Tag Archives: Holy Spirit

“You renew the face of the earth” (Pentecost, 5/24/2026)

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Readings (Acts, 1 Corinthians, John 20)

“You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; / and so you renew the face of the earth.” That line from today’s psalm isn’t a bad summary of what we’re celebrating today. The same Spirit that hovered over the chaotic waters in creation is now at work in re-creation, in renewal.

One of the things I appreciate about our tradition is that at the major feasts the liturgy itself does the heavy lifting. The sermon has more the character of the program notes that accompany concerts at the Overture Center. So, some program notes, and then back to the celebration!

In a Bible that opens with two accounts of creation, Genesis 1 with its majestic six days crowned by the Sabbath, Genesis 2 with the creation of the earth creature and—finally—the creation of an authentic counterpart, perhaps it’s no surprise that there are two accounts of the Spirit’s arrival. Acts is the familiar one; our reading from John’s Gospel gives us the other, with John’s version of the Great Commission included. As in Genesis there’s no point in trying to harmonize the two, but there’s plenty to learn from both.

“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’”

It’s a single action, beginning with “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” We’ll hear Matthew’s version of the Great Commission next Sunday (“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…”). Sadly it’s too often been hijacked in support imperial projects. John’s version reduces that danger: “as the Father has sent me,” that is, without coercion or violence, vulnerable.

That approach to mission is hard to sustain, so just as the Spirit comes on Jesus at his baptism, so Jesus breathes on the disciples: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” As many readers have noted, it recalls the creation scene back in Genesis 2: the Lord God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen 2:7). As other New Testament writers recognized, it’s a new creation (2 Cor 5:17).

“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” That verse, as you might imagine, has occasioned heated debates: basis of sacrament of reconciliation or (more broadly) the proclamation of forgiveness? Perhaps it’s there to underscore that whether the hearers accept or reject the disciples’ message really matters.[1]

John’s “Pentecost” occurs in a locked room; Luke’s—recorded in Acts—spills out into Jerusalem’s streets. Among the many things we might notice: the Spirit’s translation strategy. The multinational crowd doesn’t hear and understand Peter’s Aramaic. “Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, etc.… in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” That’s another way “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” plays out: Jesus speaks our language; Peter’s audience hears in their own languages. As the Gospel spreads to and past the edges of the Empire that frequently means that the missioner’s first task is to learn their hosts’ language.

And it’s not simply a matter of language in any narrow sense, but of the concepts, the ways of seeing the world. We heard the beginning of Peter’s speech in our first reading. It goes on for some length and ends with “Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” How do we translate that for our time and place? While the continuity is crucial (“one holy catholic and apostolic church”) every time we cross cultures—if we do it right—it’s also a new creation. Do we always do it right? Of course not, so it’s a good thing that the Spirit that brooded over the chaotic waters isn’t easily scared off.

What might be the take-aways from these readings? Let me suggest three, and then back to the celebration.

First, it’s obviously not Jesus leaving, and leaving us to sort things out. The Spirit arrives, and, as Jesus does, takes the lead. As more than one commentator has suggested, the title “Acts of the Apostles” is a misnomer. Better: “Acts of the Holy Spirit—with the Apostles playing catchup.” We’re usually playing catchup. So discernment is always the first priority. What is the Spirit doing? How do we align with that, not get in the way of that? That pretty much organizes Peter’s sermon at Pentecost as he seeks to discern in light of Scripture what the Spirit’s doing now.

Second, not only two creation stories, two accounts of the giving of the Spirit. Four Gospels! Some years at Pentecost we hear the story of the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel. It’s often said that Pentecost is the reversal of that. That’s true in a way: mutual understanding in place of confusion. But it’s equally true that Pentecost is the Amen to the Tower: The profound difference between Creator and creation demands multiple languages.

And that runs parallel to Paul’s discussion of the Spirit’s gifts in our reading from Corinthians. We need those different gifts not only to address the different needs within the body (the congregation) but equally as windows on the mystery that is God. (And Paul’s listing of gifts is by no means exhaustive.)

Paul’s vision is that every congregation is an ongoing experience of Pentecost, the Spirit speaking to us, molding us, through the particular gifts the Spirit has given each of us. That can be exhilarating. That can be scarry. Had we extended that Corinthians reading we would have heard Paul dealing with the ways we deal with that fear: “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’” (v.21). We do that too often. The other person may well have drawn the wrong conclusion, but they are probably also seeing or feeing something the Spirit wants us to pay more attention to.

