Fiery Courage: May 10

 Year A, Easter 6                                            John 14:16-21  

           One of my earliest memories is riding on a plane for the first time. I was really excited about what it would be like to fly through the clouds.  From down below the clouds look like the cotton you see growing on the plant before it’s harvested.  I imagined that once you were flying in the clouds, it would look the same way.  Maybe I would see some angels with harps.  You can imagine my disappointment when we first broke through the clouds.  It was just hazy.  You couldn’t see much of anything.  There were no places for angels to lounge gracefully.  I thought that these clouds were something you could really wrap your arms around, like a really amazing pillow.  It was a real let down seeing them close up. Now that I am an adult, I know that angels don’t lounge on clouds and heaven is another realm, not just really high in the sky.  Yet I still long for things that can be grasped.        

          The season of Easter is a bit confusing when it comes to our readings.  The first few Sundays, we have stories of the resurrected Jesus…which makes a lot of sense for the season of Easter. Then last week we shifted to John 14 which contains the words Jesus shared before he died.   Today we have a continuation of what we started last week.  It’s usually referred to as the farewell discourse, which is just a fancy way of saying---the long good bye. These were words that Jesus shared with his disciples as he prepared them not just for his death, but also his resurrection and then life after that—life without Jesus’ presence. 

This week’s portion is the introduction to the Advocate. The word Advocate comes from the Greek word parakletos.  I try not to randomly drop Greek words into a sermon because I think it just confuses people most of the time. However, when the word doesn’t have a simple translation, then I like to mention it.  Parakletos is translated to a bunch of different things in the New Testament.  The most literal translation is “called to one’s side.”  It is often translated to Advocate, Comforter, or Helper.  It’s also another way of describing the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is impossible to explain.  We use all kinds of images for it.  When Jesus was baptized, the Spirit descended in the form of a dove.  On Pentecost, the Spirit came in the shape of flames.  When Jesus returned from the dead and appeared to them, he breathed on them so that they might receive the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, it is depicted as wind.  So let’s see….dove, flames, breath and wind.  Those are not very consistent images. 

To be honest, I never really paid much attention to the Holy Spirit…maybe for the same reason the clouds were so disappointing to me. I like something I can hold onto.  It’s probably why we love our phones so much.  It’s something we can hold, something that gives us all the answers we want, yet few that we actually need. 

          The first time I remember really appreciating the Holy Spirit was reading a book called “The Shack.” I won’t explain the whole plot, but the book tried to depict all the parts of the Trinity in human or human like form.  Both God and Jesus were humans, but the Holy Spirit was almost like a colorful fairy who talked and did human like things, but was also incandescent. While the book is far from perfect theologically, I thought it did a really good job of bringing the Trinity to life.  One year, I used only that book for my youth confirmation class. At the end, I asked them all the same question I asked previous classes.  Which part of the Trinity to you feel closest to? Which do you pray to? Previous classes all said Jesus, or God the Father.  However, in this confirmation class, most said the Holy Spirit because they understood it in a more tangible way. 

The 2^nd time I really connected with the Holy Spirit was when I was very ill and confined to a hospital bed. For the first time in my life, Jesus felt far away.   But the Holy Spirit I could sense at times. She helped me feel a little less alone.  That’s what I think Jesus hoped the Holy Spirit would do, help us feel less alone.

          Jesus knew not only how hard his death would be for this disciples, but how hard it would be to be left on this earth without him.  Jesus also knew how hard it would be for the generations after him who would have no experience with the Jesus who walked on this earth.  He understood that we would all need someone to walk along side us.

          He said to his disciples, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.  In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.”  In other words, I will never abandon you.  I will always be with you.  While you may not see me, that does not mean that I am not with you.  Death is not the end. My death will enable you to inherit eternal life with me.  I will see you again soon, and in the mean time, I will be with you in spirit.  Even as I reconstruct John’s words using simpler language, I can see that words are not what enable us to understand.  Knowing the stories, knowing that Jesus kept all those promises he made, that is what helps us to understand. No matter how many times he tried to explain it to his disciples, deep down, he must have known that they would not understand.  They would only comprehend the meaning of his words after the resurrection.  You can’t blame him for trying.  He had to try, because that is how much Jesus cares for us. He will not leave us ignorant or shield us from the hard lessons of life. He might leave us a little confused, but never unaware. 

          Even in our confusion, we still know that we have a place to turn, and that is the advocate, the spirit of truth.    We don’t have to understand the Holy Spirit to believe in the Holy Spirit. While there are a lot of translations for parakletos, the one I found that really resonated with me is: helping the dispirited person be brave.[1]  When we translate parakletos to comforter, or helper, we think of someone who will sympathize, or give us a big hug.  While everyone needs that at times, I don’t think that was Jesus’ intention.  Jesus knew that his departure would leave his disciples distraught.  He knew that they would face many obstacles, and most likely a violent death.  Thus he left them exactly what they needed, courage.

