Category Archives: Pentecost Sunday

15 seconds – that’s all you need

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Many were “amazed” at what they witnessed in the disciples’ words and behaviour in the biblical account of Pentecost (Acts 2). These followers of Jesus were speaking in different languages and displaying supernatural signs involving wind and flame as gifts of the Spirit.

“But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine’” (Acts 2:13).

Our response to others is often negative, if we are honest. We see something we don’t understand. (There is something wrong). We witness behavior that doesn’t fit with our ideas. (It’s not right). Someone says something we don’t agree with. (What is the world coming to?). No wonder judgement and negativity flourish in human community.

And we, individually, are affected by it. It takes a millisecond for someone’s negative statement, blaming, judgement, or criticism to make us tense up. We feel sick to our stomachs. We retreat into our minds and clamp down. We can’t sleep. Negative energy.

Yet, this is humanity’s default drive, based on a survival instinct wired into the oldest part of our brain. Self-preservation instinct often translates into defensive and protective behaviour that makes us suspicious and untrusting of others.

Do you first give others the benefit of the doubt? I’m not sure I do.

A best-case scenario study reveals that only about 50% of the population believe people are doing the best they can (Brown, 2018, p. 263). That means, including in the church, about half of us have a real hard time believing that generally people are doing the very best they can with what they have. Because we tend to focus on the problem, the deficiency, what is wrong. The sin.

Relying only on the animal parts of our brains, we remain to this day stuck in the dominant narrative of negativity and mistrust. Even if we wanted to assume positive intent and see the best in others, this is a skill-set not easy to learn and practice. Because it is based on our ability to trust others.

There are, nevertheless, encouraging signs. Another study about trust showed that, in the business world, companies with high levels of trust between managers and workers “beat the average annualized returns [on the stock market] … by a factor of three” (Brown, 2018, p. 273). There is a positive correlation between high levels of trust in an organization and positive financial outcomes.

Even though far too many disregard trust-building as a “soft” or “secondary” skill, trust is not a “nice-to-have”, it is a “must-have” (Covey & Conant, 2016). It literally pays off to invest in those “soft” skills. Trust is an essential quality of healthy and loving human relationships.

Pentecost Sunday is known as the birthday of the church, when the church was born. When the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples in Jerusalem, they were given the mission and swept into the world to share the presence and message of God’s love in Christ Jesus.

Each of us is a member of the body of Christ, the church. We are given gifts, energies and talents. We must believe in the gifts we have been given. We need to trust ourselves as much as we may trust in others, in God.

Martin Luther emphasized that the essential meaning of faith is not so much belief, as it is trust.

In his 1520 treatise entitled “The Freedom of a Christian”, and in his 1522 commentary on St Paul’s letter to the Romans, Luther argued that simply knowing or acknowledging facts about God is an empty human construct. True, saving faith requires fiducia—a bold, vital, and active trust in God’s promises and grace. The quality of trust in relationship is fundamental to the life of a Christian.

Peter comes to the rescue of the disciples who are judged for being drunk on the Day of Pentecost. He validates and affirms that what is happening in those disciples’ lives is not a hangover but a presentation of the Spirit of God. He reminds them of what the prophet Joel proclaimed, that:
17‘In the last days … God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
18Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit,
and they shall prophesy …
21Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ ”

A later text attributed to Peter reflects a similar sentiment, a text we heard earlier during the Easter season:

“9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
 10 Once you were not a people,
  but now you are God’s people;
 once you had not received mercy,
  but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10).

I hope you hear the positivity, the unconditional positive regard, and the “yes” energy in those affirming words of scripture. And Peter is not talking to an individual. He is talking to a human collective, a community. He is talking about relationships energized by mercy, characterized by trusting one another and assuming positive intent.

Birthdays are days we celebrate the life of the person reaching yet another milestone. That’s a good place to start. Birthday energy. Positive. Acceptance. We don’t always have to knee-jerk into negativity, suspicion and blame. That’s the easy way. But not always the right way. We can choose to think graciously, and with wonder and praise for the other.

