Lucia Lloyd’s sermon: Rogation
Rogation Day and Pentecost
June 9, 2019
Matthew 6: 25-33, Acts2:1-21
One of the things I love about St. John’s is the combination of tradition and flexibility! I also love the fact that St. John’s celebrates Rogation Day every year, and if the Rogation Day celebration happens to fall on the same day as Pentecost, which it does today, we have the flexibility to simply go with it, and even to embrace it. So for our scriptures today we have chosen one scripture from the Pentecost readings, the narrative from Acts 2 about the first Pentecost, and one scripture from the Rogation Day readings, Jesus’ teachings from the gospel of Matthew on considering the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. It turns out to be a wonderful combination. The Rogation Day reading reminds us that everything in all of creation is a gift from God. The Pentecost reading reminds us that the activity of the Holy Spirit in ourselves and in each other is a gift from God.
When we look at the splendor and exquisiteness of God’s creation, we are reminded of how much we have to thank God for. And this includes ourselves, because we too are part of creation, we too are part of nature. Jesus calls our attention to the beauty of creation: consider the lilies of the field...even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. A sense of wonder and admiration for the beauty of creation is a form of worship of God. But Jesus goes deeper even than that here. Jesus talks about the way God is providing everything the birds need and everything the flowers need. Jesus is reminding us that God is providing everything each of us needs right now. And when we look at the beauty and wonder of the entire creation, we remember that God has given us much more than we need. We are reminded of how much we have to thank God for. We are reminded of our sense of gratitude.
We have not earned the beauty of the mountains by our own efforts; we do not own the beauty of the sky. It is all God’s gift to us during our temporary stay on planet earth. It is important to care for these wonderful gifts and to share them with others, and when we approach that care from a place of gratitude rather than a place of anxiety and scarcity, we realize that we want to care for these magnificent gifts and we want to share them with others.
So the Rogation Day reading emphasizes our gratitude for the gifts in our physical lives, and the Pentecost reading emphasizes our gratitude for the gifts in our spiritual lives. Ultimately, the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives is always a gift from God, not something we manufacture out of our own righteousness or our own labour or our own accomplishments. Even the gift of faith is ultimately just that, a gift, and so is the gift of prayer, the gift of compassion, and all the other spiritual gifts. The scriptures remind us that although we do not know how to pray the way we ought to, the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. It is important to care for these gifts in our spiritual lives: to take care of our faith, to take care of our connection with God, to get some healthy exercise of our spiritual gifts rather than just being a spiritual couch potato. Still, we can get too caught up with feeling either smug or inadequate about our spiritual lives if we think it’s about us when really it’s about God. God’s love for us is the primary gift, which is infinite. Even our capacity to respond in love to the love we receive from God is a gift. It is valuable to approach our sense of connectedness with God from a place of gratitude.
One of the fun things about this passage from Acts 2 is the way it turns upside down all the old expectations of how holiness works. It’s as if God is flipping all the sacred hierarchies upside down just for the fun of it. Rather than having a powerful old man telling everyone else what to do and everyone obeying, the Acts 2 passage quotes the prophecy in the book of Joel:
In the last days it will be, 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.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.
God is saying it’s not just the males who prophesy, it’s the daughters as well as the sons. God is saying it’s not just the old people who dream dreams, it’s the young people who see visions. God is saying it’s not just the people with power who get God’s spirit poured on them, it’s the powerless, the slaves. And if we are tempted to blame this on the difference between the people of the Old Covenant and the people of the New Covenant, the book of Acts doesn’t let us get away with that: the New Testament book of Acts is quoting from the Old Testament to show that this is what God was talking about back then too. The Spirit of God is active not just in people who are old, powerful, males, but just as much in those who are young, powerless, or female. So we have the sense of God giving gifts all over the place to a wide variety of people.
One of the blessings of worshipping God along with a community of faith is that each of us gets to benefit from the gifts God gives to other people as well as the gifts God gives to me as an individual. One of the other blessings of worshipping God along with a community of faith is that each of us gets to help each other as we care for the gifts God gives us in the physical world and in the spiritual life.
I enjoyed attending the most recent Messy Church and I was glad to see the way the people of St. John’s are doing this. The theme of the story that day was that just as seeds need things to help them grow such as sunlight and water, our faith needs things to help it grow as well. The adult leader asked the kids what things our faith needs to make it grow. Two of the kids mentioned the things the adult had in mind, reading the Bible and prayer. One girl mentioned something the adult hadn’t had in mind: this girl mentioned the bread and wine at communion. I thought: excellent sacramental theology! And the adult responded very nicely that the bread and wine at communion are indeed things that make our faith grow. The kids teach us adults about the ways we care for the spiritual gifts God gives us.
I also enjoyed attending the most recent Open Circle and I enjoyed seeing the way the people of St. John’s are doing this. During the meal at Open Circle I met one of the university students and asked her to tell me about herself. Among other things, she mentioned that she makes an effort to live a low waste life to help care for the environment. So I asked her what the most effective ways of doing that are. She named various things, one of which was that she doesn’t use plastic bags for produce at the grocery store. So the next time I went to the grocery store I started skipping the plastic bags for produce myself.
In a time when anxiety is increasing all around us, and when people stoke the anxiety of others as a way of getting money and power from them, it is all the more valuable to have this message from Jesus about anxiety and the antidote to it, which is gratitude for the ways our needs are met, and gratitude for the ways God spreads out abundant gifts all around us and within us. We see that the birds have all their needs met by God, and the flowers have all their needs met by God, and it reminds us that we have all our needs met by God already. And Jesus tells us that worrying won’t add a single hour to our span of life. Jesus teaches us to switch our mindset from anxiety to the opposite of it, the antidote to it, which is gratitude. Rather than worrying about the things we might not have tomorrow, we can be grateful for all the things God is already providing for us today: exactly what we need and so much more.
