Sermon “The Spirit of the Lord moves and calls”
The year 1929 was the year of the birth of Martin Luther King Jr, and it was also the year of the birth of Anne Frank. These historical figures were both born in the same year, yet we associate them as being in completely different periods of history, don’t we. Anne Frank died as a young girl during the Holocaust of WW2, she died in a concentration camp in 1945 just 15 years old. She was born on June 12, 1929.
Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, and we just celebrated his legacy last Monday; and he was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis as the age of 39.
They would both have been 93 this year.
The journey of Anne Frank and Martin Luther King, born in the same year, started during the great depression in a world where people were struggling, out of work, out of hope, hungry and desperate and looking for someone to blame. As it has happened throughout history, all too often when people are frightened, desperate, hungry and struggling, the blame is fixed on vulnerable minorities. In Europe more than 6 million Jes would be murdered in the Holocaust. Among them Anne, a 15-year-old who dreamed of becoming a famous writer only di die, sick and starved in a concentration camp.
In America, black people were lynched, segregated and oppressed. King was only 39 when he was killed standing on a balcony at a hotel in Memphis.
A fine children book published some years ago called “Martin and Anne: The kindred spirits of Dr. Martin Luther King Nr and Anna Frank.” Weaved the stories and legacy of these two people, born in the same year, but of different gender, religion, race, country and language, - but still their destiny was marked by hate and prejudice, and still their words in Anne Frank’s Diary and in MLK many sermons and speeches were carried by spirited courage, faith, hope and love.
Like MLK said it:
“You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid…. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…. You are afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you are afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house, so you refuse to take the stand.
Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.”
A belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. These words should sting as we listen to them: is the end of our breath and our life just going to be a belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit, or are we going to live a life with courage, faith, hope and love? We might not all be able to leave a legacy like Anne or King, but as King said: “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.”
The many quotes from MLK that truly has been floating on social media, News, in speeches and sermons this week, reminds us that words indeed may be anointed with the Holy Spirit.
The story of Anne Frank, and the story of MLK should never be forgotten but told again and again and breathe life and spirit into our current days and remind us never to forget.
The Gospel tells us today that Jesus at the very beginning of his ministry, filled with Spirit, determination, courage and faith, came to Nazareth, his hometown, and went into the synagogue.
He stood up to speak, all eyes on him, all ears wide open – and he spoke. His words were spirited, prophetic, hopeful and engaging.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because he has anointed me, to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and to recovery of sight to the blind to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the years of the Lord’s favor. “
Jesus rolled up the scroll and all eyes followed his every move, and all held their breath in the silence. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Jesus then said.
And that intense moment was like a reflection of the baptism of the Lord, when the heavens opened, a dove descended and a voice declared: you are my son, the beloved. Again, that day in the synagogue, all sensed the Spirit in his words and in his entire presence.
The Spirit was indeed present, and it was calling and moving……
When MLK was speaking the spirit was present too. He was indeed a spiritual religious man, who could move and whose voice would draw people in – or frightened them because of the Good News he was bringing: to proclaim release for the captives, to let the oppressed free, to love and not hate, all of this presented a threat against status quo.
I get goosebumps every time I hear the voice of MLK on this old recording. His masterful spirited sermons, his demanding voice and his melodic tone. In that voice was spirit. And with every breath, MLK breathed spirit, change and courage. His very words were a lifelong prayer and breath for change and truth.
In the song “Freedom” by Pharrell Williams (the one with Happy song) it says:
Mind, use your power
Spirit, use your wings
Breathe in
We are from heat
The electric one
Does it shock you to see
He left us the sun?
Atoms in the air
Organisms in the sea
The son and, yes, man
Are made of the same things.
Breathe in, spirit use your wings, we are made of the same. We breathe the same air.
Listening to the reading from 1. Corinthians with the image of the entire body, being a unity, working together, - we are reminded that is all true, but if the fundamental breath, if the fundamental spirit is not there, there is nothing.
The Spirit that anointed Jesus, the Spirit that made the disciples speak in tongue, the Spirit that gave Martin Luther the courage to speak up and nail the thesis on the door, the Spirit that inspired Grundtvig to write those beautiful hymns, the spirit that uplifted Anne Frank in her darkness, the Spirit that voiced MLK, the spirit that gave strength and forgiveness to Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu - that spirit is the same. And we breathe it too. So, breathe in!
