Fragments of a translated Pentecost sermon and the mother tongue of resurrection values

This morning in Ferney three young people finished their catechism, two asked for confirmation, one has decided to wait for a while before asking for baptism in a few years time. Each of them chose Bible passages and confessed their faith. It was a good service and the sun shone for drinks in the garden afterwards. Over 14 years ago I baptised the two young women who confirmed, both come from mixed confessional and national backgrounds. Together with Bernard Millet the pastor, we led the service and presided at communion. I preached, as this is probably my last year helping with KT. The sermon was in French of course, what follows is a rather imperfect version in English. Dr B's comment was - you have become very French using your hands alot! He was also gracious enough to say that he thought it was a good sermon. Perhaps I was using my hands more because today I preached from notes rather than from a text, so I was rather freer. Strange, although I've advised at least two people to do this themselves in recent months, I don't always feel at home with it myself - but perhaps I feel more at home with it in French than in English.

Texts
Joel2:28-29 (interestingly this is chapter 3 in the French Bibles!)
²⁸ Then afterwards
I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
²⁹ Even on the male and female slaves,
in those days, I will pour out my spirit.

Galations 5:22-26
22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. ²⁴And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. ²⁶Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.

Today its my feast day - and I know you all thought it was your party - Pentecost after all is the feast of translators and interpreters! Or perhaps it's actually the day the Holy Spirit makes all of us translators unemployed, after all that first Pentecost sermon was heard by everyone in their own language without any need for booths and headphones. So perhaps I should preach this morning en anglais, oder auf deutsch or maybe in a language like Arabic or Spanish that I don't speak at all and trust that everyone including me would be able to understand.
But I suspect we'd all be saying, along with our opening reading "what is the meaning of all this?"

Hmm what is the meaning of all this? What is Pentecost? It's a moving and turbulent story of hearts being touched with energy and understanding in the same way that those present were also touched by flames of fire. Pentecost is the grand finale of Easter and marks the end of the 50 days of Easter, the Spirit comes to breathe and embed the values of the resurrection into the lives of the first disciples, to breathe renewal and warmth and also to comfort and remind them of the true values of the resurrection.

One way of putting it is that the Spirit teaches them - and us - the mother tongue of gospel resurrection values. We read about those values in Paul's letter to the Galations : the gifts of the Spirit are love, peace, faithfulness, goodness, self control ...
When Christ rises from the dead he brings those values of the resurrection back with him from the grave - he doesn't come back saying to those who have tortured and crucified him "I'm going to get you". He doesn't seek to find those who did him such evil and nail them to a cross, nor does he ask his friends to do that for him. He comes across locked doors and says"peace be with you" he also says "receive the Holy Spirit".
These are the resurrection values the Spirit breathes into our lives, hoping that they will take root in us and guide our witness to the Risen One.
Two weeks ago I had just come back from Jamaica, despite rumours to the contrary I wasn't there on holiday, my employer the World Council of Churches organised an international meeting about peace, there were over a 1000 people from more than 100 countries for the meeting which had teh rather long name of International Ecumenical Peace Convocation - and you can imagine we certainly needed the interpretation booths there! People came together to discuss "just peace" - that might seem a strange sort of idea but even this week I've heard the idea of "just violence" being used by Hilary Clinton, saying violence against a "guilty" member of Al Quaida was justified. So much in our world justifies violence, makes it acceptable to us, yet Jesus' resurrection values are different - peace be with you he says.

If there was just one story to bring back from the Peace convocation it would be the story of the ordinary women in Liberia which we learned about through a film. These women helped through their concerted and long term prayer and action for peace to completely transform their country in Africa which had been suffering from a desperate and totally devastating civil war and dictatorship - men and boys caught up in war, forced to fight, women and children brutalised and raped. Their song was "We want peace now. Liberia is our home", their only arms white tshirts, creativity and tenacity. Praying across the Christian confessions, taking the prayer for peace to the Mosques and out onto the streets. Demonstrating next to the road where they knew the dictator would pass by, and not giving up.
The resurrection values of peace are not gained quickly or easily, but in place of a culture of totally acceptable violence these women, sang out and prayed out and went onto the streets for different values. We want peace now. Things are far from perfect in Liberia today, it remains a desperately poor country, but the absence of war has completely transformed the lives of all and left space for democracy and a different future. The women in Liberia dreamt and they acted upon their dream, the values of peace can become our mother tongue even in a war torn country.

