First Presbyterian Church, Waukon, Iowa

‘Grace-i-tude’: A Meditation for Labor Day

You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient.

All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.

But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. (Ephesians 2:1-10)

“You were dead!” What a staggering revelation!! Nor does it make much sense!!!

Oh, sure, once in a blue moon you hear of someone who undergoes a so-called “near-death experience” – someone whose heart arrests on the operating table during a risky surgery or in the ambulance on the way to hospital after a horrific accident. But, as if hovering above the fray of code blue, the not-quite-yet dearly departed watches as the medical team somehow manages to restore a beating heart – breathing life back into a stilled body and thus yanking a hapless soul from the jaws of death.

It happens now and then. But ordinarily, “You were dead!” just sounds cooky weird and guano-sack crazy.

The apostle Paul, however, is using the punchy line to describe the pre-Christian life. But even then, what strikes the ear of the listener is actual lived experience: During that B.C., before-Christ time of life’s calendar, when Paul declares you dead, you certainly didn’t look dead or feel deceased. Truth be told, the party was going great!

Steve remembers his time before Christ when people saw him as “the life of the party.” And Cindy remembers the good-ol’ days before she became a Christian when she and her friends would back up a picnic, nudge the bow of the boat into a sandbar, and revel in loving their river time. They surely didn’t feel dead then – in fact, they never felt more alive! So, too, when the Ephesians look back in time, they also see no deadness. They remember nothing but bright, free-flowing good times.

Yet Paul persists: “You were dead.”

The writer Thomas Lynch wears two hats – award-winning author and sole funeral director in Milford, Michigan. Mr. Lynch knows a thing or two about the death and dying, and as he writes, most of what he knows boils down to one simple reality: The dead can’t do much for themselves. To move a corpse from one room to another, you have to do it yourself. Asking a dead body to lend a hand in its transportation is the very exercise of futility. Because the dead, Mr. Lynch observes, don’t listen worth a hoot. You really do have to do everything for them.

Spiritually speaking, that’s Paul’s take on anyone’s life outside of Christ. You were dead. And the dead can’t do anything for themselves. That’s why the Bible offers such incredibly good news: It is by grace and grace alone that you were saved. Your salvation is not of your own doing, because you had absolutely nothing to offer. You knew diddly. Because you were dead. And only grace alone raises the dead. Only grace alone accesses the work of Jesus.

The work of Jesus alone is the only accomplishment in all cosmic history with the power to repair what’s broken between you and God, between me and God, between us and God; everything broken and fearful between friend, neighbor, and stranger. When by grace God totals your debt and gives you credit for that work of Jesus, you become alive again. When you are dead, only grace – only very-much undeserved favor – does something like bring the dead back to life.

You were dead. Zip, zilch, nada. All you could do was receive what God was giving: Grace. You’re only “doing” was receiving.

Even so, Paul ends with note of “good works.”

Apparently, after grace is received, after you rise from your knees in accepting what only God in Christ by the Spirit can give, you’ve got some stuff to do it – not hopping back onto the moral treadmill of trying to please God with what you do, but rather distinguishing the difference between saying “please” and saying “thank you.”

The Christian life, as it turns out, is all about saying “thank you.”

Discipleship, at its core, is demonstrating with grateful action and behavior that you and I understand that our salvation is a gift pure and simple.

Gratitude is a such big deal, of course, because when you realize that you were raised back to life by the grace of God in Christ by the Spirit, then you also realize that the entirety of your body, soul, and spirit needs to be one big, heaping-helping of gratitude; one ginormous, constant way of saying “Thank You!” to the Lord God of Grace and Glory.

Grace and gratitude, good stewardship of time, talent, and treasure: A torrential overflow of “grace-i-tude,” of God’s grace spilling out over the edges of our hearts and minds, enabling us to accomplish everything we do in our sacred and secular communities – in our studies, in our work, in our families, in our careers, and in our churches. What you do, how you live, and what you accomplish – it all matters only because the entirety of your living, moving, and being flows by God’s grace.

Absent grace, and you’re still dead – no matter how busy and alive you appear from the outside looking in. But toss grace into the mix, and you’re alive in ways that mean you’ll never be dead again.

And thus we sing a hymn for Labor Day:

All our work and all our being come from you, most gracious Lord.
Ev’ry task that lies before us is Creator’s will outpoured.
Help us as we build your kingdom, know we labor not in vain;
give us sure and deep conviction for the tasks that you ordain.

Some may nurture those who hunger, tend and heal the broken heart;
set our flagging spirits dancing, spark our vision through their art.
Others teach and offer counsel, bear life’s burdens, ease its care;
strive for justice, peace, and freedom for all people ev’rywhere.

Let us labor in the knowledge that no task can be too small;
that the God who stretched the heavens no less shaped the least of all.
Give us strength, Lord, to accomplish what you set our hands to do,
that by serving those around us, we return the gift to you.

May it be so. Amen, and amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Labor Day weekend – Sunday, September 1, 2024 – at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. It is adapted from a reflection by Scott Hoezee and includes the thoughts of Thomas Lynch. “A Hymn for Labor Day” is by composer Thurlow Weed and lyricist Michael Morgan.

Enough Already

Words matter, so you need to say it, believe it, and receive it: You are enough.

YOU are enough. You ARE enough. You are ENOUGH.

If you’re at all like me, you’ve experienced moments, times – or maybe even whole seasons – when you felt as though you weren’t enough. So, just in case you woke up this morning feeling like you are not enough, just in case someone with whatever intention made you feel like you are not enough, just in case your lot in life tempts you to believe that you are not enough, let’s take a minute to encourage one another.

Turn now to a pewmate and share with your neighbor: You are enough, and so am I.

Now, in a new direction, turn to another friend or stranger: You are enough, and so am I.

Finally, with one voice, let’s say it together, believe it together, and receive it together: You are enough, and so am I.

No, you don’t have to have all your ducks in a row. No, you don’t have to be all things to all people. No, you don’t have to do everything, go everywhere, and be everything. No, even if you don’t accomplish or achieve any or all of your dreams during your earthly lifetime, the fact nonetheless remains true: You are enough, and so am I.

Say it, believe it, and receive it: “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

You are enough simply because God has chosen you to abide among the blessed souls who compose God’s people, chosen for the high callings of healing and reconciling the world, chosen as precious vessels for Father, Son, and Spirit! – thus being, speaking, and working in their sted; thus in word and deed demonstrating for others the night-and-day difference that Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer have made for you; thus transforming you from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted. (1 Peter 2:9-10)

You are enough. You are not just anybody. Though you live in a world where beauty, money, fame, power, and prestige are the holy grails of supposedly living your best life ever, those objects of human coveting eventually all wither and fade away in due time and season. Nevertheless, in the decrepit judgment of those rustbelt attitudes, you don’t look like you’re enough, talk like you’re enough, live in the right house or neighborhood, drive the flashiest car or most-muscular truck. And all those cross-eyed stares and sideways glances – all their gossiping, and bullying, and name-calling – are part and parcel of cruel ignorance.

