Old Delicious Burdens
a sermon given by Claire Phillips-Thoryn
On Sunday, June 4, 2006
at The First Parish in Lincoln
First Reading: Book of Acts, Chapter 2, verses 1-13
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
5Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”
Second Reading: excerpt, “Song of the Open Road” by Walt Whitman
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.
The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)
Good morning, First Parish in Lincoln. I am honored to be with you today. I arrived here not exactly afoot, because walking from Cambridge would have taken a couple of hours. But I did arrive lighthearted. I hope that you too, today, are feeling healthy, free, the world before you. On this Pentecost Sunday, as I look around at your faces, I am thinking about the stories I will learn, the lives that will become entertwined with mine, and the hopes and dreams and sorrows and joys that will become mine as well. We are embarking on a new road, hand in hand, down the long brown path before us leading wherever we choose. Whitman writes,
You road I enter upon and look around! I believe you are not all that is here;
I believe that much unseen is also here.
This sanctuary is our road, and as we walk together I do believe that much unseen is also here. From the interactions I have had with you, I know this is a congregation that deeply values spiritual development, emotional intimacy, truth-telling, and soul-sharing. Everyone I have talked to here—and elsewhere—has said, when contemplating the nature of this community, that there is something special about this church in Lincoln. If this sermon was a movie script, I might say, “The Force is strong with this one.” But I look nothing like Obi Wan Kenobe.
So instead I say, the Holy Spirit is here. Spirit of Life, God, Mysterious Presence—I sense it here among us, in the smiles on your faces, in the way you hold each other in prayer, in the way you affirm and praise each other, in the way you respect and love your minister and the Directors of Music and Religious Education and your intern, and in the way you respect and love each other. Whitman writes,
The efflux of the Soul is happiness—here is happiness;
I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times;
Now it flows unto us—we are rightly charged.
Together we have happiness, strength, hope for the journey. The Holy Spirit and our human souls flow together, and we are charged—charged to walk this open road together. “Allons! Whoever you are come travel with me!”
This is Pentecost Sunday, and as the story goes, 50 days after Easter a couple thousand years ago, a large crowd of practicing Jews who had been followers of Christ met to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, the celebration of the first fruit. Jerusalem was a melting pot, the New York City of its day, and Jews from all those difficult-to-pronounce city-states had made their home there. As these diverse early Christians gathered together, a miracle occurred. A roar of wind, a blaze of fire, and the Holy Spirit descended. The people began to speak to each other, and understand each other, though all of them spoke different languages. For you see, the true miracle was not that they all began to speak the same language—but that whatever language they were speaking, they were listened to, and understood. At first they were strangers. Then suddenly, they were friends. They were in community. They were in communion.
Whitman wrote:
Do you know what it is, as you pass, to be loved by strangers?
Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls?
From strangers, to friends. From loneliness to companionship. From the hope of Easter to the fulfillment of Pentecost. Perhaps when you came to this church for the first time, you didn’t know anyone here. Perhaps you felt lost, afraid, searching, anxious. Maybe you were just looking for people to celebrate with, even if you weren’t sure you would speak their religious language. When you first came here, the people sitting here on all sides of you were strangers. And now, you are loved by these former strangers. You understand their language, and they understand yours. “Do you know what it is, as you pass, to be loved by strangers? Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls?”
Pentecost has been described as the birth of the Christian church. Their charismatic leader was gone, but something wondrous had come to give them hope and strength to spread their message of God’s love throughout the world. In Italian Roman Catholic churches, sometimes large quantities of rose petals are dropped from the ceiling of the church to symbolize the tongues of fire. I can just imagine the beauty of red petals drifting like snow against these white walls. Whitman writes,
Only the kernel of every object nourishes;
Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me?
Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for you and me?
On Pentecost, the stragems and envelopes of nationality, ethnicity, economic background, all these husks of human culture, were stripped away. The languages became universal. The kernel was revealed. Each Spirit-filled worshipper was seen and known and loved by the other worshippers.
But Whitman brings us back to our open road. He says,
Have the past struggles succeeded?
What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? nature?
Now understand me well—It is provided in the essence of things, that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary.
The end is the beginning; from the success of one struggle a new struggle is born. As we heard, the story of Pentecost goes on to say that some bystanders mocked the Spirit-filled worshippers, and called them drunk.
The apostle Paul, a very pragmatic man, deflects this sneering criticism with the statement that the worshippers could not be drunk, as it was only 9 a.m. Obviously Paul had never been to a Saint Patrick’s Day parade in Boston.
So we see that even as the blessing of Pentecost came upon the early Christians, this was not the end of the journey. Even as tongues of fire sat on their shoulders and the wind whistled around them and they experienced the most sacred communion of their lives, they still faced many greater struggles. They still had much further to go on the open road, together.
As Whitman said,
Listen! I will be honest with you.
I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes,
These are the days that must happen to you…
With Pentecost came a whole new game for the early Christians. The stakes were higher. The possibilites were greater. The Holy Spirit had flowed into them and they were rightly charged.
This congregation has also been doing the work of the Spirit. You speak with your mouths and with your hearts. You listen with your ears and with your souls. And as the Spirit works in you, you have grown your numbers and grown your souls. You decided to make the commitment to a new ministry here in your midst, a ministry to assist your senior minister and Director of Religious Education, a ministry to help this congregation be better able to nourish all members and all seekers. And so you and I have met on the open road, in this sanctuary today.
Whitman writes,
Allons! The inducements shall be greater,
We will sail pathless and wild seas,
We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail.
Fellow sailors, and seekers of rough new prizes, we do not know where the long brown path before us leads. Who will leave us? Who will stay? Who will join us? What challenges will we face, and what blessings will we receive? What strangers will become our friends? “Do you know what it is as you pass to be loved by strangers? Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls?” I hope we will listen together to the whispers of that universal Pentecostal language in the voice of the wind, in the tongues of flame atop our flickering candles; together, I hope, we will sing our song of the open road.
As we heard in the second reading, Whitman sings
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)
We are still new delicious burdens to each other. But as the years go by, we will fill each other with shared laughter and grief. We will fill each other with meals and prayers and warm wishes. As the Holy Spirit came and filled Pentecost worshippers, our spirits will fill and flow through this community, like a pathless and wild sea, the efflux of the Soul. Old delicious burdens—not heavy, hurtful burdens, but delightful, life-giving burdens. The delicious, bittersweet burden that is love, the delicious burden of hearing someone’s story and holding it gently in your heart, the delicious burden of earning and keeping someone’s respect, the delicious burden of the people to whom we are accountable. We are all delicious burdens in the hands of those we love, our hopes and fears and dreams carried graciously and tenderly in the arms of those we walk with, afoot and light-hearted, upon this open road. In Whitman’s words,
“Allons! The road is before us!
It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well—be not detain’d!
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! Let the money remain unearn’d!
Let the school stand! Mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! Let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.
Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?”
May it be so. Amen.