Third, many different languages, many different gifts. If we’re doing it right, it’s periodically just about to all fly apart. But it’s God’s project, not ours. It’s not for us to pull back on the throttle. Jesus elsewhere in John: “You did not choose me but I chose you” (Joh 15:16). God’s project, driven by love, God’s love for us and that love for one another Jesus commands.

Or, returning to Paul, at the end of our long chapter focusing on the Spirit’s gifts, speaking to an audience overly concerned about which gifts are the Most Important, Paul pivots:

“And I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.… And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 12:31; 13:1, 13).

It’s love that keeps us listening to each other, trying to understand, even when it’s uncomfortable. Love isn’t the frosting on the cake. It’s what holds the whole thing together so that the Spirit can teach us both what we want to know and what we’d rather not know. It’s either that or what Paul describes at the beginning of the letter: “each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or I belong to Christ’” (1Co 1:12).

Love “hopes all things” (1Co 13:7), so God sends the Spirit, hopes that we’ll continue to discern, to accept the Spirit’s leading through each other’s diverse gifts and perspectives, to let our love hold it together even when we understand far less than we’d like. Nothing less than the face of the earth needs renewing, in which our God calls us to joyfully participate. Amen.

[1] Cf. R. Brown, John XIII-XXI pp.1042-104.

God’s Wind/Breath (And what do we want?) (6th Sunday of Easter, 5/10/2026)

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Readings

If the resurrection of Jesus is a crisis for the world and its institutions—a theme that ran through last week’s readings—the ascension of Jesus is a crisis for the disciples. Since the Feast of the Ascension is this Thursday, it’s worth listening to what Jesus might have to say about it.

The Ascension is a crisis for the disciples and for us. We know where Jesus is: at the right hand of the Father. That’s the center (we’re not one ones centerstsage). Where does that leave us? (“Jesus went to heaven; all I got was this t-shirt”?) Doesn’t this leave us orphans, left to ourselves to figure out how to put our identity and calling into practice?

It’s precisely in the context of this fear that Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit, the Counselor, the Spirit of Truth. The very breath of God, which gives life to all creation, which inspired the prophets, now will be the means by which the Father and the Son take up residence in the Church and in every believer. As Jesus says, “we will come to him and make our home with him.”

Now, of the three Persons of the Trinity, the Spirit is the One that often remains a sort of blur. It helps to go back to the Hebrew, where ruah, the word we translate as ‘spirit’ is used for both breath and wind. Few things more intimate than breath; few things more powerful than wind. Ruah, spanning everything from the softest breath to the strongest wind—that’s not a bad image to keep in mind when we speak the word ‘spirit’.

The Spirit, in the words of our Catechism (BCP 852, 3rd Q/A), “leads us into all truth and enables us to grow in the likeness of Christ.” That is, the Spirit enables us to receive the Word of God and the Sacraments, and transforms us over time into the image of Christ. The Spirit functions as a sort of catalyst in the chemical sense, not adding anything to the chemical reaction, but making it happen.

How am I supposed to recognize the presence of the Spirit in my life? Pentecostal and charismatic Christians emphasize the extraordinary gifts, such as speaking in unknown languages. We don’t discount these gifts, but we don’t demand to see them in order to recognize the Spirit’s presence. Again from the Catechism (4th Q/A): “We recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit when we confess Jesus Christ as Lord and are brought into love and harmony with God, with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with all creation” (BCP 852),

That’s a useful answer because it makes clear that the Spirit enables not just my relationship to God, but a thick web of relationships that extend to all creation. As the ecologists remind us, everything is eventually connected to everything, and the Spirit is concerned with nothing less.

It’s also an answer that needs some unpacking, because confessing Jesus Christ as Lord and achieving harmony with ourselves and our neighbors don’t always converge in the short term. Paul’s witness in Athens (our first reading) is met with scoffing, and the backdrop of Peter’s letters (our second reading) is that faithful witness regularly meets with persecution. This doesn’t mean that we stop confessing Jesus. It does mean that because our desire is for that “love and harmony,” there’s no place for arrogance in our witness. Recall Peter’s words from today’s reading: “Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”

If we have been baptized, we have received this gift of the Holy Spirit. This is the confidence that we have as Christians: a loving Father before us, Jesus Christ our brother beside us, and the Holy Spirit among and within us, enabling us to respond with Jesus to the Father.

Let’s continue in the Catechism (top of p.853): “Q. How do we recognize the truths taught by the Holy Spirit? A. We recognize truths to be taught by the Holy Spirit when they are in accord with the Scriptures.” The Spirit is not going to contradict the Scriptures. The Spirit is going to stretch our understanding of the Scriptures, show us the inadequacies of our current ways of reading Scripture—recall the Spirit drafting Peter into preaching to the Gentiles. If my understanding of the Scripture isn’t getting stretched I’m probably not paying attention.