They thought that because you are an alcoholic or used to sell or use drugs; because you didn’t graduate from high school or go to college; because you were or are homeless, jobless, or deep in debt –

They thought that because you are disabled or differently abled; because you were molester or molested; because you went to jail or did time in prison; because you were a teenage mother, or are a single parent, or had an abortion; because your sexuality or gender don’t fit neatly in the preferred categories –

They thought that because you’re too young or too old, because your wit and wisdom aren’t as sharp as they once were, because your body doesn’t look as fit as it once was or perform with the athleticism it once did –

They thought and continue to think – because of whoever or whatever you are or aren’t – that you are not enough.

Well, they thought wrong. You are enough.

With grace on your lips, and love in your heart, forbearance upon your soul, you need to look them square in the eye and set the record straight: None of those things defines the totality of who and whose you are; none of those things disqualifies you as beneficiary of basic respect and human dignity. You are enough. A beautiful creation. Fearfully and wonderfully made. You’ve always been enough! Ever since the very beginning!! The Lord God saw everything that he had made, and shazam, it was good – very good! Completely validated, and totally legit!! (Psalm 139:14, Genesis 1:31)

So, look left and right in your row – up and down the streets and gravel roads of your neighborhood – and strike a verbal blow for liberty: I am enough; you are enough, and that’s that!

All that said, enough already! Enough talk about being enough!

Indeed I really do want to say, believe, and receive that I am enough. Without question I appreciate those many well-meaning attempts to correct a culture that overvalues performance and perfection and undervalues empathy and compassion. When people say, “You are enough,” one is just trying to help another walk in peaceful joy. That surely seems quite Jesus-y.

But the encouragement falls short – on a couple fronts, actually.

As for me, as suggested by another, “you are enough” neither does justice to the rich beauty of lavish potential and new possibility that dwells within you and me because of Christ, nor does “you are enough” shed healing light into the scary caverns of our broken and fearful selves. “You are enough” nowhere-near armors against the razor-sharp swipe of the double-edge sword of human existence: Being created good and perfect by God, while nonetheless remaining deeply flawed and fallen by sin and evil.

Even so, though at once buoyed and battered, one perseveres as a cherished, forgiven, and redeemed child of God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. One lives, moves, and has one’s eternal being thanks to empty Cross and Tomb. One cannot and should not boast of “enoughness” in self alone, because the Spirit of Christ was poured upon and within by baptism. And the grace of God that baptism assures – grace and grace alone – is truly what’s enough.

So enough, already: You are not enough in yourself alone. Nor am I!

God formed us flawless, sparkling gems in the crown of creation, portrayed us as masterpieces of the Master Artist whose creative talent flung sweeping galaxies into the skies and microscopic flecks into the tiniest of particles. God continues to create such breathtaking splendor, and heaven’s ongoing work of creation and re-creation means that all humanity is destined for things far higher and more majestic than “enough.”

The magnificence of our humanity coexists with human ugliness that abounds. When wounds fester, when patience runs short, when I lose hope after another long day of frustration and confusion, my insufficiency once again becomes painfully obvious. I alone am not enough, no matter how hard I try. Even on my best days, I will fail my family and falter in my ministry. And along that long, hard slog I rediscover the impotence of “you are enough.” Because whenever I admit that I’m not enough, I’m then loosed of my pride and freed to run to the God who is enough, and to cling to God’s grace that alone is enough.

The Good News of the Gospel proclaims two truths, and in seeming contradiction, those ancient words hold fast to both with equal strength: In yourself alone, you are not enough. But in Christ alone, you are most surely are. Thus writes the apostle Paul to the Corinthians:

[T]o keep me from thinking more highly of myself than I ought, a thorn in the flesh was given me by a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated.

Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

Words matter. So, listen to the Word that God has spoken. Say it, believe it, receive it – and live it: In Christ you are enough, and by the Spirit, you’ll be even more. As grace abounds. As God’s Spirit continues moving across Creation’s still-chaotic waters. As God in Christ continues making all things new in and for both you and me.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen, and amen.

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. The service included a celebration of baptism. Commentary and reflection by Aimee Joseph and Yvette Urquhart inform the message.

Asked and Answered

Come and fill our hearts with your peace.
You alone, O Lord, are holy.
Come and fill our hearts with your peace.
Alleluia! Amen!

I daily struggle to understand these times of tumult in which we now live.

Twenty-eight years ago, I’d have never believed – on that sunny June afternoon of my wedding – that our children and grandchildren now stepping gingerly into adulthood would be slogging forth into a world as broken and fearful as ours.

Since the presidential debate a few weeks ago, the needle on the gauge of concern for our country, our world, and our collective future has hit the far end of the red zone. Alarms for degenerating political processes are well founded. War and rumors of war daily rain down their deadly toll on bodies, souls, and spirits. Many are despairing; some are rejoicing. And those victory laps by some further metastasize the cancer of anxiety within the many!

Saturday’s assassination attempt against Donald Trump, though abhorrent, shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone paying close, honest attention to the violent, enraged state of our collective national being. Gunfire is the bloody, daily reality of our existence, and I struggle to understand the thinking that “it couldn’t happen here.” Because it does happen. Here, there, and everywhere.

Yet it really isn’t all about what “they” are or aren’t doing. Much as maybe we wish it so, it really isn’t all about “them.” But surely is all about us! If we want things looking good in the neighborhood, if we want a better country and a better world, you and I absolutely do play our parts.

Riffing on the reflections of colleagues, here’s how I sense the Spirit outfitting us to play those roles. None of these suggestions will magically heal our divisions. But they will help our brain health, make us more-caring neighbors and better-informed citizens, and thus steel ourselves, our country, and our world for the seemingly impossible work of redemption and reconciliation that must lie ahead if we are to survive.

For starters, instead of frittering away even more of your precious time on mediocre TV shows and movies, tedious reels and videos, and mindless reruns and talking heads, please read a book. A novel, a biography, a history – the genre really doesn’t matter. The librarians are correct: Reading makes us better people. Reading stirs curiosity and rouses compassion. Reading expands horizons, challenges assumptions and, if you’re willing to learn, teaches you something of yourself and others.

Next, rather than instinctively reaching for your smart phone before you’re even out of bed, rather than starting your day doom-scrolling through social media or checking your texts and emails, please spend five or 10 minutes – or even just a minute or two – blending your own mix of spiritual ingredients: scripture, song, prayer, meditation, silence.

Too often we complain that God never seems to do anything. Or that God doesn’t stop bad things from happening. Well, why aren’t more of us stopping bad things from happening? Why do you and I let bad things happen, when God in Christ Jesus clearly shows us how to make our world better through word and deed?!

Finally, however comforting it feels to hole up inside and wall off the outside world, please connect with someone. Do a video chat. Pick up the phone and talk. Or laugh, or cry. Or do all three! Re-connect with a longtime friend, rekindle a long-lost friendship. Mail a letter! Buying a 73-cent stamp surely won’t bust the household budget! Better yet, meet for coffee or lunch. Even greater still, invite someone to join you on your porch or patio, or to gather at your table and break bread together. On your knees, if that feels meaningful!

“Everyone thinks of changing the world,” writes the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. “But no one thinks of changing himself.” Writing to the Philippians, the apostle Paul shares with the Word of the Lord a vision for such game-changing redemption –

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.

Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:4-9 NRSV)

Ancient words, ever true: Heaven’s answers to the honest prayers of anxious hearts –

Come and fill our hearts with your peace.
You alone, O Lord, are holy.
Come and fill our hearts with your peace.
Alleluia! Amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, July 14, 2024, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa.

