7/26/26 - "Keep Plussing" - Rev Anthony Spearhart

So a couple weeks ago, I preached a sermon built around a Walt Disney story.

So now that I've broken the seal on Disney sermons, you should probably expect them to show up a little bit more often.

I did try to warn you.

So Walt Disney had a word he often used when talking about his work.

Plusing.

For Walt, plussing meant that something was never simply finished because it had already been created.

If it was alive, it could still grow, develop, expand, and become more beautiful.

Speaking about Disneyland, Walt said, the park means a lot to me in that it's something that will never be finished, something that I can keep developing, keep plussing and adding to.

It's alive.

It will be a live, breathing thing that will never that will need changes.

That was part of what made Disneyland different from a completed film.

Once a movie was released, Walt could not go back and change it, but Disneyland was alive.

New ideas could be added, attractions could be improved, even the trees would continue to grow.

It was not that everything already there was bad, it was that something living should be treated as though it had nothing more to become.

And one of the things I've been plussing since arriving here at Lakeview is my office.

I've been filling it with things that tell stories.

Objects that remind me where I've been, people who have shaped me, moments that have changed me, and ideas that I do not want to forget.

And one of those objects is this.

It's a kaleidoscope.

Now I'm not going to explain just yet why there's a kaleidoscope in the pastor's office.

You'll have to hold on to that question for just a little bit longer.

But I promise we'll come back to it.

Because the more I've thought about Walt's idea of plussing, the more I've wondered whether our language might need some plussing as well.

Not long ago, I was listening to a podcast from the Center of Abundant Aging, a ministry of the United Church Homes led by the Reverend Beth Long Higgins, someone I respect deeply and from whom I've learned a great deal.

Because of my advocacy work with the Alzheimer's Association, I've become especially inspired by the work of United Church Homes and the Center for Abundant Aging.

Now, one of their goals is to shift the narrative on aging, to help us move beyond language that sees aging only as decline, dependence, burden, or loss.

During that podcast, I heard a phrase that stopped me in my tracks.

Our language shifts understanding.

And that's exactly what language can do.

It can shift understanding.

It can change the narrative.

It can help us speak honestly about the challenges of aging while also making room for wisdom, purpose, contribution, and abundance.

Also, from the Reverend Beth Long Higgins, in one of the many times I've heard her speak, she shared of a study led by Dr.

Becca Levy at Yale that found that people with more positive perception of aging, on average, lived seven and a half years longer than those with more negative perceptions.

Now that does not mean positive language denies the real challenges of aging.

It means the stories we tell absolutely matter.

They shape what we expect.

They shape what we notice.

They shape what we believe is still possible.

Our words not merely describe the world, they help us shape the world we understand.

And that is true far beyond aging.

Our language shapes how we imagine God.

It shapes how we understand the church.

It shapes how we approach justice.

And it shapes who can recognize themselves within the sacred story.

That is why Moses' question in Exodus matters so much.

Moses asked God, When I go to the people and tell them that God of their ancestors has sent me, they're going to ask me your name.

What should I tell them?

Now let me say from the beginning, I am not a Hebrew scholar, nor am I a Greek scholar either, but I sure do love language.

I love the way a word can carry history, culture, emotion, and layers of meaning that do not always transfer quite neatly into English.

And that is one of those texts, and this is one of those texts where it is important to slow down, spend a little time with the language.

God answers Moses with the Hebrew phrase.

Now I'm going to butcher this, alright?

So I'm so glad that we heard the true representation of that just a minute ago.

Eah Asher Ea.

Alright, I'm getting a thumbs up.

So most of us have heard it translated, I am who I am.

And that can be a meaningful translation.

But the Hebrew is more spacious than one English tense can hold.

The word ea comes from the Hebrew verb to be.

So the phrase can also be heard as, like we heard read today, I will be what I will be.

Some even hear it within it, I will become what I will become.

Now, I was who I was is not a direct translation of the form used in this verse, but the whole story reminds us that the God speaking from the burning bush is also the God who has been present before.

This is the God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob, Leah and Rachel.

This is the God who has heard the cries of generations.

So perhaps we can hear the fullness of the name reaching across time.

I have been who I have been, I am who I am, and I will be who I will be.

God has been present, God is present, God will be present.

Now Moses asks for a label, and God gives him a mystery.

Moses wants something settled and manageable.

Instead, God offers a name that moves, a name that breathes.

A name that refuses to be frozen in one tense, one image or one understanding.

God can be known, but God cannot be contained.

God can be named, but no name tells the whole story.

And that brings us to the language we use for God.

You may have noticed that I generally avoid using pronouns for God.

And it's not because I believe every use of he is wrong.

Scripture gives us meaningful masculine images of God, Father, King, Shepherd, Lord.

But Scripture also speaks of God as a mother, comforting a child, a woman searching for a lost coin, a mother hen gathering her chicks, breath, fire, shelter, and living water.

Scripture also gives us divine wisdom.

And here's another word I might not hit correctly.

In Hebrew, she is pronounced Kochma.

I'm getting a head nod.

All right.

In Greek, she is Sophia.

Wisdom is personified as a woman who calls out in the streets, stands at the crossroads, invites people to learn and rejoices in creation.

So feminine language for God is not some strange modern invention.

It's a part of our ancient, sacred imagination.

The problem is not that any one image of God is bad.

The problem comes when one image becomes the only image we are permitted to see.

