The Rev. Dr. Annie Lawson
St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Detroit
Feast of Pentecost
This is a message: A message of love
Love that moves from the inside out, Love that never grows tired
I come to you with strange fire
This sermon is indeed inspired by the words of Amy Ray from the Indigo Girls' first album in 1987.
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them
Not tongues OF fire. Tongues "as of fire." Tongues that at first glance appear to be fire, but on further examination, are not of the same substance, but of a similar substance. Tongues that fall into that uncanny valley where they seem like fire, but are somehow off.
I come to you with strange fire
And strange fire is a scary thing.
In Leviticus, we read: Now Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, each took his censer, put fire in it, and laid incense on it; and they offered strange fire before the Lord, such as he had not commanded them And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.
Holy Scripture is a record of humankind's wrestling with the divine, an account of our attempts to find meaning in the records of our existence. Nadab and Abihu made strange fire and offered it to God, and they were consumed by flame. And so humankind took the lesson to fear strange fire.
When scary, brutal things happen in the world, we don't want to tell a story that they are mere chance. So those of us who interpret scripture told stories attributing their sudden death to an angry God. Because as dreadful as that is, imagining a wrathful God scared the storytellers less than a story in which the world was chaotic and God was not in control.
In this story, we are taught to fear that which was _like_ the holy, but uneasily dissimilar. To draw a sharp distinction between the holy and the profane; between the unclean and the clean. If the sin of Nadab and Abihu was to offer strange fire, the lesson humankind, led by those who would call themselves religious leaders -- the lesson we took away was to eschew strange fire. To cut off any expression that is like the canonical examples, and yet somehow eerily dissimilar. We mercenaries of the shrine, the ones who draw our pay by interpreting the divine record and teach God's people what they ought to do have seized upon this account to draw border lines between who is in and who is out. If your offering matches the canonical example, you are in. But to any who find themselves not quite in the proper box, our leaders have ordered them cast into the outer darkness, to protect the purity of the holy. Anathema to those whose offering is strange fire.
The Pentecost event is here to tell us that maybe we took away the wrong lesson.
In the third chapter of Exodus, the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. In the second chapter of the second of book the Kings, Elijah was taken up to heaven by a fire in the strange form of a chariot and horses of fire. And now on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples in the form of tongues somehow like and yet not like fire. Strange fire is not unholy, not unclean, not foreign to God. Strange fire burns with the motion of love. Strange fire is indeed of God.
But if strange fire is holy, why then were Nadab and Abihu condemned and consumed? If offering strange fire to God is not inherently wrong, if their sin was not improper worship that offended the divine by being like and yet not the same as the divinely appointed offering, what did they do wrong? This is no idle question, for we hope to avoid their fate.
The Pentecost event and the subsequent revelations in Acts are a redemption of strange fire in Acts 2, of unclean food in Acts 10, of those whose sexuality is rejected in Acts 8, if the category of "unclean" or "abomination" is categorically rejected when God tells Peter in the 10th chapter of Acts, "What God has made clean, you must not call profane."
But this is very much NOT a proclamation that anything goes. God's judgment is not removed. In Acts 5 we have spontaneous death meted out by the Lord just like in Leviticus 10. When Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of property and kept back some of the proceeds, bringing only a part and laying it at the apostles' feet, claiming it to be the whole thing, they immediately fell down and died!
Perhaps what Nadab and Abihu did was the same as what Ananias and Sapphira did centuries later: they tried to hold power over God. Idolatry is not the worship of false gods, but rather trying to control the power of God. Not surrendering to the power of God, but rather trying to force God to accept our agenda. So many of the ancient rites involving incense and strange fire were idolatrous rituals that attempted to manipulate the divine, to dictate to God what the divine power must do, because humans cranked the handle, we expect God to jump up on cue like a mighty Jack-in-the-box to do our bidding. When Ananias and Sapphira retained money that they said they were offering to God, they claimed control over the divine agenda. This goes to the heart of idolatry: attempts by human kind to invoke divine power for our own ends.
Perhaps the Pentecost is to redirect our understanding of Nadab and Abihu. We ought not call offerings of strange fire unclean. Rather, attempts to manipulate the divine are wrong. But what cost has come to those whose offerings of strange fire have been rejected over the centuries? What damage have we gatekeepers done to those whose only offerings they could bring were *like* the canonical examples, but not the same as the canonical examples?
