Poured Out

Pentecost Sunday 
5/24/15
Acts 2:1-21

Come, Holy Spirit. Open our hearts to hear your word, and our minds to understand your guidance for our lives. Bless us as we seek to follow where you lead. Amen.

In today’s first reading, from Acts, chapter two, we heard the story of the first Pentecost.

Pentecost takes place 50 days after Easter. On Pentecost, the disciples receive the Holy Spirit, which God sends to be with them once Jesus has ascended into heaven and is no longer with them on earth.

For any church nerds out there, Pentecost is the third most important holiday in the church year, after Easter and Christmas.

But to me, Pentecost is really where it all begins.

Without the story of Pentecost, I probably wouldn’t be a Christian. I definitely wouldn’t be a pastor.

I   love   the story of Pentecost.

It has made a difference in my life and in my faith.

I love this story because it says...

Whether you’re an immigrant or foreigner, an American citizen or an undocumented worker – the spirit of God is poured out on you.

Whether your personal ad would say woman seeking woman, or woman seeking man, or man seeking woman, or only looking for fun, or seeking a serious relationship – the spirit of God is poured out on you.

Whether your skin color is brown or peach or olive, red or yellow, black or white – the spirit of God is poured out on you.

Whether your preferred flatbread is tortillas or naan or ciabatta or injera or lefse – the spirit of God is poured out on you.

Lutherans in this part of the world sometimes have a hard time figuring out that Norwegians have no monopoly on right faith.

One of the most offensive things I've been told by well-meaning Norwegian-American Lutherans is that I'm an honorary Scandinavian.

They are entirely missing the point.

I don't want to be an honorary Scandinavian. I want to be a Russian-Puerto Rican-American woman from Wisconsin, I want you to acknowledge and appreciate who I am – and I still want to be in community with you.

The story of Pentecost tells us that national heritage, culture, language and race are important. People are different from one another. The disciples did end up speaking in a number of different languages, after all.

But Pentecost tells us that the community of faith is not complete until all of those cultures and languages and nations can peacefully coexist in one community of faith.

I love the story of Pentecost because it says…

Whether you are fat or skinny, whether you are living with an eating disorder or thyroid disease, whether you are in shape or a couch potato or somewhere in between – the spirit of God is poured out on you.

Whether you are living below the poverty line or are part of the richest 1%, whether you are on food stamps or a millionaire, unable to find meaningful employment or loving the career that you’ve been in for decades – the spirit of God is poured out on you.

Whether you are a second grader or a PhD, a high school dropout or a professional degree holder – the spirit of God is poured out on you.

This last one is hard for us sometimes, especially in our educated community of Madison, WI. It is easy to blame problems on people who don't know any better, who haven’t been taught any differently. Education is highly valued here.

But in the kingdom of God, educated uneducated alike receive a portion of the spirit – the same portion of the spirit.

I love the story of Pentecost because it tells me that the spirit of God can be poured out even on me, and I can be a pastor.

I love it because it tells me that the spirit of god is poured out on each one of you, so I don't have to be the only minister in this congregation.

You all know people who believe that women can’t be pastors.

When you are a woman, and a pastor, these people seem to come out of the woodwork.

I can’t even begin to count the times I’ve heard…  “What makes you think you can be a pastor? Isn’t this whole women in ministry thing still too new and untested? Anyway, Jesus didn’t have women disciples. Why should we have women pastors? What’s wrong with the way we’ve always done it?”

The best answer to those naysayers is the story of Pentecost. On this day, after Jesus had died and been raised from the dead, and had ascended into heaven, the Holy Spirit came to the faithful people in Jerusalem.
And women were included in that group of faithful.

Of course, I’ve got about a hundred other answers to people who think that women shouldn’t be pastors, and if you’re interested, we can talk about them sometime. But Pentecost is at the root of all the rest of those answers.

On that day, God says, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh – not just the men, not just the people in power, not just those who have enough life experience to seem credible, not just the wealthy folks or the white folks or the government officials – God’s spirit will come to all people, and they will prophesy.

My undergraduate degree is in psychology.

I learned a lot about people in college.

One of the most interesting projects I was involved with was a study on attractiveness – what kinds of faces do we humans find to be attractive?

For example, facial symmetry is one of the primary things that makes human beings attractive to one another.

Denzel Washington has a very symmetrical face, which can explain why so many people find him attractive.

But here’s what’s even more interesting, in my opinion.

Composite faces tend to be perceived as more attractive than any single person’s face.