Trusting God with Our National Sin

As go the lyrics, the songs we love to sing have freedom’s theme.

Hence we red-blooded, God-blessed Americans love to croon of freedom and liberty, with words both sacred and secular, when national holidays afford opportunities to “let music swell the breeze and ring from all the trees.”

But candidly I’m having a harder and harder time singing some of our most precious and treasured national music. It’s not that the tunes themselves are harder and harder to sing (though the notes of the “Star-Spangled Banner” will be forever brutal on the throat). For me our varied American hymns and anthems are becoming harder and harder to sing, because their lyrics are ringing ever-more hollow in my heart and mind, resting ever-more heavily upon my soul and spirit.

In this our collective moment, the United States in no way feels crowned with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. I’m an excellent navigator with or without GPS, but I must have driven right past the freeway exit for those gleaming, alabaster cities “undimmed by human tears!”

Your retort to my screed makes a fair point: But pastor, those lyrics reverberate our ideals not our realities. True enough!

So why, then, aren’t we more passionate about turning our ideals into realities?

Why, then, aren’t we making the full force of this nation’s vast human and financial resources the tools with which to turn the stanzas of our national songs into the lived experience of every person dwelling in this nominal land of the free?

Why, then, do we plead “God mend thine every flaw” when we so casually and flippantly ignore the inconvenient truth of the Lord’s response: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love neighbor and stranger as you yourself want to be love.

In this country, as another suggests, we have come to define patriotism as a positive account of our nation’s history that treads lightly upon our nation’s sins. The Fourth of July in particular is a time to wrap ourselves in the flag, grill some meat, and pop off some fireworks. A playlist of songs God-blessing the USA accompanies the holiday revelry and summer fun.

But reflecting on deadly European engagement with indigenous peoples throws a wet blank on the party. Same goes for near-taboo topics like the U.S. internment camps of World War II. And good grief, don’t light a fuse under the women folk and get them all riled up about rights and equality!

Easily ruining the fun-loving vibe of your campsite, river time, or backyard barbeque is any talk of slavery or Jim Crow. Mere mentions of lynchings, economic exploitations, or the sometimes-fatal consequences of “driving while Black” are real buzz kills. (When your white daughter’s boyfriend is Black, dads like me start paying more attention to the perils of race.)

In the end, you pay no personal cost to sing along with Kate Smith to “God Bless America,” or to Yankee-Doodle-Dandy-it-up with Jimmy Cagney, or to hop up on Lee Greenwood’s vintage Oliver farm tractor to express your pride in being an American.

But it requires so very much more to believe in and cling to a place whose promises feel made for some but not all. Lyrics about a land that has failed you stick in your throat like gooey peanut butter. Which, for many, is reason enough to take a pass on singing songs that mask our failures in the star-spangled glitter of fireworks and the gross overindulgence of hot-dog-eating contests.

“If you hate America so much, then get out!”

That’s usually the cliché of choice to push back on such so-called “woke” thought. Frankly, “getting out” really is my list of possible escape options if and when life in the public square takes even sharper turns for the worse.

But for the next wave of refugees, a flight to safety just might boil down to “you can run but you cannot hide.” Elections worldwide keep adding names to the already-long list of authoritarian dictators, and a few of them seem ready at the drop of a hat to put their nuclear launch codes into apocalyptic action.

I really do care about this land we love, so my prayer for the United States lifts fervent hope of acknowledging our individual and national brokenness, and taking responsibility for our collective failures and foibles. Because explaining them away only stifles and suffocates even the most meager dreams of rising above the fray – taking the higher road not taken – to become a better, more faithful, more spiritually fruitful nation.

The blessing of such brutal honesty provides the catalyst of forgiveness by grace. Heartful confession always opens wide the door of fresh possibilities. Fessing-up in all humility always rolls away the stone that separates you from enjoying the fullness of resurrection.

Telling the truth is the most hopeful and helpful form of patriotism if ours or any nation has any chance of becoming great again. Thus writes the apostle John:

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

“If we confess our sins, the One who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:8-10)

That’s a bracing message for any nation that considers itself “Christian.”

Too often we worry that, if we tell our children about our complex and sometimes dark history, they’ll emotionally swoon and collapse under the heavy weight of debilitating shame.

But instead of lying to our children and grandchildren (and to ourselves), instead of writing-off millions of lived experiences of trauma and terror, let’s invite our kids to accept an assignment that demands the best of them – and the best of their parents and grandparents, their siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles; the best of all sinners and saints of certain ages. Together, let us seize the power of the Holy Spirit and close the gaping breach separating our ideals and practices.

This is the gift that the past offers us: A chance to flee old evils and pursue new goods.

Posting the Ten Commandments on classroom walls, or requiring teachers to lead their students in daily prayer, ain’t gonna get us there – so long as we tolerate blatant, ongoing abuse of those Commandments, so long as we close our hearts on the scriptural responses to our ardent prayers, so long as we try in vain to quench the Holy Spirit.

Patriotism is not enough if all it imagines is galloping down the road with Paul Revere shouting warnings about Redcoats, or hunkering in boats as the beaches of Normandy come ever-closer into hellish view.

By the definition of my two-time, Richard-Nixon-voting parents, patriotism means reading the next paragraph that explains how the liberty for which Revere and others fought so bravely was freedom for some, not all. In the day every “Negro” man counted as three-fifths of a person. Women remained as chattel.

Patriotism – as I was taught in school – is turning to the next page of the story and discovering those proud, fresh-faced African-Americans who risked their lives on those beaches of Europe returned home to a racially segregated country in which they became targets of firehouses and police dogs.

Patriots mourn with Asian-Americans returning from World War II-combat on ancestral land only to discover that their government had interned their loved ones behind barbed wire for the duration. Some German-Americans and Italian-Americans suffered similar wartime fates.

Patriots condemn protesters who spit on soldiers, airman, sailors, and marines returning home from brutal, vicious jungle fights. And with equally passionate voices, patriots condemn a government that shirks its responsibilities to care for the lasting injuries of war it inflicted on an entire generation for reasons not entirely clear.

Patriots do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.

For Christ’s sake, and for the sake of the Good News of the Gospel:

Could we please just lower the flags, take down all the bunting, and with full hope and confidence in the Lord’s promises of forgiveness and resurrection – could we please just give sacred voice to the reality that our national story contains its conflicted mix of triumph and tragedy?

Could we please just realize that the emotions of love, pride, and regret can and do reside in the same heart, can and do stir the same soul, can and do influence the same human spirit?

Could we please just make space for the real-very possibility that, in the eyes of heaven, the truest form of patriotism rises to place a hand over a heart filled with love that is not complacent, love that demands more than crumbs from the table of justice, love that demands more than scraps from the feast of grace?

If that’s your brand of patriotism, thank you for your service.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in the judgment of the Lord God Almighty.

Amen, and amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, July, 3, 2024, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. Reflection by Brian Lyman and Esau McCaulley inform the message.

(he/she/they)

Of the Trinity’s three persons, I sometimes feel most sorry for the Holy Spirit.

Because, no thanks to human curiosity and thick-headedness, the Spirit always seems to be suffering from an identity crisis. It’s as if humanity harbors an insatiable desire to identify and personify the Spirit, yet none of those cravings ever seems to satisfy fully in suitably naming the Spirit.

