When You See Things Moving

Holy Trinity Sunday

John 3:1-17

“What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the Spirit, is spirit.”  --Jesus, John 3:6

I turned on the fan.   The blades quickly spun to life, pushing the air forward.  The four children’s hair fluttered in the breeze.  The altar candles flickered.  I was afraid they might blow out, but they didn’t.

“Can you see the wind?”  I asked the children arranged in a tight row on the chancel step for the children’s sermon.. 

“No.”  The littlest one said.  He was the only one brave enough to speak. The rest shook their heads in agreement. 

“Then how do you know it is there?” 

A puzzlement. 

“When you are outside, how do you know it is windy?”  I tried again.

“The trees move.”  Said the littlest one. 

Jesus was trying to explain the movements of the Holy Spirit to Nicodemus, who had come to him in the night with questions.  Deep questions.  “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”  Jesus said,  “So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

“How can these things be?”  Nicodemus asked. 

A puzzlement.

“So,” I said to the kids sitting on the step, “How do you know when the Holy Spirit is blowing?” 

Blank stares.

I rephrased the question.  “How do you know when God is at work in the world?” 

Suddenly, a spark lit in the oldest one’s face.  “When you see things moving.”

I smiled.  “Yes.  When you see things moving.”

Like the wind, the Spirit of God is unpredictable.  Like a breath, the Spirit of God gives life and daily we are born again from above.  Day after day, the Spirit animates our flesh, blowing within us and around us and through us.  If you dare to look,  you can see the Wind of God moving things in the world.

Can you hear the Spirit’s love and forgiveness rustling lives like leaves?

Can you see the Spirit flickering flames of compassion and justice?

Can you feel the Spirit’s mothering touch upon your face?

Where do YOU see things moving?  Look closely.  Likely, you will find God there.

I see signs of the Creator’s love for the world everywhere.  Born on a cross.  Born from an empty tomb.  Born on Pentecost.  Born in the community of faith.  Born in the world around us.  For you.  For me.  For everyone.

Peace,

Bishop Mike Girlinghouse

Unity is Not Uniformity

And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.
 –John 17:11

Yesterday, I drove from Tulsa to Lindsborg, KS for the Bethany College board meeting. Even in that short drive (just over 250 miles) I was struck by the amazing diversity of the topography. My journey from Tulsa, which is hilly and wooded, across Keystone Lake, out across the cattle dotted grasslands of north central Oklahoma, through urban Wichita and into the greening fields of central Kansas was a study in diversity. God loves diversity. Genesis teaches us that God created the world that way on purpose. Even a one foot square piece of my back yard reflects the diversity of God’s Creation! Environmental scientists teach us that bio-diversity is necessary for a healthy eco-system. Homogeneity in an ecosystem leads to the deterioration of the system and ultimately, it’s death.

God created the human family amazingly diverse as well. And yet, while the rest of the Creation seems to favor diversity, we humans all too often seem to fear it. Consciously and unconsciously we are suspicious of that which is different and these suspicions negatively impact our behavior toward and attitudes about one another. How often in today’s world do we see one group actively trying to vilify, demonize and ostracize those who are different? Sometimes these behaviors are so subtle, we are hardly aware we are participating in them! For example, churches, even those like the ELCA which strives to embrace diversity, all too often continue to gather in homogenous gatherings of the similar. There is truth to the statement that, in the United States, Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the whole week. Why is that?

In John 17, Jesus prays that his disciples might be one. But, this is not a call to homogenous uniformity. Instead, it is a prayer for solidarity in the face of the challenges they will face as they answer Christ’s call to go into the world to continue his work of proclaiming and embodying the love of God for the whole world. In his ministry, Jesus embraced a wide diversity of people in that love and commands us to do the same. The call is not to make others like us, but to see Christ in their faces as we walk with them. Jesus is praying that we might be deeply rooted in the power of God’s love which was extended to us and to the whole world through the cross, even as we are sent out in love to a diverse world riddled and ruptured daily by fear, violence, and death.

God created a diverse world. Jesus invites us to join him in sharing God’s love for that world, and in so doing, learn in a deeper way, God’s love for us in Jesus Christ.

--Bp. Mike Girlinghouse

The Language of Pentecost

Pentecost Sunday

Acts 2:1-21

All of [the apostles] were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.  -- Acts 2:4

Many years ago, as I worshiped with a congregation in a small community in Guatemala, I experienced a taste of the miracle of Pentecost.  This was a Mayan community, located in the jungle on the side of a mountain.  The community was very poor.  Their church building had been wounded by an earthquake.  A huge crack, a foot wide, ran from one side of the sanctuary to the other.  The people worked hard to raise the corn that barely fed their families.  They only had water a few hours a day.  That is,  when they could afford the gasoline to pump it from beneath the mountain.   I have rarely met a people with more faith. 

Though the worship service was in Spanish and Mayan, I knew exactly what was happening.  The familiar pattern of the ancient liturgy overcame the unfamiliarity of the language and culture.   Following the sermon and the hymn, the minister called the people to prayer.   That’s when it happened.  Like the rush of a mighty wind, the Spirit descended upon the small gathering.  Everyone, from the youngest to the eldest, started praying.  Out loud.  I was swept up in the holy sound filling the broken church.  I listened for a moment.  Though I didn’t understand the language, I understood the prayer.  There were prayers for health and healing, prayers of mourning and grief, prayers of rejoicing and thanksgiving, prayers of joy and sorrow.  I found myself joining my voice, my prayers, to theirs, tears in my eyes.  For all our differences, we were one people of God, joined as one in the mystery and the promise of Jesus Christ.

Pentecost reminds us that God is bigger than we are.  God, our Creator, is bigger than our individual lives, bigger than our congregations, denominations or churches.  God is bigger than any nation, language or culture.  God transcends all human pettiness, bickering and conflict.  God is bigger than life and more powerful than death.  This is the God that Jesus embodied.  This is the God to whom the cross and resurrection bear witness.  This is the God that the Spirit reveals.   This is the God that I encountered among my brothers and sisters in Guatemala.  This is the God  in whom I imperfectly place my trust and my very life every day, confident that all God’s promises to me are perfectly true.

Peace,

Bishop Mike Girlinghouse