Apostles Eastern Shore Sermons

My Pentecost sermon was “inspired" in part by two sentences in N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope: “In the new creation, the ancient human mandate to look after the garden is dramatically reaffirmed, as John hints in his resurrection story, where Mary supposed Jesus is the gardener. The resurrection of Jesus is the affirmation of the goodness of creation, and the gift of the Spirit is there to make us the fully human beings we were supposed to be, precisely so that we can fulfill that mandate at last.”   (pp 220-221) It also was inspired by spending so much time in John’s Gospel this year, and in Strahan Coleman’s two books: Thirsting and Beholding.  In Beholding, Coleman shares the image of the “hongi,” a custom of the Mãori people of New Zealand, where he lives, that speaks of the profound moment in Genesis 2:7, and in John 20:21-22, when God breathes life and Spirit into the first human, and and then Jesus does the same into the fearful, hiding disciples. “The hongi is the gentle pressing of noses together in which one another’s breath - our “ha” or life force - is intermingled.  Usually, during a hong, you’ll shake hands with one arm and embrace the shoulder of the other person in a loose hug.  It’s full body experience in which for a good moment of time, two people occupy one space… Mãori traditionally used to recount their ancestry together during the hongi until they found a common ancestor to unite them.”  (p 77).  He has more to say about both this image speaking to intimacy with God, beholding God face to face, as an important understanding of prayer, as well as people in our lives;  obviously this is uncomfortable, confronting, and overwhelming this for us who are more accustomed to highly individualized, personal space-keeping, and generally more transactional-based ways of relating.  Beautifully, if a non-Mãori person visits, and is invited and consents to the hongi, that person is considered Mãori for as long as they are among the Mãori village or gathering. For Adam, for Jesus’ disciples, and for you and me, God chose and chooses to come so very close: to be with us, and within us, and between us, saturating us and holding us together.  May we know this and grow in this, more and more, consenting like Mary, and surrendering like Jesus himself, to the Presence and action of God - and to join God in the work of tending and healing God’s world.