For me the Holy Spirit is a “she” – guiding and nurturing. With equally good reason, others experience the Holy Spirit as a “he” – powerful and forceful. Beyond gender, as our recent Scripture lessons have suggested, the Spirit likewise is as a tongue of fire. And as a dove. And as water. And now this morning, as wind.

Who’s to say?

Frankly it all sounds so absurd that you just want to give up and go on your merry way! Maybe these many identifies of the Holy Spirit are all too much of a good thing and are best avoided in the interest of spiritual peace!

Think about it! These images of the Holy Spirit cut both ways: Fire both warms and destroys. Water both quenches and drenches. Yes, doves coo sweetly, but Hitchcock’s movie about birds scares completely. Tropical winds blow gently; tornadic winds whip furiously.

So, is it possible, then, to have too much of the Holy Spirit?

A long-winded, late-night conversation between Jesus and a religious leader named Nicodemus speaks to that honest question. I’m reading to you from chapter 3 of John’s Gospel. Listen for the Word of the Lord.

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.

He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.

“Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:1-8 NRSV)

Being “born again” is a slogan and rallying cry for an entire segment of modern Christianity.

In those circles, being “born again” is the yardstick that measures the validity of one’s faith.

It’s often a very flat measure that refers to the moment when a person “comes” to Jesus or “accepts” Christ. But if that’s all the farther you want to take it, then we’re missing what being “born again” is really all about.

In his use of the verb “born,” Jesus is speaking in the past tense about something that’s already taken place. That spiritual something continues to play out, and it continues to make a difference in your life long after the Spirit’s initial arrival. Thus, when you’re born of the Spirit, that birth has lasting consequences. But those impacts are oftentimes difficult to see and even harder to understand. You see signs and suggestions of such spiritual birth, as you hear wind rustling the leaves of a tree. Yet the Spirit moves and works as she chooses, like a feather on the wind, and no one ever will be fully able to comprehend the Spirit’s travels and activities.

Jesus says that not knowing about the Spirit’s movements also is as “it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Beyond simply declaring that no one knows who’s truly been born from above and who hasn’t, Jesus more importantly is saying that none of us who has experienced a Spirit birth knows how it works. That precisely Nicodemus’s question: How does this rebirth happen, Jesus? And the Lord’s answer is a noun without a verb: the Spirit. Period.

No, you cannot fully comprehend the how, but yes, you can completely understand the why. The Holy Spirit is the why.

As you consider all that God has done for you, and as you ponder Jesus’s invitation to take up your cross and follow him on his ascending way to the presence of God, and as you reflect on the constantly life-altering, forever game-changing work of the Holy Spirit, you are facing head-on the purposes of God and the intentions of God’s love.

Enabled by the Spirit, you respond to such great love in the obedience of faith and belief.

You lean into the wind of the Spirit as the Spirit blows, even if we do not understand it, cannot explain or justify it, or are hesitant to accept it for yourselves or others.

You are responding to God’s love – leaning into the wind of the Spirit – when you acknowledge the unique gifts fueled by the Holy Spirit to bring joy into your life, goodness into the glory, and glory to our God on high.

You are responding to God’s love – allowing the wind of the Spirit to fill your sails – when you rely on the strength and courage of the Spirit to let go of your hurts and resentments, when you put others needs ahead of your own, when you exercise self-control in conversations. Left to your own devices, such daily challenges come with less-favorable outcomes. But on the winds of the Holy Spirit, you leave nothing but goodness in your wake.

You are responding to God’s love – letting the wind of the Spirit unfurl your rebirthing – when you allow the Spirit to overcome your fears and anxieties, to heal your losses and injuries, to muster calm, sanity, comfort, and hope when you most need it – like when life is ripping apart at the seams and the winds of war and dis-ease are blowing with fierce intent.

Is the Spirit like the wind? Like a dove? Like fire or water?

Like Superman and Wonder Woman all rolled into One?

Who cares! They’re all helpful distinctions without a difference: The Spirit is all we need, and the Spirit is ours for the asking.

A glass cannot be full of water if there is space for more water or something else. So our lives cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit in the strictest sense until the Spirit fills every part of our daily walk. Other things must be removed so that the Spirit can occupy us completely. A self-centered existence is replaced with an other-centered spirit that will lead us to greater responses to God’s love, deeper communion with Jesus, a sharper awareness of those around us, and a fresh engagement with those who suffer. Thus writes the apostle Paul:

Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy. Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone.

See that no one pays back evil for evil, but always try to do good to each other and to all people. Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. Do not scoff at prophecies, but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good. Stay away from every kind of evil.

Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. God will make this happen, for the One who calls you is faithful. (1 Thessalonians 5:14-24 NLT)

The Holy Spirit. The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, June 30, 2024. It is the final installment in sermon series on the biblical imagery of the Holy Spirit as fire, water, a dove or a bird, and the wind. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Joan Carey, Chelsey Harmon, Scott Hoezee, Trevor Hudson, and Tim McConnell inform the message.

The Ark Experience

“Look at the ravens!” That was last Sunday’s Gospel challenge to reflection.

“Look at the birds! Look at the ravens!” ordered nonother than Jesus. “They neither sow nor reap; they have neither storehouse nor barn. And yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds.” No doubt, for those with eyes to see, most definitely something of God becomes visible in the natural world that’s borne of heaven’s doing and provisioned by the Lord’s grace.

Thus, Scripture spoke to us about ravens. Which is a very odd choice, because in the Bible’s estimation, ravens really aren’t the good guys. The pitch-black birds of prey represent filth; they scavenge on lifeless carcasses; they exist comfortably amid rot and decay. They’re also selfish and impulsive: Fidelity to a mate is not part of the raven’s lifestyle.

In the early chapters of the Old Testament is where ravens first enter the story of God with us. As the Great Flood nears its end, Noah from the deck of his ark sends forth a raven in search of dry land. But the wayward scout never returns. So, Noah assigns the same intrepid duty to a cherished dove, which is among the biblical symbols of the Holy Spirit.

From Genesis 8 I’m reading to you ancient words that are ever true. Trust that the Holy Spirit will help you listen, learn, and understand. Listen even if you don’t understand, as the floodwaters around Noah show hints of subsidence.

God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the boat.

He sent a wind to blow across the earth, and the floodwaters began to recede. The underground waters stopped flowing, and the torrential rains from the sky were stopped. So the floodwaters gradually receded from the earth.

After 150 days, exactly five months from the time the flood began, the boat came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Two and a half months later, as the waters continued to go down, other mountain peaks became visible. After another forty days, Noah opened the window he had made in the boat and released a raven. The bird flew back and forth until the floodwaters on the earth had dried up.

Noah also released a dove to see if the water had receded and it could find dry ground. But the dove could find no place to land, because the water still covered the ground. So, it returned to the ark, and Noah held out his hand and drew the dove back inside.

After waiting another seven days, Noah released the dove again. This time the dove returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. Then Noah knew that the floodwaters were almost gone. He waited another seven days and then released the dove again. This time it did not come back. (Genesis 8:1-12 NLT)

Symbolism from this scene oozes thick and rich.

