Pentecost is the fiftieth day after Easter and Christians adopted to mark the giving of the Spirit and the birthday of the Church. Mother’s Day in the US is not as old as Pentecost, but it has an interesting history. It as loosely inspired by the British day and was imported by social activist Julia Ward Howe after the American Civil War. However, it was intended as a call to unite women against war. In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother's Day, as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war. As I was preparing for sermon, I thought it will be an interesting challenge to deal with both a foundational feast in Christianity and a powerful festival of public religion.
When I was a child my sister and I used to play hide and seek like any other child, usually I will go to mt favorite closet, and in the dark I will wait for her to find me. The closet both gave me some level of relief because somehow I felt protected while at the same time, specially when she forgot that we were playing, become increasingly scary.
On Thursday I went to see my new born grand-niece Isabel, she weighted 7 pounds and she was sleep for most of the three hours as I was there. The mother asked the nurse about that and she responded : she (the baby) has been through a lot. The delivery was uncomplicated although painful in a way that we men have no idea. Yet the nurse said :she has been through a lot. She came form the warm and dark environment, to one full of brilliant lights, cold and dry.
It is not surprising then that when in fear we seek darker places where we can find temporarily a modicum of the comfort and warmth we felt once for nine months. Or why we go to dark and quiet rooms with none or muted stimulus while having a bad headache?
This tension between dark and light, between inside and outside becomes part of the greater narrative of our lives. The problem is like Nicodemus, we think we need to go back inside the Mother’s womb to be born again, forgetting that such detour in the order of life really spells death. As we know, whomever does not cut the umbilical cord both physical and emotional can not become a full person. Jesus response to Nicodemus query, is to be born from up above. Not comfortable inside but from the challenging outside.
I was seeking some commentaries in blogosphere on the topic of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit and found the most bizarre thing. In youtube you can post your blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, responding to Mark 3 where Jesus said that whomever blaspheme against or denies the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. There is a even a website blasphemy.com or something like that. they are willing to give for free a movie The God Who Wasn't There to those who wish to damn themselves to the eternal flames, the email address is
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
I think is quite easy to take shots at the church nowadays, I wonder if they will be willing to take shots at more sensitive issues, like the Guantanamo prisoners or war in Iraq. But the fact remains that we in America are becoming increasingly polarized, there are more conservative Christians and there is sizable emerging group of atheists.
During the democratic primaries we have heard how easily is for each of the candidates to throw the kitchen sink at each other and play divisive cards hoping for resonance with the electorate.
Some Christian churches challenged in part by the perceived vitality of Islam, feel that they need to increase the markers or boundaries of their own identities by going deeper into their own roots and finding there older arguments to be used for new problems. I believe that the present conflict within Anglicanism which threatens us with schism between conservative biblically centered and social liberals is part of that process.
Dynamics of fear and hiding works for child play, for emerging xenophobia and racism, as the debate over illegal immigration and the Sean Bell shooting proves in a our city and nation. It worked for the church of the first century, meeting behind closed doors for fear of the Jewish authorities. It worked for our own church in the sixties. You wonder why so many churches have their doors closed except for Sundays? I believe, like in the 1rst century, the prevalence of such attitude is symptomatic of deeper issues.
Arnold Joseph Toynbee was a British historian who wrote not about a succession of historical events with their own interpretation but instead he wrote in 12 volumes a synthesis of world history, a metahistory based on universal rhythms of rise, flowering and decline, which examined history from a global perspective.
John’s Gospel in this way, differs from the other three Gospels in a similar sense. For John every aspect of the Jesus story has cosmic significance and is multi-layered in meaning. He begins his Gospel like majestic and liturgical Genesis 1, in the beginning was the Word..... He wrote this Gospel for an specific community, which was probably under siege by both the Synagogue and Roman authorities, fear all over, meeting behind close doors for fear..., a community that has gone back to a fake “womb” the dark closet of false security. He perhaps felt that the post-resurrection story of Jesus appearing to the disciples, going through heavy doors and thick walls, showing the holes in the hands and the dried blood of the side to the church battling doubts and fear will encourage to them to get out.