          We still need that courage.  I wouldn’t say we need courage more than ever. I am sure most of us can think of times we have needed courage, even more than now.  But I think this is a time in our nation and our world where Christians need more than a helper or comforter.  We don’t need a dove or a gentle wind.  We need that fire that we will witness on Pentecost, the fire that refuses to be quashed, the fire that spreads.

I heard a quote when I was writing this sermon--“That we have a God who might protect us from nothing, but who will sustain us in everything.”[2]  I often wish that God would swoop in and keep bad things from happening, that God would protect us all from the harsh realities of this life.  Yet again and again I see that is not how God operates. I could complain about that (and I do sometimes) or I could just release that expectation and instead focus on what God is doing.  God doesn’t protect us from the hard things, but God does sustain us when we are facing the hard things. God gives us the courage that we need.  So let us harness that courage.  Let us call on the Holy Spirit to make us braver, braver than we ever could be on our own.

 

---

[1]Barclay, William.  The Gospel of John volume 2, p.167.

[2] Rev’d up for Sunday podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGPyMmWDhxE

 

Who are we to hinder God: May 18

 Year C, Easter 5                                                             Acts 11:1-18                                                                   Visions, trances, angels, the Spirit---Acts has just about everything that makes most Episcopalians a little uncomfortable. Yet if we are to believe this story is true, which I do, then these visions, angels, and the Holy Spirit are the main reason that we know the story of Jesus today.

          This reading from Acts may seem a little confusing because it’s summarizing what happened in the previous chapter.  I hope you will stay with me as I try to summarize it all. When Peter returned to Jerusalem, he was challenged by the circumcised believers for eating with gentiles.  It would be natural to assume the people challenging Peter were Pharisees.  This was something that the Pharisees questioned Jesus about. 

But these circumcised believers were followers of Christ, disciples of Jesus. In indicating that they were circumcised, the author of Acts was saying that they were most likely Jews who were now following Jesus, but still following the laws and traditions of the Jewish faith.  A lot of Jesus’ followers didn’t believe they were starting a new religion, this was just more like an evolution of the Jewish faith. And those people didn’t think you could be a real follower of Christ until you took on the traditions of the Jewish faith, which included circumcision.  These followers of Christ asked Peter: “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?”

          Some of us might think, well what’s the big deal? He had a meal with people who were not circumcised.  The problem was that in eating at the home of a gentile, Peter was almost surely breaking the purity laws of the Jewish faith.  He would also have been undermining the boundaries between observant Jews and non observant gentiles.  This was a very important distinction at the time. It would be like Eagles fans and Cowboys fans getting together for a potluck.

          Peter responded in a way that Jesus often did in these situations.  He told a story.  However, while Jesus often used parables in his story telling, Peter relied on his own life experience.  This story, was kind of wild. He fell in a trance and saw a big sheet descend from heaven and there were animals on the sheet, animals that Jews were not supposed to eat.  But then Peter heard a voice that said “kill and eat.” Peter argued with the heavenly voice, which finally replied: “What God had made clean, you must not call profane.” The detail that Peter skipped in retelling the story was that this whole vision left him very confused. He had no idea what this all meant.  But then three men showed up and the Spirit told him to go with them to visit the home of Cornelius. 

          These three men said that they were sent my Cornelius, a God fearing man who had spoken to an angel.  Saying that someone was God-fearing was a way to describe a gentile who was devout, but still a gentile.  When Peter arrived, he acknowledged that he was not supposed to be there as a Jew, but the Spirit led him and he followed. Then Cornelius told him the story of the angel visiting him while he was praying and asking that he send for Peter, a man he had never met.

          It was at this point, when all the pieces came together and Peter said, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” This would have been mind blowing to hear at the time, because it meant that there didn’t have to be a division between the Jews and the gentiles. It also meant that God’s love was available to everyone, not just the Jews.

          That was the story he summed up in the text we heard today. That was the story he told in response to the criticism he received from those followers of Jesus who didn’t think God’s message could be brought to the gentiles.  He added that when he had shared this good news with the gentiles, the Spirit descended and they were all baptized. He concluded “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”

          One of the things that I love about this story is that it’s both simple and complicated at the same time.  On first glance it seems that Peter came to this revolutionary understanding quickly and easily.  But that was not what happened.  So much had to happen for his eyes to be opened. First of all, the vision came to him when he was praying. He took the time to talk and listen to God. He then followed the guidance of the Spirit.  Meanwhile, another person was also praying, listening and following the guidance of the Spirit.  It required two people who had entirely different backgrounds to find this new way of being. Two people who should never have been in the same room together.  Two people who listened to God and were willing to be open to the movement of the Spirit.

          Does this mean that Peter then gave up all the traditions and rules of the Jewish faith? Christians often assume that but it never said that he did. What changed was that Peter was able to see that those who didn’t follow the same rules and have the same background were no less worthy because of it.