Unlike the filthy raven, the untainted dove represents purity and fidelity. Unlike its scavenging cousins, doves abide amid life and all things green and growing. Unlike the unreliable blackbird, the dependable dove is a divine harbinger of peace and good news.

When the dove first returns to Noah, when her feet cannot find one single, solitary square inch of dry land, Noah gets the message that everyone’s time of freedom from the confines of the Ark and the terror of the Flood has not yet come. On her second attempt, the dove returns bearing an olive branch – proof positive that long-waterlogged ground finally is making space for life to blossom and flourish. The dove flies back with a foretaste of the Lord’s message to Noah that it’ll soon be safe to re-enter the land; the dove flashes a sign that a new stage of life is at hand.

Like the Holy Spirit, that lone dove bears a divine message of hope, loyalty, wisdom, and resilience. Her timing is ever perfect; she’s at once independent and connected. She knows the direction in which to fly, and how far to fly, and when to return, and what gifts to bear. She’s in touch with the people for whom she cares as well as aware of her own need for selfcare. As with the Holy Spirit, the dove has a sense of adventure that stretches far beyond the realm of familiar comfort. And, as the Holy Spirit empowers, the dove knows when it’s time for her to depart and move on.

The back-and-forth dove of Genesis 8 leaves for a third time and never returns. She hasn’t abandoned Noah and his flock but instead has done her duty of delivering a holy message of security: It’s finally safe, Noah! And a sacred message of encouragement: Now’s the time to re-enter the world, Noah, and to find safe haven with the Lord in his restored Creation, and to dwell in closer spiritual intimacy with God and God’s people.

Returning to the Old Testament, hear in the Song of Solomon the same protection and inspiration to go forth and prosper:

My lover said to me, “Rise up, my darling! Come away with me, my fair one!

“Look, the winter is past, and the rains are over and gone. The flowers are springing up, the season of singing birds has come, and the cooing of turtledoves fills the air. The fig trees are forming young fruit, and the fragrant grapevines are blossoming. Rise up, my darling! Come away with me, my fair one!”

My dove is hiding behind the rocks, behind an outcrop on the cliff. Let me see your face; let me hear your voice. For your voice is pleasant, and your face is lovely. (Song of Solomon 2:10-14 NLT)

That passionate snippet assures that God is already here.

You cannot see God, but thanks to the Spirit you sense the Lord’s constant invitation spread upon the rolls of Scripture: “Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me.”

“Come with me” – Christ beside you, Christ before you, Christ behind you – doesn’t demand mere following the rules, toeing the line, or aimlessly moving in a basically similar direction with the Lord. “Come with me,” Christ beside, before, and behind – discipleship – also sparks an unconditionally loving relationship in which you and I simply cannot resist drawing nearer to our Lover – the One whom we love, because Father, Son, and Spirit loved us first.

Remember the question that Jesus asks his recently fallen disciple, the apostle Peter? “Do you love me more than these?” (John 21:15)

Let’s hope so, because now’s the time to make a move. Because it’s spring. Not on the daily calendar but on our spiritual calendar. Thanks to Christ’s Easter, it’s always spring for his disciples. It’s always time for new life, for fresh flowering, for renewed fruitfulness. Draw closer to the Lover of your soul, and you will experience renewal. Maybe even, dare I say, resurrection!

That’s a lot to put on a small bird, whether it’s the cooing turtledoves of springtime or Noah’s dove soaring high over the waters of chaos to scope out dry tracts of safe space.

But the Spirit like those fabled doves indeed moves freely in our midst, undefiled and perfectly clean, bearing no mixture of deceit or malice, never spewing lies or falsehoods, only bearing truth and imploring us to love one another, forgive one another, reconcile with one another, and care for one another.

The timing is right! To riff on an old rock ballad, the time of the season when love runs high like a rain-swollen creek. It is the time of the season for loving: The time of the season for loving Christ more. Hear the perfection of that invitation when dawn breaks fresh with new mercies and a dove’s murmur breaks the day’s stillness with Good News: “In life and in death, you belong to God.”

So, in gratitude to God for such amazing grace, and empowered by the Spirit, please strive to serve Christ in your daily tasks. As the Church confesses: “Live holy and joyful lives, even as you watch for God’s new heaven and new earth, praying, ‘Come, Lord Jesus!’” That just is the Holy Spirit!

That just is the Holy Spirit! Bestowed in baptism, benefactor for life; free-flowing refreshment, streams of living water – even in the heat of moment. The Spirit of Water cools overheated passions before the human spirit builds up a full head of steam.

That just is the Holy Spirit! Purifying the human tongue with fire, burning off the chaff that chokes the heart, helping communicate honestly and effectively with those who do not speak your language. The Spirit’s tongue flickers with the gentle nuances of God’s grace both extended and received, fueling not overinflated egos but rather heaven’s burning desires.

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, June 23, 2024, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Rod Argent, Stan Mast, and Angela Nevitt Meyer inform the message, which is part of Pastor Grant’s current sermon series on the symbols of the Holy Spirit. Additional messages in the series are available at FirstPresWaukon.com/sermons/.

How Much More, Then

Since our fiery, razzle-dazzle remembrance of Pentecost last month, Scriptures have been speaking to biblical images and symbols of the Holy Spirit.

First came water, with a full-throated invitation to abundant living from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. … For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”

By all means, for your physical health, drink more water. But for eternal health, please drink more of the Spirit. Life can sometimes feel like a desert wilderness where you become tired, frustrated, weak, and apathetic. Like the scorching heat of the summer sun, duties and responsibilities drain your vitality. Your get-up-and-go gets up and leaves.

But thanks be to God, the Holy Spirit flows forever as a river: The wet, watery, very-real sense of having the living water of the Holy Spirit gushing into your life – a blessing for yourself and blessed relief for others, when the going gets tough and when the heat is on. As I shared in the pathetic story of my rescuing an insect, a mere drop of rainwater holds the power to revive a lethargic bubble bee.

Next came fire and flame – the Spirit’s tongue flickering with the gentle nuances of God’s grace, its sparks oddly enough never burning or scarring, never inflicting pain or trauma – instead purifying the human tongue and burning off the chaff that chokes the heart, instead producing voices and actions of love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control – gracious attitudes and behaviors that the apostle Paul labels “fruit of the Spirit.”

As it turns out, water and fire make a perfect combination. The Spirit of Water cools the overheated heart of fire, cordially turning down the heat, before the human spirit builds up a full head of steam. Thanks be to God!

And this morning, in flies the Holy Spirit as a dove.

In their similar tellings of the Lord’s baptism, all four Gospel writers paint gentle, fluttering images of the Spirit as a dove. John the Baptist no sooner pulls up his cousin from the baptismal waters of the Jordan River when – according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – the Spirit of God descends upon Jesus as a dove. And through the open gates of heaven, a commanding voice proclaims, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16-17, Luke 3:22, Mark 1:10)

John’s Gospel adds a bracing postscript to the watery and feathered spectacle: “On whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.” (John 1:33-34)

I’m planning to unpack the ties that bind the dove to baptism next Sunday when we celebrate that sacrament with the Otting family. For now, though, prompted by two similar Gospel passages that have been resting quietly upon my heart, let’s this morning zoom out from doves in particular and focus on birds in general.