If you take the average of my face, and [name]’s face, and [name]’s face, you will end up with someone more attractive than any of us are on our own.

If you were to average together the faces of everyone in this congregation, everyone in Madison, everyone in Wisconsin, we would get an unbelievably attractive composite face.

The more characteristics you combine together – the more colors of skin and shapes of eyes and noses and mouths – the more appealing the face becomes to people of all ages, races, and cultural backgrounds.

The more we are united together – the more we act as a singly body – the more attractive we become. And the more attractive we become, the more we live out the reality of being created in the image of God.

If you were here last week, you heard Kyle Rader tell us that we are the body of Christ – and that’s not a metaphor.

Now that Jesus is no longer physically with us in the world, it is up to us to be his hands and his feet and his heart here on earth.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon us.

The Spirit has anointed us to proclaim good news to the poor.

The Spirit has sent us to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,


to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

(Luke 4:18-19; Isaiah 61:1-2)

The spirit of God is here.

That’s what the Pentecost story tells us.

I think I’ve made that point by now.

But so what? Why should we care?

Let me tell you.

If the spirit of God is with you, it is good news.

The spirit of God gives you power to change the world.

The spirit of God is what created the world.

The spirit resurrected Jesus from the dead.

The spirit is the one who inspired the prophets, from Isaiah and Jeremiah to Martin Luther and Martin Luther King.

The spirit of God is here, is on you, and on the person sitting next to you.

When we see that Spirit in others, we get to see them as they really are, as beloved children of God, who have the power to change the world.

Do me a favor.

Turn to the person next to you and say, the Spirit of God is upon you.

Turn to the other side and tell them too.

Now tell the people on either side of you, You have the power to change the world.

That must be what it sounded like on the first Pentecost, with so many people talking all at the same time!

The promise of Pentecost – the good news today – is that no one is excluded from God’s kingdom. Today’s story puts men and women, slave and free, and people from all different countries around the world on the same playing field.

The spirit of God is on each one of you, which means that you are able to hear the voice of God. You can share the good news with others. You can work together with other people to embody the mission of Christ.

Sure, the Pentecost story helps me know that I can be a pastor.

But this story also gives encouragement to everyone who might want to follow Jesus. Because of Pentecost, we know that Jesus’ promise “I will be with you always” has already come true. Jesus isn’t here with us, but he sent the Spirit to be reflected in every one of us… and he gave us the ability to see glimpses of that Spirit in each other.

         So I know that women can be ordained because of the Pentecost story.

         What else do we know because of this story?

At the very least, I think we know that all people are created equal. Culture, ethnicity, race, gender, age – those things that tend to divide us are not actually supposed to be divisive. God comes to all of us regardless of what labels we would use to describe ourselves.

God’s spirit is on every single one of us.

And the more we work together, we closer we get to truly being the body of Christ in this world.

So let’s work together, let’s live out God’s promise for humanity.

Let’s go out, and change the world.

Amen. 

I Want It

Easter 5B, 5/3/15
Acts 8:26-40; 1 John 4:7-12

God of love, you created the whole world and made all people in your image. Help us to see you in one another. Help us to love each other and the world that you made. Help us to spread the Gospel to all nations, in your name. Amen.

A church I used to work at had the most beautiful silver Communion set.

When it was my turn to celebrate Communion, I always got distracted when I held up the chalice, because I could see my reflection in it – sort of like you can see your reflection in a spoon – kind of distorted.

But this chalice was gorgeous, it was very large, it caught the light, and it was certainly the center of attention during the celebration of Communion…  
as the blood of Christ should be.

One particular time that I celebrated Communion, there was a high-energy young boy in the second row – not the first row, because then he would be able to run around wherever he wanted – but in the second row, so he could see what was going on but was confined by the seats in front of him and his parents sitting about 15 feet apart from each other, giving him space to squirm.

The boy was about 3 years old.

         And he wasn’t squirming just then.

As I was holding up the chalice for the congregation to see, while I said the Words of Institution, a little voice piped up from the second row.

I want it!

How simple.

And how profound.

This little boy knew that there had to be something special in that big, beautiful silver cup, and he knew that whatever it was, he wanted in on it.

That kid preached a better sermon that Sunday than any of the pastors could have hoped to do.

Something similar happens in the first reading today.

In the book of Acts, there’s an Ethiopian official reading the Scriptures, and when Philip comes along to explain what they mean, the Ethiopian asks, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?”

He knows there’s something special about this community of believers, and whatever it is, he wants in on it.

What it to prevent him from being baptized?

Everything.

