.  Perhaps they weren’t...who they wanted to be. 

 

And on the mountain top with Christ in front of them, it’s still difficult for them to see and understand.  Some are worshipping, some doubting.  They are frightened and unsure, 

confused and muddled...they are anything be prepared and anything but unified. 

And still Jesus says, 

Okay, it’s your turn.  

Go and teach and baptize.

Go and get out there on the floors.

 

The thing is, it doesn’t seem to matter if you doubt. 

If you doubt Jesus, 

doubt yourself,

doubt God,

doubt in others. 

Jesus has chosen you to teach.  

 

Here’s the good news of this story:

The Gospel is bigger than you. 

It’s bigger than your doubt and bigger than your fear. 

It’s bigger than your feelings of inadequacy,

and bigger than your feelings of uncertainty. 

God is sure enough for you. 

 

 

The “Great Commissioning,” as this story is often titled, will take the disciples places they had no chance of imagining.  The Book of Acts holds the story of the birth of the church: the wide-ranging journey that Christ’s disciples embark on to bring the story of his resurrection to the ends of the earth.  The Gospel is bigger than just them!  It’s bigger than Galilee and bigger than Jerusalem, 

bigger than the Jewish people -- 

it’s big enough for a world filled with difference,

even a world filled with injustice. 

 

The Gospel is bigger than us. 

And it's bigger than St. Lydia’s 

as we are today.

Just as the disciples were,

the Gospel will carry us father than we thought we were prepared to go. 

Maybe it will carry us...

to Brooklyn. 

And there's no way to know what we'll encounter when we get there. 

There's no way to predict where we'll be carried 

in new relationships

with new people,

in a new neighborhood, 

with needs all its own. 

 

At first the call will simply be to get to know the people around us. 

To build relationships, and from there, 

to discern where the Gospel is carrying us. 

It might move us to plant a community garden,

or to start another service, 

or to start an after school program,

or to figure out how to find homes for those who don't have them. 

 

We won't know until we get there. 

 

What we do know?

That things will change. 

 

That a Gospel that's meant for the whole world 

asks us to grow, to plant:

to do a new thing. 

There will be new faces, new routines, new challenges. 

 

That’s the hard part, the scary part, the unknown part.  

The incredibly exciting part.

But here’s the good part:

I once sat with a Spiritual Director 

who told me, 

I have the easiest job in the world.

Because God does all the work.

Let God do the heavy lifting.

 

Wherever this commission carries us, 

we are not in it alone. 

St. Lydia’s belongs to God, 

and God will do the heavy lifting.  

It’s so much bigger than we are, 

and God’s got it firmly in hand. 

 

In this passage, Jesus leaves us with a promise. 

And I promise you, that it’s a promise he will not break.

I am with you always, till the end of the age.

The gospel is bigger than you, 

and Jesus isn’t going anywhere.

Home Springs Up

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, May 22.  The text is John 21:1-14; read it here. 

 

This week, I flew to Houston.  I had never been to Houston before.  I was out there to do a short conference, at the invitation of a Episcopal Priest fried of mine.  I met a lot of lovely people, and we did good wok together.  I also consumed a rather impressive amount of food and alcohol.  I ate fried pickles, a pulled beef sandwich, two breakfast tacos and drank several beers in something like a 14 hour period.  This was not seen as out of the ordinary.  That evening, feeling full in a way I can’t really find words to describe, we ended up back at my friend’s house, sitting out in the yard drinking home brewed beer and rocking in a rocking chair.  The guys were playing guitar and singing songs that I had never heard before.  One of these songs them literally featured an armadillo.  

 

I am from Seattle, and after four years in New York, the songs I'd sing would most likely not be about armadillos.  They would be markedly more urban.  Perhaps about espresso, or traffic lights.  Maybe a blues tune about the subways running behind.  But somehow, sitting out on that porch in a place I'd never been and singing along with songs I'd never sung, I felt perfectly and completely at home. 

 

Sometimes home springs up in unexpected places.

