Sermon: I Wanna Hold Your Hand, but That's Not All! (Pentecost, May 24, 2015)

Day of Pentecost (B)

May 24, 2015 (BLC confirmation, SMLC baptisms)

Acts 2:1–21

Romans 8:22–27

John 15:26–27; 16:4b–15

            I have been reading a wonderful and fascinating book called The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace. It is about a kid who grows up in a bad part of Newark, but ends up going to Yale for college. His mom works extremely hard through his life to give him every possible opportunity, though she can barely afford to feed him. His dad is a drug dealer, but a very loving and present father, who is well-loved in the neighborhood. When Rob is 7, his dad is arrested for a murder he probably didn’t commit. His mom responds by working even harder, and finding a way to send Rob to private school, where he meets wonderful friends who are his kindred spirits. As Rob grows up, he is quietly tormented by his reality, even as he continues to excel in everything he tries, and win the hearts of teachers, drug dealers, and big time CEOs alike. I haven’t finished the book yet, so I don’t know how it ends, but so far it is clear that Rob is able to thrive as he does because he has so many

different people from so many different walks of life surrounding him and walking alongside him. And while many of these advocates and helpers are a comfort to him, what really makes them worthy companions for this brilliant, thoughtful boy is their ability to push him to step beyond what his background might indicate is possible, and to be the best that he can be.

            I’ve been thinking about the story of Robert Peace this week as I have been reflecting on the role of the Holy Spirit, especially as one who advocates for and helps us. As you may have figured out, today is the day in the church year we call Pentecost. It is sort of the birthday of the Church, or you could say, the baptism of the Church – the day the Holy Spirit swept into the lives of Jesus’ followers in dramatic fashion, with wind and fire and many languages spoken and understood and prophecy.  To hear Luke tell it in Acts, we get the impression that this day and this Spirit was unlike anything they had experienced before, and would push them to new and exciting places.

            The image we see of the Holy Spirit in this story from Acts portrays the Holy Spirit as empowering, enabling, dramatic, exciting, perplexing, giver of prophecy – all very strong and active images. But Acts isn’t the only description we get of the Holy Spirit today. In the Psalm, the Spirit is creative and renewing, calling things into existence. In Romans, we hear of a Spirit who is here to pray on our behalf, to intercede for us when we find we don’t have the words, and to pray “with sighs too deep for words.” Here, the Spirit is a Helper, a Comforter, a Companion for us in our weakness. And then finally in John we hear about the Holy Spirit as an Advocate, one who speaks on our behalf. Here she is one who once again gives us the words, but now it is words to proclaim Christ Jesus, to be witnesses. The Spirit is there to comfort and encourage, to walk alongside us.

            So many different roles of the Spirit in these four texts, and even more if we were to look beyond today’s assigned texts. Is there one name we can use to help us understand the many facets of the Holy Spirit? In fact there is: Paraclete. No, not parakeet, and not “pair o’ cleats” (though you can be sure my divinity school’s soccer team took full advantage of this too-good-to-pass-up pun when

we named the soccer team the “Paracleats”). But no, puns aside, “Paraclete” is a compound Greek word that literally means, “to come alongside another.” So when we call the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, we are calling her, “one who comes alongside us.” Perhaps that coming alongside is to comfort, perhaps it is to help, perhaps to advocate, to encourage, to empower, to sustain, to pray for… all of these roles of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, involve some sort of coming alongside.

            And yet, as comforting as it may be to think about God coming alongside us in all we do, we mustn’t get too comfortable in this image. Professor David Lose, who currently serves as the president of Philadelphia Seminary and will be the keynote speaker at our Synod Assembly this weekend, takes issue with thinking about the Paraclete as one whose primary role is to comfort. He complains that though we may prefer to think of the Spirit as Comforter, that’s not quite the whole of it. “I think we’ve misnamed the Holy Spirit,” he writes. “The Holy Spirit is as much agitator as advocate, as much provocateur as comforter… [We mustn’t] reduce the work of the Holy Spirit to making us feel better… [The] one who comes alongside might also do so to strengthen you for work, or to muster your courage, or to prompt or even provoke you to action.” In other words, the Paraclete may take you by the hand, but then pull you somewhere you wouldn’t have gone, or drag you into something you don’t think you can do!