So far the Catechism. But what of personal experience, on which our culture puts a great deal of value? There doesn’t seem to be much about personal experience in these lines from the Catechism. Isn’t there more to say?

Well, yes. Recall the second lesson. Peter is talking about the Noah story and says: “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience.” That phrase “an appeal to God” reminds us of the central role of desire in our Christian life. The Christian life is a life marked by desire.

My baptism is not simply something in my past, but equally the definition of my identity now: a desire to live, to live as a human being, to live as Jesus lived (from our tradition’s perspective, three ways of saying the same thing).

We think of God as characteristically telling us what to do. But God equally characteristically asks us what we want, what we desire. A knitter will save a lot of effort if she decides at the start whether she’s knitting a scarf or a stocking cap, rather than figuring it out later. We save a lot of effort—God knows—if we decide what we want, who we want to be sooner rather than later—and stick to it.

Staying clear on this desire in this sense is easier said than done in our culture, which specializes in inciting in us unlimited contradictory desires. We periodically fall for it—so confession is a regular part of our worship. So we need to be in the habit of asking ourselves: are my decisions and patterns of life nurturing and protecting this desire, or letting the world sidetrack it?

Meanwhile, Jesus in the Gospel speaks of guarding his commandments or words. Do we desire to experience the Spirit working in our life? Obey Jesus. It’s a cycle: the Spirit enables us to obey Jesus; obedience opens us to the power of the Spirit. Is there a limit to the effects of this cycle? It would appear not. In last week’s Gospel reading we heard: “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”

This is one of the reasons why our tradition speaks so frequently of the importance of a daily encounter with Scripture. How are we supposed to guard Jesus’ words if we don’t know them? If I’ve got the NYT on my Smartphone, I probably want the Daily Office there too.

A final observation. In our world, as in Athens in Paul’s time, there are plenty of philosophic and religious traditions about God. How to distinguish between the true and the false? Recall Jesus’ answer to this question. It’s not simply: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” but (from John 8) “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Follow Jesus’ teaching and see for yourself what happens. If the bumblebee started by trying to puzzle out the aerodynamics of its flight, it’d never get off the ground. So in following Jesus: walking on the water doesn’t look like it’s going to work—until we’re doing it. And this is a lesson some of us have to learn over and over. And this is simply another way of saying what we’ve heard in today’s Gospel: guarding Jesus’ commandments, Jesus’ words, opens us to the life-giving and transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

With Jesus’ ascension we are not left orphans. The ascended Jesus has sent us the Holy Spirit. Keeping Jesus’ words, we open ourselves to that Spirit’s presence and power. Alleluia.

Renewing–not erasing–the face of the earth (Pentecost, 6/8/2025)

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Readings (Genesis 11, Acts 2, John 14)

As a setup for a story of epic proportions it’s hard to beat that brief interchange between Jesus and his disciples at the beginning of the Book of Acts:

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:6-8)

There’s some quiet humor in it. The apostles are ready to kick back, assuming that the ball’s in Jesus’ court. Jesus parries the question, talks about what they’re going to do: receive power, be Jesus’ witnesses “to the ends of the earth.”

Does anyone else think that sounds like a remarkably bad idea? Recall the stories Luke’s told about these apostles:

On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Lk. 9:52b-54)

John [again] “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.” (Lk. 9:49)

People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it. (Lk. 18:15)

Give this group more power? How’s that going to work?

What’s at stake is captured by that verse in today’s psalm: “You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; / and so you renew the face of the earth.” Renew: how do you renew without erasing? Folk who work at restoring art constantly face this challenge, trying to remove the effects of smoke, dirt, etc. without losing the original creation.

The Day of Pentecost provides one model, in which the Spirit keeps a pretty tight reign on the apostles. “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?” How indeed? Perhaps the languages of the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, etc. came out of the mouths of the apostles. Perhaps—more likely—the Spirit provided simultaneous translation so that the Parthians etc. heard in their own native language. And even if it’s the former, it’s a one-off event.

“My witnesses… to the ends of the earth.” That’s a vision of frequently crossing cultures, of frequently learning. Recall the crash course the Spirit put Peter through so that he could share the Good News at the gentile Cornelius’ home. First that strange repeated vision of the sheet containing clean and unclean animals. “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” Then, when Gentile messengers show up at the door the Spirit says“Look, three men are searching for you. Now get up, go down, and go with them without hesitation; for I have sent them.” Later, “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word,” and there they are, “speaking in tongues and extolling God.” It’s the conversion of Cornelius and Peter.