          During college I took a fair amount of religion classes, not because I expected to make it a career, but because I found it fascinating, especially the classes that focused on scripture.  Armed with this scriptural knowledge it was easier to deviate from the beliefs that I was raised with.  My brothers are all older and they had a major influence on me.  My oldest brother became an evangelical Christian and I had listened and not argued for many years.  After college, I started stating my opinions more boldly and talked about how the Holy Spirit had led me to some of these beliefs.  He said, “Yeah, but couldn’t you say that about anything? Does that mean anyone can say something is correct because they have been led by the Holy Spirit?”  I don’t think I had an answer for him then, but I do now. 

          Episcopalians often talk about something called the three legged stool.  The idea is that our faith is formed in three ways: Scripture, tradition and reason. Yet I would add that our understanding of those three things depends on the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  I love traditions. I even like rules.  What I have to continually remind myself, especially as I have more and more years as an ordained priest, is that traditions and rules shouldn’t bind us. They can guide us, but not bind us. 

Does that mean that we throw out the 10 commandments, the Nicene Creed and our beloved Book of Common Prayer? Of course not. But let’s not act like the Holy Spirit has stopped moving, stopped communicating.  Let’s not act like we have it all figured out, because we don’t. We can follow the example of Jesus, but also the example of Peter.  Peter who denied Jesus and left him to die on the cross. Peter who learned from his sins and then gave up everything to spread the message of Jesus.  He prayed and opened his heart to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  He acknowledged that even though he was one of Jesus’ chosen 12, he still had much to learn.  Because of his openness, we gentiles have this message of love to share with anyone and everyone. 

It is unlikely that you will be thrown into a trance or visited by angels, but the Spirit can still speak to you.  She might come in the form of someone who is different than you and tells you something or shows you something that challenges your preconceived notions.  She might come in the form of a realization that you might want to check out a church for the first time.  She might come in the form of a gentle breeze or even a heartbreaking moment. It’s shocking how many ways the Spirit can speak to us.  The question is, how can we be open to the Spirit?  As Peter says, “Who am I to hinder God?” Who are we to hinder God and who could we be if we got out of the way and let the Spirit move?

The Holy Spirit is Super Glue: May 14, 2023

 Year A, Easter 6                                              John 14:15-21                                                               

            In one church I served, we had a dayschool and every week we had chapel for the 2-5 year olds.  It was tricky coming up with a way to teach the Bible to 2-5 year olds. I stuck with the Bible stories we often tell children—the parting of the Red Sea, the various miracles, and we sang “This little light of mine” frequently.  I shared this ministry with the rector.  One day I walked in to chapel and saw her with a flip chart and a diagram of the Trinity.  She was focusing on the Holy Spirit, but felt she needed to cover the Trinity in doing so. And while I still can’t help but laugh when I remember this flip chart and her effort to teach the Holy Spirit to this age group, I also have to give her a lot credit for trying to demonstrate it visually.  She knew that kids need visuals even more than adults.  And for all I know, a child’s mind might indeed understand the Holy Spirit more than adult’s mind.  But it also reminded me of how incredibly hard it is to explain the Holy Spirit.  And yet still, I am going to try to do it…

            Our reading today covers a small portion of what we call the farewell discourse.  Last week we heard the very first part, but it goes on for several chapters.  It’s called the farewell discourse because that sounds a lot better than, “the Long Goodbye.”  As I said last week, Jesus was trying to prepare his disciples for his death and resurrection and even their resurrection.  In doing so, he was preparing them for a life without him, or at least the bodily form of him—how they could carry on.  Not just carry on with their lives, but the message of Jesus as well.

            Over the course of this farewell, there are moments when Jesus was profoundly clear and moments when he was profoundly confusing.  What we hear today is a bit of a mix.  I want to focus on the very first part, which also happens to be the simplest part.  “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.  This is the Spirit of truth…You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.”

The farewell discourse goes on for 3 chapters in the Gospel of John.  In our Gospel, it is presented as a very long speech…thus called a discourse.   However, it probably  wasn’t a long speech as much as it was a collection of sayings that Jesus provided for his disciples over a longer period of time.  Over the course of chapters 14 and 15, Jesus described the Holy Spirit, by describing the actions of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit will teach, remind, testify about Jesus and abide with the disciples. 

As we hear in this text today, this is the Spirit of truth.  Remember Jesus, just said, “I am the way, the truth and life.”  Having the Spirit of truth with them was another way to be connected to Jesus.  This is the Spirit that will sustain the disciples after Jesus has ascended to heaven.  This is the Spirit that abides with them, stays with them.

We don’t talk about the Holy Spirit much in the Episcopal Church, not unless it’s Pentecost.  And I think one of the reasons we don’t talk much about the Holy Spirit is because the Holy Spirit doesn’t have direct words for us that are laid out in the Bible.  The Holy Spirit is present throughout the Bible, but that presence comes in different forms and is thus more subtle. God the Father and God the Son both speak to us through the words of the Bible, but the Holy Spirit never actually speaks. 