Just as our bodies register the effects of a negative statement, our bodies are also affected by a positive input from someone. But it takes a lot longer for the benefit of that positivity to take a healing effect on us. Unlike our millisecond response to a negative comment, it takes 15 seconds for an affirmation and validation to signal health from our brain to our bodies, our emotions and our spirits (Rohr, 2017).

When the grace settles into us, we participate in the sharing of our God-given gift (Kimmerer, 2024). Whether on the receiving end or the giving end, our soul is then revealed in the encounter.

How do we make time and space for the grace to settle in? How do we retrain our brain to notice first the good, to trust the other is doing the best they can? How do we practice seeing the face of God in the other?

Last week, early in the morning, from our back deck Jessica and I were paid a short visit by a deer walking along the fence line in our back yard. It was a large doe. I invite you to reflect on a time when you saw a wild animal in its natural habitat. Author Parker Palmer wrote about how we come to witness the good and see the soul in the other:

“The soul is like a wild animal … tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, and self-sufficient: it knows how to survive in hard places … Yet, despite its toughness, the soul is also shy …

“If we want to see a wild animal, we know that the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods yelling for it to come out. But if we will walk quietly into the woods, sit patiently at the base of a tree, breathe with the earth, and fade into our surroundings, the wild creature we seek might put in an appearance. We may see it only briefly and only out of the corner of an eye – but the sight is a gift we will always treasure as an end in itself” (Palmer, 2004, pp. 58-59).

15 seconds. That’s all you need. Stay with the positive word, the compliment, the grace, the mercy, the joy, the appreciation, for 15 seconds. Don’t reject it out of hand. Hold that positive energy in your heart and your body and your mind for 15 seconds. Feel it. Let it curate there, simmer.

Jesus tells his disciples, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22).

Saint Paul describes this energy from the Spirit like it is water. He writes in Romans 5:5 — “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

We are like a sponge that gathers up the water. But a sponge does not hold onto it forever. Nor does it create the water. We are filled with the grace of God — the flowing water of life — so that, saturated, we leak that love into a dry and dusty world (DesCamp, 2025).

Hold it for 15 seconds, at least. And then, turn around, and give it from your own soul.

References:

Brown, B. (2018). Dare to lead: Brave work, tough conversations, whole hearts. Random House Large Print.

Covey, S. M. R., & Conant, D. R. (2016). That connection between employee trust and financial performance. Harvard Business Review [Website]. https://hbr.org/2016/07/the-connection-between-employee-trust-and-financial-performance

DesCamp, T. (2025). Hands like roots: Notes on an entangled contemplative life. Santos Books.

Kimmerer, R. W. (2024). The serviceberry: Abundance and reciprocity in the natural world. Scribner.

Palmer, P. (2004). A hidden wholeness. Jossey-Bass—A Wiley Imprint.

Rohr, R. (2017). Just this: Prompts and practices for contemplation. CAC Publishing.

Photo by Jessica Hawley Malina, May 2, 2026, Arnprior

Can you catch it?

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When I was younger I enjoyed playing catch using a softball or baseball. My catch partner and I would stand at a distance from each other, and we would toss, whip, lob, sidearm, underhand, windmill or basically throw the ball in various combinations of the above.

That simple, and for me rather therapeutic, repetitive motion – back-and-forth—impressed upon me the truth that whether the ball is successfully caught doesn’t just depend on the catcher. Whether the ball is successfully caught depends to a large degree how accurately the ball is thrown. Assuming you want your ball partner to catch the ball!

You need to throw the ball in such a way to match the catcher’s ability, attention in the moment, stance and glove position. The one throwing the ball needs to pay attention to and know the catcher. Throwing and catching the ball is a relationship in which both parties have to do their part for the exercise to work.

Which then reminds me of a popular saying in the church I have heard over the years: That faith is not taught as much as it is caught. The ball of faith, if it is to be successfully passed on, needs to be thrown in a way that the catcher can catch it. Because every individual is unique and has different abilities, personality, and capacity, the gift of faith—if it is to stick and not be dropped—needs to come at them in a way they can handle it.