Regularly crossing cultures, regularly learning. No passport required, as anyone who’s parented knows: we’re almost constantly learning new languages.

So it’s perhaps no surprise that when Jesus talks about the role of the Spirit in today’s Gospel, the focus is on the Spirit as Teacher: “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” And from elsewhere in the same discourse: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (Jn. 16:13).

Heard in isolation “guide you into all the truth” can sound abstract, even esoteric. Heard alongside the rest of the New Testament, it’s about renewing without erasing. Jesus, not the many Roman gods, is Lord. OK: so in the cities in which the meat markets are temples to these other gods, how do the Christians relate to these markets? Paul, writing to the Corinthians, spends a couple chapters on that question.

How do we renew without erasing? Some years ago a cartoon captured this nicely. All the characters are pigs, and they’re in a hospital waiting room. The doctor comes out smiling, saying to the anxious spouse “Your husband is cured.” Unfortunately, he’s carrying the sort of 10 pound shrink-wrapped package you’d find in the meat department.

How do we renew without erasing? Current arguments about how we steward the environment, how we respond to different experiences of sexuality, how we order our economic life suggest that “guide you into all the truth” still belongs on the front burner. And that—God having a stubborn regard for our freedom—the promise isn’t “coerce you into all the truth.”

So how does the Spirit guide? Three suggestions; perhaps they’ll echo your experience.

From one of my favorite theologians, Mark Twain: “Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.” Our Acts reading focused on language, so let’s stay with that. I learn a language by making mistakes. If I try to avoid making mistakes I learn much more slowly. I also learn more slowly—or not at all—if I insist that I’m not making mistakes. Feel free to transpose that to other areas of life.

From one of my favorite crime novelists, Louise Penny: her protagonist Inspector Gamache says this: “There are four things that lead to wisdom.… They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean.…  I don’t know. I need help. I’m sorry. I was wrong.” Four things that lead to wisdom; four things that makes it easier for the Spirit to guide.

Finally, this concern to renew, not erase. It’s at bottom an expression of love, loving the other enough to recognize the difference between renewing and erasing, loving the other enough to do the hard work of getting to know the other enough to begin to have some sense of what renewal might mean, loving the other enough that Gamache’s four sentences work their way into the core of our vocabulary.

God, so the Gospel tells us, “so loved the world.” The Spirit’s guiding us into all the truth is about being infected by that love. And so, in our best moments, we welcome the Day of Pentecost. Come, Holy Spirit.

What’s the temple that God wants? (9th after Pentecost, 7/21/2024)

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The Readings (Track 1)

We’re going to give the lion’s share of attention to the Ephesians reading, but, first, a bit of muddling around in the other readings.

Tour guides often have pages like “If you have only one day in New York…” Any equivalent guide to the Old Testament would include our first reading. God’s promise to David of an eternal house (dynasty) is the basis for all the hopes for a coming son of David. It’s the reason ‘Messiah’/’Christ’ (the anointed one) is such a key title. It starts here with Nathan’s words to David.

One element worth noticing in Nathan’s words is the repeated reference to houses of cedar (houses at the high end of the market): “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” “…did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’” There is probably some exasperation in God’s response: I don’t need a house of cedar; why do you think you need a house of cedar? Why this question? Consider, a few centuries later, Jeremiah’s words (22:15) to the current Davidic king: “Are you a king because you compete in cedar?” This is the sort of question God directs to many of us from time to time: “Tom, why do you think you need…?” The Book of Proverbs nails it:

7 Two things I ask of you;
do not deny them to me before I die:
8 Remove far from me falsehood and lying;
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that I need,
9 or I shall be full, and deny you,
and say, “Who is the LORD?”
or I shall be poor, and steal,
and profane the name of my God. (30:7-9)

So Paul, in the other Testament: “for I have learned to be content with whatever I have” (Phil 4:11). That’s a hard sell in this culture, but probably necessary for our sanity and sanctity.

The Gospel. The omitted verses (vv.35-52) mostly narrate the feeding of the five thousand. The lectionary omits these because in the next five weeks we’ll be hearing John’s narrative. That’s fair, but misses Mark’s mischievous juxtaposition of the two feasts: Herod’s, in which John the Baptist loses his head, and Jesus’, in which five thousand are fed. Mark’s suggesting, I think, that we need to choose which feast we end up at, a choice not unrelated to our ability to say “enough.”