In the Episcopal Church, we love words.  We worship using the Book of Common Prayer that was written over 500 years ago and has been honed over the centuries.  We don’t talk about the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit doesn’t speak to us in words, at least not words that have been recorded.  It speaks to us in action. 

The hardest part of losing someone, whether it is to death or something else, is the feeling of abandonment.  Jesus wanted to remove the sting of death, by removing that sense of abandonment. And he could do that, because he was Jesus.  He could do that because he was and is part of the Holy Trinity.  The Holy Spirit is about action, but to some extent it’s about inaction…it’s about what it doesn’t do.  The Holy Spirit never leaves us.

The primary time we talk about the Holy Spirit is Pentecost and that is a moment of drama.  There is wind and fire.  The Spirit descends in a way that the disciples cannot ignore.  Yet I have never particularly liked that description because it’s so beyond our experience.  It happened once and never happened again. Perhaps (and forgive me for disagreeing with centuries of tradition) it would be better if we talked about the Holy Spirit who doesn’t descend with fire and change the way everyone talks.  Instead, let’s talk about the Holy Spirit who refuses to abandon us…whose primary purpose is to be the very presence of Jesus Christ. 

When we picture the Holy Spirit, it’s with a dove, fire or wind.  Doves fly away. Fires burn and fade.  Wind sweeps through an area and then moves on.  Yet the word that Jesus uses for Holy Spirit is abide.  The Holy Spirit is like the super glue that we can never get unstuck. Have you ever gotten super glue on your body? That stuff will pull off your skin.  You need heavy chemicals to get that off.  But if you want to fix something, if you want to ensure that something sticks, well that is what you use. You can depend on super glue.

That is what I want and need from God, a God who I can depend on.  A God who will never leave my side, not even when I try my darndest to get rid of God, to ignore God…that God will never leave our side.  And that…that is the God I want and need.  I think that is the God that we all need.   Jesus told his disciples, “I will never leave you orphaned.”  Jesus promised that he would always be with us.  It’s a promise we wish we could require from so many in our lives, but it’s a promise we can only expect from Jesus.  We can expect it because it was a promise and Jesus…always keeps his promises.

 

           

Hope is a noun: June 16, 2019

Pentecost 1, Year C                                                                            

Romans 5:1-5                                                                                    

            I recently listened to a podcast that examined religion from the perspective of a social psychologist.  This psychologist has examined religions over the centuries and millennia from a Darwinian perspective---trying to figure out why some religions flourish at specific times and then diminish in importance or disappear altogether.  One of his theories is that religions that emphasize a God who judges and punishes are more likely to succeed because fear is a powerful motivator.  If you are taught that if you don’t go to church, you will go to hell, then you might very well go to church.  However, religions or denominations like our own that emphasize a loving and compassionate God are less likely to survive.  If you look at the history of the Christian Church, it was a much more powerful church when we were using fear.  It was not necessarily healthy or good, but definitely effective.  

            We all know that fear is a powerful motivator.  We see it in our political atmosphere all over the place.  And this use of fear to control people is not a new method.  In Jesus’ time, one of the ways the Romans controlled the Jews was through fear and violence. They often used violence or threats of violence to quell insurrection. This is one of the reasons why crucifixions were public spectacles.  The Romans knew how powerful fear was.  There were some Jews who felt that the best way to respond to violence, was with more violence.  And one can hardly blame them.  It’s a natural reaction. 

Yet Jesus and his disciples refused to respond with violence.  Jesus wielded his power in a much different way.  He did so with love and hope. This idea of hope was not new to the Jewish people. They had been hoping and praying for a messiah for centuries.   Jesus was able to embody that hope for many Jews—and that was why he became a danger to the Romans.  So the Romans killed Jesus….at least they thought they did. As we know, Jesus conquered death.

            While Jesus’s resurrection was real and profound, it was witnessed by a limited amount of people.  Those who witnessed it tried to spread the news, spread the hope, but it was difficult news to digest.  It caused more divisions in the Jewish community.  Consequently some Jews felt that they had to respond with fear and violence against this break away group—the Christians.  Paul was one of the worst oppressors of the new Christians.  He had not known Jesus when he lived and certainly had no reason to believe that this rabble rouser was the messiah and had been resurrected.  Because of this, Paul persecuted the followers of Jesus, and when I say persecuted, he killed them.  That was how he displayed his power and wielded control. 

  Paul had little reason to hope in this dead messiah, until that fateful day on the road to Damascus when a bright light from heaven struck him blind and he heard Jesus speak to him.  From that moment, Paul went from persecuting Christians, to being one of the greatest evangelists of all time.  From that flash of light and hope, Paul’s life got a lot more dangerous, a lot more uncontrollable. 