There are a number of reasons why this Ethiopian official is not a good candidate for baptism.

For starters, he’s not a Jew.

In these earliest days after the Resurrection, followers of Jesus haven’t really spread too far outside of the Jewish community that they stemmed from in the first place.

God made promises to the Hebrew people – they were the chosen ones, they were the ones who needed the promised Messiah, who had just turned out to be Jesus.

People outside of that covenant were seen as less important in the grand scheme of things. From everything that Philip knew up to this point in his life, the Ethiopian was probably even less important to God than he was. So why should he, one of the apostles, offer baptism, the sacred act of initiation into the Christian community, to this heathen foreigner?

There was no good reason for him to do so, based on ancient Jewish ways of thinking.

Why shouldn’t Philip baptize this man?

Why should he?

As the story clearly states, the Ethiopian is uninformed. He doesn’t understand the Scriptures, so how can he understand the meaning of baptism?

Ignorance is another barrier that this guy is facing. He isn’t one of the chosen people, and he also isn’t educated about Judaism.

This, of course, begs the question of why he had gone to Jerusalem to worship in the first place. This is one of the great mysteries of this story, and we’ll never know what had drawn him to the God of the Hebrew people.

Somehow this guy had encountered the Hebrew Scriptures and found them interesting, and for some reason he had chosen to worship in Jerusalem.

He doesn’t seem to have any good explanation as to why, and he can’t understand the prophetic passages in Isaiah that he’s reading as Philip stumbles upon him, so he asks Philip to help him understand.

Maybe this point actually works both for and against the case for the Ethiopian to be baptized.

Why shouldn’t he? Because he’s uninformed and doesn’t know anything about the God of Israel, which means he’s probably unprepared for this initiation rite.

But why should he be baptized? It appears that the Holy Spirit is working on him somehow, leading him to Jerusalem and to the Scriptures.

Still, though, he doesn’t exactly fit the ideal description of a new member of a new religious movement.

What is to prevent me from being baptized?

You know, it’s odd, we don’t know much about this Ethiopian official – we don’t even get his name – but we do know some very personal information about him.

He’s a eunuch.

This was commonplace in many societies – if high-ranking servants were castrated, they posed no threat to the women in the ruling classes – at least, no threat that those women’s husbands and fathers were worried about.

Also, since eunuchs were unable to father children of their own, they posed no threat to the leadership of the ruling family. They had no reason to participate in a coup, because they could have no sons to succeed them on the throne.

The fact that this Ethiopian official was a eunuch gives us two other reasons why he shouldn’t be baptized.

First, he is physically disabled.

In ancient Judaism, anyone with physical blemishes or deformities would have been prohibited from entering the Temple.

We know this already – we’ve heard stories before about lepers having to stay outside the city walls so that their condition doesn’t rub off on others.

Well, it turns out this was the case with a lot of physical ailments or deformities. Temple worship in Jesus’ day was pretty exclusive – all women were excluded from entering the Temple, and the men had to meet very particular criteria.

A eunuch would fail that test.

Why had this man even gone to Jerusalem to worship? He traveled all the way from Ethiopia, to worship in Jerusalem, and he wouldn’t have even been able to participate in worship at the Temple.

If he couldn’t be accepted into the religion that Jesus practiced, why should Philip baptize this man as a follower of Jesus now?

The fact that this man was a eunuch also tells us something very important about him. He was privileged.

Now, it might not sound like that, to those of us who consider castration to be a pretty serious decrease in one’s quality of life.

But in a society that was run by slaves, the ones who were important enough to be made into eunuchs were the ones who were entrusted with the most power.

This man may not have been able to have his own children, but he could have provided wonderfully for his ageing parents.

Only the most trusted servants were eunuchs.

Today’s story specifically tells us that this man was in charge of the queen’s entire treasury. He held a position of great power in Ethiopia.

         Now think about what Philip had just experienced.

His mentor and leader, Jesus, had been put to death by the ruling authorities. And suddenly, here is a ruling official from someone else’s government, asking to be baptized. What is to prevent him?

If Philip baptizes this man, he is putting himself and the other followers of Jesus at risk from a new set of authorities. How does he know that this man and all the power that he represents can be trusted with the Gospel? Maybe he just wants to be baptized so that he can infiltrate their ranks and see them all be put to death.

If the Ethiopian gets baptized, he puts his position in the queen’s court at risk.