            So this of course can get scary and dangerous for us in a hurry! To be comforted, to have our hand held, to be helped by the Holy Spirit all sounds very nice, but it also gives the impression that things are just fine the way they are, and I don’t need to do anything differently. But sometimes our best advocates and helpers are that precisely because they don’t just hold our hand. I think back to the story about Robert Peace with which I started this sermon. He could have just sat back and given in to the life of so many other young black boys who grew up in the 80s in Newark, whose dads were in prison and moms could barely scrape by on their own. But instead he was pushed and encouraged and empowered and advocated for and inspired to apply to an Ivy League college, to see just what he might be capable of, to try to give back to the world some of the gifts he had clearly been given. His most important companions came alongside him, but did not merely hold his hand.

            The Holy Spirit as Agitator, as Mover and Shaker, as Won’t-Let-You-Sit-Back-On-Your-Heels-and-Watch-er… yes, this is a challenging image indeed, but it is one I think is especially helpful and important on this day, when we not only celebrate Pentecost, but also celebrate the Confirmations of two young men at Bethlehem, and two children’s Baptisms at St. Martin. Baptism is certainly an occasion upon which we talk about the Holy Spirit coming upon us and into us, and Confirmation is an affirmation of that moment, a time when young people say, “Yes, I believe that

the Holy Spirit did come upon me at my baptism, to empower and inspire and counsel and sustain, and I believe that this actually matters for my life!” So how might it look like for these four young members – two confirmands and two being baptized, and next week seven more being confirmed at St. Martin – what might it look like for these young people to have the Holy Spirit “come alongside” them?

            My prayer for them is that it will look like a life of gutsy and courageous service, looking at the needs of the world and at their particular God-given skills and interests, and seeing how those gifts might be used to serve those needs. I pray it will look like a continuing knowledge of and trust in a God who would never lead them into something that cannot be accomplished through Christ who strengthens us. I pray it will look like courage – courage to be agents of change where it is needed, to be healers where no one else will dare venture, to be bold in faith when everyone else seems to have given up. And most of all, I pray it will look like an abiding trust in a God who promises to be present with us in so many and various ways, as our Advocate, our Encourager, our Savior, our Creator, our Paraclete, and in all things, our Sustainer of Life. Praise and thanks be to this God, and may we all be empowered by the gifts God brings to us by the Spirit.

            In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

O Day Full of Grace

May 22, 2015

Dear Grace Victoria,

Now that we have a name picked out for you, we are also enjoying imagining your personality. As time goes on, I can feel you more active inside me, sometimes just little flutters and sometimes full on kicking and punching, sometimes what seems like you are having a dance party in there! (By the way, I do hope we will have dance parties together. We will put some great music on the turntable and rock the house!) With each movement, I imagine you, trying to picture what you are doing and why, and trying to piece together who you are, still several weeks before we will meet face to face.

One thing I have been trying to do is sing you some of my favorite hymns, so that you will know them and respond positively to them once you’re in the outside world. One of these is Love Divine, All Love’s Excelling. This was a favorite of my Solberg grandparents, and your dad and I had it at our wedding. Another is Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. But one that is on my mind especially right now is O Day Full of Grace. Seems an obvious choice because of the name, right? For me, every day is a day full of Grace – I feel it, see it, experience it! But the reason it is on my mind is that it is a Pentecost hymn (and Pentecost is this coming Sunday), and it was your Great-grandpa Dick’s favorite hymn. In fact, this week I had a dream in which I was singing it, and then I looked up and saw he was singing it too, with a smile on his face. (He died my first year in seminary, 2006.) Then I saw my Grandma June singing it, too. (She died my last year in seminary, 2010.) Grandma June sang in the St. Olaf choir under F. Melius Christiansen, a giant in choral music, and Grandma June had a wonderful alto voice. Then I saw all the Solberg siblings singing it, too – David, John, Mary, Daniel, and my mom (your grandma), Lois. And they all sang with such joy in their faces, looking at me and one another the whole time. In my dream, I couldn’t go on singing. All I could do was stand there and weep for all the joy I felt. In my dream mind, I felt they were singing for you.

Grandpa Dick and Grandma June, plus all five Solberg siblings, 2005

So I wanted to include the beautiful text of this hymn here for you. It is a Danish hymn, so it hearkens your Scandinavian roots (which you get from my mom’s side, Norwegian, and my dad’s mom, who was Swedish).