I speak today of those who would stand before God's altar and make a holy offering, an offering of love, an offering brought from the integrity of who God created them to be, who were turned away for so many centuries because they didn't perfectly match the canonical image the church held of what the offering and offerer should look like.
Of Simeon Bachos, the Ethiopian Eunuch who would have been cut off from the assembly of God's people because his body didn't match the canonical norms for gender presentation, and yet whom God commanded Philip to proclaim the Good News and baptize into the Church.
Of the Philadelphia Eleven, whose priestly ministry was rejected by so many because their bodies did not match canonical expectations about gender roles.
Of gay and lesbian people whose offering of love the church so long refused to bless because their bodies did not match canonical expectations about pairings.
Of trans folx today whose very existence is strange fire, so similar to the canonical examples, and yet in that uncanny valley that for so long we have been taught to suppress, to eschew as strange fire.
I come to you with strange fire
I make an offering of love
The incense of my soil is burned
By the fire in my blood
I come with a softer answer
To the questions that lie in your path
I want to harbor you from the anger
Find a refuge from the wrath
For the Pentecost event tells us that strange fire is not unholy; rebelling against God is unholy. It is not in offering our strange fire, but in trying to suppress who God created us to be, that we commit the sin of Nadab and Abihu. Sin is not being our strange selves whom God created and proclaimed as very good. Sin is trying to control that strange fire and fit God into the box of normality. Sin is calling profane that spark of strange fire in ourselves that God has made clean.
When you learn to love yourself
You will dissolve all the stones that are cast
Now you will learn to burn the icing sky
To melt the waxen mask
I said to have the gift of true release
This is a peace that will take you higher
Oh I come to you with my offering
I bring you strange fire
The Pentecost event shows us that while the attempt to control God is not holy, the strange fire that God continues to create is indeed very very good. The Pentecost event shows that indeed, God shows no partiality to those who perfectly match the canonical examples of holiness, but that in every people anyone who worships God and does justice is indeed acceptable. The Pentecost event shows us that even those of us whose offering must be strange fire, as long as we serve the Lord, are indeed agents of God's holiness in the world.
This is a message
A message of love
Love that moves from the inside out
Love that never grows tired
I come to you with strange fire
St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Detroit
Feast of Pentecost
This is a message: A message of love
Love that moves from the inside out, Love that never grows tired
I come to you with strange fire
This sermon is indeed inspired by the words of Amy Ray from the Indigo Girls' first album in 1987.
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them
Not tongues OF fire. Tongues "as of fire." Tongues that at first glance appear to be fire, but on further examination, are not of the same substance, but of a similar substance. Tongues that fall into that uncanny valley where they seem like fire, but are somehow off.
I come to you with strange fire
And strange fire is a scary thing.
In Leviticus, we read: Now Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, each took his censer, put fire in it, and laid incense on it; and they offered strange fire before the Lord, such as he had not commanded them And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.
Holy Scripture is a record of humankind's wrestling with the divine, an account of our attempts to find meaning in the records of our existence. Nadab and Abihu made strange fire and offered it to God, and they were consumed by flame. And so humankind took the lesson to fear strange fire.
When scary, brutal things happen in the world, we don't want to tell a story that they are mere chance. So those of us who interpret scripture told stories attributing their sudden death to an angry God. Because as dreadful as that is, imagining a wrathful God scared the storytellers less than a story in which the world was chaotic and God was not in control.
In this story, we are taught to fear that which was _like_ the holy, but uneasily dissimilar. To draw a sharp distinction between the holy and the profane; between the unclean and the clean. If the sin of Nadab and Abihu was to offer strange fire, the lesson humankind, led by those who would call themselves religious leaders -- the lesson we took away was to eschew strange fire. To cut off any expression that is like the canonical examples, and yet somehow eerily dissimilar. We mercenaries of the shrine, the ones who draw our pay by interpreting the divine record and teach God's people what they ought to do have seized upon this account to draw border lines between who is in and who is out. If your offering matches the canonical example, you are in. But to any who find themselves not quite in the proper box, our leaders have ordered them cast into the outer darkness, to protect the purity of the holy. Anathema to those whose offering is strange fire.
The Pentecost event is here to tell us that maybe we took away the wrong lesson.