Several years went by before he wrote the letter to the Romans which we heard today.  During those years Paul converted thousands, and planted communities of Christians over hundreds of miles.  He was also beaten and imprisoned for the message of hope that he carried.  While he accomplished a great deal, he was sometimes discouraged by the fickleness of the new Christians.  He would plant a church of passionate and zealous Christians only to later hear how they had been manipulated by false messiahs and wooed by messages of easy answers and immediate gratification.  What is the point of hope if you can get everything you need in an instant?  That is one of the things that the false messiahs provided, immediate gratification.  That is one thing our culture has gotten very good at providing.

In these five verses from Paul’s letter to the Romans, Paul tells the story of hope, the birth of hope.  “…we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint us.”  It is essentially a recipe for hope.  Yet unlike most of those tantalizing recipes we see in magazines with ingredients like grape seed oil and shallots, this is a recipe with very basic ingredients, ingredients that most of us already have, or ingredients that are presently growing inside us.   

That is the good news.  The challenging news is that some of the ingredients that grow inside us… grow despite our best efforts to avoid them.  No one wants suffering, but it is inevitable.  For some, it comes in the form of a natural disaster like tornadoes or flooding.  For some it comes from unnecessary and preventable shootings in our office buildings, schools and streets.  For some, in the form of health problems; physical or emotional.  For many it comes in the form of loss; loss of a loved one, loss of a job, loss of a dream.  Whoever you are, suffering at some point in your life is inevitable. 

Yet my point is not how or why we suffer, but what we do with the suffering.  Often suffering leads to despair, an uncontrolled and unrelenting despair.  But Paul, who was no stranger to extreme and extended suffering, believed that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope doesn’t disappoint us. In my suffering, there were moments when I felt like despair was the only possible outcome.  What always protected me from abject despair was God’s presence, even when God’s presence felt murky and undefined, I could still feel it.  

It is times like that, when we have to choose between despair and hope.  It is times like that when hope feels incredibly dangerous. It is not the canned hope that so many things in our culture provide.  It is not the isolated hope that self-help books give us.  It is wild hope, dangerous hope, hope that cannot be controlled because it is not ours to control.  It is God’s.

Often times we try to control hope with phrases like “cautiously optimistic.”  I have used that phrase.  It’s a smart way to be.  It’s a safe way to live.  I am just not sure it’s Christian.    I often think that I can protect myself from disappointment if I do not let myself hope.  But that is kind of missing the point. When Paul spoke of hope, it wasn’t the verb….it was the noun.   We don’t hope for something.  We strive to live a life that will lead us to hope itself…because the embodiment of the hope is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  Hope is not the means to an end, it is the means to glory.

There are some churches, some religions that still use fear as a motivator.  Yet we---Christians—have something so much more powerful than fear. We have hope.  Ironically hope is a much braver tool than fear and in some ways, it’s a more dangerous and scary tool to wield because it is completely beyond our control and it requires things like suffering and sacrifice.  However, Jesus promised us in our Gospel text that we would never be alone in this journey toward hope. The Holy Spirit is with us.  Jesus calls us to live with the power of Holy Spirit-- to a wild and untamed hope that leaves us breathless and sometimes terrified.  The best way to face that fear, is to do it together, as a community of faith.  Let us together throw cautious optimism out the window. Let us be dangerous--dangerously hopeful.   

The podcast I referred to in the beginning is: https://www.npr.org/2018/07/16/628792048/creating-god

Hearts Broken Open: Pentecost

Year B, Pentecost                                        Acts 2:1-11, Romans 8:22-27                 

May 20, 2018 

            There are some weeks--and I know that we have all experienced them, where we just feel a little beaten down by life. It may be one huge serious thing, it may be 1000 small things that build around us until we feel suffocated… It could be anything.  It could be everything.  It might be something personal, or something more global.  For instance, this has been a difficult week in terms of the news.  In the beginning of the week, we were bombarded with reports from Gaza. It is a land that seems to know no peace, a land that every major religion prays for, a land where our Lord and Savior lived, died and was resurrected. A land where over 2000 were injured in one day this past week.  In our nation, our week ended with yet another school shooting.  This time, 10 students were killed by a 17 year old boy.  The carnage never seems to end in our schools.

While our week ended with the royal wedding and the uplifting and encouraging sermon by our presiding bishop, I still found myself struggling to find the good in the good news. It was especially challenging, because this week is Pentecost.  It’s the day we mark the coming of the Holy Spirit and to some extent, the birth of the church. We wear red.  We talk about fire and light.  We eat cake.  It’s supposed to be about joy, right???

            And yet, the biblical description of Pentecost is a little more complicated than the birthday of our Christian Church.  The fire we talk about in the Pentecost story is not created by birthday candles.  The fire in the Pentecost story is tongues of fire over people’s heads. When I hear about tongues of fire resting on people’s heads, I often wonder why people did not duck.  Would that not be the most natural reaction to fierce winds and tongues of fire descending on your head? The first thing I would do would be to dive for cover.  Had they not yet heard of stop, drop and roll? 