The poet Maya Angelou is no stranger to pain, injustice, sexism, and racism. And yet her spirit shines because she approaches life not from a place of anxiety but from a place of gratitude rooted in faith in a loving and generous God. She says this: “If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you must look forward, do so prayerfully. However, the wisest thing you can do is be present in the present, gratefully.”
When we look at the splendor and exquisiteness of God’s creation, we are reminded of how much we have to thank God for. And this includes ourselves, because we too are part of creation, we too are part of nature. Jesus calls our attention to the beauty of creation: consider the lilies of the field...even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. A sense of wonder and admiration for the beauty of creation is a form of worship of God. But Jesus goes deeper even than that here. Jesus talks about the way God is providing everything the birds need and everything the flowers need. Jesus is reminding us that God is providing everything each of us needs right now. And when we look at the beauty and wonder of the entire creation, we remember that God has given us much more than we need. We are reminded of how much we have to thank God for. We are reminded of our sense of gratitude.
We have not earned the beauty of the mountains by our own efforts; we do not own the beauty of the sky. It is all God’s gift to us during our temporary stay on planet earth. It is important to care for these wonderful gifts and to share them with others, and when we approach that care from a place of gratitude rather than a place of anxiety and scarcity, we realize that we want to care for these magnificent gifts and we want to share them with others.
So the Rogation Day reading emphasizes our gratitude for the gifts in our physical lives, and the Pentecost reading emphasizes our gratitude for the gifts in our spiritual lives. Ultimately, the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives is always a gift from God, not something we manufacture out of our own righteousness or our own labour or our own accomplishments. Even the gift of faith is ultimately just that, a gift, and so is the gift of prayer, the gift of compassion, and all the other spiritual gifts. The scriptures remind us that although we do not know how to pray the way we ought to, the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. It is important to care for these gifts in our spiritual lives: to take care of our faith, to take care of our connection with God, to get some healthy exercise of our spiritual gifts rather than just being a spiritual couch potato. Still, we can get too caught up with feeling either smug or inadequate about our spiritual lives if we think it’s about us when really it’s about God. God’s love for us is the primary gift, which is infinite. Even our capacity to respond in love to the love we receive from God is a gift. It is valuable to approach our sense of connectedness with God from a place of gratitude.
One of the fun things about this passage from Acts 2 is the way it turns upside down all the old expectations of how holiness works. It’s as if God is flipping all the sacred hierarchies upside down just for the fun of it. Rather than having a powerful old man telling everyone else what to do and everyone obeying, the Acts 2 passage quotes the prophecy in the book of Joel:
In the last days it will be, 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.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.
God is saying it’s not just the males who prophesy, it’s the daughters as well as the sons. God is saying it’s not just the old people who dream dreams, it’s the young people who see visions. God is saying it’s not just the people with power who get God’s spirit poured on them, it’s the powerless, the slaves. And if we are tempted to blame this on the difference between the people of the Old Covenant and the people of the New Covenant, the book of Acts doesn’t let us get away with that: the New Testament book of Acts is quoting from the Old Testament to show that this is what God was talking about back then too. The Spirit of God is active not just in people who are old, powerful, males, but just as much in those who are young, powerless, or female. So we have the sense of God giving gifts all over the place to a wide variety of people.
One of the blessings of worshipping God along with a community of faith is that each of us gets to benefit from the gifts God gives to other people as well as the gifts God gives to me as an individual. One of the other blessings of worshipping God along with a community of faith is that each of us gets to help each other as we care for the gifts God gives us in the physical world and in the spiritual life.
I enjoyed attending the most recent Messy Church and I was glad to see the way the people of St. John’s are doing this. The theme of the story that day was that just as seeds need things to help them grow such as sunlight and water, our faith needs things to help it grow as well. The adult leader asked the kids what things our faith needs to make it grow. Two of the kids mentioned the things the adult had in mind, reading the Bible and prayer. One girl mentioned something the adult hadn’t had in mind: this girl mentioned the bread and wine at communion. I thought: excellent sacramental theology! And the adult responded very nicely that the bread and wine at communion are indeed things that make our faith grow. The kids teach us adults about the ways we care for the spiritual gifts God gives us.
I also enjoyed attending the most recent Open Circle and I enjoyed seeing the way the people of St. John’s are doing this. During the meal at Open Circle I met one of the university students and asked her to tell me about herself. Among other things, she mentioned that she makes an effort to live a low waste life to help care for the environment. So I asked her what the most effective ways of doing that are. She named various things, one of which was that she doesn’t use plastic bags for produce at the grocery store. So the next time I went to the grocery store I started skipping the plastic bags for produce myself.
In a time when anxiety is increasing all around us, and when people stoke the anxiety of others as a way of getting money and power from them, it is all the more valuable to have this message from Jesus about anxiety and the antidote to it, which is gratitude for the ways our needs are met, and gratitude for the ways God spreads out abundant gifts all around us and within us. We see that the birds have all their needs met by God, and the flowers have all their needs met by God, and it reminds us that we have all our needs met by God already. And Jesus tells us that worrying won’t add a single hour to our span of life. Jesus teaches us to switch our mindset from anxiety to the opposite of it, the antidote to it, which is gratitude. Rather than worrying about the things we might not have tomorrow, we can be grateful for all the things God is already providing for us today: exactly what we need and so much more.
The poet Maya Angelou is no stranger to pain, injustice, sexism, and racism. And yet her spirit shines because she approaches life not from a place of anxiety but from a place of gratitude rooted in faith in a loving and generous God. She says this: “If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you must look forward, do so prayerfully. However, the wisest thing you can do is be present in the present, gratefully.”