“Look at the birds,” Matthew’s Gospel commands a couple chapters after the Spirit like a dove touches down upon Jesus. In his observation Matthew notes with the words of Jesus that birds “don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to [God] than they are?” (Matthew 6:26 NLT)

In his “orderly account of the events that have taken place,” Luke takes it up a notch. “Consider the ravens” is his challenge to reflection from the Lord. “They neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!” (Luke 12:24 NRSV)

Many of us share the year-round love of watching backyard birds.

Over at our place, we don’t enjoy the blessing of bird variety that’s available to country folks. But we’re grateful for the routine brood that we’re able to enjoy.

Thus Julie and I were excited when we noticed that a pair of robins put down roots atop a utility box under the southwest eaves of the fellowship hall. On trips from manse to church and back again, we watched as mom and dad each took turns guarding some number of eggs laid in the free-falling nest. It wasn’t long before three little beaks began poking above its rim. I named them “Mary,” “Ryan,” and “James” in love and remembrance of my three young-adult children who more or less have left the nest.

For days I watched those adult robins flying into the nest with beaks stuffed full of greasy earthworms to feed their growing family – and then turning tail to resume the search for the next course.

“Look at the birds. They don’t plant, or harvest, or store up, for their heavenly Father feeds them. … Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap; they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!”

And you just can’t help but break into song with the psalmist:

“Sing out your thanks to the LORD; sing praises to our God with a harp. God covers the heavens with clouds, provides rain for the earth, and makes the grass grow in mountain pastures. The LORD gives food to the wild animals and feeds the young ravens when they cry.” (Psalm 147)

In thanksgiving for God’s Creation and generous provision, it’s hard to resist a song we love to sing: “Sweet the rain’s new fall sunlit from heaven, like the first dewfall on the first grass. Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden, sprung in completeness where God’s feet pass.”

No doubt, for those with eyes to see, most definitely something of God becomes visible in the natural world that’s borne of heaven’s doing. But, however stunning, Mother Nature only takes you so far.

For all the beauty of the earth, for all its purple-mountain majesty and fruited plain, the world is a pretty violent place. And routinely deadly in the animal kingdom! Just go for an early morning drive and make note of the widespread roadkill made available for “the young ravens, [vultures, and eagles] when they cry.”

Sometimes you’re the windshield; sometimes you’re the bug, I suppose. And when it comes to understanding God, that reality produces more confusion than clarity. So also, then, more often tears of sadness than songs of joy.

Which is where I found myself with my baby robins Mary, Ryan, and James. None of them made it. The circumstances of their demise are irrelevant, and the sadness I feel pales in comparison to the losses that some of you are grieving these days. Surely I will move on, as it relates to baby birds sooner rather than later, adding yet one more loss to a long list of the many with which I’ve learned to live.

Yet, after burying the little, lifeless figures of Mary, Ryan, and James under our magnolia tree, later in the still of many nights, I wrestle with meager belief in God’s promises of food, care, and provision for creatures like birds, who sometimes measure their lifespans with mere days – and for creatures like you and me, creations of God’s own choosing, supposedly more valuable than mere birds, yet battered and broken by darkness and evil.

Where is God to be found?

How exactly is God working together unto good, in the midst of my disappointment and darkness? In the midst of my fear and doubt? In the midst of my sin and brokenness? Then, by dawn’s early light, the cooing of a morning dove outside my bedroom window stirs me from sleep.

“Of how much more value are you than the birds!” she just as soon might well be crooning – a message of gentle-yet-powerful assurance by the Holy Spirit: “With believers in every time and place, we rejoice that nothing in life or in death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So indeed, even in the midst of world’s death and loss, crime and violence, hatred and oppression, lies and falsehoods, division and alienation, let heaven rejoice, and let earth be glad, and let praise surround the throne.

As God takes on human form in Jesus, so also the Spirit takes on human form in us – with us and for us. Amen, and amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message on Sunday, June 16, 2024, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. It is the third of his series on images and symbols of the Holy Spirit. Previous sermons in the series are available at FirstPresWaukon.com/sermons/

Quench Your Tongue

Any number of signs herald the arrival of sultry, warmer weather. Over at our place, one such signal is the re-opening of the garage-roof reading room and tanning salon.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the neighborhood, the nippy jets of lawn sprinklers goose-bump young skin and loose chilly squeals of full-bodied excitement. “Summer is here,” you whisper to no one in particular. And you surely know you’re in the dog days of summer when you’re bearing the brunt of sticky heat, and fire hydrants become cooling stations for young and old alike.

It’s an iconic image, really: A hot, hot, hot-in-the-city summer day, in a community where most folks live without air conditioning; kids flooding the streets as fire-hydrant valves open wide to belch torrents of cooling reprieve upon the blistering pavement and hot, sweaty masses standing in their concrete splash zones. And together the community sighs in shared relief: Ahhhh, summer!

That feeling of most-welcome relief is how last Sunday’s Scripture lesson meant to touch your soul and feed your spirit: With the wet, watery, very-real sense of having the living water of the Holy Spirit gushing into your life – a blessing for yourself, blessed relief for others, when the going gets tough, when the heat is on, when it’s both the heat AND the humidity. That’s why water is such a potent biblical image of the Holy Spirit!

And oddly enough, so also is the Holy Spirit known by fire!

With fresh ears and open hearts, hear again the story of Pentecost and its dancing flames in the coming of the Holy Spirit. These are ancient words, yes, but they ARE ever true –

On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place.

Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.

At that time there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem. When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers. They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages!” (Acts 2:1-8 NLT)

Americans who journey overseas, novice and veteran travelers alike, oftentimes exhibit a behavior that’s altogether amusing and aggravating.

It is our red-white-and-blue tendency of speaking English louder and slower to someone who doesn’t speak English, so as to help that person immediately and miraculously understand a language she or he doesn’t even speak in the first place. My fluency is German and Dutch is limited, so I too have seized hold of “louder and slower” when my shallow foreign vocabularies ran dry. And so it goes:

Which, WAY, to, the MU-S-EUM?

Where IS, the, TRAIN, station?

DO, YOU, speak, ENG-LISH?

A disturbing variant of that linguistic phenomenon feels in play within our own borders these days. Perhaps one of the reasons Americans are so increasingly polarized lies our inability and unwillingness to communicate in the same language.

For years I bought into the notion that, at our national core, we all held certain truths to be self-evident. As a society we drew solid, black lines between good and evil, right and wrong, truth and falsehood, fact and fiction, reality and conspiracy, guilt and innocence. Though in reality we spend most of our days carefully treading across the many shades of gray between the opposing poles of ethics and morality.

Thus, every Christmas, we listen graciously to beloved, old Uncle George more than just flirt with the idea of the Earth being flat. And we long ago stopped trying to convince dear Aunt Hazel (bless her heart) that Americans really did land on the moon and that Jewish space lasers really aren’t a thing.

However troubling, all that was manageable, navigable, controllable, even predictable. Though sometimes close, no one ever went over the edge. With a wry wink of an eye, we’d let it all go in one ear and out the other, choosing to be lean of expression and long on patience. Argumentative tongues remained holstered, which allowed space for responses both compassionate and understanding. Most definitely is the grace of remaining silent an amazing and precious gift!

But now, when I step out the door each morning, I find myself increasingly perplexed and dumbfounded about how to communicate honestly and effectively with those who do not speak my language.

