Psalm 104:34-35, 37 I will sing to [God] as long as I live; I will praise my God while I have my being. May these words of mine please [God]; I will rejoice in [God]. Bless [God], O my soul. Hallelujah!

Introduction

In his poem “Song of myself”, Walt Whitman describes sounding his barbaric yawp. He desires to seize his own liberty, to physically and verbally make his presence known as he is without all the confinements of society. Think naked, think boundless, think unrestricted. Think: the noise and sound of frustration and anger in the quest for liberation from condemnation and death—a sound so mighty it feels as if it reached down to the deepest recesses of being.

There’s only one time in my life where I felt the force of my barbaric yawp. It was less about myself and more about the one I wished to save: my daughter Liza (about 2 ½). A beautiful Mother’s Day solicited us out for a hike. Our family and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law decided to visit Potato Rock—a little hike and a picnic. When we got to the mysterious rock, we took a moment to look around and admire the sights. The boys did their thing, I was with my sister-in-law, and Liza was with Daniel and his brother. And then out of the corner of my eye, like a bolt of lightning, Liza sprinted away from Daniel—she’s always been very active and very nimble. She moved fast, and calling her name didn’t work. She kept running. We began to move toward her while calling her name. Still, she didn’t stop. She was heading for the edge and was so far out of our reach by this point I knew we couldn’t physically catch up to her and wouldn’t she just think it was a game?

In a moment of complete desperation, I did the only thing that came to mind. I waved Daniel off and then—with everything inside of me, summoning the strength of every fiber of my being—I hollered: LIZA STOP! The sound was so forceful it forced me to step back; Liza, mid-stride, collapsed in a ball of tears feet away from the edge. She was safe; Daniel made it to her and scooped her up to comfort her, I followed to do the same. Later my sister-in-law looked at me, eyes the size of quarters, where did that sound come from? She asked. I was in shock and filled with adrenalin; I didn’t know, it just came up and out of me.

I refer to that hollering, now, as the maternal yawp sounding from a desperate mom interceding between her beloved child and sure death. This is what love does when it needs to: it hollers so loud everything (even time) stops and space splits; love intercedes with all her force to protect the beloved. For all intents and purposes the maternal yawp is the breath of love breathing the fire of life, like a dragon aiming to save her own, like the roar of a mama lion protecting her young babes, like a mama bear chasing away a threat: do not mess with my cubs.

John 14:8-17

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And as I will ask [Abba God] and [God] will give to you another Intercessor, so that they will be with you into eternity. The spirit of truth, whom the cosmos is not able to receive because it does not experience them and does not know them. You, you know them, they abide with you and will be within you. [1]

(Jn. 14:15-17)

The story opens on Philip requesting from Jesus: show us Abba God and it will help us. Jesus’s responds—which, I can only imagine, carried justified exasperation[2]–and says: muh dude, you’ve been with me this long and you, you don’t see the family resemblance? Jesus then lovingly explains the intimate connection between Abba God and himself: God is in me and I am in God; I speak and do not my own things but what God wants to speak and do. In other words: Philip, you’ve been with God the entire time; God is with you. Jesus exhorts Philip to look at the works and words of Jesus and believe in God’s real presence with him[3] because God is with him, that’s a promise.[4] That promise extends beyond Jesus’s temporal presence with Philip and the disciples.

Referring to his own works and words, Jesus explains that the disciples will do even greater ones. This explanation doesn’t mean the disciples will eclipse the cross and resurrections; it doesn’t mean they’ll do more and better miracles. It means they’ll continue in and with the words and work of Abba God as Jesus did,[5] spreading the work and words of Christ wherever they go.[6] The question remains: How will this be the case?

