The sermon today is about containing the flames. Recognizing limits. Respecting boundaries. Without recognizing limits, respecting boundaries and containing the impulse energy, we have problems. Even big ones.
Wildfires are already burning out of control in Western Canada this year (Tait et al., 2024). Hopefully the upcoming wildfire season won’t be as bad as last year’s, when a record eighteen and a half million hectares went up in flames—an area twice the size of Portugal—shattering the previous annual record almost three times over (Milman, 2023). The signs aren’t good. Even locally. I don’t recall ever having a fire ban in effect already at the end of March, as we had early this Spring in the Ottawa Valley.
In the Gospel for today, Pentecost Sunday, Jesus announces limits that we would do well to acknowledge. “I still have many things to say to you,” he tells his disciples. “But you cannot bear them now” (John 15:12). To curb our insatiable desire to know it all now. The limits of knowing everything. The limits of our capacity to understand the whole truth all at once. Can we live with that? Can we live positively in that state of constant unknowing?
What Jesus points to in this Holy Spirit season of the church is our transformation, our growth in the Spirit. And this transformation is not a one-time-event that happens on the surface of things. It is an ongoing process, a deepening journey regardless of our age and life experience. We never stop learning. We never stop realizing that we don’t know it all.
One of my favourite activities year-round but in the summer I can take it outside, is lighting a small flame. Inside, it’s candles. Outside, it’s in a fire pit. But fire pits have a circle of stones or a steel wheel drum encasing, encircling and holding the otherwise dangerous fire.
The shape of the container is important. Most candles and campfires are round. The fire of passion, of love, of deep feeling is contained in the circle. The circular container describes anything we can see in its wholeness and three-dimensional depth, slowly coming into focus. (McGilchrist, 2019, p. 447). How so?
I’ve never thought about it this way, but circular motion actually brings together opposite points. Perpetually. Difference is not something to avoid or deny in striving for unity, for harmony. The unity, the oneness, of which Jesus prayed for his disciples in the Gospel last week (John 17: 11), is not a melting pot where distinctions are suppressed or erased. The truth is quite the opposite.
Two wildflowers growing at this time of year illustrate the value of difference. Canada Goldenrod and New England Aster grow together. Especially when the soil is damp enough, neither normally grows alone in the fields (W. Kimmerer, 2015, p. 40). The gold of goldenrod and the deep royal purple of aster, together. According to botanist, scientist and writer Robin Wall Kimmerer, each by itself is a “botanical superlative” (p. 41). Together, however, the visual effect is stunning. Purple and gold.
Why do they stand beside each other when they could grow alone? A random event that just happens to be beautiful? But Einstein himself, the consummate scientist, said that “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.”
According to the colour wheel, of course, purple and gold are complementary colours, as different in nature as could be. In an 1890 paper on colour perception, Goethe, who was both a scientist and poet, wrote that “the colors diametrically opposed to each other … are those which reciprocally evoke each other in the eye” (cited in W. Kimmerer, p.45).
So, why do goldenrod and asters grow together and not apart, alone? Because, in short, pollination.
Though bees perceive many flowers differently than humans do, due to their ability to perceive additional spectra such as ultraviolet radiation, it is not the case when it comes to goldenrods and asters. “As it turns out, golden rod and asters appear very similarly to bee eyes and human eyes … Their striking contrast when they grow together makes them the most attractive target in the whole meadow, a beacon for bees … Growing together, both receive more pollinator visits than they would if they were growing alone” (W. Kimmerer, p. 46).
To perceive contrast and difference, is better for the whole. In our growth, spiritually, we see the world more fully when we see both, when we recognize and value difference. Belonging to the circle, being one with another is a statement of faith that in our diversity we find unity. In our differences we grow and benefit not only ourselves but the whole world.
The church is not an exclusive country club for a select, elite few who are like minded and all look the same. The church is for all. The church realizes its true identity the more diverse it is, the more variety of people we encounter in the circle is a testimony to the truth of God’s design, God’s reign. It was true on that first day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-21). And it is true today.
The circle of our planet’s atmosphere protects us, on a large scale, from the sun’s fire. The northern lights, or the aurora borealis, are beautiful dancing ribbons of light that have captivated people for millennia. Some of you got up in the middle of the night last week to witness this cinematic atmospheric event in Canada. But for all its beauty, this spectacular light show is a rather violent event.
The northern lights are created when energized particles from the sun slam into Earth’s upper atmosphere at speeds of up to 72 million kilometres per hour. But our planet’s magnetic field protects us from the onslaught (Space.com).
We need containment, as humans, why? Because our love is not perfect. Our love fails time and time again. And we give in so often to the dangerous fires of hatred and impulsive action that excludes and harms others.
Nevertheless, there are moments. Our human perspective can perceive moments of the unbounded, universal, fire of God when we literally and spiritually look to the heavens. This incredible power, witnessed by God’s creation, is a power reflecting God’s love for us all.
God’s fiery love cannot be doused. God’s love reigns. Because the “ruler of this world has been condemned” (John 16:11). The ruler of our hating impulses, the ruler of our retributive justice, our violence, the ruler of the unbridled flames of this fire will be doused. And the reign of God will unite and hold us all in loving embrace forever.
References:
McGilchrist, I. (2019). The master and his emissary: The divided brain and the making of the western world (2nd Ed.). Yale University Press.
Milman, O. (2023, November 9) After a record year of wildfires, will Canada ever be the same again? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/09/canada-wildfire-record-climate-crisis – :~:text=Fire ravaged Canada in 2023,record nearly three times over
Tait, C., Woo, A., Link, H., & Arnett, K. (2024, May 14). Fort McMurray residents to evacuate as wildfire approaches community. The Globe and Mail. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-fort-mcmurray-residents-ordered-to-evacuate-as-wildfire-approaches/
W. Kimmerer, R. (2015). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. Penguin.