The prophet Joel promises that young and old together will have dreams and visions, the servants and not just the ruling class. The Spirit is promised and shared out upon all. The resurrection values of peace, joy, faithfulness and love are not just for one generation but to be shared down the ages and across the ages. The Spirit of Pentecost pours into our hearts the mother tongue of understanding those values of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. It tries to put those other words on our lips, encourage our hands to other actions.
After Pentecost the church year moves into what it calls "ordinary" time - the Sundays often just have the word Pentecost and then a number after them. Today we can celebrate with the three of you who end your catechism this year, who confess your faith and ask for confirmation. You too will move into "ordinary" time - even though we will not see you at KT any longer we certainly hope to go on seeing you at church.
Somehow although it's not always easy to get out of bed on a Saturday morning we have managed to learn from one another and transmit some of these values of the resurrection to one another. It's not always easy across the generations to feel we speak the same language yet somehow across time Jesus' Holy Spirit has been whispering resurrection values in our hearts, teaching us to speak the language of peace and faithfulness, of joy and self control, of compassion and generosity.
On this last day of Easter let us celebrate our commitment to being transformed by the Spirit-given mother tongue of the values of the resurrection, and let's do that by saying together Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! but in another language, in Greek - as this is a tradtion which has come to us ecumenically from the Orthodox churches:
Christos Anesti
Alithos Anesti
Christos Anesti
Alithos Anesti
Christos Anesti
Alithos Anesti
May we all learn to speak the Gospel mother tongue of resurrection values - peace joy faithfulness compassion self control
Amen

The tempest of the Spirit invites us to the feast of communication

This morning Dr B preached and rather good it was too. He developed the theme of Pentecost as an ecumenical feast of communication.

God's Spirit breaks down the barriers between nations, the barriers of culture, and the barriers of language. Being drawn together, being one, does not mean being identical. It means transcending the barriers that separate us, holding together our diversity in the power of the "breath of God's voice". This is a pronounced and profound experience of communication.

The service also included an absolutely inspired and spirited reading of Acts 2 by our colleague Segma Asfaw from Ethiopia who read in English, French and Amharic. It was deeply moving.

The idea for Stephen preaching had only come about over supper last week as I said there was still no preacher for Pentecost week. "I'll do it" he said. He was lively, convincing and good. He also uses his hands in a very French sort of way these days.

God's Ruach is not something supernatural or immaterial but is "a tempest, a storm, a force in body and soul, humanity and nature". Ruach, says Moltmann, is the "breath of God's voice". (1) So, Pentecost is about communication of all the senses. It is this breath of God's voice that enables God's deeds of power to be heard by each in their own language. Pentecost is the great feast of communication.

You will note that Dr B's sermons have something that mine do not, namely footnotes. I've always accused him of being the real theologian in the household. I'm just the pastor. Anyway it was good for me to listen to him being passionate about faith and a biblical text. I realised that I hadn't heard him preach for about 27 years - Emmanuel URC Cambridge was the last time I think, scene of us meeting over coffee. Meanwhile he's had to sit through countless sermons of mine in three languages. Last time he preached in Geneva I was travelling to Brazil.

Anyway here's a final taste from this morning, you can find the full text here and the liturgy here.

Communication is also to communicate, to share together in the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper, united in the oikoumene in space and in time, transcending the divisions of the world. Here we are called together by the love that unites that which has been divided. At this meal, even the inadequate disciples are accepted. This is the meal of the suffering Lord who is in solidarity with the oppressed, and the meal of the one who has risen, who sends us to renewed action (4). Yet it is also here, that our own divisions in the oikoumene become most apparent and most painful. Our communication together at the Lord's Supper is incomplete, is only a partial sign of the unity to which the breath of God's voice has called us.

Pentecost as translation Sunday

In bed with my early morning cup of tea I listened to a brilliant "something Understood" all about Pentecost as the celebration and festival of translation. You can listen to it again here, it includes an excellent interview with biblical translator father Nicholas King - who says how he sweated blood translating parts of Romans - and concentrates on one verse from Romans 5 in reply to what is the most difficult or impossible part of the Bible to translate.
There's a great reading from an essay by A.S Byatt praising the translators of her work as her most attentive readers. The programme also includes an interview with soemone who has moved to Britain and suggests that her "I" who speaks English is a subtley different "I" from the one who speaks her mother tongue. This is a bit what I feel like with French - and I know how this goes backwards and forwards too - French abstract thinking "infects" the way I preach and think in English.
I think my favourite part of the programme was Jamaican poet Kei Miller's brilliant reading of his poem Speaking in Tongues which you can also hear on the poetry archive. I loved the line "What is language but a sound we christen" and the ending which goes "Each poem is waiting on its own day of Pentecost .... hoping this finally is the language of God and that he might hear it and respond"

Pentecost roses and the Holy Spirit as a girl who can't say no

Peonies are called Pentecost roses - Pfingstrosen - in German. This is their time of year in Europe - even if Pentecost is a very moveable feast. They are one of my favourite flowers - those pictured here are some rather girly pink ones, blousey and over blown but still glorious and perfumed. The petals gradually drifted down onto the table, perfect Holy Spirit roses.

I've been having my usual semi heretical theological thoughts about the Holy Spirit at this time of year - in my second year of ministry in the north of France I famously preached on "La Sainte Esprit" and the congregation were not sure until half way through the sermon whether my French was having a seriously off day or quite what I was up to. Pentecost surely has to be the time for surprises, joy and transformation, and in my book a bit of fun too.
My heretical thoughts this year are partly generated by the retirement party of a good friend this week. Yvette will be much missed on the worship committee of the ecumenical centre and many other aspects of the centre's life (we even wrote her a special psalm). She's simply a wonderful person who gets things done.

