2 Kings 2: 9, 10; Galatians 5: 13-18

Spirit and Love

It has always struck me how Americans love measurement facts.  The biggest river west of the Mississippi.  The tallest building east of there.  We like to quantify things.   We like to measure them.  In addition, we live in a time when everything can be quantified, when everything can be measured. We can measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  We can measure ozone levels.  We can measure the depth of bodies of water. We can measure blood pressure and hemoglobin levels and cholesterol and white blood cells and calcium and body fat and heart rate and pulse rate.  We can determine how much a house is worth for tax reasons or insurance purposes. We can measure oil level and battery strength and tire pressure.  We can find out a person’s net worth and her credit score. We can measure the strength of the economy through all kinds of indicator.  We can even put a number on people’s suffering from an insurance point of view.  We live a society where there is a number for everything.  And then there is the church.  We can’t measure much at all.  We can’t say how much money we will raise other than by looking at past years.  We don’t know who will show up on any given Sunday. But more than anything, the things that we are talking about in church are almost impossible to quantify.  For instance, how do we quantify love, how do we quantify spirit with a small s or Spirit with a capital s?  But that is exactly what our texts start to do: they try to quantify spirit and they try to quantify love.   At least it seems that way.  In 2 Kings as the torch is passed from Elijah to Elisha,  lijah asks his successor what it is he can do for him and Elisha answers:”give me a double share of your spirit.”  We don’t know how this struck the old prophet, but he could have been offended.  Elisha could be saying:” you didn’t have enough of a spirit, so I need more.  The dose you have will not do.”  But he could also have been complimenting Elijah:” you really had a lot of spirit and the right kind. I want a lot of that.”  But the whole thing does not make sense.  You can’t divide or multiply or add or subtract spirit.  You certainly can’t  double it, because it isn’t measurable, it isn’t quantifiable.  So why the word “double?”  In Galatians Paul is quoting Jesus when he says that we must “love our neighbor as ourselves.” In other words, love your neighbor as much as your love yourself, in the same quantity.  But how is that possible?  Are Elisha and Jesus and  Paul trying the measure, trying to quantify things that can’t be measured or quantified?  Of course they are not.  They are just making a case.  They are making a case for the vitality of Elijah’s spirit and for the importance of caring for others.

Friends,  the Church is to place where we talk about things that cannot be quantified.  Recently a Harvard professor in social studies, a Jewish man,  emphasized the importance of religious faith on a television program , because it deals with matters people can put a price on.  There used to be this credit card commercial which presented a special experience people could purchase like a cruise or a  trip in the woods or a family vacation.  It would give a price for each of the ingredients if that experience like airfare, a fancy dinner, clothes and an excursion.  But then the commercial would also end with a mention of something intangible like : time with your children, or grandchildren, or forgetting about work followed by the word: priceless.  We could do the same at Parkview.  Cost for air conditioning the building on Sunday morning : 4 dollars,  cost for food for coffee hour: $45.  Cost for communion elements: $15 dollars, cost of new clothes to wear to church: $150; fellowship with friends and new insight into one’s life gained: priceless.  At least we would hope all of you would say that.

Friends, I am sure you have seen that bumper sticker that says:” my grandchildren are cuter than yours.”  Of course it is harmless and I am sure the sticker was a gift from the children or grandchildren that they were obligated to put on their car.  But is it really something people can measure?  It reminds us of the impossible task me have on Sunday morning: to put into words things that are immeasurable and unfathomable and to do so with reference to inspired texts that are from two to four thousand years old. Things like spirit with a small s and Spirit with a big s  and love and hope and above all God.  Elisha knows that his task o speak for God will be daunting, that at times he can just stammer the truths he perceives.   Jesus knows and Paul knows that we are bound to love ourselves more than others and therefore he sets the bar very high.

Every Sunday we flow or trickle into this building from a world where everything is measured and quantified into a space where almost nothing is.  That is not an easy task, but it is an important one.  It is one we must take seriously.  But we should be deeply grateful that we are given a faith in a God of height and width and depth and greatness immeasurable.  May the Holy Spirit give us triple the spirit we have now.