A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev. Patricia Gillespie

1 Kings 19:15-16,19-21
Galatians 5:1,13-25
Luke 9:51-62
Psalm 16 or 16:5-11

The kingdom of God is like flying a kite.

A friend of mine, as part of a ministry training, was asked to draw a picture of the first thing that came to her mind when someone said the word "minister." She drew kites. Explaining that " the people that minister to me set me free to be closer to God" she adds " Bizarre! And it was honestly the first thought I had...."

If not bizarre, at least a surprising and, as it turns out, fruitful image. Think, for a moment, about flying kite:

A kite flies against the wind, not with it. Sometimes on a blustery day a kite will rise in the air and fly frisky, tugging on the string as if seeking its freedom. It acts as if it wants to fly higher and higher, and it thinks you are holding it back.

But what happens when the kite breaks the string, winning its freedom? Is it free to fly? No. It falls to earth, in a rather clumsy, inelegant way. Instead of doing what it was made to do, which is fly, it ends up on the ground or in a tree or caught on a telephone wire or, if you don't find it before some greedy person, stolen.

The string is not the kite's enemy, but its friend. The string doesn't hold the kite back, but lets the kite fly. When the kite breaks the string, it falls. But when the kite is adjusted to the string and in harmony with it, it flies.

And so, the Creator made many beautiful kites, each one unique. To start them off -- you know how it helps at the beginning to have someone to hold the kite at the right angle to the wind, not turned sideways -- To start the kites off right, the Creator made the Law to hold his creations in the proper place. And then the Creator sent the Son, who set the kites free from the Law. And the wind of the Spirit was sent to guide them in their new freedom

But some of the kites did not "set their face to the kingdom"-- they "looked back from the plow." And we know what happens to a kite that turns sideways -- it falls to the ground. And some of the kites, mistaking the desire of the flesh for freedom, broke the string -- their connection to the Son, and fell to the ground. But others lived in the Spirit, and flew high and free.

Now let's be sure that we kites don't misunderstand this biblical "opposition of the flesh and the Spirit" stuff:

When the Apostle Paul talks about "the opposition between the Spirit and the flesh," he is not making a distinction between body and soul or between the physical world and the world of ideas and feelings. He's not saying that our bodies and material things are bad and intangible bodiless things are good.

When he talks about the opposition of Spirit and flesh, or about the sinful "works of the flesh" and the wonderful "fruit of the Spirit," Paul understands Spirit as those things that unite us, those connecting things that bring us into wholeness or into community; and flesh as those things that separate and divide us, those selfish things that lead to brokenness in our community and in ourselves.

In the Spirit, we are one in love with God and neighbor. In the flesh, we are divided and broken, self centered and sinful.

It is the flesh that breaks the string. It is the Spirit that guides us in tension with the String.

Like the kite, we seek our freedom, our abilities, our hopes and dreams, our likes and dislikes. And God wants us to fly high and free.

So "Let us also be guided by the Spirit": Don't break the connections, so that we may fly high. Because it is "For freedom [that] Christ has set us free."

Thanks to Sue Stromquist and Bill Mosley for their theological reflections on kite flying.