All the paintings that depict the story of Pentecost have the people looking serene.  Some look almost bored, like there was nothing strange about flames hovering over their heads.  A couple of the paintings depict people looking a little surprised, even scared, but that is certainly the exception.  And there is not one that I could find where people are actually ducking.  If someone could find me one, I would be most appreciative.

            I cannot help but wonder what gave those people in the Pentecost story the presence of mind to stand still, to know that there was nothing to fear. Perhaps the Holy Spirit had some sort of calming effect. If the Holy Spirit could give them all the ability to speak in other languages, surely the Holy Spirit could also provide some sort of natural sedative…like lavender infused wind. However, for some reason I have an easier time imaging every person speaking in different languages than people being calm when tongues of fire were resting on their heads. 

            The thing is, they had every reason to be afraid.  The scary truth is that the Holy Spirit brings change and transformation.  Those are anxiety provoking things. No amount of calming lavender will take that away. The only time the Holy Spirit is not terrifying is when we let the flames just hover over our heads (like in the paintings) rather than break into our hearts.

But the intention of the Spirit is never simply to hover.  In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he wrote, “And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit…”  Earlier in Romans, Paul wrote: “…hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” 

            That all sounds great, and it is very lovely imagery…but what does it mean?  The text almost makes it sound like we are just passive recipients.  God searches our heart.  God’s love is poured into our hearts.  It almost seems like we don’t have to do any work…we just sit around and wait for the dancing flames.  Actually, there is something we can do—or rather something we can’t do.  We can’t duck.  We can’t run for cover.  We can’t hide behind something that is safe and secure, like the brick walls of a church, or willful ignorance that may shield us from pain, or fear that keeps us from taking risks. 

When it comes to the Holy Spirit, nothing is safe from its violent winds or tongues of fire.  It does not discriminate in what it chooses to transform. That makes it sound as though it is unstoppable.  However, this is not the case. There is one thing that can stop the transformative power of the Holy Spirit, and that is our hard and uncompromising hearts. In order for God to search our heart….in order for God’s love to be poured into our hearts, we have to open our hearts.

People always talk about broken hearts like they are a bad thing. It’s true, they are painful, but they are necessary.  I do not know about you, but when I have weeks like this, weeks when the small things or the very big things threaten to tear me down, I have a tendency to bury the pain.  Sometimes I want to ignore the bad or thought provoking news and watch reality TV or read fashion magazines.  Sometimes I do.  But then there are weeks when I can’t, because I have to preach to you all.  So here is what I did this week.  I read the news. I cried. I cried a lot and watched Bishop Curry’s sermon about love and then I cried some more.

And then I prayed that the Holy Spirit would touch all your hearts when my words were not enough.  I even prayed that your hearts would break a little.  I believe that we have two options when our hearts break—when we face pain and fear.  We can sew them back up tight, maybe even encase them in a hard shell.  Or we can just piece them back together, leaving the heart cracked, but much more open than before.  Because if we leave those cracks, those tiny imperfections, we leave more space for God’s love to break through.

Those people at Pentecost…they had every reason to be afraid.  But it was not the flames or the wind that should have scared them.  It was what would come after, that should have scared them the most.  When the wind died down, the flames disappeared, and the great crowd dissipated, their lives were forever changed.  I don’t think the Holy Spirit provided them with the presence of mind to stay calm.  I believe the Holy Spirit gave them something far greater, courage and hope to stand still and open their hearts to something new and different.  My prayer for all of you is that when the wind comes and the flame burns just a little too hot, that you will find the courage to stand still…to lean into the wind and the flame, knowing that God may let you fall, may even let you get burned a little, but will make sure that whatever hardship you might face will bring you closer to the person who God created you to be.  

Jiminy Cricket: April 22, 2018

Year B, Easter 4                                                            
1 John 3:16-24                                                                                 

Most of us have probably heard the phrase, “Let your conscience be your guide.”  It comes from the film Pinocchio, which is about a wooden puppet who wants to be a boy.  He must prove himself worthy by showing that he is brave, truthful and unselfish.  To help guide him in this quest, he has a little cricket named Jiminy Cricket who is the voice of his conscience.  One of the famous songs is, “Give a little whistle.” 

The first lines are:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tom-margie/2068063834

When you get in trouble and you don't know right from wrong-- Give a little whistle!

When you meet temptation and the urge is very strong--Give a little whistle!

If only it were that easy…if we could simply determine the right thing to do by whistling.  (Of course that would be a problem for people incapable of whistling.) We are bombarded in our culture with advice like “Let you conscience be your guide.”  “Follow your heart!” “Listen to your heart!’ “Go with your gut.”  It’s this idea that somewhere inside each of us is wisdom and truth and if we can become in tune with that part of us, we will discover the right path.

