He was a decorated war hero. Who served his country valiantly in the First World War. He was assigned to the 77th Infantry Division of the US Army, sent to France in 1918 and completed 12 missions under the leadership of Major Charles. But he is remembered for one Supreme act of heroism, which saved the lives of 200 soldiers, and for which he was awarded one of France's highest honors the Q Deger.
On that final mission, he lost a leg and took a bullet to the chest, which he miraculously survived. When he was flown home for medical treatment, he was seen off from the French airfield by none other than General Pershing, the commander of US forces. Some months later on June the 13th, 1919, he died from his wounds.
They called him Cher Ami, dear friend. And he was a pigeon.
It feels a bit disrespectful to say that when he died, they stuffed him and put him in the Smithsonian. But that is what happened. And you can still see him there today with his little wooden leg and his scruffy plumage and his metal. And why not? Sure. Pigeons aren't the most beautiful of birds. Uh, their voices aren't what you'd call pretty, they don't symbolize strength or wisdom or nobility, but they are useful.
And in she Ames case. Courageous today, we don't like pigeons. We call them vermin rats with wings. And if you've ever lived in a big city, you will know why. nyc.gov lists three diseases which humans could catch from pigeons. They each have four or five syllables, and I can't pronounce them, but they sound really nasty.
Then of course, there's the billion dollars worth of damage they cause to buildings each year. You've, uh, surely seen those businesses where owners have placed needles along ledges of windows and underneath eaves so that if a pigeon daress to sit, well, a pigeon can't sit. Some humane business owners put plastic owls on rooftops instead, hoping to scare away the pigeons.
And some notably, airports use real birds of prey to deter the pigeon population. Yes, pigeons are not desirable.
There aren't many events in the life of Jesus that are recorded in all four gospels, just 11 actually. Matthew, mark, Luke, and John each has his own audience and each includes events that are especially interesting to his readers. So for something to be mentioned by all four, it has to be vital that all Christians know it, like the last supper, the cross, the resurrection.
And the pigeon at Jesus baptism. Yes. In all four, he's there. The pigeon, that public nuisance and health hazard. Now, don't get all argumentative with me and say, surely you mean a dove rector. Because what Matthew, mark, Luke, and John describe as a dove was probably a pigeon. We associate the word dove with the color white, and for us it's a symbol of peace.
We released doves at weddings and at the opening of the Olympic games as a sign of unity and harmony. But that bird in the gospels, that one that descends on Jesus at his baptism, was probably called a rock dove, and it was gray. And it had that amazing shiny blue and green thing on its neck, plumage. It was the very same species of vermin you will, that will give you a disease and make a mess of your city.
I wonder why God chose a pigeon as a sign that Jesus was receiving the Holy Spirit at his baptism. Now, I have to confess, I can't answer that question with any authority, but it did get me thinking about pigeons and what they're like. And so here are my guesses. Uh, why there's a pigeon at Jesus Baptism.
First pigeons are really good at finding their way home like Cher Ami in World War I. Maybe the Holy Spirit goes looking for a home and searches and finds it, and it is the place where he will be welcomed and loved because that's how God works. If your heart is open to God, he will make his home there.
The dwelling place of God is a human being who is open, a person who is ready to receive him, who is humble and hungry, who is empty and open to a new occupier, who is not full of themselves or their possessions or their distractions. The heart that God seeks is uncontaminated by small vision, cheap thrills, and narrow focus.
It's the heart of Andrew and Peter in the gospel lesson who at the end of the reading, leave their old lives and begin their great adventure with Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the dove, the pigeon seeks out where he will be welcome and he goes where he belongs. How's your heart this morning? I don't mean your physical heart that pumps blood around your body, but that heart that is the center of you, that place where you are most truly yourself, where your thoughts, passions, motives, and longings reside.