According to Jesus, it’s simple as asking Jesus for things in Jesus’s name. Jesus promised: I’ll do these things you ask for in order to bring glory to Abba God. The future tense of this moment creates a bit of tension: how will the disciples ask Jesus for things in Jesus’s name if he’s not here? Enter the Intercessor, The Paraclete.[7]

Jesus moves from promising to do whatever the disciples ask in his name to dropping the qualifier of qualifiers. Before the disciples think Jesus and God are their genie in a bottle,[8] Jesus defines love: if you love me you will keep my commandments. This then tempers the idea of “anything” and illuminates “in my name”. In other words: good luck loving me and abiding in my love and then trying to yoke me and Abba God to your selfish and self-centered desires, myths, and systems of death.[9] To ask something of Christ in Christ’s name is to confess a love for and faith in Christ; to love Christ and believe in him is to do his commandments. Thus, the disciples are exhorted to love God and love one another; but, not of their own power and force, but through faith[10] and by the presence of The Intercessor who will come and abide with and within them forever. By faith and love the disciples are anchored to God.

If anchored to God by the presence of The Intercessor (The Paraclete, The Holy Spirit) then also anchored in truth[11] and divine revolutionary love[12] for the entire cosmos. Those who follow in the love of God by the presence of the interceding spirit of divine love[13] will be those who proclaim the words and do the deeds manifesting the liberation of and justice for the people trapped in suffering and oppression. [14] In other words, the disciples are exhorted to participate in the divine maternal yawp by the power of The Intercessor. Disciples are to use their voices and their bodies to intercede (beyond thoughts and prayers) on behalf of those who are trapped by the myths and lies and the threat of death from human violence and systemic oppression.

Conclusion

In a moment we’ll recite the affirmation of faith. The last portion of the affirmation reflects on the reality and presence of the Spirit, God within us. Some of those lines are: We believe in God within us, the Holy Spirit burning with Pentecostal fire, life giving breath of the Church[15]…The past few weeks make these lines feel distant if not like bold lies. How do we utter these words—packed with vibrant and rich, living and active imagery—and then remain silent as God’s beloved children die? If being a Christian means I’m only saved from some mythical conception of hell, then I am most to be pitied because it means that the Spirit of God is incapacitated and limp. It means that word “intercession” only has one passive definition and not also a very active one. Does the Paraclete only comfort me like a lullaby wooing me to sleep? Or is the Spirit of God alive, breathing, burning with Pentecostal fire, exhorting me to be bold and defend life?

As a mom, I can’t sit by; as a Christian, I can’t send my kids and your kids or any kid into the hellscape that is our world without first sounding my maternal divine yawp: STOP! THIS MUST END! I need to either stop praying the third part of the affirmation of faith or I must double down, diving head first into the reality that God charged the church and every Christian to be those who illuminate the darkness, who holler at and silence deadly storms, and who are the live-giving tongues of the Pentecostal fire in this tundra of death.

Today we remember the arrival of God’s Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Intercessor, the one who resided with and within the disciples. This is the same Spirit who resides with and within us. Today we must ask: are we dead or are we alive? If we are dead, then let us confirm the confession that God is dead, too. But if we—those resurrected by God’s life-giving breath into the consuming fire of God’s love—if we are alive then so is God. If so, then let us be alive as the church, let us be a force to be reckoned with interceding for God’s beloved, let us be the church so inspired by God’s passion for the world that we can do no other than sound our divine maternal yawp so loud that terra firma shakes with God’s presence.

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[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[2] Rudolf Bultmann The Gospel of John: A Commentary Trans. GR Beasley-Murray, Gen Ed; RWN Hoare and JK Riches. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1971. German: Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, 1966). 608-609. “The implication behind the reproachful question: τοσοῦτον χρόνον κτλ. is that all fellowship with Jesus loses its significance unless he is recognized as the one whose sole intention is to reveal God, and not to be anything for himself; but it also implies that the possibility of seeing God is inherent in the fellowship with Jesus: ὁ ἑωρακὼς ἐμὲ ἑώρακεν τὸν πατέρα. What need is there for anything further (πῶς σὺ λέγεις κτλ.)?”