O day full of grace that now we see appearing on earth’s horizon,

Bring light from our God that we may be abundant in joy this season.

God shine for us now in this dark place, your name on our hearts emblazon.

O day full of grace, O blessed time, our Lord on the earth arriving;

then came to our world that light sublime, great joy for us all retrieving;

for Jesus all mortals did embrace, all shame and despair removing.

For Christ bore our sins and not his own, when he on the cross was hanging;

and then he arose and moved the stone, that we, unto him, belonging,

might join with angelic hosts to raise our voices in endless singing.

God came to us then at Pentecost, the Spirit new life revealing,

that we might no more in death be lost, its power over us dispelling.

This flame will the mark of sin efface and bring to us all true healing.

When we on that final journey go that Christ is for us preparing,

we’ll gather in song, our hearts aglow, all joy of the heavens sharing,

and there we will join God’s endless praise, with angels and saints adoring.

                                                                                                Love you, my sweet,

                                                                                                Your mom

Here is a recording of the St. Olaf Choir singing F. Melius Christiansen's arrangement of O Day Full of Grace. My grandma June sang in this choir, under the direction of this composer.

What's in a name?

Michael and I found out several weeks ago now that we are having a baby GIRL. A lot of people

said, "I missed the announcement!" Well, you didn't miss it, because we never actually made it. We had plans for some sort of reveal, but it never happened. But, right after we knew she was a girl, we also already had a name for her. Below is the letter I wrote to her after that ultrasound, telling her about the meaning and significance of her name. Here it is:

April 3, 2015

(Good Friday)

To my sweet daughter,

Today we found out that you are a daughter! A sweet, wonderful, amazing little girl, growing just as you should be. I would have been delighted either way, of course (after all, it worked well for me to 

have an older brother and to be the younger sister), but I was happy you are a girl, because it meant that we could give you the very special name we had picked out: Grace Victoria.

I wanted to tell you a bit about why this name is so special. Your dad and I knew it was the right name, because as we were trying out different combinations of names several weeks ago, as soon as we said this one out loud, we both said, “Yup, that’s it,” as if it just clicked into place. When you know, you know!

One very obvious reason your name is special is that it is a family name. Your Grandma Marilyn has “Grace” as her middle name, and your grandma has been such a rock for your dad through the various struggles he has faced in his life. It was important to him to name a daughter after this important woman in his life. It is also the name of your paternal great-grandma (your dad’s dad’s mom). It is also, I learned, the name of my mom’s favorite great-aunt. So there is heritage there!

Victoria is also a family name on my side. It is the name of my dad’s sister. One very cool thing about Aunt Vicki is that many years ago, when I was just a little girl, she got really, really sick and almost died, but she managed to come through and live a very full life, even though her illness left her legally blind. She is a very strong woman, as I know you will be. It is also your dad’s very favorite name, a name he has always wanted to name a daughter.

But our reasons for choosing this name run even more deeply than that. The concept of grace is an important one for our faith – we hope to instill in you, too, the belief that our God is a gracious one, who loves us and provides for us and forgives us not because we have done something to deserve it, but because that is how amazing our God is. We have felt that grace so strongly the past three years,

as I have battled cancer. As it turns out, your due date, August 24, is the anniversary of the day I was first diagnosed with breast cancer. Every health decision I have made since that day in 2012 was with the hope of you in mind. The possibility of having you someday is what buoyed my spirits and kept me strong through the experience. Through the whole ordeal, we were simply surrounded by grace – both human and divine – as we were loved and provided for and prayed for. Never have I felt the grace and love of God so strongly as during that time, and for you to be born (well, due!) on the anniversary of when it all started seems so beautifully full circle.

I kept an avid blog throughout that time, and many people found it very helpful in their own journeys, whatever they may be. Many people encouraged me to turn it into a book. I may do that, but I always responded, “I don’t feel like the story is over yet. I will feel like I have beat cancer when I am holding a baby in my arms. That is when I will know this is over.” Throughout that time, I never felt my life was threatened, that I wouldn’t make it, but I did feel that my hopes of motherhood were. Holding you would mean cancer couldn’t take that from me. And so, you are Victoria. You are that hope of victory fulfilled, you are that experience of grace. You are the joy that I have sought to reclaim since that first irregular mammogram.