As when traveling foreign lands, increasingly more of us in daily life resort to turning up the volume, speaking louder as if that will help deliver our message. We shout at those around us, to no avail thinking louder will foster understanding and eventually get this or that through the other’s thick skull. Worse still, the inability to communicate fuels a quite-real sense of powerlessness and hopelessness – so also anger, frustration, annoyance, and defeat. Little wonder, then, that our communal mental health is so puny and anemic.

To flee those agonizing places of oral discomfort, we gradually limit our interactions to those who speak “our language.” And pretty soon everybody is talking past one another – LOUDLY!!! And often with malicious intent! Learning how to communicate easily morphs into learning how to manipulate, particularly if one’s heart is fueled improperly. In other words, hearts and minds driven by worldly, overinflated egos rather than heaven’s passionate desires.

Hence we feel the burning heat of fiery tongues, carelessly believing such scorching, red-hot speech arises from the Spirit of Fire, simply because – for better or worse (mostly worse) – it’s in a language we understand.

In stark contrast, the Spirit’s tongue flickers with the gentle nuances of God’s grace, and that often still-small-voice of undeserved favor is easily misheard, mistaken, and misunderstood. It’s an enflamed voice, yes. But its sparks rest gently upon the believer, oddly enough never burning or scarring, never inflicting pain or trauma, instead purifying the human tongue and burning off the chaff that chokes the heart; instead producing the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Several other telltale signs assure the Spirit’s verbal influence, and the first dwells in the humility of being quiet and simply listening.

If you want to speak to another’s understanding, you first have to understand the language of his or her story. And that requires listening carefully and attentively to the other. You’ll never know him, her, or them if first you do not listen. So listen first, trusting the Spirit to open your ears, and speak later, always letting the Spirit spark your words.

Then comes “example.” The most important story we tell is our own. Others hear that story, then interpret our words by the way they see us living our lives. Call it integrity, consistency, unwavering adherence to strong moral principles and ethical values. St. Francis of Assisi provides a fruitful example: “Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, even use words.”

Right about now, confusion is running rampant. People at all stages of life, from all walks of life, are questioning their beliefs, reinterpreting their views, and adjusting their ideas, just because one person’s words do not match that person’s example. Actions are utterly inconsistent with words. And if you wish to speak to another’s understanding, the last thing you want to do is introduce confusion, dissonance, uncertainty, and doubt with behavior inconsistent with your speech.

One final practice enlivens our listening and enables our integrity.

The reason we listen, the reason we live with integrity, the reason we communicate best by the Spirit, is because with those acts we are practicing and communicating love – a language that everyone understands.

Love is what we express when we listen sincerely to understand someone else before we seek to be understood. Love is what we share with the gift of consolation before seeking to be consoled.

Love is what motivates us to manage our lives in such ways that reflect our faith and beliefs, and love is the key that opens the door of welcome to the Spirit’s indwelling of our souls and spirits.

Love is what inspires us to share our words with others, in the hopes of reciprocating love making ways for reception of those words. Thus in his New Testament epistle, James writes of hearing and doing, listening and learning, loving and caring –

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters:

You all must be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Human anger does not produce the right living that God desires. So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.

But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like.

But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. (James 1:19-27 NLT)

Nearly halfway through 2024, my ears already ring from all the political and cultural yelling – the noise spewing from the mouths of others whom I struggle to understand, their language not resonating with me nor mine with them.

But loving kindness surely bridges the gap. No matter your party affiliation, no matter your tribe, no matter your certainty, leaning into kindness – leaning into love – fills the communication gap with sheer grace both extended and received. Let such mercy and decency apply the healing balm when the confusion of language mucks up the works. Without question, a fiery tongue and a tongue of fire most definitely are not one in the same. From the Wisdom of Solomon,

“Sin is not ended by multiplying words, but the prudent hold their tongues.” (Proverbs 10:19 NIV)

Why? So as not to burn or blister the other, but rather to warm and comfort, understand and empathize, reconcile and forgive. That’s the Holy Spirit.

That’s the Holy Spirit! Free-flowing refreshment, streams of living water – even in the heat of moment. Which makes water and fire a perfect combination. The Spirit of Water cools the overheated heart of fire, cordially turning down the heat, before the human spirit builds up a full head of steam.

That’s the Holy Spirit! To riff on a song we like to sing, a pillar of fire shining forth in the night. Till shadows have vanished, all fearfulness and darkness banished, as forward we travel from light into Light.

Ahhh, summer is here. Ahhh, so also the Spirit. Thus may we learn to speak and understand each other’s languages, as the Spirit and the Spirit alone gives you and me the ability.

The Word of the Lord! Thanks be to God!!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message on Sunday, June 9, 2024, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. It is the second of his sermon series on the biblical symbols of the Holy Spirit. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Michael Clifton, Chris Eaton, Robert E. Fischer, and Chelsey Harmon inform the message.

Living Wet

To the farmer standing in the barn and staring out at waterlogged fields, more rain right about now feels more like curse than blessing. A couple of you privately have already asked that I prayerfully ask God to cork the clouds and close the spigot.

Yet these cold, wet days that fill the barns with hay do come with moments of assurance and hope: Like the other day when I rescued a bumble bee. She was barely moving, clinging to life on a window ledge of our back porch. What little movement she made seemed to take every ounce of strength she had left, her delicate legs appearing to move as if in slow-motion.

Now, I hold absolutely no love for aggressive, stinging insects like wasps or hornets. Crossing our threshold never ends well for the yellow-jacket that sneaks its way inside. But bumble bees are another story. They’re the good guys who mostly mind their own business of pollinating flowers, fruits, and vegetables. So it felt, to me anyway, like this bumble bee deserved a reprieve.

My rescue plan was simple: Grab an empty drinking glass, gently nudge the bee off the ledge and into the glass, then head outside to tip the lethargic bumble bee gently onto one of Julie’s lovely potted flowers just outside our backdoor. So that’s what I did, figuring the bumble bee still had a morsel or two of strength to inch her way into a deep-purple bloom for a sip of sweet, refreshing nectar.

But no. Instead, she labored over to a droplet of water that clung to a leaf, and slowly but surely the droplet disappeared. Her tiny body heaved rapidly as she sucked up the droplet. Then she paused, maybe a second or two, and quickly took vertical flight across our back yard – apparently rejuvenated, obviously strengthened, seemingly no worse for the wear – by a mere droplet of refreshing rain.

No wonder, then, that in the biblical world water was such a precious commodity.

The lack of rain in certain areas made the catching and saving of rainwater a vital chore of the utmost importance. (It’s a ritual next door at the manse, too!) And in Scripture, water symbolizes of the Spirit of God. On the last day – the great day! – of the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles, the setting described in our first lesson this morning, a priest uses a golden pitcher to draw water from the free-flowing Well of Siloam.

He’d then take the life-giving water and pour it upon the foot of the altar, while worshipers sang the psalms and songs of praise and thanksgiving. The ritual anxiously anticipated the arrival of truly living water in the coming of God’s Messiah. And on this particular occasion, over the din of the crowd’s holy celebrations, Jesus announces the outpouring of the Holy Spirit!

Hear, now, that spoken Word of the Lord from the Voice who began Creation. Listen even if you don’t understand.

On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.

“As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’”

Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. (John 7:37-39)

Those three verses pack a lot of theological punch, so let me quickly parse out a few things.

