the Holy Spirit was the cute one
Have you ever had so many things that you wanted to say, to talk about, to write, that they congested your mind such that nothing can get out? Maybe when you're ninety years old you'll remember my question and know exactly what I meant and how it is.
Maybe not.
But that's how I'm finding it these days. There's all this stuff. I can't even get it organized in my head anymore, it's a jumble. For one, retiring from the work of getting a sermon together; for the best years of life, sermon prep every week, then for more years a privilege one Sunday in three or four but nevertheless and ongoing - - a task of thought, organization, composing and reduction - - was a mental self-discipline that has slipped away. Satisfyingly retired, I do not want to resume that chapter of life: as well as mental, it's a physical strain that's beyond me. Sundays anymore then, my work is to show up, listen and hear, not to walk around up front and do most of the talking. It's physical as well as mental retirement.
Anyway, several things are lined up, there are two or three, four or more, topics in mind wanting and waiting to be let loose right now. Early, between about 3:50 and 4:30, I finished my mug of hot, which this Time for about two or max three Times a year was not black, I had it with three of those tiny peel-back-the-cover cups of half & half, plus two heaping tea spoons of "sugar in the raw" that I keep in my coffee cabinet on the dining room side of the kitchen counter: sipped it while I did my first 30-minute "walk" of the day on the little "under desk elliptical." The electric pedaling does all the work, so I'm skeptical of it doing any good other than exercising, as I said, toes, feet, ankles, lower legs, knees, upper legs, and hip joints, but while it's cycling away I have my cell phone on my knee so it counts every "step" and credits me with getting all the exercise I need.
All our machines think they are smarter than we are these days, and I say if you can fool one of them, go for it.
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Now though, I'm at my little table-desk in my office study den with the lights on and the shutters closed for privacy from any walkers who jog by on the seven-level sidewalk outside this front room of 7H, with the dancing fingers loosed for their work. What'll be first? Second, actually, after the above wandering nonsense.
Last Sunday's lectionary (I still have the 8:00 am, Rite I worship bulletin here) had a couple of my favorite Bible stories. Matthew 9, Jesus defining what "the gospel" is, εὐαγγέλιον (literally "good news") - - it's that the kingdom of God has come near (Matthew likes to call it the kingdom of heaven, which confuses folks who think he's talking about life after death beyond the blue firmament, which he's not). The kingdom of God/heaven is, as last Sunday's very competent supply officiant said in his homily, wherever people treat each other with lovingkindness, in the lessons, "hospitality." The kingdom of heaven is not where you're going when you die, the kingdom of heaven is wherever people serve Jesus' New Commandment: love your neighbor, where love (ἀγάπη agape) is not a warm fuzzy feeling, but how people treat each other.
By this clarification then, hell, Hell, would be where people treat each other with hatred, contempt, cruelty, dehumanizing meanness - - which fairly defines the political climate of America and a large part of the Earth, and specifically the domestic and foreign policy of the USA in my lifeTime today: Hell on Earth.
But this is never a political blog, so not to wander too far. My really favorite story last Sunday is OT, from Genesis 18, the story of Abraham and Sarah at the oaks of Mamre when (in Christian terms) the Holy Trinity stop by for rest and are treated to old precedent-setting hospitality, which they reciprocate with lovingkindness, the promise of a child, specifically desired by the aged couple, a son and heir.
Maybe I view the story differently from other folks, but I can read and discern as well as anybody. There are three visitors, as I say, The Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father of course, the old guy, Ancient of Days. Jesus of Nazareth will not come along for generations and centuries, so the Son from Eternity is not yet but in Time will be Jesus the human, so in this story he has to be who/what Gospel John calls "Logos," the Word. The Holy Spirit is the young man, the tall, cute, hunky one, and there are reasons for that.
So, thinking theologically and in Trinitarian terms, the Logos (the prime mover in creation), tells Abraham and Sarah that they'll have a son. As our creeds say, the Holy Spirit will make it so. Sarah - - for whom, as the story says delightfully and delicately, "it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women," meaning she is long past menopause. She must have been pretty sexy, though, because in another story Abraham realizes that a certain king will lust after his ninety-year-old wife Sarah and take her as his own wife even at the cost of killing her husband (as king David did generations later, by the way) and taking his wife - - thus, in that story, Abraham the Brave decides that they will tell the king that Sarah is his sister. And the king does take her to wife, and catching something, realizes that he has been tricked, and sends Sarah back to her husband Abraham. Again not to wander too far, but the apologists like to rush in and point out that literally Sarah was sort of Abram's sister, which is true but misses the point that God doesn't need apologists.
Anyway, there are these three guys under the oak tree eating, talking, visiting, and one, who in Trinity Speak turns out to be the Holy Spirit, really catches Sarah's eye. Nomesane? Anyone who knows me has already read/heard and so knows how I understand this story. The Lord does not care about looks, handsomeness, physical beauty, we already know that from the later stories of when God chose king Saul and king David; so the Third Person of the Trinity is pretty much up for any power of the Holy Spirit assignment. He proves it not only later for Samuel's parents, and for the parents of John the Baptist, and for the parents of Jesus who, as the creed says, "was conceived by the Holy Spirit," but is specifically here in today's story for the parents of Isaac. It's the same guy.
Sarah conceives. IDK, maybe while Abraham is showing the Father and the Son around the property that the Lord has given him.
That isn't the end of the story, by the way; in fact, it's barely the beginning.
Names can play a wonderful part in any story. When she hears the guests say that she will have a son, Sarah laughs. Giggles. Maybe nervously, maybe giddily with anticipation, but she laughs. The Lord (that the visitors suddenly become The Lord signifies who they are, the Three in One, just ike when the angel in the Burning Bush suddenly confronts Moses as The Lord himself) - - The Lord is annoyed that Sarah laughs, because it means she doesn't believe him, so he says - - it's not part of the written story, but stories are made for telling and I'm telling this part - - the Lord says, "Sarah will not have the last laugh!!"
After the visitors leave, Sarah, ninety years old, goes through the miserable nine months of pregnancy and childbirth. When the son arrives, she names him Isaac (every Hebrew name is a word that means something, and every Hebrew story has meanings that can be read between the lines), Isaac, which means laughter: and Sarah does have the last laugh on God.
By now, Abraham is a hundred years old, and God has been making the same promise to Abraham and Sarah since Abraham was seventy-five, and finally, at the Oaks of Mamre, gets called on it by Sarah laughing.
See, OT Bible stories are for fun and chortling around the campfire those nights in the wilderness with Moses. This one, Abraham and Sarah at the Oaks of Mamre, is one of the best. The story of Jacob the cheater getting cheated out of the wife he wanted is maybe even better. Maybe we can tell it another Time, eh?
Anyway, the sun is up on Tue Jun 16, have a nice day!
RSF&PTL
T90