In our first reading house as temple and house as dynasty contrast: David won’t build God a house (temple); God will build David a house (dynasty). But as Ephesians makes clear, God’s option for the dynasty gets God the temple God really wanted: “In him [David’s son, the Messiah] the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.”

“You also.” Throughout the chapter Paul’s focused on the Jew/Gentile division, now abolished through the generous and costly work of the Messiah. In this vision the Jews don’t stop being Jews; the Gentiles don’t stop being Gentiles. But in Jesus these differences no longer divide, no longer fuel enmity. And Jew/Gentile is paradigmatic for the many divisions in our world.

“Built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.” Our building projects usually seek homogeneity. It’s simpler that way. “Birds of a feather…” But that’s not Paul’s vision: Jews and Gentiles, male and female, slave and free. One commentator, Marcus Barth, puts it this way: “There is no ideal of a Christian personality applicable to all church members alike, but there are men, women, children who because of their diverse origins, pasts, privileges, hopes, or despairs are by nature inclined to hate one another and God (Rom 5:6-10). Now they are enabled by the work and rule of Christ to contribute in common repentance and common faith their various idiosyncrasies, histories, experiences, and gifts to the peaceful common life of God’s people” (Ephesians 1-3, 311).

“Built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.” That word ‘spiritually’ can trip us up. It’s not a synonym for ‘immaterial’. Barth again: “The people of God who are built together and become God’s house—the church—are as material, temporal, spatial, and concrete as sticks and stones” (Ephesians 1-3, 320).

“Spiritually,” because only the transformative power of the Holy Spirit can give this mad project any chance of success. At the beginning when all was waste and void, darkness on the face of the deep, God sent the Spirit. And today the Spirit continues to assist in the heavy lifting.

“Assist.” I use that word cautiously. It’s not as though the Spirit does 50% and we do 50%. It’s that we really need to want this project to succeed, to put our backs into it. Building cross-culturally is hard work. But, recalling the original cross-cultural challenge, men being from Mars and women from Venus, oh the pay-off!

The temple, the meeting point of heaven and earth. God is happy for that to be at the corner of Nelson Drive & Highway 83; God has no interest in it being only there. The vision is that the temple, the meeting point of heaven and earth, be everywhere we are 24/7, so that there is no place that the glory, mercy, love of God is not visible and tangible. So that we—to pick up Paul’s language from last week’s reading—“might live for the praise of his glory.”

The Spirit’s Many Roles (Pentecost, 5/19/2024)

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Readings (Acts, Psalms, Romans, John)

Today we’re celebrating the Feast of the Fiftieth (thank you, Altar Guild!). The Fiftieth? Well, ‘pentecost’ is simply the transliteration of the Greek word for ‘fiftieth.’ Fiftieth what? Well, that’s tied to the agricultural year, fiftieth day after the beginning of the harvests, so Fiftieth/Pentecost is a harvest festival, one of the three annual gatherings in Jerusalem. As Luke tells the story in Acts, this year the harvest being celebrated are the three thousand who are baptized in response to Peter’s sermon.

And that, in turn, provides one answer to the question of what the coming of the Spirit is for. At the end of Luke’s Gospel Jesus says to the disciples “And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high” (Lk. 24:49). The coming of the Spirit is the fulfillment of that promise, and throughout Acts we watch the Spirit empower mission. Better, the Spirit takes the lead, and the disciples—like Peter in today’s text—are called on to explain what’s going on. As we think and pray about St Peter’s mission in and around North Lake this might be a model to attend to: how might the Spirit take the lead here?

What’s the coming of the Spirit for? John’s Gospel gives a different answer, focused on the disciples’ common life. Jesus passes the baton to the Spirit, so that the Spirit continues doing what Jesus has been doing. “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” That’s a promise we put our weight on, whether in our use of a canon of Holy Scripture (these books and not those books), the episcopate as it developed historically, down to the commissioning of our representatives for this year’s General Convention. We count on the Spirit to guide us into all the truth.

Guide us into all the truth. It turns out that there are a couple different dimensions to truth in John’s Gospel, and both are important here. The first, in line with what I’ve just said, is cognitive. “[Y]ou will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (Jn. 8:32). That’s important. At the same time, Paul’s words to the Romans provide a sort of counterweight. Jesus’ words in John are—in part—about  the Spirit increasing our understanding; Paul takes comfort in the Spirit stepping in when we don’t understand: “we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

One other thing about this understanding/not understanding tension. Recalling that passing of the baton in John, recall how seldom Jesus gave a direct answer to a question, or how often Jesus responded to a question with questions of his own. We shouldn’t be surprised if the Spirit follows that model, giving us—if we’re paying attention—more questions than we started out with. To sharpen the point: when looking for signs of the Spirit’s presence, some Christian traditions speak first about speaking in tongues. On the basis of this text in John, we might speak about having new questions.

