Spirits
This morning we join with members of St Luke’s Tramping Group to celebrate its 50th, golden, anniversary. I enjoyed reading Allan Davidson’s account of their history – with many photos and memories. The genesis of the group was that Marie and Malcolm Thomas had booked to hike what we now call a Great Walk and, to get fit, planned to go walking after the Sunday church service. They invited others to join them, which they did. In time this led to annual camps. Right from early on the group attracted both members of St Luke’s and those who didn’t have that affiliation. Allan’s account underlines both the engagement with the outdoors – particularly the wild places and the bush – and the engagement with one another – the fellowship, friendship, and fun. Those two holy spirits (connection with nature, camaraderie with others) combine to make this group what it is.
The poem ‘Storage’ by Mary Oliver is our first reading today. It begins in the world of things and possessions. And moving house. Sorting. Knowing there are things we should throw out, but don’t. So, in Mary’s case, she rents a storage space. Which I suppose is better than living cluttered, and not feeling the space in your new home has room. Room for the soul. Many of us in New Zealand use our garages rather than rent storage space. Cars live in the driveway.
Accumulation is an ailment all too common. Some, of course, find great comfort in it, surrounded by the memories that things evoke. Some possessions have been acquired for all the right reasons – the needs of the household, including our need to have at least a few things of beauty that give us pleasure. But some possessions outlive our needs, just hang around, even weigh us down.
We understand the sentiments in Mary’s last stanza of taking off, even burning(!),this burden of things. In order to find more freedom. More room for the heart. Yet living with possessions, the good and the bad of it, is our modern lot, and divest as we may, our souls still have to find ways to cope with the little or loads that are left.
Leaving it all behind, shutting the door on it, putting on the hiking boots, and heading out, even for a few hours, is a time-honoured, religion-honoured, way of coping with accumulation. The word ‘retreat’ seems apt. Though sitting in freezing abbey and trying to pray is not of course what I had in mind. Rather going and connecting with that great abbey of God called the outdoors.
It’s about taking what you need, limited by the fact that you’ll have to carry it. Taking your need for quiet from the voices of demand and the traffic of modern devices. Taking your need for the sounds of bush and streams and wind and rain, and the smells of the same. Going with a friend or friends for company, for safety. Going where there’s space to walk alone, or in silent togetherness, or with companionable talk. Going for the sake of your body and soul.
There are other ways of dealing with, living with, possessions and their demands. But walking out is a good one. Even better is walking out, as many have done, with a pack on the back for a few days or more. I sometimes think such multi-day hikes are a spiritual exercise reminding us how few things we actually need to live an enjoyable life.
Then there is the realization, once we’re out there, of this great natural world and all its beauty, and that we are part of it, connected to it, entangled in it. And gratitude arises. And so does our sense of responsibility towards it. Human activity is the greatest threat to the natural world, and a different type of human activity – what we once called ‘conservation’ - is one of the best pathways towards ensuring its survival.
So, to members of St Luke’s Tramping, thank you for continuing this great tradition, spiritual habit, of monthly walks and annual camps, for 50 years. These activities have nurtured the bodies and souls of many members of this congregation, and numerous others. Thank you too to those over the years, and still today, who offer leadership and commitment to the many tasks of making it all happen.
When planning the service I asked Allan whether there was a hymn that befitted the occasion. He was hard pressed on that one. However he did find this jolly Scottish rambling song that I hope you will enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMFwpFfh9Zg
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The book we know as the Acts of the Apostles has, in the last two decades, been re-dated as early second century CE. It was crafted to support a thesis that the good news of Jesus, beginning in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, spread throughout the whole known world in an orderly fashion, led by male apostles, and accountable to a council in Jerusalem. That thesis created a myth of unity and order. Whereas other documents, like the letters of Paul written 50+ years earlier, point to a more spontaneous and anarchic development of Jesus groups, with male and female apostles, who did not all think or act the same.
Nowadays scholars tell us the followers of Jesus never all thought and acted the same. There never was an original unity in the movements.
Similarly, the idea that Jesus, after suffering a slave’s death of crucifixion, walked the earth in a new body for 40 days, then ascended into the clouds, before 10 days later descending on 120 followers as spirited fire and wind, is part of that myth making. John’s gospel, for alternative example, has the new revivified body of Jesus breathing out that spirit upon the frightened followers – no waiting for 50 days, and no fire and no wind. John too is an early second-century creation, and is also into myth-making. But a different myth than the book of Acts.