No one size fits all. The ball of faith has wings to fly in a manner in which each of us can perceive it, appreciate it, and let it enter into our life. On our part, to throw the ball of faith, we need to reach people through their point of view, not our own. In other words, we need a relationship with them to seek to understand their tendency, their perspective, and then speak their language (Rubin, 2017).

One of the most significant scientific facts in existence is something we cannot directly see, touch, taste, or even smell. But we can feel it on our skin. Planet Earth is wrapped in 5,600 million million tons of air, and most of the time most of the air is moving (Mahany, 2023, p. 93). While wind is elusive, hard to define, one thing it is for sure: Wind is impossible to ignore.

photo by Martin Malina (Long Beach WA, July 21, 2017)

The winds have been particularly noticeable of late. They have been strong enough to send us the smoke caused by wildfires in Western Canada. Over the past few years, we have witnessed the effects of powerful windstorms here in Ottawa – toppling ancient trees, downing lines, throwing damaging debris.

A couple of weeks ago, a Chinese paraglider was caught in a powerful updraft sending him some nine kilometres straight upward until he was piercing the edge of the atmosphere with air temperatures near -40 degrees Celsius. Most para-gliders caught in this unfortunate circumstance don’t survive. Miraculously, he did (TWN, 2025).

Indeed, wind is elusive, dangerous. We cannot contain it, control it, nor even predict its behaviour. No wonder for people of faith the world over and since the beginning of time have made the wind, air, breath synonymous with the divine (Mahany, 2023).

There is movement in the scriptures assigned for this season after the resurrection of Jesus leading into this Pentecost Sunday. There is movement with the Spirit. The Spirit descends on the disciples gathering in Jerusalem with “the sound like the rush of a violent wind” (Acts 2:1-21). Elsewhere in the bible, Jesus breathes the Spirit into the disciples (John 20:22). God’s breath moves over creation (Genesis 1:2). “Even the winds and waves obey” the the disciples notice after Jesus stills the storm on Lake Galilee (Matthew 8:27).

The question of faith confronting the disciples after Easter was, what happens now when Jesus, the founder of the community, is no longer around? Is the community left on its own, with no access to Jesus’ presence or transformative power (Bay, 2010)? Has the wind, the breath of God, stopped blowing?

Has Jesus dropped the ball? Have the disciples? The disciples, essentially, are anticipating their grief at losing access – physical access – to their loved one in Jesus. And they don’t know what to do without him.

The question of faith is how to live amidst the perceived absence. Pentecost answers the question of grief. Because one important aspect of healing is that we are no longer defined by our losses. While the pain of grief stays with us our whole life long, who we are now is not defined by what happened then. Not because we’ve forgotten. Healing is not forgetting.

But we are now defined by what the connection to our lost loved one means to us today, now. They live in us. They live in some way in the world today. Who we are and who they are, are no longer defined by what caused our painful grieving in the first place. Instead, we are defined today by those around us who hold us, accept us, and give us encouragement on the way.

“Show us the Father,” demands Philip (John 14:8). Jesus rebukes Philip. Philip wants to see, touch, taste, control, contain, put a lock on his apprehension of faith. No, no, Jesus says to Philip and to you and to me. You know God already. You don’t need to put God in a box in order to believe. God is already with you, in you. “You know [God],” Jesus responds, “because God abides with you, and God will be in you” (John 14:17).

God is already with you, in you. The life of Jesus, through the coming Spirit of God, lives in you, through you, around you! So, act like it!

We take a breath some 20-30 thousand times a day. Yet, are we aware when we even just take one? If you do anything on this Pentecost Sunday that is spiritual and life giving, just breathe with awareness that you do. Breathe in God’s love, God’s presence. Breathe out – return the gift of God’s life and love into the world by your loving actions for your neighbour.

Jesus throws the ball of faith towards us. And it’s not that we have to catch it one way. We don’t need to be afraid of dropping it. When we are aware of the presence of Jesus, when we face him and lift our hands to catch the ball, Jesus throws it at us in a way we can receive it. Because Jesus knows us. Jesus is in a relationship of love with us. God created us. And the Spirit lifts the ball and carries it into our hearts so that we can catch it.

Thanks be to God.