First, Jesus extends an invitation not so much to those who merely need to wet their whistles physically but more to those suffering with spiritual thirst, wrestling with a deep, intense longing for righteousness, yearning for living life in right relationship with God, others, and all Creation. “Let anyone who is spiritually thirsty come and drink deeply.”

Second, as the Spirit irrigates our parched souls, that same loving grace also must flow out of a believer’s heart to quench others similarly dehydrated – yet another way of describing what it means to love and serve God, friend, neighbor, and stranger. “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water to quench a deep, spiritual thirst for living rightly with God, with friend, with neighbor, with stranger.”

And finally, when John writes that the Spirit has not yet been given, that doesn’t mean the Spirit hasn’t been active and at work all along. Rather, it appears to dovetail well with the story of Jesus’s Ascension that we heard a couple weeks ago. Not until Jesus ascends to heaven is he finally fully glorified, granted a higher status, as he takes his seat at the righthand of God.

After that happens, Jesus commands, wait patiently for the Spirit to arrive like gangbusters, which well describes the rushing wind and dancing flames that make the Pentecost story so very exceptional.

In the meantime, while you’re waiting on God to be God, here’s some good advice: Drink more water.

A person can live for 60 days without food but can’t survive three days without water. We must have water to live. We all know how a plant can droop and die without water. How much more our physical bodies!

We all, from time to time, enter into the place where we find ourselves spiritually tired and drained. The demands of living, paired with a waning prayer life, can produce a dryness of heart and dehydration of soul.

Sometimes we wander into dry, arid places, because we tend to neglect spiritual matters. You may find yourself in places that are dry, like a spiritual desert, where you become tired, frustrated, weak, and apathetic. Responsibilities and needs, like the intense heat from the beaming sun, drain you of vitality.

So please hear and take to heart this invitation to abundant life from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah:

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.

Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Instead of the [jagged] thorn shall come up the [lush] cypress; instead of the [desert] brier shall come up the [evergreen shrub]; and it shall be to the LORD for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. (Isaiah 55:1-3, 6-13)

By all means, for your physical health, drink more water. But for eternal health, drink more of the Spirit. Life can sometimes feel like a desert wilderness, but the Holy Spirit flows forever as a river.

It’s called living wet! The Word of the Lord!! Thanks be to God!!!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this sermon on Sunday, June 2, 2024, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. It is the first in series on biblical symbols of the Holy Spirit: water, fire, a dove, and wind. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by David Diga Hernandez and Kurt Selles inform the message.

East Ellington Cemetery

But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. …

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.

You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire.

For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. (Isaiah 9:1-7 NRSV)

East Ellington Cemetery hasn’t seen a fresh burial in decades.

And for much of that time, its measure of “perpetual care” was basic and minimal.

Which is why, as a teenager, I volunteered to spend a Saturday cleaning up the tiny plot that nestles at the quiet intersection of two country roads.

I had motivation beyond the simple good deed of lending my time and effort to a good cause. According to the courthouse register of deeds, East Ellington Cemetery was the resting place for two of my great-great-great grandparents – native Germans who joined the Swiss in immigrating to northeast Wisconsin in the mid-1800s.

I knew great-great-great Grandpa and Grandma Diener were there – somewhere, but on an earlier visit, their headstones were nowhere to be found. And given the cemetery’s small acreage, their graves should have been easy to find. But no. At least not right away.

As other volunteers spread out across the cemetery in all directions, the clean-up organizers handed me a shovel and pointed me to a lightly wooded area, where I was instructed to dig up some invasive species crowding out the natural groundcovers that surrounded maturing oaks and maples.

Not long into my chore, my spade hit something hard as my foot pushed its honed tip into the soft ground. Surely a rock, I thought, as I moved the shovel’s edge a few inches from its failed cut to try again. But no. Again, nothing but more of the shiver-inducing sound of metal scraping against rock (the outdoor version of nails on a chalkboard).

Either this was one big rock, or I’d stumbled upon some buried treasure. It turned out to be the latter.

In my digging, I would soon discover, I’d struck a tombstone. Two of them, actually!

And two footstones, bearing the engraved initials of the souls whose names were on the headstones: H.D. and S.D., Heinrich Diener and his wife, Sophie Diener, my great-great-great grandparents. The lost had been found accidently. Then again, no one arrives in any place purely by accident.

Eventually hands more skilled than mine took the cracked and broken Diener gravestones, set them in concrete to restore their heft, and returned them to active duty as sentinels that stand, to me anyway, as stones of resurrection – literally raised up from their own shallow graves, figuratively brought back to life.

Maybe the image I paint, and the message I sense, are too simplistic and cliched, overly sentimental, even – perhaps j-uu-sss-t a little too coincidental as to stir skepticism. Maybe so. But it was, nevertheless, my experience: Being gifted with the enriched understanding that cemeteries, yes, are places of death, but cemeteries, thanks be to God, also cradle in their good earth promises of new life – sometimes hiding just below the surface.

That day, last month, when I revisited East Ellington Cemetery nigh unto 50 years after making my genealogical discovery, the burial ground felt as holy ground – or at least, something of the holy: A place of reconnection and communion with two of the people who gave me life; each headstone and footstone a granite link in the chain of my life. Six feet under my feet lay bits and pieces of the very DNA that makes me who I am.

“Collateral beauty” is an odd-sounding term that I’ve shared with you before.

Collateral beauty refers to the irony that even something as tragic as death and loss can reveal moments of deep meaning and surprising magnificence – unintended or “collateral” beauty that’s set in motion by God’s grace in spite of sin, failure, and doubt.

Goodness coming from tragedy, life arising from death, “collateral beauty” transforming the world’s rampant ugliness. And creating the right conditions for “collateral beauty” to appear often involves taking some spiritual risk.

The willingness to take spiritual risk is what Christ begins through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit of God in Jesus Christ burns off and blows out the dense fog that clouds the grace-filled wonder of “collateral beauty” that’s all around.

In those strange moments of Pentecost that we recalled last Sunday, in the sound of rushing wind and flicker of dancing flame, a dramatic transfer of power to the Spirit of God in Christ takes place, and that power shift holds the source for new life lit up by God’s “collateral beauty.” The Spirit invades our hearts and mind to disrupt and dislodge our ways of sensing God present with us and at work in our world.

May it be so.

May this be the Memorial Day when the Spirit lifts the veil of flags and bunting, anthems and pledges, to reveal some “collateral beauty.”

As that tear forms in the corner of your eye when you bend down to place those garden blooms on the grave of someone you loved – that family member or friend who died in war or simply in the trenches of everyday life, may the Holy Spirit reveal the collateral beauty this reality:

The grave over which slump you in sadness is only temporary. By the Spirit, may you see God’s promise of resurrection and hear the Lord’s promise to return: The day when the grave over which you now grieve and all the graves around it will open, and dead bodies will rise –freed from bondage to decay and reunited with souls and spirits that have rested gently in the arms of the Lord just waiting for the day of resurrection to dawn.

May it be so!

In life and in death we belong to God – one with Jesus in his death, one with Christ in his resurrection, all thanks to the gift of God’s Holy Spirit.

“The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.” Amen.

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during Memorial Day weekend, Sunday, May 26, 2024, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa.