Day of Pentecost
Anke recently sent me a quote from a man named Brennan Manning. Brennan Manning was was born in 1934 in New York City. When he graduated high school, Manning attended St. John’s University for two years before joining the US Marine Corps and fought in the Korean War. Upon returning to the US, Brennan Manning attended the University of Missouri, but later dropped out. He then attended Saint Francis Catholic Seminary in Loretto, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1963 and was ordained as a Franciscan priest. He spent a portion of his life to serving the poor as a member of the Little Brothers of Jesus of Charles de Foucauld in Spain and Switzerland. He then spent six months in solitary reflection in the remote desert of Spain. He left the Franciscan order in 1970 in order to get married. He focused his career on writing and public speaking. He died in 2013. And this is the quote that Anke sent to me: “The gospel is absurd, and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand-new creation. Not to make people with better morals but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in ever greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love. This, my friend, is what it really means to be a Christian.”
And there was a second quote that I came across while researching Brennan Manning: “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”
Both of these quotes point to the same truth, albeit from different angles: one positive, the other negative. But they both tell us the same thing: Faith, as the book of James tells us, without works is dead. As the first quote makes quite clear, putting faith into action is not simply about merely doing. It’s not about spiritual busy-work. It’s about passionate burning love. Or, as Manning so beautifully phrases it, “the very heart and mystery of Christ, … the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love.”
I especially like that last bit: “extravagant, furious love.” When was the last time you allowed yourself to love extravagantly? Furiously, even? I know. I know. It’s not easy. Because that kind of love? It takes a lot of energy. The kind of energy that can be hard to come by anymore, because there is so much that has become exhausting about life.
· An illness, which many thought would be a passing thing, has proven to be more of a chronic condition for the world.
· Buffalo, Uvalde, Tulsa… just the latest of the over 200 mass shootings, an event in which four or more are injured or killed, that have occurred this year. That’s right, 200. It doesn’t even register in the national conscience anymore if the number of those killed or injured isn’t high enough.
· Yet another election season is upon us, which means that the politics of rancor and division will be ginned up once more, even though it’s barely subsided, if at all, since the last election.
· And, of course, the persistent evil of racism continues to make itself known and felt throughout the country.
· War in Ukraine.
· Anxiety about the economy and our financial future...
It’s the greatest hits of worry and trepidation. And the hits just seem to keep on comin’.
Is it any wonder, then, that mental health crises are on the rise? It’s the natural outcome of always being on guard, always being on the lookout for the next crisis. We are exhausted. We are wary. We are anxious. We are maybe even fearful. All of which means that we are the perfect audience for today’s reading from the
Gospel of John because our emotional condition is not all that different from that of the disciples.
Our story picks up in the middle of Jesus’ final evening with the disciples. He’s already foretold his betrayal. He’s already predicted Peter’s three-fold denial of him. And what we have here is part of his final promises to his friends. He gives them a promise of comfort and guidance to come, right before they step out into the darkness of his arrest and crucifixion. “8Philip said to [Jesus,] ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’” It’s his response to Jesus’ promise that the way to the place where he is going is already accessible. Jesus himself, their friend, the one who is the embodiment of God’s love, is the way to the heart of God.
They key thing for us, here, is that he promise of the Spirit does not come to completely faithful, courageous people, already loving one another and the world boldly, already worshiping in spirit and truth. It comes amidst confusion and fear, which has made them unable to grasp what he is saying. Jesus makes the promise of the Spirit at the very moment when that kind of grace seems beyond their grasp. Jesus tells them that in their love for him, they are opening their hearts to the presence of God in them, the Spirit of truth, who will guide them and embolden them for love. The fire of the Spirit that burns within, urging us to live in ever greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, pushing us to enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love.
That spirit of bold, extravagant, furious love finds its expression here, at Calvary, in our new mission statement. “As followers of Jesus, we are called to be an inclusive and compassionate community, where everyone is connected in relationship with God and each other to foster wholeness of mind and soul.”
Perpetually on guard, on the lookout for the next crisis; We are exhausted; We are wary; We are anxious, maybe even fearful. So how do we get from there to being “an inclusive and compassionate community, where everyone is connected in relationship with God and each other to foster wholeness of mind and soul.” If you’re old, like me, you probably remember the old Palmolive Dishwashing Liquid ads with Madge, the manicurist, right? And what was her tagline? “You’re soaking in it.”
How do we get from exhausted, wary, anxious, and fearful to inclusive and compassionate, fostering wholeness of mind and soul? You’re soaking in it. This, right here. What we’re doing right now: Gathering together in the name of Jesus. Coming together as that entity known as the Body of Christ. This is the power of community. We gather to remember and rehearse the stories that form us into the kind of people—the kind of community—that has the power to provide hope. And when we have that kind of hope, we can live out that hope for others. You can’t be what you haven’t seen, so we focus our attention on what God has done in order to recognize what God is doing. The stories of our faith, provide a clear and concrete picture of the power of God’s presence, promise, and peace. From this vantage point, we get a clearer vision of what God can and will do through us!
That’s the power of the community in our mission statement. That’s why we called, on this day of Pentecost, for the pews to be packed. To remind ourselves, to remind one another, of what has been taken from us by circumstance. But more importantly to remind ourselves and one another of what it is that we have the power to reclaim! By the gift of the Holy Spirit, God gives us the power to reclaim for ourselves what the broken world has sought to wrench from our grasp over these past two years. The powers of death and destruction would much rather see us be “Christians who acknowledge Jesus with our lips and walk out the door and deny Him by our lifestyle”. It’s certainly the easier way. But the way of bold extravagant love is far and away the more compelling. It’s certainly the more rewarding.
This, right here, this community, is the reward in and of itself. But it’s more than that. It’s also our power. Or, more precisely, it’s the manifestation in our lives of God’s power working through us. A true love-filled community is a place where healing and wholeness prevail because it’s a place where people can dare to be vulnerable.
“The gospel is absurd, and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand-new creation. Not to make people with better morals but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in ever greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love…”
And now, here at Calvary, we know what that looks like. We know that: “As followers of Jesus, we are called to be an inclusive and compassionate community, where everyone is connected in relationship with God and each other to foster wholeness of mind and soul. Thanks be to God!