References:

Bay, E. C. (2010). Pastoral perspective: John 14:8-27. In D. L. Bartlett & B. B. Taylor (Eds.). Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary Year C, Volume 3 (pp. 20-24). Westminster John Knox Press.

Mahany, B. (2023). The book of nature: The astonishing beauty of God’s first sacred text. Broadleaf Books.

Rubin, G. (2017). The four tendencies: The indispensable personality profiles that reveal how to make your life better (and other people’s lives better, too). Harmony Books.

The Weather Network (2025). Paraglider sucked nearly 9 km up into the frigid atmosphere [Video]. Newsflare/Reuters. https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/video/Ke6uK9sn?playlist=JRE9lq9q

Candles and campfires

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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.

And so it begins

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The chancel on Pentecost-Confirmation Sunday (Faith Ottawa, photo by M.Malina, 2023)

Dear Confirmands,

Confession: Over the past two years of meeting and Confirmation programs, we’ve barely skimmed the surface of what we can know about the Christian faith from a Lutheran perspective:

We’ve just scratched the surface of the biblical story and sacraments. We’ve only dipped our toes into the shallows of the otherwise deep waters.  We’ve said the Lord’s Prayer together and read through the Creed. We’ve talked about the Commandments and affirmed Article Four of the Augsburg Confession—that we are saved by grace alone and nothing we can do or know will ultimately save us.

And maybe that’s the point. Because here we are confirming you today! Despite what from one perspective can be seen as a rather lean program. And yet our action today underscores this fundamental Lutheran belief: We cannot by our own strength and efforts earn God’s favour.

Many of our senior members will be eager to tell your stories of large confirmation classes where they had to sit for hours memorizing scriptures, learning by heart the entire catechism and singing the Reformation hymns like “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”. And that’s not even describing the anxiety surrounding the final exam before their confirmation.

Another confession: I think we have long passed the day of doing confirmation that way.

And still you are today being confirmed in the faith. Besides affirming we are saved by grace alone, our action today underscores another very important understanding of our faith: Confirmation merely emphasizes you are at the start of a journey today, not the end of it.

Over the last several months groups of Lutheran youth leaders from around the world—specifically from Africa, Europe and the Americas—gathered to set priorities for the church today. These priorities will be part of the deliberations at the Lutheran World Federation Assembly in Poland which I will attend in September later this year.

Some of these priorities agreed by Lutheran youth leaders, ages 18-30, were: eco-theology, justice in community, inclusive and accessible churches, youth leadership and mental health.[1] Clearly there is a future for the church because there is so much to be done by you and others your age. And you’ve already started on this journey:

Even though you didn’t memorize anything, or read through every word or explanation in Martin Luther’s catechism, you did feed the hungry and provide clothing to the poor. You did plant a garden. You did, by handing out coffee and slices of pie, put a smile on the faces of homeless people in downtown Ottawa. You ate together, shared laughs and silly stories. You engaged in service projects around the city. You worshipped and prayed together.

But it’s not over. Those activities can and will happen again. The one word we should eradicate from the lexicon and culture of Confirmation Sunday is ‘graduation’. You are not graduating today. You haven’t completed anything, really.

Today is not a graduation. It’s really the start. It’s a journey you are on—we are all on—to grow in faith. That’s why each of you is receiving the gift of a small tree–a white spruce. Because like anything that grows, it will need regular care and nurturing. And it will grow over time.

You may doubt everything we do today. And that’s ok. It’s a journey. You may not be sure of God today and what God promises you. And that’s ok.

It’s ok because what we did accomplish these past couple of years was community. Not perfectly. But we related with one another, and spent time together doing meaningful things. We got to know each other a bit. And when one of us was missing from class, we asked about them—where they were and how they were doing.

And that’s what the church today needs: Forming relationships in faith. And maybe for some of us older ones, re-forming relationships of faith.

Confirmation is an affirmation of faith—a saying yes to everything good. To our baptism. To God’s grace. Saying, even though we may not be 100% sure and even though we don’t know everything, we do know this:

God loves you and God will be with you forever. God loves everyone else and will be with us forever.

