“Our children are prophesying, our young people are seeing visions, our elders are dreaming dreams. Listen and love. Love and listen.”
Sermon by Mike Kinman at All Saints Church, Pasadena, on Pentecost Sunday, June 9, 2019.
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“Derramaré mi Espíritu sobre toda la humanidad; los hijos e hijas de ustedes comunicarán mensajes proféticos, los jóvenes tendrán visions, y los viejos tendrán sueños.”
“I will pour out my Spirit on all humankind. Your children will prophesy, your young people will see visions, and your elders will dream dreams.”
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El amor escucha.
Love listens.
My friend, Michael Burke, has been a priest in Alaska for two decades and has a perspective on life from being immersed in relationships with the first peoples of that land.
They have taught him that love listens.
When the Bishop visits a congregation in Alaska … or when there is a diocesan meeting or other gathering … it doesn’t last an hour or two. It lasts days … even weeks.
You see, the communities are so remote it can take days to get somewhere. And once you are there, even if you came by plane as the bishop usually does, shifts in the weather can ground you until the weather shifts again.
And … it’s more than that. Even if it were possible for someone just to drop in for a one- or two-hour meeting, it would be incomprehensible to do that. Because a culture has developed over centuries upon centuries that there is no such thing as a quick visit. Truly to visit and be visited, understand and be understood by someone, it takes time.
Time to be together.
Time to be in silence.
Time to work, pray and play together.
Time to listen.
To listen to and learn the rhythm of each other’s thoughts, passions and lives.
To listen to what the other is saying and what the other is not saying.
To listen and not immediately react and judge but contemplate and breathe.
That is what truly visiting and being with each other is.
That is what love is.
El amor escucha.
Love listens.
Last Sunday morning, I did Church sitting on the bank of the Housatonic River in Connecticut with my friend, Daniel. At one point he turns to me and says:
“Listen”
“Just listen.”
“Listen … and then try to separate as many distinct sounds as you can.”
“Listen and hear them each individually.”
“Listen and hear them flow together.”
“Listen,” Daniel says
“Just listen.”
I close my eyes and I listen.
It is like a symphony.
The current of the river – not one sound but a thousand interlocking sounds as water splashes uniquely over each rock … each splash changing the flow of the river and also infinitesimally yet eternally changing the face of the rock itself.
The rustle of leaves … each leaf making a slightly different sound as the wind or an animal passes through or near it.
A barn swallow chirping. A woodpecker pounding away in the distance.
Then the sound of three people on a raft, letting the swift current of the Housatonic carry them south. Their joyful voices getting louder as they approach our perch, for a moment drowning out everything but the roar of the river, then gradually fading into the distance as the sounds of swallows, leaves and water over rock re-emerge and fill my ears.
And as I listen, it occurs to me that those people on the raft are not an interruption to my listening but a part of it. Love listens and the people on the raft were a part of what my listening is trying to teach me about love.
Love the river. Love the swallow. Love the leaf.
Love the land. Love the people.
And … recognize that the people are just passing through. We are just passing through. The land has been here long before us and while the catastrophic damage we are doing to our planet will certainly impact the length and quality of humanity’s stay, and we must be deeply concerned about this for our very lives and the lives of our children are at stake … the planet itself is not in danger. In time – a very long time – it will heal itself and go on without us.
We are just passing through.
Love the river. Love the swallow. Love the leaf.
Love the land. Love the people.
That is what I am reminded of. That is what I begin to learn … when I stop … and listen.
El amor escucha.
Love listens.
Today is the Feast of Pentecost … a day of deep listening.
We listen to the account from Acts of the ruach, the breath of God, filling Jesus’ followers as they begin to speak languages not their own. We listen and hear different languages like water splashing on countless river rocks. Each sound unique and yet part of a roaring symphonic whole.
And as we listen, we learn the many different languages are a deep gift. Because those drawn by the sound – if we are willing to listen – hear an amazing message of love in the language of our hearts, languages that say to us all, “My beautiful child, you are my beloved. This love is for you. You don’t have to change who you are to receive it. You don’t have to code switch or leave behind your culture or the life and love and story of your ancestors to receive it. You only have to listen and learn. Listen and trust. Listen and love.”
El amor escucha.
Love listens.
And then as people begin to marvel and mock, Peter says: “Listen.”
“Listen, this is what Joel the prophet spoke of: ‘In the days to come – it is our God who speaks – I will pour out my Spirit on all humankind. Your children will prophesy, your young people will see visions, and your elders will dream dreams. Even on the most insignificant of my people, I will pour out my Spirit in those days and they will prophesy.”
Listen – Paul says.
Eschucha y ama
Ama y escucha
El amor escucha.
Listen and love.
Love and listen.
Love listens.
Today is Pentecost, a Feast of Deep Listening. And yet love does not just listen on this day but every day. Every day we have the opportunity to listen and love. Love and listen.
Last Sunday, as I sat by the Housatonic listening to the roar of the Spirit, many of you sat here listening to the Spirit roar through All Saints Church as the Word came to life right in our midst. “Your children will prophesy, and your young people will see visions.”
The wisdom that came from the youth that preached last Sunday was a deep and powerful gift. And if we are to love our children and fully receive God’s love for ourselves, we must not merely marvel at their poise and courage, we must listen … deeply listen for more than just one morning to what they are saying. Listen and love. Love and listen. Listen. Just listen and receive the gift they are giving the body of the whole.
