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Devotional, Series

Sacred Signs of Subversion, Part 4: The Dove

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Read Matthew 3:16–17

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“When the dove returned in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak, Noah knew that the floodwaters were almost gone.” (Genesis 8:11 NLT)

Symbols carry memory and meaning far beyond words. The Church has always leaned on them—sometimes hidden in plain sight, sometimes dismissed or distorted. Yet the most powerful symbols are those that subvert the world’s expectations and draw us back to the radical heart of the Gospel. In this series, we’ll look closer at the sacred signs that shock, unsettle, and ultimately call us deeper into Christ.

Image: AI-generated using DALL·E (OpenAI) and customized by the author. Used with the devotional “The Dove” at Life-Giving Water Devotions.

Part 4: The Dove. The dove is perhaps one of the gentlest symbols in the Christian imagination. It brings to mind peace, purity, and soft images of God’s Spirit descending. Yet to reduce the dove to sentimentality is to miss its scandal. When the Spirit came upon Jesus at his baptism, the dove didn’t settle him into comfort. It drove him into the wilderness. That same Spirit would later drive the apostles into the streets, Stephen into martyrdom, and Mary into a life of risk and scandal as the mother of God. The dove is not tame. It disrupts.

Consider Jarena Lee. In the early 1800s, Lee felt the Spirit’s undeniable call to preach. Yet as a Black woman in America, she was told by both culture and church that she had no place in the pulpit. Richard Allen, the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, at first refused her request. But when the Spirit fell on her, she stood in a service and proclaimed the Gospel with such power that even Allen had to recognize it. He later licensed her to preach, making her the first authorized female preacher in the AME. Jarena Lee bore the dove’s fire in her bones. She defied expectations not because she wanted power, but because she could not silence the Spirit.

Allen himself embodied the dove’s disruption. Refusing to let racism define his worship, he led Black believers out of segregated pews and founded the AME Church. In a society that saw Black people as second-class citizens, Allen claimed space for the Spirit to dwell fully and freely. His act was not “nice peace” but subversive peace: the Spirit carving out dignity and justice where empire denied it.

Or think of Joan of Arc. A teenage peasant girl claimed that God’s Spirit had spoken to her. She defied the gender roles of her age, donned armor, and led armies under the conviction that God had chosen her. She was betrayed, condemned by church and state, and burned at the stake. Whatever one makes of her visions, Joan bore witness to the dove’s untamable power: God’s Spirit breaks boundaries and refuses to be caged by the categories of empire.

Centuries later, Martin Luther King Jr. embodied the dove in America. His peace was not passive or sentimental—it was disruptive. He resisted violence by marching, preaching, organizing, and calling out systems of racism. He was beaten, jailed, and eventually assassinated. But King’s peace, Spirit-driven, shook the foundations of American life. It was a dove that disturbed the comfortable and comforted the afflicted.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer stood against Hitler and the Nazi machine. Guided by conscience and Spirit, he resisted the church’s capitulation to empire and was executed for it. Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, stood with the poor and denounced government brutality. He was gunned down at the altar while celebrating Mass. Both men embodied the same Spirit—the dove that does not promise safety but calls the Church into costly witness.

The dove, then, is not a sentimental bird floating over baptismal waters. It is the Spirit that disrupts our empires and overturns our assumptions. It moves us into wilderness places, into pulpits we were told not to enter, into streets where justice must be proclaimed, into confrontation with powers that oppress. The dove is peace, yes—but peace that resists violence, peace that refuses domination, peace that stands with the condemned, peace that costs everything.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The Spirit is no tame dove. It disrupts, resists, and calls us to costly peace.

PRAYER
Holy Spirit, descend on me anew. Forgive me when I settle for comfort instead of courage, for safety instead of witness. Teach me the peace that resists violence, the love that refuses domination, the faith that stands with the condemned. Drive me into the wilderness if you must—but do not let me escape your call. Amen.

Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Devotional

A LOOK BACK: Nothing is Impossible

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ALSO IN SCRIPTURE

“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:28-29).

There once was an African-American woman, named Jarena Lee (b. 1783), who felt the call by God to preach the Gospel. The only problem with that was the fact that women were not permitted to preach anything during that time period; only men were permitted to preach. What’s more, she was not just a woman, but an African-American woman.

“Go and preach the Gospel,” she heard God tell her. “But no one will believe me,” she replied. And one can understand why she was afraid to approach anyone about her call to preach. But God persisted in calling her through her dreams until she finally decided to approach the Rev. Richard Allen about it. Initially he put her off, telling her that there was no room in the Discipline for a woman preacher. At first, she was thankful, as she thought Allen’s answer would put the calling to rest. But it did not.

Eight years later, during a sermon in which a minister lost the spirit to preach in a sermon on Jonah, Jarena jumped up and began to preach in his place. She proclaimed that she was like Jonah, running away from the call that God placed on her, and preached on the importance of answering the call of God.

Following her exhortation, Rev. Richard Allen, who as the Bishop of the African Episcopal Church at this time, confirmed that she indeed did come to him eight years earlier and that he had put her off. He confessed that he was mistaken and that she was as called to preach as anyone he had ever ordained as a minister. Later writing of this event, Jarena Lee wrote: “For as unseemly as it may appear nowadays for a woman to preach, it should be remembered that nothing is impossible with God.” Indeed, God had done the impossible in the life of Jarena Lee!

Often times, we stand in the way of God with our rules and regulations and man-made doctrines and traditions. We determine who is worthy of being called by God, who is worthy of God’s presence, and who is worthy of God’s grace. On top of judging others, we often deem ourselves as unworthy too. Yet, who are we to decide such things? Jesus broke the man-made barriers and engaged in religious dialogue with a Samaritan woman at a well in Samaria in a day and age where women were property and Samaritans were considered less than worthy of God. And Peter saw the Holy Spirit filling Gentiles, breaking his prejudice against their worthiness.

Time and time again, Scripture shows us that nothing is impossible with God, and no one is unworthy enough to be called by God. Abraham was a polytheist and a fraud, Joseph was a prisoner and slave, Moses was a murderer and stutterer, Rahab was a prostitute, and David was an adulterer and a murderer. All of these people and many more were called to serve God in vital and important ways. Which one of us can be the judge against God working in another’s life? Which one of us can be the judge against God working in our own lives? Which one of us can be a judge against God?

Remember, God loves us all and calls us all to serve him. Each calling is unique; however, each calling is equally important and special. No rules or regulations can stop God from calling you or others. No rules or regulations should stop you or others from answering that call. Do not judge yourself or others; just answer God’s call and let God do the rest!

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

“Oh how careful ought we to be, lest through our bylaws of church government and discipline, we bring into disrepute even the world of life.” — Jarena Lee

PRAYER

Lord God, help me discern your call and refrain from judging, whether I be judging myself or others. We are all worthy. Amen.