The passage is in a stark contrast with what Luke tells us in Acts of the apostles. Rather than inward looking, troubled by fear, part of the world, in the closet. The disciples were in this room in prayer, seeking not their own faltering strength, but looking for power from up above. Like in the Nicodemus story, not inside the womb, an impossibility, but seeking to be born from up above. And when the power came, it came like a mighty wind, like a fire engulfing all present, like the scream of a mother delivering her child and the Church was born. And the child learned to speak fast, because the Church was communicating with every pilgrim there in Jerusalem participating in the Festival of Harvest, celebrating the Spring harvest and the giving of the Law to Moses and coming from all the corners of the ancient world known to Jews. What a commotion! What a helluva! To the point that some thought the apostles and Mary were drunk, and Peter correctly inform them that it was still morning. The drinking took place later in the evening seems to be the corollary.
Today is Pentecost and Mother’s Day and rather than a preaching nightmare proved to me to be very exciting opportunity. Count Zinzendorf in the 1700's, founder of the pietist movement and of the Moravian Church of which he was a Bishop, is one of the first Christian theologians of renown to call the Holy Spirit simply “Mother”. For Zinzendorf, the main issue was not whether a metaphor was sexist, it was whether the metaphor clearly, concretely, and persuasively communicated the nature of God. For him, it was better for the believer to call the Spirit "Mother" than anything else because that word communicates something essential about the way in which the Holy Spirit deals with the children of God. In his own life, he found that he had difficult experiencing the reality of the Holy Spirit until he came upon this metaphor.
For Zinzendorf, the Christian community is modeled on the Holy Trinity, which is the original Gemeine (community) and the original Kirche (church). This model was tarnished by Adam and Eve but has been restored by Jesus Christ and is marked by intimacy with one another and with God. All Christians are in the family of God. "Therefore nothing is better [than] to live in the family of our Husband, his Father, and our dear Mother." Children who grow up in this family of God should no more be able to doubt the reality of their membership than children who grow up in an earthly household can doubt that they were born into the family.
The language of motherhood expresses the intimate connection the community of brothers and sisters felt with God through the Spirit. Each member of the community is a child who "sits on the Mother’s lap, is received into the school, and is led through all classes; then it is under the special dispensation, under the motherly regimen of the Holy Spirit, who comforts, punishes, and kisses the heart, as a mother comforts, punishes, and kisses her own child."
So after Zinzendorf I submitted that all these mothers, and I use the term in its wider meaning possible, are here modeling for us, whether physically or in our memories, the Mother from which we all were born from up above. So when we turn to them and say thank you, we not only thank them for the life they gave us, but we are also thanking the third person of the Holy Trinity who has given us rebirth in the Spirit.
Have our mothers completed the job of guiding us, comforting us and challenging us, the work continues in the hands of God, the Holy Spirit that like a mother guide us, comfort us and challenges us to be born again and to grow.
There is hope in this country, even though the we have seen the candidates throwing each other the kitchen sink, it appears that it had little effect on votes during the democratic primaries. It appears that democracy is gaining momentum and that new and younger voters are coming to participate in the political process. It appears that fear-mongering has not succeed totally in pushing all of us in the dark closet of false security.
Churches are learning to both open the physical and spiritual doors to embrace generations of “seekers” who wish to find meaning and purpose in their lives.
We have learned via 25 years of ministry among Hispanics that the bolted doors and thick walls of fear can be successfully overcome if we count with the encouragement and power of the Spirit: Our Mother.
When I was a child and I was hiding in my dark closet and I got scared I was desperate to be found, and often I will stick my leg out so my sister will find me.
God always will find you, no matter how dark and scary the place you find yourself and as Mother she will fight for you, protecting, scolding you, guiding you, teaching you in the ways of truth.
|