Listen. Just listen to Halley Lowdermilk as she says:
“The same air I breathe, the glory that God has given me, is the same air that God has given to you. My breath of life I breathe unto others so that we may be one. My thoughts, my love, my strife, my worries, my dreams, my heart I share with you so that we may become one. You and I may not share the same plotline of life but we share the quintessential emotions. If you have ever felt mad, sad, scared, joyful, empowered or peaceful you have experienced the glory of God given to us so that we may become completely one.”
Listen. Just listen to Sara Baker and Adelaide Esseln when they say,
“Put your faith into action. And not just your faith in Jesus, but also your faith in each other. Maybe give that annoying coworker a chance and try to work together. Who knows, you might hate them a little less than you thought. Or maybe, as an adult, you believe the role of the youth is to learn and not to lead, but if you stop and listen, we may actually teach you something.
Try to lean into your differences, because it will bring you closer to accomplishing a goal you never thought you could reach. Maybe all you needed was someone else’s insight.”
Listen. Just listen to Sara Schulze when she says:
The Spirit said anyone black, white, straight, gay, cis, trans, come and drink the water.
To those stuck in poverty and war in South America, the Spirit said Come.
To the children torn away from their families at the border, the Spirit said Come.
To the transgender soldiers in our military who only want to protect our country, the Spirit said Come.
To the young girls who are told that boy on the playground pushed you down because he has a crush on you, the spirit said Come because that’s not OK.
To the young boys who are too afraid to ask for the Barbie in Target, because of what their dad will say when he comes home the Spirit said Come.
To the empowered women who are reclaiming their time and going back to college to pursue what they want to do with their life, the Spirit said Come.
To the wonderful people in Congress who are working their hardest to make sure our country stays on the path of the Constitution, the Spirit said Come.
To the women in Missouri and Alabama and Georgia and anywhere in the south that is taking away the right to a woman’s choice the Spirit says Come.
Come and accept the gift of life-giving water. Because the Spirit knew that she had more than enough to share.
Listen. Just listen.
Our children are prophesying.
Our young people are seeing visions.
Eschucha y ama
Ama y escucha
El amor escucha.
Love and listen.
Listen and love.
Love listens. Love calls us to listen. Love emerges as we listen.
Love listens is actually a quote from Paul Tillich’s extraordinary book, Love, Power and Justice. Here’s the larger passage:
“In order to know what is just in a person-to-person encounter, love listens. It is its first task to listen. No human relation, especially no intimate one, is possible without mutual listening.… All things and all people call on us with small or loud voices. They want us to listen, they want us to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being. They want justice from us. But we can give it to them only through the love which listens.”
We all want to be heard. Passionately. Desperately. And those of us with power will even consciously and unconsciously use our power to try to make sure we are heard by shouting louder than everyone else.
Our children are prophesying. Our young people are dreaming dreams. They want us to listen. They want us to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being. They want justice from us. But we can give it to them only through the love that listens.
Eschucha y ama
Ama y escucha
El amor escucha.
Listen and love.
Love and listen.
Love listens.
And … that’s not all.
Michael Burke tells me that throughout the first nations tribes in Alaska, there is a practice that though it has no roots at all in the words of Joel and Acts, shows that the wisdom of those words is not the property of one faith or culture but is part of the deep wisdom of the universe.
When the tribe gathers, the younger generations speak first. They name the challenges, fears , opportunities and joys before the tribe. Their passion and prophesy, dreams and visions fill the space with the energy and urgency of their whole being. Space is given for them. The elders sit … and listen.
The elder generation speaks last. And their task is not to embrace or dismiss, to critique, rebut or say “well, you know in my day….” Having listened deeply, the tribal elders speak … and when they do, they say two things.
First, they sum up what the younger generations have just said. To make sure they have truly listened to the Word gifted to them.
And then the elders, having listened and loved, loved and listened, say: “Now … This is what the ancestors say.”
And they put the prophesy and vision of the young in the context of ancient wisdom and story. And together, a way for the whole tribe emerges.
“I will pour out my Spirit on all humankind. Your children will prophesy, your young people will see visions, and your elders will dream dreams.”
As elders, we listen deeply to the voices of the young … and we speak not to preserve our power, recapture our youth or dismiss a challenging voice but to root the passion of the present in the ancient story of love, in the deep listening that has been happening from generations unto millennia.
As youth, we listen to that wisdom in the same way, as love seeking justice. As youth, we listen knowing that the prophesies and dreams are not enough, we need the ancient song of river and rock, the tale of the ancestor, the wisdom to know what is eternal and what is just passing through.
As Common sings:
No one can win the war individually
It takes the wisdom of the elders and young people’s energy
The Spirit is being poured out on ALL creation. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day.
Our children are prophesying, our young people are seeing visions, our elders are dreaming dreams.
Listen and love. Love and listen.
Love listens. It is its first task to listen… Justice only happens through the love that listens.
Our children are prophesying, our young people are seeing visions, and through them we have the promise that the dreams of elder and ancestor have not died.
Can we tell the ancient story and also hear it being spoken anew?
Our children are prophesying, our young people are seeing visions. They are speaking. Can we listen and love? Love and listen?
My thoughts, my love, my strife, my worries, my dreams, my heart I share with you so that we may become one.
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Try to lean into your differences, because it will bring you closer to accomplishing a goal you never thought you could reach.
Maybe all you needed was someone else’s insight.
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Come and accept the gift of life-giving water. Because the Spirit knew that she had more than enough to share.