When we speak God, speak of God only as He, again and again, our language can quietly begin to teach us that God is male.

Not simply described through masculine image, but confined to masculinity alone.

So I often say God, the divine, the holy one, creator, spirit, or love.

Not because I found the perfect words for God, quite the opposite, in fact.

I do it because God is larger than every word we use.

And now we can come back to this kaleidoscope.

There's a quote I love that I heard a couple years ago that when I believe in a kaleidoscopic divine, not just a Trinitarian one.

Now there's a whole other sermon hiding inside that sentence, but that sermon's for another Sunday.

For today, think about what happens inside this kaleidoscope.

The light is the same, the pieces are the same, but every small turn reveals another pattern, another arrangement of beauty that was already present, but that we had not yet begun to see.

Different images of God turn the lens.

The experience of people unlike us, turn the lens.

And maybe, just maybe, the wisdom of other faith traditions can help us glimpse something of the divine that we had not seen from our angle before.

Now that does not require us to abandon our faith and ask us to remain humble about the fullness of our still-speaking God.

Expanding our language does not erase what came before, it gives us just another glimpse.

Every name may reveal something true about God while no single name reveals everything.

That is why this kaleidoscope sits in my office.

It reminds me not to mistake one beautiful image for the whole divine mystery.

And Pentecost shows us that this openness to language is not only about how we name God, it's also about whether people can hear and understand the good news.

At Pentecost, the Spirit did not choose one sacred language and demand that everyone else learned it.

The Spirit moved through many languages.

People come from different nations and cultures, heard the good news in the language of home.

The language in which hope could actually be understood.

Pentecost was not the day everyone learned to speak the same language.

It was the day the church discovered that the Spirit could speak through more languages than it had ever imagined.

The Spirit did not erase differences, the Spirit worked through differences.

And that matters because the church has something, has sometimes acted as though unity requires us to sound alike.

But a word that opened faith for one may close the door for another.

An image that brings comfort to one may carry pain for someone else.

When we hear another story and learn something more, our language should be allowed to grow with our understanding.

Now that's not about policing every word, and it's not merely about being politically correct.

It's about being theologically awake.

Awake to the fact that words shape imagination.

Awake to the fact that church language can widen a doorway or make it harder for someone to enter.

Consider the word kingdom.

It is biblical, it has history and meaning, but it also carries images of monarchy, hierarchy, and power flowing from the top down.

So some of us also use the word kingdom.

Not because kingdom must be a race, but because kingdom helps us hear another truth already present in the gospel, that God is creating a people who belong to one another.

A community of kin.

Instead of asking only who rules, we also ask, how are we related?

Instead of seeing ourselves only as subjects beneath a throne, we see siblings gathered around a table.

Or let us consider the word ally.

Being an ally is good.

It means listening, learning, speaking up, and refusing to remain neutral in the face of injustice.

But some people also use the word accomplice.

An accomplice does not merely approve from a safe distance, an accomplice becomes involved.

An accomplice takes action.

An accomplice accepts some risk.

The question becomes not only do I support you, but what am I willing to do with you?

The word ally is not bad, but perhaps it can be plused.

Support can become participation, sympathy can become solidarity, good attentions can become shared action.

And the language we use today may need to be plused again tomorrow.

We will learn more.

We will hear stories we have not yet heard.

We will discover places where even our newer words are incomplete.

The goal is not to find perfect vocabulary and carve into it carve it into stone forever.

The goal is to remain humble enough to say, I did not understand that before.

Thank you for helping me see it.

I want my language and my life to reflect what I now understand.

Because no generation gets the final word.

We are called to speak faithfully with the understanding that we have now, and those who come after us will see things we cannot yet see.

And I hope we give them permission to turn the lens again.

So perhaps the question is not, have we finally found the correct words?

Perhaps the better question is what understanding are our words creating?

Because none of us speaks into an empty room.

Our words travel into our homes, our workplaces, our classrooms, our churches, friendships, and communities.

Every one of us has a sphere of influence, which may be small, which may be large, but within that sphere our language is helping to shape someone's understanding.

When we speak about aging as though life loses its value with every passing year, someone hears that.

When we speak about God as though the divine belongs to only one gender, one image, or one kind of person, someone hears that.

When we speak about justice as though agreement is enough and action is optional, someone hears and sees that too.

But the opposite is also true.

When we choose words that honor wisdom and possibility, we help others imagine aging differently.

When we expand our language for God, we help others encounter a divine presence larger than the limits they may have inherited.

When we speak of kingdom, shared belonging, and accomplices in justice, we help others imagine a world shaped by relationship, responsibility, and courageous love.

Our words do not control another person's understanding, but they can open a window.

They can widen a doorway and they can shift the narrative.

A word can shift a conversation, a conversation can shift a relationship, a relationship can shift a community, and a community can begin to change the world around it.

The light has not changed, but with every turn something becomes more visible.

Perhaps that is what the Spirit keeps doing among us.

Not replacing the light or erasing the story, but turning the lens.

Helping us see more of the God who's always been larger than our words.

Helping us see more dignity in one another, and then sending us out to help others see it too.

The church is alive, our faith is alive, our understanding is alive.

And because our words shape understanding everywhere our lives touch, our language must remain alive too.

So let us keep listening, keep learning, keep widening, keep turning the lens.

And let us carry that wider vision into every conversation, every relationship, every community within our influence.

By the grace of God who has been, who is, and who will be, let us keep blessing.

Amen and amen.