Gifts for Our World
Reflections on John 14:8-17
Happy Pentecost! These Church feast days are becoming even better as I get older, a joyous enactment of hope by us in Christ’s body, the Church. Pentecost with its rushing stormy winds, flames of fire, and the Advocate’s appearance is one of my favorites. And then all the flame-y clothes! It’s a multi-sensory experience! Just wait until we all taste the cake, I mean, the wafers and the wine.
I’m just returning from a week of continuing education, and this week has been full of new ideas and visions, new ways of thinking, learning, and seeing. This week, in a conversation about Elon Musk, I learned about a book written in 2015 by Yuval Noah Harari called Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. In it Harari tells the story of the history of humanity from its beginnings until now, when we developed the ability to speak and to develop collective belief, which has, argues Harari, enabled homo sapiens to achieve things no creature has done before. Think about cities, culture, medicine, all of the good that’s happened. Yet for Harari, this is just the beginning. Harari argues for humanism, a form of religion that worships humankind instead of God. Is this starting to sound a little funny to you too? Harari then imagines and then describes the homo Deus, the “human god” whose algorithms and data give the human an edge that ultimately consumes humanity. His book ends with a question, “What will happen to society, politics, and daily life when non-conscious highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves?”
I had a moment as my friend told me this story. I was completely horrified and I saw clearly for a moment the logic of Elon and Jeff and the others underlays our time and place. And then, because I’m a priest and I really like Bible stories, I thought about the Tower of Babel. Against Harari’s logic, the Tower of Babel tells us that being like God is no kind of good thing, either then or now. “Making a name for ourselves with a tower in the heavens” does not make us better or brighter or more able to withstand the pressures of our time and place, or our griefs or struggles.
I’ve studied about how Pentecost is when those languages and peoples scattered during the Tower of Babel incident are brought together again, as the people and languages were again united on the Day of Pentecost. I’ve always read this story in this way. “The confusion of languages” was the consequence, the punishment for being like God. But Harari’s ideas made me wonder about the “confusion.” It seem that the “confusion” could also have been a gift. It made the builders stop their building and slow down; it’s impossible to continue building when you can’t understand one another. And I don’t know about you, but slowing down helps me be more human. It helps us so that we can love more, see more, listen better, so that we can better become the people that God is calling us to be, full of heart and habits that give grace not only to ourselves but also to others, with eyes that see not only what is on the surface, but what is happening even under the surface.
When we have these gifts, we easily remember that we are not God and we have no desire to be God. We know our place in the world of things.
God’s ways are a wee bit different than the tech bros, bless their hearts. Spirit isn’t just poured out only on the smart, able, handsome, efficient, wise, athletically inclined, tall, white, beautiful, or genetically modified perfect people. Nope. Spirit is more mischievous and way more trickster than that! It’s poured out on all people, not just the most powerful — those with money and influence — but the enslaved, the women of color, daughters, all people, those with disabilities, those with mental health challenges, those who move slower, the old men and women, the children whose habits aren’t convenient, the LBGTQ+ community, those who society puts down, the immigrants, those that we don’t see because we can’t, all of us, on all of humanity. God’s Spirit is poured out on all of us.
And today, this Pentecost, we are invited. We’re invited to step again into the stream of Spirit. We’re invited to slow down. We’re invited to pay attention to the small things, to listen deeply, to love, and to be more human, comfortable and even to embrace our weaknesses and our liabilities.
This past week, I heard 17 presentations from my fellow DMin’ers. Each one told a story of slowing down, noticing, paying attention. There were presentations about bees, the Great Lakes, our yet to be realized prairie, Iona, blue jays, mushrooms, pandas, wolves, even weeds.
Yet it’s hard for me to hear the bees when I’m wearing AirPods. It's hard to see the beauty in our fellow humans when I’m too busy. I can’t hear the crickets or birdsong when I’m driving. It’s hard to remember and notice and see and wonder at how God has gifted all of us with the Spirit’s gifts when I’m scrolling on my phone. If my humanity is one of the greatest gifts to the world, could it be that stopping and noticing not only heals me, but also everyone around me, and even the world?
And I wonder this Pentecost, in our Acts passage, which is the miracle? I’ve always thought it was in the stormy wind, the tongues of fire, the spirit speaking in other languages where God was acting; I still think that’s true. But there is more. There is always more when trickster Spirit is involved. What if the miracle was that on the Day of Pentecost, everyone was listening? What if the miracle is that the humans in Jerusalem that day were quiet enough to hear the rushing wind, to hear Peter’s sermon, so that they could recognize God’s action?
God’s Spirit comes, and with it comes the power of speaking, but also, and more importantly in this time and place the power of listening. This isn’t a Spirit of homo Deus, of making a name for ourselves, or of Empire. This is the gracious Spirit who gives us eyes and ears to pay attention and so much laughter and joy. This a mischievous Spirit that gives us, as our service of baptism reminds us, an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and love God, the gift of joy, and the wonder in all of God’s world — these are the gifts of the Spirit, the gifts that God gives the church (308, bcp).
These gifts are not just for us, although they do make church way more fun and interesting. I see y’all. I see how much we love to be together, how much fun we have. We’ve got the appetizer potluck coming up today at Huff Park. It’s going to be, as my mom used to say, a hoot.
The last time I saw the Milky Way, I was at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. It was a dark night as the moon was rising later and later each night. It was cold and clear. So many had never seen it before. So many had lived in cities, never experienced the wonder of seeing the stars like the sand on the shore of Lake Michigan, never seen the wonder of expanse of the sky, the Pledies, of this part of God’s manifold works. It wasn’t obvious at first. You had to turn off the light on your phone and put it away. You had to let your eyes adjust. You had to enter into God’s time, and just be patient. But then. Oh the wonder!
Because, stopping and paying attention, slowing down, listening, these are some gifts y’all. And they are not only gifts just for us. These are gifts for the world, our world, the one that seems to be falling apart at the seams, but also the world for whom God gave Godself, the one where God eschewed efficiency and perfection and chose Incarnation instead!
What would happen if we really listened, like those first believers did on the day of Pentecost? What would happen if we slowed down and decided to be a little less efficient like they had to do at the Tower of Babel when everything fell apart? What would happen if we leaned into our humanity, embracing our imperfections and our gifts, allowed others to be themselves fully and wholly, and then paid attention, listened like they did to Peter’s sermon? I have no doubt that the world would change, just like we did.
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. Albert Einstein
The Rev. Molly Bosscher
Rector
St. Andrew's Episcopal Church
http://standrewsgr.org/
616.361.7887
931.308.4112 (mobile)
Pronouns: she, her, hers
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