Just two weeks ago and still chilling our memories, a cold front moved into the northern states. In Pennsylvania as temperatures reached 15 below (Fahrenheit) and wind chills dipped further to 25-40 below, a new term entered the media vocabulary: “arctic vortex.” Of course, we have had temperatures dip below zero before and wind chills that are brutal. That is nothing new. But this time simply having it called by another name, arctic vortex, changed my perspective.
Arctic vortex sent my imagination reeling. Of course, I’m a hopeless romantic. I could hear and feel the swirling cyclone that had spun off from a far off place that I will never visit. Nose going numb, I noticed that I was breathing the very wind that had rocked an ice berg, that had brushed the fur of a polar bear. My face was stung by air that had first been sniffed at by an arctic fox and had then been sliced by the wings of a snowy owl. You see, just naming it “arctic vortex” changed the dread of going out into deep chill into an adventurous expedition of sorts.
My perspective was also changed that same week by a book I was reading, Consider the Birds: A Provocative Guide to Birds of the Bible by Debbie Blue. Don’t be deceived by the rather ordinary title; because of this book, I will never hear the story of Jesus’ baptism in the same way again.
Visualize the story: Jesus walks into the Jordan river and is baptized by John. As Jesus stands up, dripping with water, all the gospel writers tell us that the Spirit of God, “like a dove,” descended onto Jesus. And what do we imagine that dove to look like? Well, a small, white, beautiful bird, right? We have one in the stained glass window of our church building. I have one on my red stole for Pentecost.
But the author notes that the Greek word for dove could have just as legitimately been translated pigeon. In fact today, dove or pigeon is used interchangeably by ornithologists when speaking of this family of birds. So, ponders Debbie Blue, how about a pigeon as a symbol of the Spirit of God? Yes, one of those gray pigeon/doves with iridescent green and violet necks, common in Palestine, Europe and brought to the Americas…known here as rock pigeons.
The author also notes that while lots of birds want to avoid us, the great thing about pigeons is they want to be close to us. They are on our sidewalks and nearby vacant lots, roosting in dilapidated attics and walking around our beautiful state capitol building in Harrisburg. Pigeons, doves, whatever you call them won’t leave us alone.
Yet there’s hardly a bird, the author suggests, that people are more likely to want to shoot. I certainly did, want to shoot one, that is, the day one flew over and pooped a white, runny blotch onto my hair.
So what if, the author asks, the Spirit of God descended like a rock pigeon—“the spirit that’s always underfoot, the spirit that’s routinely ignored, the spirit that’s often despised?” I have to admit that it is true that sometimes the invitations of God’s Spirit can be downright inconvenient and I don’t want to be bothered by it. So what if that’s the kind of Spirit we see descending on Jesus?
So the next time I am in the city, I will probably notice where the rock pigeons are and wonder about the the Spirit of God hovering under the bridges with people who are homeless, in the vacant attics of crack houses, and around the door of Christ Lutheran where people are waiting in the cold for the free medical clinic to open. If God’s spirit hangs out with the ordinary and doesn’t leave us alone, if God’s spirit goes where rock pigeons go, maybe we should too. That, my friend, changes one’s perspective on what our baptism is all about.
Thank you, Debbie Blue.
(Read the book!)
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