Sometimes it springs up on a beach 

after a long night fishing. 

 

There's something funny about this resurrection story.  It's different from all the rest.  In all the other gospels, we hear stories of Jesus appearing to the disciples in and around Jerusalem -- the place where the story has been pointing all along.  The place where the story reaches its feverish end. 

 

But this story -- this one doesn't take place where it all ended.  This one takes place where it all began.  It takes place in Galilee, beside the sea.  Where Jesus walked along the seashore and saw some fishermen, and called them to follow him. 

 

It makes sense that the disciples would want to go home. 

It makes sense that, after all that's happened,

after the chaos and pain, 

the rumors and the sightings,

the new up-side-down reality that death has unfolded back into life...

It stands to reason that the disciples would think to themselves,

Let's go home. 

Back to Galilee. 

Back the sea, where we lived as fishermen. 

Perhaps they hope that there,

they can reassemble some fragment of who they are. 

or at least of who they used to be, before all of this happened.

 

I'm going fishing, Peter says, 

And together they pick up the nets that once felt so familiar, 

and push out into the sea, 

 

But find they can't catch anything. 

 

 

How can you go back to fishing for fish, 

once you've given yourself over to fishing for people?

 

 

They end up in the very thick darkness

of a very thick night. 

With no fish tugging at the net,

they begin to wonder 

just how long they've been sitting there. 

The darkness only grows thicker, 

and they begin to contemplate fears and questions 

that they hoped not to face. 

All that was once familiar -- 

the feel of the net in their hand 

and the sound of the waves on the water,

brings not comfort, 

but fear. 

 

 

Have you ever felt like a stranger in your own life?

Come home, 

back to a place of familiar things, 

to find that it offered no comfort?

That the net felt raw and uncomfortable in your hands,

and the rock of the boat was unnerving?

 

Have you ever felt lost in the midst of everything that is most familiar to you?

Felt that the compass has spun out, 

and there is no longer that reassuring magnetic pull

to ground you?

 

 

To be a Christian is to be consistently disoriented. 

Blinking in the light of a new and unfolding knowledge

that life has sprung up from death 

and that, 

because of that, 

everything is different. 

 

We have returned to the place where it all began,

to the sea,

to try and piece back together some part of ourselves, 

and found that task to be impossible. 

Everything is different.

We can't go back to being who we are before all of this. 

In this story, we stand with the disciples 

on the brink of a long journey,

at the start of a uncertain road.

We know that the way forward is frightening, 

but trying to go back --

that holds nothing but dark nights and empty nets. 

 

 

But dawn will break. 

And with the dawn, there is light.

And with the light, Jesus, standing on the beach. 

 

What is is about this story that makes me feel like everything will somehow be right, in the end?  That, even in the midst of the struggle of the night, as the saying goes, All shall be well and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well?

 

 

Perhaps it is the notion that, 

emerging into this new life, 

and finding ourselves to be without a home to return to,

we find, instead, a camp. 

A charcoal fire burning hot and bright 

at the edge of the sea. 

The smell of fish as it cooks, 

and bread, 

warm in our hands. 

 

A fire and a meal:

a home that travels with us 

throughout our nomadic wanderings. 

A home that is more eternal

than the hearths we've left behind. 

 

We are travelers now, 

pilgrims who follow God,

bound to journey forward, 

homeless, but somehow, always at home.

Along the way there will be good food 

and a place to warm our hands, 

wherever God might call us to pitch our tents. 

 

 

There are so many stories to be told about what happens next -- 

about what happens when love conquers death

and life breaks in to the darkest corners of our hearts. 

Too many stories to be written in a book. 

Too many, even to be told around these tables. 

So many stories of how Christ is alive in our midst, 

calling us forward to places where life springs up 

from the rich soil death has provided. 

So many stories that are yet to be written, 

about what this nomadic people will do in the light of that truth. 

 

But for now, we need to know only this, 

that even after the longest of nights, 

the coals are burning hot and bright 

at the edge of the sea.