He is risking everything that defines him for the sake of some new religious sect he has just learned about, and whose leader was recently executed. Why would he choose to follow a troublemaker like Jesus? It’s hard to believe that a man entrusted with the queen’s treasury would make such a life-changing decision on a whim, as he seems to do today.  

What is to prevent the Ethiopian official from being baptized?

         Everything.

There is really no good reason for him to join this powerless group of people who follow the teachings of Jesus.

And there really is no good reason for them to let him join them.

Except that the Holy Spirit wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Spirit spoke to this Ethiopian traveler, and told him that there was something special about these Scriptures and this fledgling religion.

And in the simplest, most profound words, the Ethiopian responded – I want it.

This powerful servant was baptized, and returned home rejoicing.

He is credited with bringing Christianity to Ethiopia.

And while that can’t be proven exactly, we do know that Ethiopia adopted Christianity as the official religion in the 300s – not long after Rome adopted it as the religion of the Empire.

Today, nearly two-thirds of Ethiopians are Christian, mostly members of the Coptic Church, one of the oldest churches in the world.

And, if tradition is to be believed, none of this would have happened if Philip or the Ethiopian eunuch had listened to conventional wisdom.

Thankfully, these men instead listened to the whispers of the Holy Spirit.

Philip broke the rules of inclusion and exclusion that he had lived by his whole life. The Ethiopian put his privilege at risk by worshipping in Jerusalem and joining this emerging religion.  

They ignored the distinctions between insiders and outsiders, powerful and powerless, educated and ignorant, wealthy and poor, and every other barrier that society had burdened them with.

They cast their divisions aside and listened to a message of grace from the Holy Spirit.

And that is what we can learn from this story, as well.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love comes from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

God is love.

God gets rid of the dividers between people.

Since God loves us so much, we should also love one another.

Welcome other people.

Give them the benefit of the doubt.

Offer your friendship.

Give assistance when it’s needed.

Give compassion at all times. 

Beloved, let us love one another.

When someone is reaching out, asking for grace in the form of baptismal waters or Communion wine or a handshake or a handout or anything else that it is within your power to give – meet them halfway, as Philip does in today’s story.

And welcome the other person with open arms, as God welcomes you.

Amen. 

Shared Voices

For most of my life, I have struggled with "the curse," as my aunt calls it. As a bright, strong-willed woman, most of the adjectives that society uses to describe my personality are extremely negative. I am rarely accused of being sweet or sensitive, patient or graceful. The people who understand my personality and communication style the best have summed it up: you communicate like a man. I don't, though. I communicate like a woman because that's what I am.

If you really want to understand the struggle that I'm describing, you have to read the essay "Balls," by the Rev. Kathryn Z Johnston, in There's a Woman in the Pulpit. She says it more concisely than I'm doing here.

In my church, the ordination process usually takes about 4 years. For me it took just over 8. During the years of waiting and continued discernment, I regularly filled in for pastors on Sunday mornings, and led funerals for people with no church home. People always wanted to give me a title - Pastor, Reverend, Minister, Priest - whatever they were used to calling their spiritual leader. I didn't know what title they should use for me any more than they did.

"Don't Call Me 'Reverend'" by the now-Rev. Denise Anderson does an excellent job describing the struggle and frustration I felt in those years. It's good to know that I am not the only one.

My freshman year of college, I stopped eating red meat (by which I mean any meat from mammals - don't go trying to convince me that pork is "the other white meat"). The year after I graduated college, I gave up eating poultry. I could write volumes on the various reasons behind my 15+ years of enjoying vegetables, whole grains, beans, lentils, cheese, tofu, nuts, and more vegetables, to the exclusion of meat… but really, I get sick of explaining it to people, especially in the church where I am usually considered to be some freak of nature for not getting excited about meals consisting of white bread, iceberg lettuce, and processed cheese.

The Rev. Teri Peterson has had a similar experience. I'm so glad she wrote "A Vegetarian in the Church" so that I can just point people to that essay, instead of continually re-explaning myself.

There's a Woman in the Pulpit is a vivid, meaningful, relatable book by a variety of clergywomen from around the world. I am blessed to be among the contributors, and a member of the phenomenal group RevGalBlogPals. But that's not why you should read this book. You should pick up your own copy because if you have ever known a clergywoman, or if you have ever wondered about the phenomenon of ordaining women in Christian churches, you can understand the people and communities involved by exploring the essays in this book. There is a chapter for everyone. You are sure to find something that resonates with you, and you are also likely to find something that challenges you and your experiences of faith, church, and the world. I hope you enjoy the read.

There's a Woman in the Pulpit… with a woman, in a pulpit.