The human breath, the daily breath, is amazing and wondrous. Most of our lives and daily days we really do not think about how and when we breathe. With a Nike slogan, we just do it!
But our human breath is truly breathtaking and groundbreaking.
We experience that when we are sick and when we have a tough time breathing. Last week when I tested positive for Covid and had milder symptoms compared to so many others, - one of the symptoms were that I had a shortness of breath. And I was suddenly conscious about the fact that I was not breathing in as I usually do. I had to remind myself, breathe deep, all the way into your lungs.
I can only imagine how terrifying it must have been for the hundreds of thousands of American and millions of fellow human beings around the world, who have been battling severe and fatal Covid and could not breathe. It is like drowning and suffocating.
We witness it in milder form when someone with asthma or allergies struggle to breathe and find relief in an inhaler or medication. We witness it when we are visiting others in hospital and when the breathing tubes are doing the natural breath. It is scary to watch and listen to.
And if you have ever witnessed a person draw his og hers last breath, you know exactly when it was. That last one. And you know that after that last breath, life has left the body and left it lifeless, spiritless and breathless.
“I can’t breathe” became that cry and the slogan shouted out in the wake of the many demonstrations that rattled our country last summer. The cry originated from the last words of George Floyd who was murdered by an officer kneeling on his neck. And it was a cry that resonated the words of MLK and the Spirit of Anne Frank.
The human breath is the living breath of life. And it is a sacred breath as it breathes in the same air as once God blew into the nostrils of Adam. The same sacred air that a newborn eagerly breathes in at the moment of birth and the same breath every parent holds until they hear that first breath.
SLIDE 23 The past 2 years we have been breathing through a mask. And we have been breathing with caution and anxiety. And with good reason as we mourn the many people who have died from Covid, close to 800.000 in USA alone and close to 6 million deaths worldwide.
But as we come to terms with these past two years, we too long to hear the words: bring good news, release the covid captives and let the masked go free.
Amanda Gorman one of our age, prophetic poetic spirited speakers, wrote in "Fugue," a poem from her book, "Call Us What We Carry."
"We slept the days down.
We wept the year away, frayed and afraid.
We spent days as the walking dead,
dreading disease and disaster,"
The poem details the impact of the pandemic.
In an interviews the poet said: "It was part of me trying to document I think the social-emotional reality of what a pandemic is, I can give you facts, I can give you numbers, I can give you deaths, but when you're walking through life afraid to breathe, afraid to be close and proximate to people, I think that does something to the body and to the soul."
So is the terrible aftermath of a raging Pandemic, so is the horrific aftermath of a war, or a violent Civil Rights Conflict - and so we must come to terms with all the lives lost, all the health’s damaged, all the livelihoods changed, the injustices and the injuries, - we also must come to term with the breath we lost.
The Spirit of the Lord calls us to breathe. The Spirit of the Lord calls us to believe as we breathe. As MLK said: “To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.”
So, Jesus calls us today to breathe, to believe, to let the Spirit settle in us and through us.
Breathing is living as we understand it. It is the proof of being alive. Since the day we are born to the last departure what remains constant in our lives is this moving air. What remains constant and crucial is that breath.
It is the evidence of our existence. It is our eternal companion throughout the journey on this wonderful planet.
The Latin word ‘Spiritus’ means breath; so, whatever is spirited, and spiritual is definitely related to breathing. So, God may and can reach us with every breath we take and give us a chance to be free from all our fears and agony.
The mission of the church, the mission of every Christian is clearly stated today:
To bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, recovery to the blind,
To let the oppressed, go free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Let us proclaim the year of 2022 and let us claim the days ahead to be led by the spirit, moved by the spirit and send by the spirit. To bring good news to all the poor, both in wealth and in spirit, to let the oppressed and captives free, free of guilt, bondages, shame, oppression, inequality and violence, and recover the blind who do not see the truth, see the beauty of the world, see the pain of the others, or vision the heavens open.
Let us be reminded that we share the same breath of life. Let us pray:
May God, who comes to us
in all the things of this world,
bless our eyes and be in our seeing.
May Christ, who looks upon us
with deepest love,
bless our eyes and widen our gaze.
May the Spirit, who perceives what is
and what may yet be, who moves and fills,
bless our spirit and sharpen our vision.