            I am not sure that is true.  Because our hearts can sometimes lead us astray.  Our gut or our feelings are usually based on our own best interest, which might not always be the best interest of everyone around us.  Thankfully, as Christians, we have this handy book (the Bible). The Bible is full of wisdom and guidance. Unfortunately, it can be a little harder to discern the wisdom of the Bible than it is to follow our gut or google something on the web.  Calling on the wisdom of the Holy Spirit requires more than a whistle. 

While the Bible can be difficult to decipher, especially if we are looking for an answer to a specific problem, there are consistent truths in the Bible.  I know it is hard to sit down and just read the Bible.  Most people think that they have to start with Genesis.  However, if you want to read an entire book of the Bible and you do not have a lot of patience or time, consider 1^st John.  By the end of the Easter season, we will have read from this book every Sunday for 6 Sundays.  There are only 5 chapters in the whole book (which is also a reason it’s a good book to start with). 

One of the reasons I think our lectionary spends so much time on 1^st John is because it’s emphasis on love.  You might think, well the whole Bible is about love.  That is true, but  1^st John is dense with love.  Despite the fact that it only has 5 chapters, the word love appears more often in this book than any other book in the New Testament—except the Gospel of John which is four times as long. First John is dense with love.

As I was reading the lessons for today, I kept coming back to one line. “God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”  In the Episcopal Church, we use a specific translation of the Bible called the NRSV. I found the NRSV translation for this verse tricky which led me to read through other translations.  Another reliable translation reads, “ For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart.”[1]

It’s not just that our hearts can be unreliable at times, sometimes our feelings can be destructive.  We can be plagued by doubt, fear, anxiety and guilt.  Occasionally those things that plague us are based on very real experiences.  However, sometimes it’s not a real experience. There are some of us who are simply more inclined to experience feelings of doubt and anxiety than others.  It’s just the way we are born.  And even if we are one of those people who are fortunate enough not to be inclined toward those feelings of guilt and doubt, everyone can experience those emotions under strain and stress. 

Let’s assume that you are inclined toward guilt and while you know that God has forgiven you (in theory at least) it’s still hard to get past it. It still affects how you think and act. When you feel guilty all the time, it’s harder to be in relationship with God.  That is one way our heart can condemn us. 

Another example might be the way society tells us that what we have or who we are is never enough.  Every marketing campaign ever created is based on the idea that you need the thing that is being sold and you need it because you lack something, something that other people have.  On social media, we see the best of other people’s life, which means that despite the fact that we are more connected than ever, people feel more isolated, lonely and inadequate. Any time of the day or night, we can find someone who seems to be doing better than we are.  As a result, we become more self-focused and less inclined to be in relationship with God and one another.  That is another way that our hearts condemn us. 

The good news is that God is bigger than our heart or the ability of our heart to condemn us. John goes further to say, “Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God…”  If we have boldness before God, that means we can be honest and free.  We can consider our faults and our failures and we can move past them.  We can be free to act in love, to show our love in truth and action. That is another big point of this reading from 1^st John.  We don’t just talk about love, we demonstrate it. It’s a lot easier to show love when you are not riddled with doubt, fear, anxiety or any of those corrosive emotions.

This is all fine and good, but whistling would still be easier. Having a talking cricket at our side would come in handy.  While John doesn’t give us a catchy song he does provide the heart of the Christian message succinctly.  John writes, “And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.”  Even if that is all you can remember, that would be enough. Believe in Jesus and love one another.

You know the interesting thing about Jiminy Cricket?  Apparently back in the day, people would use the phrase when amazed or afraid.  It was said in place of Jesus Christ so people could avoid using the name of the Lord in vain. It is not a surprise that Walt Disney would choose a variation of the name of Jesus Christ for the voice of wisdom, conscience, and friendship. 

While I think it would be extremely helpful if we could call upon the wisdom of Jesus with a whistle---and be even be better yet if we all had our own personal animated insect following us around serving as the voice of reason--- we have something and someone better.  We have God as a constant companion.  At the end of our reading, John writes, “All who obey his commandments abide in him and he abides in them.”  Abide means to stay, or make your home in something or someone.  God sent Jesus and then the Holy Spirit to make a space within each of us where he/she[2] could rest.  That means, we don’t have to whistle or depend on someone on the outside providing wisdom.  We have the Spirit within. 

---

[1] New Kings James Version

[2] The Greek word translated to Holy Spirit is feminine, which means it’s ok to refer to the Holy Spirit as she…but I did not say this in my sermon, as that would have been a bit of a detour.