[1] Scan recent posts in the Lutheran World Federation Youth Instagram account @lwfyouth https://www.instagram.com/lwfyouth/

“And so it begins”; a sermon for Pentecost-Confirmation Sunday, by Rev. Martin Malina, May 2023

Sent in, then out

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We normally talk about the work of the Holy Spirit as a ‘sending out’. When the Holy Spirit works, it’s like a centrifugal force pushing us ever outward. When he first appears to his disciples following his resurrection, Jesus tells them, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you …”[1]

We have devised images to help us imagine this outward-destined power: The missional energy is likened to a rocket ship blasting from the earth into the limitless universe. We are quick to remind ourselves that our very identity based on the original Greek word for church – ecclesia– means “a people called out.” You have heard me and others preach about going beyond the walls of the church in the programs we offer and the services we provide.

Nonetheless, in all our missional enthusiasm around this truth the Holy Spirit is first given to us. Before we go out, we must go in. We must first traverse and discover the Spirit in the regions of our hearts. In order for the Holy Spirit to send us out into the world anew, the Holy Spirit must first come into us, as Jesus came to his disciples cowering behind locked doors.

The Gospel text assigned for this Pentecost Sunday focuses our attention on the image of Jesus breathing the Holy Spirit into his disciples. “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”[2]Before the disciples were sent out into the world, speaking in their native tongues, doing even greater deeds, and empowered by the Spirit of God, Jesus came to them. They had to receive and claim this gift within the containers of their own gifts, talents, abilities and personalities.

And Jesus enters into the locked rooms of our hearts. Locked by fear of the unknown future. Locked by anger for all our losses and hurts. Into the spaces of our most intimate lives. Into the homes and rooms of our daily work, play and rest. Where we are sheltered-in-place, where we are quarantined and secluded and physically distant. Into our inner beings – this is where the Spirit of the living God enters us – before anything else can happen.

It’s difficult to accept and receive the Holy Spirit, the peace and forgiveness of God at the best of times let alone when we are anxious, afraid and angry. While spending more time at home, more time by ourselves. It’s almost as if we will react against the possibility, the notion, that Jesus can come into the messiness and disorderliness of our inner sanctums, homes, rooms and hearts. We knee-jerk in reaction, saying that the sooner we can get back to ‘normal’, the sooner we can get ‘out there’ and be allowed together again, the better. 

Do we refuse to consider that the work of the Spirit can happen ‘in isolation’ or in minimalist ways – when we are by ourselves, or locked-down, or physically distant from each other?  Do we shackle God in constraints of our own imagination and belief?

One of the main upshots of Martin Luther’s Christian education was the primacy of the home. His popular ‘table talks’ were formed around the intention of making the home the primary place for spiritual formation. In fact the Small Catechismwas originally devised to be read and discussed among members of the household – not in the classroom, not in the church building, not in some large group gathering or Christian Education forum. But in the home. 

Perhaps this time of quarantine is inviting us to reconsider and reacquaint ourselves with what Martin Luther had really intended from the start. Here is an opportunity to rediscover and practice our faith – in good Lutheran tradition!

In a recent video conference call with other clergy, we talked about a scenario that someone had heard of. Whether it actually happened, or was being considered I am not sure. But a baby was born to first-time parents during the pandemic lockdown. And the parents wanted to have their newborn baptized. What to do when no one knows when the church can gather together physically again? It could be months.

So, they talked about it with their pastor. And they came up with this plan. The parents would hold their newborn in the foyer entrance inside their house, bowl of water at hand. The pastor would stand outside on the front step of the closed door. They could see each other and hear each other speak through the glass of the door. And while the pastor introduced a brief liturgy for baptism, the parents would then pour water over the tiny head of their newborn child, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In their own home. Where two or three were gathered in God’s name and presence.

Life is not put on hold because of this pandemic. During this time of self-isolation, quarantine, sheltering-in-place, seclusion – whatever you want to call it – couples are still getting married, babies are still being born. Life is still happening.

The Spirit of God still blows in us and through us to be the imperfect yet beloved vessels, carriers, of God’s love, forgiveness in our homes. And, therefore, for the world. There is joy in that.

[1]John 19:21

[2]19:22