The cognitive is one dimension of this guiding us into all the truth. The other equally important dimension is behavioral: doing the truth. “But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God” (Jn. 3:21). Back in John’s Prologue we hear “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (1:14). ‘Truth’ there is something like faithfulness. So “guide you into all the truth” is about guiding us into faithful living. So Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23). If we’re looking for signs of the Spirit’s presence, not a bad place to start.

We’re hearing a rich combination of the Spirit’s roles: lead actor in the Church’s evangelism (Luke in Acts), Guide, both cognitive and behavioral (John), Intercessor when words/understanding fails (Paul). And Psalm 104 gives us one more: “You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; / and so you renew the face of the earth.” God’s creation is ongoing, and the Spirit that hovered over the primordial chaotic waters continues to work throughout God’s creation, chaotic or not. Wherever we go, whatever situation we’re facing, God’s Spirit is already at work. That doesn’t mean that everything is peachy; it does mean that there’s no place that’s godforsaken. So the first step in mission or evangelism is usually to attempt to discern what God’s Spirit is already doing.

In other words, this global work of the Spirit warns us against thinking “guide you into all the truth” means only the Christians have truth. We witness to our experience, confident that the Spirit’s guiding into all truth is also global.

Let’s close this off with the other Collect assigned to this day: “O God, who on this day taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

Jesus, making the Father’s Name known (7th Sunday of Easter, 5/12/2024)

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Readings

In eight days we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, and already today’s readings are setting us up for it. The reading from Acts picks up from Thursday’s Ascension Day reading, and brings us to the end of the 1st chapter; chapter 2 opens on the Day of Pentecost. The Gospel narrates the heart of Jesus’ prayer for the disciples: Protect them! Sanctify them (Make them holy)! And the Father’s response to that prayer is chiefly in the gift of the Holy Spirit.

To appreciate what’s going on in Jesus’ prayer, recall the scene toward the start of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers in which Gandalf the wizard and Pippin the hobbit are in conversation: “Pippin glanced in some wonder at the face now close beside his own, for, the sound of that laugh had been gay and merry. Yet in the wizard’s face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth” (1965, 34).

“[A] great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth.” Something like that same combination of care, sorrow, and joy is present, I suspect, in Jesus’ face and certainly in his words. Here he is, hours away from Judas’ betrayal and the tender mercies of the Roman garrison, talking about “my joy made complete in themselves.”

The joy is intimately connected to God’s Name: “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world.” Now that’s odd: they didn’t know God’s name? What’s going on here? It turns out that Jesus making God’s name known is multi-dimensional, each dimension inviting us to joy.

The fundamental revelation of God’s Name up to this point occurred when God through Moses brought Israel out of slavery. In that first conversation at the burning bush, God has announced his intention to deliver Israel from Egypt, and we get this interchange:

—If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?
—I AM WHO I AM.… Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’

“I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.” The most frequent form of the name was probably pronounced “Yahweh” (in some older translations, “Jehovah”). In its abbreviated form it’s the ‘Jah’ in ‘Hallelujah’. Whatever the form, the Israelites learn the meaning of this Name in God’s actions for their liberation. They start out slaves; they end up free; that’s what ‘I am’ means. And periodically in the Old Testament we encounter this I AM again, particularly in the Greek translation with which Jesus and the NT writers —specifically John— would have been familiar:

See now that I AM. There is no god besides me. I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and no one can deliver from my hand. (Deuteronomy 32:39; my translation)

You are my witnesses, says the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I AM. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. (Isaiah 43:10; my translation)

In the Gospel according to John, Jesus takes up this name “I AM” in a whole series of statements, including:

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (6:35)

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (8:12)

So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.” (10:7)

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (10:11)

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live…” (11:25)

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (14:6)

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.” (15:1)

And in case we’re thinking “well, talk is cheap,” recall that Jesus says “I am the bread of life” after the feeding of the 5,000, “I am the light of the world” after giving sight to the blind, and “I am the resurrection and the life” just before calling Lazarus out of the tomb.

Nor did “I AM” always come with a predicate. Recall Jesus’ “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.” (John 8:58 NAB). Again, when the disciples in a small boat in the middle of a big storm cry out in fear as they see Jesus walking towards them over the sea, Jesus responds, “I AM; do not be afraid” (John 6:20 my translation).