Human beings need longing and be longing in good measure. We need passion in life, desire, goals, dreams, hope. This longing makes us go searching for close relationships, worthwhile careers, productive pastime, the pursuit of justice and the common good. But we must also belong somewhere that keeps us solid in our identity in the as people of God and in ourselves, we are like kites.
We are made to soar, designed to ride on the wind. We yearn to take off experience, fly, but a kite can only fly if it is grounded by a piece of string. So our vision, our passion, our longing needs to be grounded in belonging. To God and to our Christian communities. If we are not grounded in God, if we are without real connection with church, then those passions and longings can get out of control and make life harder for ourselves and those around us.
So there's one thing about pigeons. They go looking for a home, but I think there's another reason God sent a pigeon as a sign that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit. It's because pigeons carry messages. There's she ami uh, flying over trenches, skirting no man's land with a message tied to his foot, bringing news of the battle or giving fresh orders.
Pigeons have been carrying messages in peaceful times too. So before the telephone stockbrokers sent pigeons to their trading partners with little notes tied to their legs giving news of the market. The New Zealand Postal Service used pigeons to deliver the mail. So the Holy Spirit is a messenger. He takes the words of God, the words of courage, comfort, challenge, love, and whispers them into our ears.
And the spirit says one more thing to us. Pass it on. Like Andrew went and passed on the good news he had experienced to his brother Peter. So we are to carry on the good work of good news. Come and see. Jesus said to Andrew, there can be no better evangelism for modern day Christians than that ancient strategy.
No need for degrees in theology. No need for training in evangelism. Just calm and see. Calm and see. Anxious about the future. Come and see confused about life. Calm and see needing a stable place in turbulent times. Come and see.
Maybe we resist the idea that the Holy Spirit is gray, that God is there. Present with the dirty, living with the ugly, the pain, the dying and the dead. We don't like gray, even if it does come with a shiny neck. Gray is rain and cloud. It's drab and melancholy. Gray is the color of impersonal cities. Soul destroying high rises, foreboding skies, and threatening seas.
Gray is at best dull, at worst, dangerous. Maybe that's why Western art has always depicted Bible pigeons as white. The bird of Pentecost and the bird that bears the olive branch back to Noah's Ark and the bird of Christ's baptism are all painted white. When you get home, ask AI to show you some classic paintings of Jesus baptism, and I bet it will not show you any in which the bird is gray, but God lives in the gray.
The uncertainty, the ambiguity, the lack of clarity. Of course, God is present in the holy and the beautiful, but that is not the only place you'll find him because we don't live in the holy and the beautiful, do we? We visit there regularly, but we live in the gray where there's distress and death and decay and doubt.
We live with the gray, but we don't live there alone. The gray is where God's spirit lives, and we live there together with him and with each other.
Before we finish, finish, let's notice how this reading ends. There's a change here. It's the transfer portal window and John's disciples leave their old team and sign for the new. Peter and Andrew have gone as far as they need with John, and they now become followers of Christ. With John's blessing because there's something compelling about the gray, out of the gray comes life, there is glory in the gray.
God enters our gray and just by being there transforms it. Peter gets a new name, CFUs the Rock. He and Andrew get new jobs, fishers of people. They begin a hard three years of following their new master all the way to the cross. Tradition tells us that both of them were killed for the sake of Jesus, but in the gray, they found the glory in our baptisms.
We too received the Holy Spirit, a new name, a new call, and so we go back into the gray and we follow our master to who knows where. I love how our church annual meeting usually falls on this Sunday of January when the Bible readings force us to think about the calling of the first disciples because this is a day for the community of St.
John's to recall why we are here. Why it was that in 1834, God inspired our ancestors to build a parish in downtown Montgomery 192 years ago. They could not have imagined what our city would be like today. And truth be told, we've needed those nearly two centuries to form a better purer, holier understanding of God's call.
Thanks be to God. Our task is to shine as a beacon and to pass on the good news to residents and visitors downtown and to the people who live in our neighborhoods. We warm the hearts of our neighbors with the invitation. Come and see our men.