Grace Victoria, you are already a gift to us. Every little kick of yours that I feel is a reminder that God brought us through something terrifically difficult, and that we are indeed surrounded by God’s grace in all things. Bless you, my sweet little girl.

                                                                        Love, Mama

Made for Grace by Michael's cousin, Catherine.

Wedding Sermon: God's Abundance

I had the joy of officiating for the beautiful wedding of my dear friend Marissa and her husband (!) Joe. It took place in a beautiful vineyard outside of San Diego. The text they chose was from John's Gospel, the wedding at Cana, where Jesus turns water into wine (appropriate for the setting!). Anyway, here is the sermon I preached for the beautiful occasion:

Marissa and Joe Wedding Sermon

May 15, 2015

Orfila Vineyard, Escondido, CA

Joe and Marissa, what a great honor it is to be here with you this day in this capacity, to officiate your wedding and in the name of God to bless you on your way to a beautiful marriage and life together. This is a day of great joy – for you, of course, and for me, and for this cloud of witnesses surrounding you this day.

Full disclosure for the sake of all you gathered: Marissa and I have been friends for many years, and I first got to know Joe through the stories I heard from Marissa. In the weeks preparing for this day, I have also had the pleasure of getting to know Joe a little more personally. For what it’s worth, “I’m Johanna Rehbaum, and I approve this marriage!”

I have been delighted to hear about the wonderful relationship you two have – your ability to have fun together, whether traveling the world or listening to your newest old vinyl record in your loft; your commitment to understanding one another and your different approaches to life and faith; your continual striving for better communication, knowing as you do that this ability is the bedrock of any good marriage. You take life and each other seriously, even as you know how to have fun. You are grounded, but still know how to be silly. You are thoughtful and considerate in your interactions with each other. You know how to enjoy each other’s company. It is beautiful to see this.

I had all this in mind as I read this text from John’s Gospel in preparation to preach at your wedding. This text, the Wedding at Cana, recounts Jesus’ first miracle, turning water into wine. On

this blessed occasion in this lovely setting, the line that struck me especially was, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” It’s truly an apt image for a couple embarking on a marriage. Just look around: gorgeous setting, fabulous dress, beloved family and friends all around, love on everyone’s mind – can it get any better than this? This is about as fine a metaphorical wine as anyone could hope for, right?

But no, this text tells us that with God, it works otherwise. The wine of today is wonderful, rich, and inspiring, like the love you feel for each other this day. There is so much good in your relationship, so much strength and love on which to build. But by the grace of God, that good will only get better and better, and grow more and more abundant.

Of course, the challenge about life, and especially marriage, is that as life goes on, the showering of divine abundance often happens in ways that are not only unexpected, but in fact are ways you would never have chosen for yourselves – I know you know that, because I know you have already experienced it. It is easy to notice God’s abundance in your life when you are surrounded with joy. But God’s love, grace and abundance sometimes become most apparent when you face struggles, challenges, and conflict. It may be harder to see at these times that God has some miracle in mind that will show you just how overflowing divine love can be. What you see may look like the party is just about over, the good wine has run dry… but God has in mind some spectacular and surprising way to lavish blessing upon you. Part of the beauty of your marriage will be in helping each other to see that – to remind each other of the blessings that surround you, to leave behind what Maya Angelou so eloquently calls the “ancient histories of pain,” and to cling to one another and to the promises you make today, always trusting that God will provide, God will reveal that abundant love.

And this is the true blessing of this day, this day that marks a new chapter beginning in your lives together: it is the recognition of the promise that this marriage isn’t up to you alone. God has shown us, in the story we heard today and in so many other ways, that just when we might be at our wits end and thinking the party is over, that we’ve done all we can do… grace will abound. God does

not leave us to fend for ourselves. God’s love and grace will be in and around the vows you make to each other today, and with you as you walk down that aisle to embark on a life together that will not be without its struggles, but also will not be without the assurance of God’s abundance. God is with you in this thing called marriage, holding you up and guiding you and providing for you when you aren’t sure what else to do. That indeed is a blessing.

Joe and Marissa, I pray that your marriage will be like a fine wine, aging richly with each passing year. But more than that, I pray that when the barrel seems to be running empty, that you will find there is still more abundance to be experienced – and that you will have the faith to trust God and each other that the promise of that rich abundance is true.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.