Don't quench the Spirit: December 17, 2017

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24                                                
Yea B, Advent 3                                                                      

            One of the things I have enjoyed about being the parent of a toddler is imagining all of the things that he might become.  When he jumped off the couch and landed on his feet I thought, he is going to be a famous gymnast.  When he said his first full sentence, I decided he was most certainly going to be a Rhodes Scholar. When he played something on the piano that kind of sounded like something resembling a song, I reminded myself to look up when Mozart started playing the piano because there was a chance that Joshua could be a savant.  It’s fun thinking of all of these possibilities.  At some point, he might tell me he hates the piano and I will cross “next Mozart” off the list.  But right now, he could be anything. 

I remember a time when I was absolutely convinced I would be a senator.  There was no doubt in my mind that I could accomplish whatever I wanted.  And I hope that most of us have some memory like that, a time when anything was possible.  While I was thinking about all of this, I tried to remember the moment when I realized that not everything was possible…or that some or many of my dreams would not be realized.  I don’t think it was any one moment.  It was just a jumble of realizations, some of them painful, some of them enlightening.  I think part of what forms us, what makes us who we are is how we deal with the failures and rejections in life. 

It’s like we are born with a flame.  At first there is a flicker/a spark.  It grows and provides light and a little heat.  Then a couple of things can happen. 

1.      It continues to burn, but goes through different phases. Sometimes it flickers and seems like it is about to extinguish. Sometimes it grows so big it seems like it will burn the whole place down.  It never dies, but sometimes it may seem like it will.

2.      Or it could be a flame that stays sheltered.  It is steady and unchanging, but can only grow so much. 

3.      Or, it is a flame that rises to a certain height and then appears to be smothered, until all you see is embers.

We are these flames. Either we experience success and failure and keep burning through it all.  Or, we stay safe and controlled, not taking much risk.  Or we burn and then something or someone quenches our fire.  The flame ends in ash. The dream dies.  The Spirit is quenched.

            That line from Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians captured me when I was initially reading these texts.  I keep coming back to it, “Do not quench the Spirit.” Paul was talking to new Christians.  This letter to the Thessalonians is the oldest books in the New Testament.  It was written before the Gospels, less than 20 years after Jesus ascended to heaven.  As you came imagine, there was a great deal of fervor in the new community.  There was passion for Jesus and all that he had taught.  They believed in this new movement despite the fear of persecution.   They knew that they could be stoned for worshipping Jesus. This fledgling Christian community was surrounded by people who thought this Jesus thing was just a passing fad, another little cult that would end with that generation. 

In addition to this fervor and passion, these new Christians experienced doubt and fear as well. They had expected that Jesus would return in their lifetime. As people in their community died, they got worried.  What happened if Jesus didn’t come back?  Even Paul had expected Jesus to come back in his lifetime. Thus as the years went by and Jesus did not return, the fervor and the passion that had carried these new Christians wavered.  It was a scary place to be….this in-between place. Despite the fear and the doubt, they held on.  Paul continued to support them and reassure them.  They lived in hopeful expectation. But the longer they waited the less hopeful they were. 

            While we cannot be sure what was happening, it is evident from this letter that Paul was concerned for them.  Otherwise he would not have felt that he had to remind them not to quench the Spirit.  We assume that Paul was talking about the Holy Spirit, but I think it was more than that---at least more than how we perceive as the Holy Spirit.  For most of us, we see the Holy Spirit as something outside of us.  On our good days we see it as something that may inspire and guide us. Other days, we forget about the Holy Spirit entirely. 

But let’s assume for a minute that for the early Christians, the Holy Spirit was part of them.  It was the flame that I spoke of in the beginning of my sermon.  It was the flame that drove them through life. When it was quenched, when it was extinguished, then everything was quenched.  Without it, they were walking in the dark with no light to guide them.  Therefore, it was critical that the Holy Spirit not be quenched.

While we tend to relegate the Holy Spirit to Pentecost and ordinations, the Holy Spirit is part of us.  It is no coincidence that there is a preponderance of candles in churches.  They are not just for aesthetic purposes. The flames serve as reminders of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  They also represent the light of Christ.  The Holy Spirit is what sustains that light within each of us.  We do not have to worry when Jesus will come again, because we have this guiding light at all times.  We have a light that not only shines outwardly, but one that burns within each of us.

Here is the thing about the light of Christ or the flame of the Spirit.  No matter how hard we try to quench it, we can’t.  We can cover it up.  We can try to hide it.  We can ignore it.  But we cannot extinguish it.  Despite that, wouldn’t it be better if we fanned the flames instead of quenching them? Wouldn’t it be better if we tended to the flame in each one of us and one another? 

Much of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians is about how to be a Christian community. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances…” All of our hopes and dreams might not be realized.  Some of us, many of us, will have moments when the flame within us will feel more like ash than flame…which is why we have one another to fan the flames.  We are here to be inspired and to inspire.  After Christmas, we will move the Advent wreaths back into our closets or attics, but that doesn’t mean that the light is gone; it just comes in different forms.  When the darkness seems like it will overcome us, try to imagine the light within you.  If that is too hard, find a candle to remind you that there is always light—the Spirit cannot be quenched.