In the third chapter of Exodus, the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. In the second chapter of the second of book the Kings, Elijah was taken up to heaven by a fire in the strange form of a chariot and horses of fire. And now on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples in the form of tongues somehow like and yet not like fire. Strange fire is not unholy, not unclean, not foreign to God. Strange fire burns with the motion of love. Strange fire is indeed of God.
But if strange fire is holy, why then were Nadab and Abihu condemned and consumed? If offering strange fire to God is not inherently wrong, if their sin was not improper worship that offended the divine by being like and yet not the same as the divinely appointed offering, what did they do wrong? This is no idle question, for we hope to avoid their fate.
The Pentecost event and the subsequent revelations in Acts are a redemption of strange fire in Acts 2, of unclean food in Acts 10, of those whose sexuality is rejected in Acts 8, if the category of "unclean" or "abomination" is categorically rejected when God tells Peter in the 10th chapter of Acts, "What God has made clean, you must not call profane."
But this is very much NOT a proclamation that anything goes. God's judgment is not removed. In Acts 5 we have spontaneous death meted out by the Lord just like in Leviticus 10. When Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of property and kept back some of the proceeds, bringing only a part and laying it at the apostles' feet, claiming it to be the whole thing, they immediately fell down and died!
Perhaps what Nadab and Abihu did was the same as what Ananias and Sapphira did centuries later: they tried to hold power over God. Idolatry is not the worship of false gods, but rather trying to control the power of God. Not surrendering to the power of God, but rather trying to force God to accept our agenda. So many of the ancient rites involving incense and strange fire were idolatrous rituals that attempted to manipulate the divine, to dictate to God what the divine power must do, because humans cranked the handle, we expect God to jump up on cue like a mighty Jack-in-the-box to do our bidding. When Ananias and Sapphira retained money that they said they were offering to God, they claimed control over the divine agenda. This goes to the heart of idolatry: attempts by human kind to invoke divine power for our own ends.
Perhaps the Pentecost is to redirect our understanding of Nadab and Abihu. We ought not call offerings of strange fire unclean. Rather, attempts to manipulate the divine are wrong. But what cost has come to those whose offerings of strange fire have been rejected over the centuries? What damage have we gatekeepers done to those whose only offerings they could bring were *like* the canonical examples, but not the same as the canonical examples?
I speak today of those who would stand before God's altar and make a holy offering, an offering of love, an offering brought from the integrity of who God created them to be, who were turned away for so many centuries because they didn't perfectly match the canonical image the church held of what the offering and offerer should look like.
Of Simeon Bachos, the Ethiopian Eunuch who would have been cut off from the assembly of God's people because his body didn't match the canonical norms for gender presentation, and yet whom God commanded Philip to proclaim the Good News and baptize into the Church.
Of the Philadelphia Eleven, whose priestly ministry was rejected by so many because their bodies did not match canonical expectations about gender roles.
Of gay and lesbian people whose offering of love the church so long refused to bless because their bodies did not match canonical expectations about pairings.
Of trans folx today whose very existence is strange fire, so similar to the canonical examples, and yet in that uncanny valley that for so long we have been taught to suppress, to eschew as strange fire.
I come to you with strange fire
I make an offering of love
The incense of my soil is burned
By the fire in my blood
I come with a softer answer
To the questions that lie in your path
I want to harbor you from the anger
Find a refuge from the wrath
For the Pentecost event tells us that strange fire is not unholy; rebelling against God is unholy. It is not in offering our strange fire, but in trying to suppress who God created us to be, that we commit the sin of Nadab and Abihu. Sin is not being our strange selves whom God created and proclaimed as very good. Sin is trying to control that strange fire and fit God into the box of normality. Sin is calling profane that spark of strange fire in ourselves that God has made clean.
When you learn to love yourself
You will dissolve all the stones that are cast
Now you will learn to burn the icing sky
To melt the waxen mask
I said to have the gift of true release
This is a peace that will take you higher
Oh I come to you with my offering
I bring you strange fire
The Pentecost event shows us that while the attempt to control God is not holy, the strange fire that God continues to create is indeed very very good. The Pentecost event shows that indeed, God shows no partiality to those who perfectly match the canonical examples of holiness, but that in every people anyone who worships God and does justice is indeed acceptable. The Pentecost event shows us that even those of us whose offering must be strange fire, as long as we serve the Lord, are indeed agents of God's holiness in the world.
This is a message
A message of love
Love that moves from the inside out
Love that never grows tired
I come to you with strange fire
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