fire of the Holy Spirit

Life is filled with all manner of challenges, isn’t it. From here in 7H on the Florida Gulf Coast, I keep an eye on an osprey nest in Boulder County Fairgrounds at Longmont, Colorado, where a mother and father osprey are carefully tending two hatchlings, feeding them bits of freshly caught trout from the adjacent pond. Come to notice, the life of a fish is challenging too: sometimes the fish are still flopping as the osprey clutches and tears bites from them. 

Dawning here but it's still dark in Colorado, so I’ve not checked their nest this morning, but there’s one egg remaining, and being kept warm. However, a blizzard some weeks ago filled the nest with snow, and freezing temperatures down in the teens for way too long. Two eggs were lost, and I don’t know whether this last egg is viable. Other challenges, fighting off birds who swoop and attack. Owls and other predators who eat baby birds.

Challenge in 7H. Linda is frustrated morning after morning going out onto the porch to find that some little animal has bitten off the tops of her tomato seedlings. We hope this challenge will cease once the scaffolding that gives the animal access to our seventh level is taken down, likely this week. So, we're not putting out poison or a trap. How do we know it’s a little animal? Well now, think: how do you suppose we know?!

Birds, fish, rodents and people, living with challenges to survive and Be. Today is the Day of Pentecost on the church calendar. Lectionary readings appointed for the day evidence it. It’s our first Sunday in months to invite and welcome folks to assemble for worship. Several will wear something red, a custom honoring the fire of Pentecost! We are challenged to keep worship holy and familiar, while top priority is keeping it safe for each other. Church will be different starting this morning. Face masks coming and going. No holy water in the baptismal font. People sitting six feet apart. No congregational singing, as germs are spread in every exhale of breath. We may not hear all four readings, and shorter sermons to help reduce the time we are gathered together. No touching at the Peace. Socially distanced folks in queue to Communion stations instead of kneeling at the Altar rail. Bread only, no Wine. No line of clergy and lay ministers greeting worshipers at the door as we leave after worship. The Day of Pentecost is one of seven Principal Feasts of the Church Year, and it’s on my mind this morning. 

But the rest of Life is on my mind too, even more so: other challenges, our nation divided and filled with hatred for each other, divisions and anger, political hatred. Currently to the point: the racial hatred of endemic racism. Hatred and mistrust of anyone who is Other. Hatreds and divisions being fanned for political gain and advantage. Racism in sociologically institutionalized evil, prejudice, inequality, brutality, murder, rioting, shooting, burning, cities torched. An insanely bizarre road rage mentality threat, “When the looting starts the shooting starts” as if stopping rioters from taking home a "free" television warrants shooting them: capital punishment for burglary, theft, grand larceny? This is who and what America is? AY.....M? We don't even have sense enough to see that this is specifically the problem. One wonders, How does God stand us! How does a loving Creator STAND the creatures he has created?

The obtuse may wonder and ask Where is God? But James Baldwin said "The fire next time" and we know Heilsgeschichte, our salvation stories, that in The Beginning we wanted freedom so much as to disobey and move God to set us free. So we may ask "Where is God?" but this is not the Garden of Eden: major hurricanes are on the calendar, deadly pandemic is in the air, institutionalized evil boggles the mind and ignites the fire. "Where is God?" is a question of the blithely inane oblivious. Cast out of the Garden, we are free to be godly or ungodly. God does not tend us like an osprey parent catching fish and feeding hatchlings bite by bite.

Grievously mindful of the nation’s horrors, our bishop asked this week that we remember our liturgical prayer For the Human Family. It goes like this: 

For the Human Family

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

There are prayers, and there are prayers. Some churches shun written prayers, our church is liturgical and common prayer is our Tradition. It doesn’t matter to God, who hears them all. But there are times when I wonder that we simply read a prayer and go home leaving it to God to get cracking on it while we go on about self, mindless that our baptismal promise is to carry out the Love of God in the world; and if we do not, God's business does not get done, God's love does not get shared. In respect of the prayer, God may "Look with compassion", but God does not "Take away arrogance and hatred", God does not "Break down walls", God who has given us dominion over Creation gives it to us to "Accomplish God’s purposes on earth". Prayer is not to move God, but to stir the Holy Spirit within us. 

It’s no good saying a prayer and going home satisfied we’ve done our part. Celebrating the Day of Pentecost, we commemorate Jesus’ gathered disciples being filled with the Holy Spirit. We too, as the power of Baptism, are filled with the Holy Spirit. Which arguably makes each of us the Holy Spirit. Any fool who thinks violence never works never read about the origins of the United States of America, or our Civil War, or World War 2. Just so, if we think the Holy Spirit cannot wage fiery war on evil, we are grievously mistaken. Burn.

Seeing the riots on television, comes to mind Jesus cleansing the Temple, the Holy Spirit challenging systemic evil, igniting change. But in theological reflection, Good Friday comes with teargas, people shot, rioters tiring and going home, and if nothing ever changes, Easter never comes.

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; so fill us with the fire of your Holy Spirit that we may shed the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts, and break down the walls that separate us, and unite in the love of mutual respect; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth. 

T+