Hunka Burnin' Love
May 11 2008
Leviticus
19:17-18
Matthew 22:34-39
John 3:5-7
Happy Pentecost! It’s finally here! I LOVE Pentecost! It’s just the best. It’s just the best according to Briget, because it’s the story of how we know God. How each one of us encounters the being of God. How that Presence, that Spirit burns within us, pushes us, pulls us, excites us, annoys us…Hallelujah, we have made it to Pentecost! And, this Pentecost, we’re going to celebrate our core value to love. We are Always Open Open All Ways to Love here at First Congregational United Church of Christ. And, I want you to stay tuned in today because most of us, most of us are really screwed up about love. So I’m hoping together today, this High holy Pentecostal Day we can work something out. I have no fear that today of all days may lift you up. I have no doubt that today of all days if you are even sort of skeptically, doubtfully, very slim chance of possibility to being open, your life is about to change. Because, this is the day! This is the day we celebrate the experience of God…And that story begins with a violent rush of wind! A rush of wind that transforms and then empowers…
Acts 2:1-18
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
5Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”
14But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o”clock in the morning. 16No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.
Can you imagine? Can you imagine these folks going home afterwards? Their people would think they must have had some bad food. They must be high on drugs. They must have been drunk. They must be delirious from the journey. Can you imagine them taking this back to the trustees, the orthodox, the rule followers? It would be a communication breakdown!?! Well, there was this wind…the roar was so loud and then the wind turned into fire, but it wasn’t burning, it just looked like fire, we felt warm and we could see it on one another….Communication Breakdown! Often times when we are transformed the transformation is so real to us, so complete that we feel physically altered. When we share about our experience with others, the words seem so small.
That story we heard from John this morning is exactly this kind of fallout. The Jesus followers are using a metaphoric understanding of birth, water, spirit…trying to coax the rule followers to open to a larger possibility, if not for their own understanding at least for a blessing upon their own transformation through experiencing God through Spirit. The experience of the Jesus movement was one of transformation through the spirit that created a new dimension to living. However, in this case the rule followers were literalists, they couldn’t get it and the conversation dies. “Water or the Spirit? Which do you choose?” they cry and the conversation dies…The conversation dies because when we are in love with one another sometimes we are so screwed up. Sometimes we think it means we need to control instead of empower.
After all we have a command from Leviticus to love. It is a command. A command that is turned into a commandment by Jesus in Matthew’s story today. How do you, how can you command love? Wouldn’t it be just a sterile exercise? And who would want to receive that kind of love? Who would want to? When we are empowered as people of God through this dynamic Spirit. When we are empowered. This experience of God is uniquely for us, God can communicate with us in such a way that we are transformed. And through this transformation we wonder what is it that life is doing with me? We do, even with this sense of call, this empowerment, we do still of course have a choice. And, it’s also here in the Leviticus…Do we choose in this life situation to love or hate, to hold a grudge or forgive, to give vengeance or grace…What do we choose? For Leviticus, this idea of love isn’t one of emotion but one of commitment. Are you willing to choose to be committed? Are you willing to be so commited that you will stubbornly and unwaveringly commit yourself to the needs of our neighbors? Are we willing to transform and empower ourselves and our neighbors? Are we willing in particular for those in this community willing to transform and empower the needs of the marginalized and the oppressed? Are we willing in this community of faith to be stubbornly committed to embody the love of neighbor so much that we will find out what those persons need who are in recovery, who are children and youth from difficult homes, who are LGBT? How committed are we?
Finally John gathers it together by saying look. This spirit. Spirit, the word here which literally translates, womb/uterus. This kind of spirit, this kind of womb, it feeds us, surrounds us, gives us all we need, keeps us safe, helps us grow, this kind of Spiritual Womb it allows us to be born into a new dimension. And, all of us who choose this path, we become sisters and brothers since we are of the same womb. We are called to treat each other with the love and respect that seem to come naturally to a healthy family. And that means that we’re not settled with one another because we’ve been born of the same spirit. Just as we challenge our siblings in healthy families to grow beyond who they are when they are first born, we must learn to empower one another in our community of faith.
Transformation means that we are willing to go beyond respecting one another. We can respect one another, it is a tenant of love. However we can respect and still:
Sit by watching our best friend tumble out of control with his drinking. After a party choosing to respect his pathway and determine if he should drive home himself or not. Leaving him to his own devices to determine if he has a problem or not.
Respecting our children so much and their own pathways that we leave out a pamphlet about the UCC, one of the cool God Is Still Speaking Brochures and a few condoms hoping that they will know what god to believe in and to practice safe sex with their current partner.
Respecting our neighbors so much that we put them on the prayerlist at church after their house burns to the ground knowing that Red Cross has stepped in. Transformation means that we are willing to get risky and go beyond respecting one another. We’ve got so much respect in this country that we’ve sanitized what it means to really love one another. Love is risky, it is exciting, it means that we get involved with one another. We get so involved with one another that we are transformed and we both leave the experience empowered!
Transformation and Empowerment that goes beyond respect and says:
To our friend who is drinking: I have counseled you with my best advice, networked you with experts in whatever specialization you need, told you the truth as I best see it, and now please stop using me or depending on me, take responsibility for yourself and get a life. I love you!
To our children: I have shared from my heart, taught you everything I know, helped you clarify what is good, beautiful, and true, now please leave this house, live on your own, take your own lumps, and find your own way. I love you.
To our neighbors: I have shared the witness of Christ by showing up at the Red Cross shelter and listening to your experience of the fire. I have rallied the neighborhood by organizing a list of needed items and food to be delivered to your temporary and then new home. I did all I could to better your world, answered what questions I could, questioned what needed to be challenged, and now please ask and answer your own questions, stake your life on your own convictions, dare to live in ambiguity that will never go away. I love you.
When we are about loving so much that we want to empower people. We don’t just accept people wherever they are on life’s journey, we also can see what people can become. We love one another so much we risk helping them become something greater than they already are. We love them so much we risk letting them create a future for themselves that may be different from the future of this community of faith. We love them so much we meddle in their affairs.
We are called. We are called to love God and our neighbors as ourselves. It’s not a sterile, authoritarian love. It’s a messy, risky, get involved, transformational, empowering love. A love that makes our heart burst so much so that we can not avoid it. It draws our lives into it. And, it allows us to empower through the transformational power of letting go. When we are involved in people’s lives, we can let go. We can trust one another to make the mistakes and have the successes that will empower us to become more clear about our own sense of call and heartbursts.
Let’s be the community that is on fire. Let’s be the community that understands and proclaims what that roaring wind shifted within us. Let’s be the community that proclaims how we have been transformed. Let’s be the community that is so in love that we are willing to get involved in one another’s lives. Risking getting involved so we might empower one another to live on our own transformed.
Hallelujah! It is Pentecost and I can hear the wind a comin!
Let us pray!