Thinking about how to say thank you to you Yvette on behalf of the worship committee a line from a song came into my mind. Not a holy song from Thuma Mina or Agape or any other hymnbook but a rather saucy ditty from Rogers and Hammerstein’s musical Oklahoma which starts “I’m just a girl who can’t say no …”
I suppose I thought of that because for the handful of us still left on the worship committee you have been the person who says yes, often even before the question has been asked.
...
In my heretical way, I suspect that God’s energetic, creative, comforting, gentle, challenging, spirited Ruach is actually also in part “just a girl who can’t say no…”

So I've been thinking about the Spirit as the naughty girl of the Trinity the one who doesn't say no - I am sure of course that this is not at all appropriate for the serious theologian that I am not. I think what I like about the idea is that it puts something of the playfulness of the Spirit back into the personality of God. It also puts something of the idea of trangressing boundaries, pushing against norms and calling to a very different way of being.

Tomorrow morning I shall lead worship here in Ferney as four of our young people ask to be confirmed. They have chosen Bible passages and written confessions of faith that are personal and hearltfelt, something of the Spirit of Christ has touched them, my hope is that the same spirit may continue to help each of them say yes to life and faith as they move through life.

Googling "I'm just a girl who can't say no" I came across not only a load of Youtube renditions of the song but also some interesting academic articles on women and obedience, women and saying yes and no

These results are discussed in terms of their implications for reassessing the role of refusals to resolve some of the contradictions around expectations of obedience and assertiveness, while recognizing the interests which benefit from keeping girls and women obedient.

So does the naughty girl Spirit encourage us to be obedient or assertive? Which form of repentance and conversion does the Spirit encourage in you in your context today - resistance or submission? (Interesting that the French title of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers is Résistance et soumission - resistance and submission)
So as I pray "come Holy Spirit" I shall pray for a greater spirit of resistance for those who are too obedient and that the great Ruach may grant all of us discernment about what we are to say yes and no to in life.

Jean-Jacques Bauswein's 65th birthday

The Stranzblog is currently on holiday somewhere in the Jura near Champagnole to mark our friend Jean Jacques Bauswein's 65th birthday. It's a wonderful fun weekend with extraordinary cultural and not so cultural discoveries. We bought delicious home-made jam from two women who have set up a small cooperative selling fruit and aromatic plant products, grown either in their gardens or collected from the surrounding countryside. We visited Emmanuel Jobez' Villa Palladian in Syam, and St Claude's Pipe museum. We took the "train des hirondelles", relaxed, got to know others in the group, ate great food and then heard the answers to the quiz we were all supposed to have taken part in beforehand. Stranz/Brown incorportated got "nul points", but still got a prize. I have enough problems understanding cryptic clues in English let alone French.
There is no internet connection where we are staying so you are spared daily updates on our activities. This morning we got up early as I had to interrupt celebrations to lead worship for Pentecost in Ferney as several of our young people got confirmed this morning. It was powerful and moving to hear them confessing their faith, my colleague Bernard preached very well on the Emmaus Road text and afterwards we gathered for drinks and photos garden. I caught up with lots and lots of news from people I hadn't seen for many years, happy and sad stories vivified by the Spirit.
Meanwhile Dr B has been covering the big service to mark Calvin's 500th birthday from the Cathedral in Geneva. It was broadcast on Eurovision this morning. Must see if I can download it or watch it.
In a moment we will head back to the mountains for some wine-tasting before a festival meal at which Dr B will for the first time in his life wear a DJ and bow tie - yes this party even has a dress code. More when we're back and recovered from wine-tasting and assorted festivities. Photos will follow.

The cosmic Spirit of God - a sermon by Rogate Mshana

On Tuesday morning my colleague Rogate Mshana who heads the WCC's economic justice work preached a wonderful Pentecost sermon on the cosmic ever-present Spirit. In the written version there are unfortunately fewer of his wonderful jokes and asides - laughter and humour being a gift of the Spirit too perhaps. Just a reminder that reading a sermon can never replace the live experience (I know, I know just a pastor's attempt to get folk to go to church!)

Anyway here are some extracts from Rogate's passionate Pentecost preaching:

"I believe that women understand better than men the power of the Holy Spirit, because they are in themselves an embodiment of God’s Creation, from whom by the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus was born. When my non-Christian neighbour milks a cow early in the morning she always places the first drops of milk into her mouth and then spits this into the sky in the four directions - North, South, East and West - to thank the Spirit or the creator for the blessing of life that she finds in the milk. I call this the Cosmic Spirit."

"This is the same Spirit which prompts an Indian woman to apologize to the tree for taking a lemon fruit during the night because guests have come and the tree is expected to sleep without disturbance. Or when my mother prays after planting beans to ask for the creative germinating power from God. I call this the Spirit of all living things. It is the same Spirit which prompts women in the Amazon to embrace trees and the Cochabamba people struggling against privatization of water to engage in active non-violent resistance. I call this the Spirit of respecting common goods. It is the same spirit that leads Bishop Desmond Tutu to initiate the Peace and Reconciliation Commission as a solution to the legacy of apartheid. This I call the Spirit of Reconciliation."