Sermon for Jan 10-2010
“The Message of the Doves”
Today’s sermon is a teaching sermon about doves, about God, and about us. Long before the internet was an English word. Before fax machines and long before Alexander Graham Bell spoke on a phone, there was another way to share news from far away. Even before post offices ever postmarked a letter; there was a way to communicate messages over long distances in a short time. This is the method God used when he needed to instant message.
The Spirit of God descended like a Dove and alighted on Jesus, it rested on him, and next came the message from God “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
What is it like to be well pleased? It means to be comfortable with those people and events around you. Now what does it mean to be comfortable with God, and the events around God, baptism and such…
Along with the messenger Dove, came a message, and an important message at that- announcing the identity of Jesus at Baptism. This message announced who Jesus was even before he began his ministry of healing through miracles and parables.
At our Baptism, even before we began to live out our lives as Christians, God called out to us through the message in the Gospel and also announced who we are, that we are Beloved.
But God doesn’t just use one news source for this. God sends this message out through all the world, broadcast for millions. Once I worked for a radio station and understood a portion of this…
God has announced at Baptism, that not only Jesus, but also all of us are loved in an extraordinary way. The Way of Jesus, the way of forgiveness. The way of love, even on a cross.
That we are loved is a message that God continues to send over long distances and all times, using all of us to deliver this Good News, as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.
The Spirit of God descending like a dove is a metaphor, a figure of speech about the Holy Spirit and the message that follows; and yet the history of doves and pigeons as messengers is also very literal throughout the Bible.
The Bible is not afraid to talk about God and God’s promise, peace, and presence by using the metaphor of animals.
Speaking of God’s promise we might say or sing- “Jesus, lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world.” How many of you are familiar with this?
Less familiar is Jesus-the dove of the world taking away our sins; it doesn’t sound quite sound right, does it.
And yet, quite literally, doves served the same purpose as lambs for the temple sacrifices in the times of the Bible.
So then let me read some of the Bible account with you.
When Jesus was first born, the Gospel of Luke 2:24 says that Joseph and Mary went to the temple and “they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons.’ Doves and pigeons are basically interchangeable. This law code in the Bible, in the book of Leviticus chapter 5, says, “If you cannot afford a sheep, you shall bring to the Lord… two turtle-doves or two pigeons”. (Turtle Doves and a partridge in a pear tree…)
Well, then, God certainly plans for the future…
However, this offering of two turtle-doves was not for the baby Jesus, but was an offering for the parents of Jesus who apparently couldn’t afford to buy the more expensive lamb.
In this way, when we see doves as images in Christian art, we don’t only have to only think of the Spirit, but we can also get the message about the promise of forgiveness through Jesus.
This can also remind us that we no longer make sacrifices in our church, because Jesus gave his life to end that sacrificial system, offering us the promise of forgiveness to this day. Matthew 21.12 says that Jesus, acting out God’s will, was intent on replacing the sacrificial system with his own life and truth. Matthew 21:12 says, “Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves.” Therefore, we can see doves not only as the message of the Holy Spirit at baptism, but also as the promise of God’s forgiveness throughout our lives because of who Jesus was and what Jesus did for us.
God’s promise was also shared by doves in the beginning of the Bible, in the story of Noah. In Genesis chapter 8 and following, the story of Noah and the flood tells that Noah sent out a dove as the water was receding after the flood. First it returned with nothing because the flood covered so much. Then when Noah sent it out again, it returned with a fresh olive branch, evidence that the flood was receding. The dove used as a metaphor in today’s gospel comes after Jesus emerges from the waters of baptism.
The dove of the Holy Spirit comes down both in the Flood story and at Jesus’ baptism with the message that God’s promise is becoming a reality, that a whole new relationship between God and humans is the message also carried forward to us.
A new relationship happens in the days of Noah, and in the person of Jesus Christ and at baptism a new relationship with the world is opened.
It is important that when the ministry of Jesus begins, when the Holy Spirit comes upon him, it comes not as a destroying powerful force, as perhaps John the Baptist expected, but as a dove, as a messenger of God’s new relationship of peace and cleansing forgiveness.
We often see the image of a dove painted in pure white, symbolizing the innocence of forgiveness, remembering the saying Matthew 10.16:‘See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”
However, the color of a Dove is not necessarily pure white as it is imagined in most dove symbols. Psalms 68, records that, “the wings of a dove [are] covered with silver, its pinions with green gold.” Maybe there are two messages we can learn by this coloring.
One, perhaps as obvious as it is, is that our fellow messengers of God word and Spirit indeed do come in many colors, and sometimes look as ordinary as a pigeon, which leads to the second lesson.
A second lesson is that, as important as the messenger is, it is the message and the one God who sends it, that we really need to spend our time considering. And the message again, as announced in the gospel is that that we are Beloved by a God who values promises, peace, and being present as Jesus and as the Spirit.
It should not be odd to us that the messages of God would be brought through something so common as a dove or a pigeon.
This is because we also need to remember how the message of God’s forgiveness is also brought to Christians through things so common as water in Baptism and bread and wine in Holy Communion.
Perhaps it is odd today that the rock dove, Columba Domestica also known as the rock pigeon, is among the most common, if not the most common bird in the world. As much as pigeons cover park benches and eat bread crumbs they also have amazing acrobatic abilities of flight and have been remarkable throughout history.
A 5000 year history describes homing pigeons delivering messages, messages of war, and messages of peace like the dove of Jesus’ baptism.
Pigeons were used by Romans and Egyptians and even through World War1 for transporting military news. Today, millions of pigeons and birds are kept by hobbyists.
While experiencing God’s love through keeping and caring for a pet may not be the main point of the Holy Spirit as a Dove resting on Jesus’ shoulder, it does however lead us to consider how much we benefit in health and happiness through the love of animals in our lives. While animals can relay many of the same messages as Christian morals, like: stay out, keep off, or back away, they also can share the incredible self-giving and even the rare unconditional love that God has for us.
So, beyond the symbolism of the dove as the Holy Spirit, beyond the dove as a messenger of Good News for Noah and because of Jesus, beyond the sacrifice of animals and doves which Jesus ended, beyond the way in which God is able to take common ordinary things like doves and Baptism water and make them Holy for us because they point to God’s forgiveness for us; beyond all of these lessons from the birds, are there any last concrete lessons that we can learn from doves. Is there still a message from the doves beyond everything that we’ve heard so far?
Maybe a unique aspect of doves may offer us a lesson. Doves and pigeons have a unique style of walking that some have called a “stutter step.” A “stutter step” is when they move their head forward and then step forward and then stop, and they repeat this style of walking over and over. The reason is, that except in flight, the dove cannot focus its eyes unless it stops moving for a fraction of a second. What’s the possible lesson here? Stop and focus. We tend to travel so fast from one place to another that our lives become out of focus. Stopping, taking time for God, having a time to wait upon God, can help to bring life into proper focus. This is what we do every Sunday as we stop and focus on God. This is also what we are invited to do every step of the way on our journey with Christs’ love.