The earliest gospels we have, Mark and Thomas, have none of this timeline, a body ascending, or a spirit descending. Mark ends with the fear of violence and the absence of Jesus’ body. Thomas is a sayings gospel like Proverbs, and it didn’t make the canonical cut to be included in our bibles.
So, my first point being, Pentecost was and always is about myth and imagery. The history, the little that might be gleamed, is that Jesus followers in fear, grief, and confusion ‘ran away,’ and then – probably over some years – came together, formed communities, re-membered Jesus together, felt his ‘presence’/his‘ spirit’ with them, and revisited events in the light of their Hebrew scriptures. They were resurrected, restored, re-energized. The movement was brought back to life. And Jesus’ spirit, also known as the Holy Spirit, was thought of as an animator, a memory aid, a comforter, and a spur to action.
Another part of the Acts of the Apostles myth-making, not quite as pictorial as flames of fire, was the depiction of the first Jesus group or community in Jerusalem. This is found in chapter 2:43-47. In this passage the believers were said to be communitarian: ‘having all things in common’ and ‘selling their possessions and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.’
While scholars of this book point out that other Jesus groups had other social practices and policies, and the communitarianism portrayed in this text may not have a historical basis, there is no escaping that the mythic ideal that the author was creating was one of firstly being ‘unhitched’ from the desire to accumulate possessions, and secondly being committed to prioritizing the one’s most in need (whether part of your biological family, or class, or race, or not).
This was very counter-cultural – then and now. In terms of spirituality such are orientation was seen as transcending desire and freeing the members of that community from the grind of their individual need. As Mary Oliver says, like with birds, when we own nothing, we can fly. Such freedom though, like with owning nothing, is difficult to attain and then maintain.
So, my second point, is that, as did the author of Acts, we need to make myths, ideals, about what community and societal life should be like. Rather than simply accept the rules and norms of our nation, often rules and norms that explicitly or implicitly benefit the most powerful, we need to envision what a common good would look like, a common good that leaves no one behind, and how we would attain it and then maintain it. It is to such an ideal that the spirit of Pentecost calls us.
The Holy Spirit, following the Hebrew tradition, was often figured as a bird. In Genesis 1:2 God's spirit (ruach) is described as hovering over the waters awaiting the beginning of life, and this is often understood in the Talmud as a dove hovering. In the Noah story it is a dove that is sent forth and returns with an olive branch, symbolizing the peace of a new covenanted relationship between God and humanity. It is probable that the gospel writers took this dove imagery of new beginnings and applied it to the baptism of Jesus. The message there being that Jesus was this new beginning, new covenant, between God and humanity.
The writers of the Talmud though did not restrict the spirit to just one type of bird. Deuteronomy 32:11 likens God’s nurturing care to a mother eagle tending her young. Then in the Elijah saga there are ravens that provide him with food. And, fun fact, there is a reference to an ostrich in Job 39:13, with a very contemporary message, namely finding joy in accepting yourself as you are, with all your limitations (like not being able to fly!).
My third and last point is that, in thinking about spirit, I invite you to, like our ancestors did, consider the birds. Today I have, in the PowerPoint slides shown a stylized Celtic wild goose, then, from Aotearoa a kotuku, a kākā, a welcome swallow – warou, pied stilts - poaka and bar-tailed godwit – kuaka, a tui, a NZ falcon/karearea, a kea, a tomtit/miromiro, and lastly another kea. Birds offer us a picture of grace, the grandeur of their flight, the joy of their song. They offer us beauty, not least in the intricacy of their feathers. They have the ability to be part of our everyday. Birds also offer to us ways of going about the planet that are different to ours, and creating joy in us as they do.
All these attributes – grace, beauty, connection, perspective – make them the obvious image for spirit.
Talking of perspective. You may wonder why there are lecterns in some churches shaped like an eagle. Well, it has got nothing to do with the Roman or American empires! The eagle is a symbol of St John. It is a symbol about vision, seeing a long way, getting a new and long-range perspective. Also an attribute of holy spirit.