[3] Bultmann, John, 609-610. “The man, for whom Jesus has not already become authoritative, so that he could believe his word without question, should look at what his word effects: i.e. he should look at himself. Jesus’ word does not communicate mysteries or dogmas, but discloses a man’s reality. If he tries to understand himself by subjecting his existence to this word, then he will experience the work of the Father on him. The nature of the experience is stated in v. 12: the Father’s work will continue to come to fruition in those who believe in Jesus…”

[4] Bultmann John, 609. “This question is posed by Jesus’ words in v. 10: οὐ πιστεύεις ὅτι ἐγὼ ἐν τῷ πατρὶ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἐν ἐμοί ἐστιν; The faith at issue is the faith that man really encounters God in his encounter with Jesus, that Jesus and the Father are one. The formula of reciprocity is again used to describe this unity, but what follows makes it clear that it must be understood in terms of the idea of revelation. In Jesus’ word, the work of the Father is brought to fruition; on his own, and for himself, Jesus is nothing: he is simply and without exception the revelation of the Father, and the words ὁ δὲ (ὁ) ἐν ἐμοὶ μένων give added emphasis to the fact.”

[5] Bultmann, John, 611. “To speak of the disciples’μεἰζονα ἔργα is of course to speak paradoxically; for they are in fact the works of him without whom the disciples can do nothing (15.5). And the juxtaposition of that promise with the promise that their prayer will be heard, which makes what they do appear as something given (v. 13), reminds us at once that all the disciples’ work is rooted in his work, and is in fact his work.”

[6] Bultmann, John, 610-611. “Jesus’ word is word of revelation in continual newness on every occasion when it is present. Only when is effective in this way in the community does Jesus’ work come to its fruition. Thus there is no question here of supplementing or surpassing Jesus’ work in any quantitive way.”

[7] Bultmann, John, 610. “[The promise] also corresponds to the promise of the Paraclete, who is to continue what Jesus had done, and whose work is carried through in the community’s proclamation of the word (15.26f.; 16.4b ff.). The disciples are to regard the taking up of their task—and this is the point here—as the Father’s work. What further need have they then to ask: δεῖξον ἡμῖν τὸν πατἐρα? Indeed, the Father’s work, which began with what Jesus did, is to prove its power more and more in what they do: καὶ μεἰζονα τοὐτων ποιἠσει.”

[8] Cardenal Solentiname 554 “OLIVA: “To ask in his name isn’t to say prayers mentioning his name, like so many who pray and are rich and exploiters. Specifically, here in Nicaragua I think that to ask in his name is not to pray but to act.’”

[9] Bultmann, John, 614. “V. 15: the answer to the question how a relationship of love can be established with the departed Revealer is this: it consists in the disciple fulfilling his commands.”

[10] Bultmann, John, 614. “It is of course natural, following 13.34; 15.12, 17, to think of the command of love, and this is certainly included in the summons to faith, just as 15.9-17 make it equally certain that faith as an abiding in love cannot be a reality without the ἀλλήλους ἀγαπᾶν. However, this side of the matter is not stressed in this context. It is faith that is demanded, demanded of course in the fulness of its significance as existential living.”

[11] Ernesto Cardenal The Gospel in Solentiname Trans. Donald D. Walsh. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010. 558. “FELIPE: “Because Christians often have a love that’s just talk, and those who aren’t Christians are the ones that make love a reality they are acting the truth; because even though they don’t talk about love or Christianity or theories of that sort, they’re really the ones that are following the truth, practicing the truth.”

[12] Cardenal Solentiname 558. “GUSTAVO, the Colombian: “I think that truth, the whole truth, is always revolutionary. Then the spirit of truth is something that moves things to change, to cast down the oppressor’s lie, to impose the truth of the oppressed.’”

[13] Bultmann, John, 615. “Thus there is a peculiar paradox inherent in the promise; the word of revelation, which the community is always encountering, is the very word which the community itself utters. It is responsible for the proclamation, and only when it grasps this responsibility does it experience the power of the word as the word of revelation.”

[14] Cardenal Solentiname 558. “I: “In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit is the spirit of Yahweh, which is the same as saying the spirit of justice and liberation. He’s the one who spoke through the prophets proclaiming the truth.’”

[15] We use the Ionian Creed