The following is the text of a sermon I preached in Fairport NY on February 28, 2016--an audio version can be found at http://fairportucc.org/page/sermons
PSALM 63:1-8
O God, you are my God,
I seek you,
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands and call on your name.
My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast,
and my mouth praises you with joyful lips
when I think of you on my bed,
and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
for you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.
My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.
I have been pondering passion for many years
What do you think when you hear the word passion?
Desire? the passion of youth? something I want more of… ?
Do you recall the 2004 movie The Passion of Christ? directed by Mel Gibson
how is it that the death of Jesus became called Passion?
I have been passionate about being with my friends throughout my life.
We can be passionate about hearing an excellent speaker address a group or congregation, hanging on their every word.
Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr was a passionate speaker
When I visited Chile on behalf of the NY Conference of the UCC for the annual meeting of Pentecostal Church of Chile, the bishop, Obispo Munoz, gave a passionate sermon my last Sunday there. (Transcended language)
There is the passion we feel physically when we love/like or lust for someone, they give us a rush, increase our metabolism, turn us on.
I am very passionate about advocating for the rights women and lgbt
We can be passionate about causes.
My passion may not be your passion… in fact our passions can be opposing
So given all this I was surprised to realize that the Latin root of the word passion is “to suffer.”
I always thought of passion as a positive thing, something I desired to get lost in.
Many of us want more passion in our lives, right?
So, I wonder, what are we asking for?
When I went to the dictionary I was shocked at the definitions, especially their order.
passion (noun)
1: often capitalized: the sufferings of Christ between the night of the Last Supper and his death,
2: strong feeling; also plural (passions) the emotions as distinguished from reason
3: Rage, anger
4: love; also: an object of affection or enthusiasm
5: sexual desire.
I was surprised the Passion of Christ is listed first.
And it is designated as between the last supper (Maundy Thursday) and his death
Passion of X is 1st And sexual desire was the last definition.
How did the anger and rage get in there?
And they are listed before love or sexual desire?
Is this indicative of how we view passion in our society? Or how we use passion?
emotions distinguished from reason???
Lots to ponder.
Is passion a good thing? I still want to think so.
Let me say what may seem obvious but still needs to be said, passion is not and need not always be of a sexual nature.
We often live within the shadow of brokenness- Striving for wholeness.
We can be passionate about working toward wholeness.
Passion is part of the journey.
Passion can be the seasoning, that which adds flavor and color to our lives and journey.
That is my hope.
Life without passion seems less than, incomplete, it lies in the shadows of brokenness.
The psalmist begins our reading today with words of passion to God.
O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
There is a deep longing for an encounter and closeness with God.
The imagery is vivid and intense.
God is the object of the writer’s desire and affection.
The same passionate words could be used between lovers.
The psalmist speaks from a place of longing and brokenness.
There is a degree of suffering expressed… thirsting and fainting in a dry and weary land.
This passionate longing does seem painful.
The more I pondered this, the more I realized that we are willing to suffer for that which we are passionate about.
What about the passion of God?
God is portrayed as a passionate God
Princeton Sem professor Rev Kenda Creasy Dean suggests that after Anselm, medieval scholars tended to condense divine passion into the suffering of Jesus from the garden to the cross— what Mel Gibson portrayed in his Passion of Christ.
It seems that there was another belief about divine passion that remained a part of the practice of the devout, which can be seen in the teachings of the Cappadocians in the East and in the pastoral writings of some of the reformers.
In this Cappadocian view the Christ event, Jesus coming as the Christ, as one of us, is the expression of God’s passion.
God’s passion was expressed in sending Jesus to walk among us, live as one of us.
To these pastoral leaders God’s willingness to be vulnerable and the self giving love of the incarnation is a divine attitude,
it culminates in the death of Jesus on the cross but for these writers and leaders it is not synonymous with only the suffering and crucifixion.
Love always involves suffering on behalf of the beloved; desire longs for what sometimes lies painfully out of reach.
We are broken. We live in the shadow of brokenness.
From this theological or doctrinal perspective passion makes love the reason for a willingness to be vulnerable, and specifically for God’s chosen vulnerability on the cross.
This thinking is inline with the tradition of atonement theory.
The sins of the world were atoned for in the death of Jesus.
The suffering love of the cross saved the world.
It is a passionate and sacrificial love.
I struggled with the brutal torture and death of Jesus in Gibson’s Passion X.
I am also disturbed by any suggestion that God requires a blood sacrifice.
Still ones willingness to die for a cause, that is passion.
There are crimes of passion.
A label for some of the most horrendous and brutal crimes.
And the passion of youth.
It is the passions of youth that are the ones that seem to be the ones that we worry about, that we desire to control.
It seems historically, passion, has been viewed as something that needed to be controlled.
Passion is a symptom of adolescence, but it is also a symptom of being human.
Perhaps it is the passions of young people that serve as a sign of the deeper human longing for love in us all.
Does passion always require suffering or sacrifice?
It is not the answer I would hope for but we are willing to suffer and/or make sacrifices for that which we are passionate about. I am.
While in seminary I explored the feminist naming of the power of the love of God best known and manifested in relationship as erotic power.
God’s presence in our relating one to the other in a mutually affirming and empowering way enables a creativity and passion that is erotic in the best sense of the word.
(not pornographic or negatively lustful or sinful)
This exploration, which I continue, is to affirm that which is passionate within me and others.
This affirmation of passion and the erotic love of God works to abolish the desire to control, edit or blot out passion.
It is in this encounter of passion that we can open up to others and to God, it is in this listening to our inner voices of passion that we can encounter that which is most truly us.
I wrote a poem while exploring this in seminary...
my poem – Tears falling by Tomi Jacobs
Tears falling
voices calling
lips kissing
cats hissing
bodies tumble
drums rubble
ocean spray
bright sun
warms the day
sand beneath my toes
the scent of a rose
water trickles
my tummy tickles
children laugh
hand in hand on a path
God is here
Love is near
And far and all about
makes me shout
draws me out
Eros jumps over the fences
and challenges all my senses
She tastes of oysters plump
I feel my heart jump
Spring rain
deep pain
freshly fallen, virgin snow
all dressed up with this place to go
abandoning fear
lending my ear
to the melody of angels voices
aching from the joy of so many choices
feeling the shape
healing from the rape
of my mind
the zest of an orange rind
daring to be kind
the warmth of a fire
flying higher
than I’ve ever been before
knowing I want more
the deep tenderness
of a warm caress
brilliant art
a fresh lemon tart
a smile and a wink
telling me what you think
a heart felt song
that lasts all night long
within my head
crying for the dead
ecstasy in dance
longing for the chance
to rise and leap
wanting just to keep
the ache within my soul
from turning into coal
hands stroking
fingers poking
touching skin
welcoming in
noting bumps
fondling lumps
oil on flesh
feeling fresh
and clean and whole and complete
tasting fully all that I eat
standing open and naked
knowing I can take it or make it
whatever befall
thanks to my All and All
daring to untie the tether
Come, let us witness God together.
Let me suggest that life as God intended at its fullest includes passion.
I have not dwelled too much on the negative sides of passion gone awry; it is a tricky balancing act to cultivate a positive and mutual expression of passion.
It brings us closer to each other, to God and moves us to work for justice.
And because we still live in the shadow of brokenness at times we suffer for or because of passion.
When all is said and done, I don’t think we would truly want it any other way. Amen