Yes, Jesus has made the Name known to the disciples. Jesus’ actions, Jesus’ words, Jesus’ very being have taken that divine name revealed to Moses to a whole new level. The Israelites were filled with joy when finally out of the Egyptian army’s clutches; as we remember the liberation God has accomplished for us through Jesus, a greater joy can be ours.

There is a second dimension to this “I have made your name known.” The first is the presence and power of “I AM;” the second is Jesus’ distinctive use of “Abba,” the Aramaic word children typically used to address their fathers. We have no evidence of Jesus’ contemporaries using the word to address God; it probably would have seemed far too intimate. Most of the time the Gospels translate it into Greek. Its one appearance in the Gospels during Jesus’ prayer at Gethsemane —“Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want” (Mk 14.36)— is a window on Jesus’ customary usage. And the intimacy with God Jesus experienced —evident also through today’s Gospel text—is offered to the disciples. Here are the other two appearances in the New Testament:

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15 NAB)

And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6 NRSV)

So Jesus making God’s Name known to the disciples isn’t simply about giving them —us— information, but about inviting us to participate ever more deeply in God, God our Abba, God the “I AM” who can bring out of any situation life, freedom, and joy.

There is a third dimension to this “I have made your name known.” Jesus sends us out into the world to baptize in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. By the end of the New Testament, that is clearly the Name of God that Jesus has made known to the disciples. Our God, not a monolithic unity, but a community of love and joy into which we are invited to enter. Who is the God in whose presence we live? A loving Father, whose two arms, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, are constantly extended to strengthen, guide, embrace us. “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

You see, today’s Gospel text is pretty dense. I have tried to go for the core, the many ways Jesus has been revealing God’s Name —God’s reality, God’s character— to the disciples. Grasp this, and the rest falls into place: the deep gratitude in Jesus’ words, the awareness that all that he has is gift, Jesus’ trust in his Father’s continued care for the disciples, and the sense of passing the baton: You sent me into the world; I am sending them into the world. The world —the many ways we organize ourselves to shut out God— will do its worst, but will not succeed, any more than closing your eyes real tight, clenching your fists, and wishing real hard will keep the sun from coming up.

But all that falls into place only if we start with God. “I have made your name known…” Jesus said. Do not settle for anything less here. Do not get sidetracked. Life is too short to settle for anything less than “great joy, a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing.”

The Third Sunday after Pentecost: A Sermon

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Readings (Track 1; the citations from Galatians are from the New International Version)

Our second reading from Galatians is a gem. With its probable allusion to baptism (“those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh”) and all its references to the Spirit it inspires a sermon that we might entitle “Baptism: P.S.”

As you may recall, the letter to the Galatian churches was prompted by the arrival of folk who argued that to properly follow Jesus the (Jewish) Messiah, the gentiles had to be circumcised and observe all the law of Moses. Paul writes to convince the Galatians that this is a dead end. That said, let’s walk through our text.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” The yoke of slavery: all the commandments in the law of Moses, particularly those which served to separate Jews and gentiles: circumcision, the Sabbath, the food and other purity laws.

We Americans really like this verse, whether in relation to last week’s Juneteenth, or next week’s Independence Day. Freedom! But what Paul does with it: “But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.” Slavery no, but becoming “slaves to one another” as the NRSV puts it, yes. Say what???

Our culture likes the stoic philosopher Epictetus’ definition of freedom: “He is free who lives as he wills, who is subject neither to compulsion, nor hindrance, nor force, whose choices are unhampered…”[1]

“Who lives as he wills:” for Paul that can’t be what freedom’s about, first, because it ignores Jesus’ model, serving us humbly in love. In love: enact “Love your neighbor as yourself” and you’ve nailed the entire law.

“Who lives as he wills:” for Paul that can’t be what freedom’s about, second, because it’s impossible in light of the following verses (vv.16-17). The Spirit and the flesh in combat: in the middle of that battlefield anyone who thinks he “lives as he wills” is a bit naïve.

The Spirit and the flesh. The Spirit: the Holy Spirit. The flesh: that’s a bit more complicated. Sometimes it’s a morally neutral term, us in our vulnerable humanity. Sometimes—as here—it captures our “autonomous fallen humanity…standing in opposition to God” (Hays). And in this text we might hear it as personified, an exterior force like Sin and Death ranged against us. So Paul’s Spirit vs. Flesh isn’t about two parts of the human person, but about two powers locked in combat. And, again, in that context simply living as one wills is not on the menu. This seems to be the point of the last part of v.17: “so that you are not to do whatever you want,” or, as the KJV translated it, “so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”

We can get a better handle on ‘flesh’ and ‘Spirit’ by looking at Paul’s two lists. The “acts of the flesh” list starts and ends where we might expect: “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; … drunkenness, orgies.” But having named these, Paul gives them no further attention. His focus is on the center: “hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy.” This is what he highlighted in v.15 (“If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”). ‘Bite’ and ‘devour’: in the Greek text that’s characteristically what animals do, so we’re back to last week’s theme that our baptism gives us the possibility of living humanly. And these acts are what Paul returns to in the final verse (“Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”). It’s pretty clear that if Paul wanted to organize a tour of the sins of the flesh he’d head not to Las Vegas but to Washington D.C. Paul’s list might encourage us to revisit where we see “the flesh” at work, to not get behind on the weeding.

The fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” This is fruit tailored for very imperfect communities (love, peace, forbearance, kindness, gentleness), and that’s encouraging. It’s fruit that strengthens relationships, that enables us to encourage each other’s flourishing.

The fruit: notice that the list isn’t an implicit to-do list: cultivate these virtues! It’s saying that this is what walking in the Spirit, keeping in step with the Spirit, produces over time.

Spirit and flesh locked in combat. Yet Paul says “Live by the Spirit.” Why does he think we have a choice? Here’s where v.24 comes in: “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Earlier in the letter Paul said:

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (2:19b-20).

“Crucified with Christ:” when did that happen? Judging by the common testimony of the early Church and what Paul writes in Romans, at baptism. Here’s that Romans text:

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin” (6:3-7).

“Freed from sin.” But Paul, we might say, why then is sin such an issue in the church, why so many admonitions and warnings in your letters? I think Paul would say that while our baptism gives us wonderful new possibilities, it isn’t a lobotomy. God still treasures our freedom. And the freedom to live humanly, to love, is more like the freedom of a ballerina or a pianist than the freedom to choose this or that dessert at the buffet. It takes focus, practice, openness to accept correction. It’s a skill, something we acquire over time.

OK Paul, we might say, what would a dummy’s guide to this text look like? After Paul stopped laughing here are three things he might include: (1) Freedom. Remember that it’s freedom to serve. Remember that exercising it is a skill.

(2) Walking by the Spirit, keeping in step with the Spirit: that demands focusing on the neighbor. If we’re to serve one another, what does that “other” need, how does that “other” experience the world? Focus, practice, and openness to correction come into play if we think about listening. It’s remarkably easy to assume that we can love or even serve the neighbor without listening to the neighbor, although a moment’s reflection on our own experience at the receiving end will remind us of how well this works. And listening is not easy. Stephen Covey got it right in his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People:

“’Seek first to understand’ involves a very deep shift in paradigm. We typically seek first to be understood. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They’re either speaking or preparing to speak. They’re filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people’s lives.”

Listening, one example of a human activity that demands a surprising amount of focus, practice, and openness to correction.

(3) Focus, practice, openness to accept correction: these all assume some awareness, some remembering what story I’m in. So how do I help myself stay aware, remember I’m in a story centered in Jesus (who’s usually already standing next to my neighbor)? Here I have many options including making the sign of the cross before beginning an activity (balancing my checkbook, responding to a problematic letter, etc.), sending up very short prayers throughout the day, cutting a bit out of one of today’s readings and taping it to the bathroom mirror or the door on the fridge—and reviewing these options when they begin to get stale. How to stay aware, to remember, is a non-trivial question.

So let us end where our reading began: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Amen.

[1] Diss 4.1.1 as cited in Hays “The Letter to the Galatians” in The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary.

Re the Daily Office Readings May 23 Anno Domini 2020

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The Readings: Numbers 11:16-17, 24-29; Ephesians 2:11-22; Matthew 7:28––8:4

(From today until Pentecost—Sunday excepted—the Lectionary offers a course reading in Matthew 7-9.)

With the Numbers reading we pivot towards the arrival of God’s Breath/Spirit/Wind at Pentecost, now just over a week away.

In a traditional Christian reading of Genesis 1 we first meet God’s Spirit brooding over a dark and chaotic world. Seven days later, all “very good.” (This might set us up for unrealistic expectations unless we recall that human decisions were not involved.) We might wonder: what else does this Spirit do? For what else does the Spirit come? Our readings suggest the start of a sketch of an answer; see what you think.

In Numbers, Moses is faced with a restive, suspicious, dangerous crowd. God’s Spirit will fall on the seventy elders to help him get the people to a better place.

In Ephesians the author celebrates God’s project of uniting Jew and Gentile, groups that at that time and place had little love lost between them. For that project to have any chance of success: God’s Breath.

In Matthew… Remember that Jesus healed in many ways, from using spit to make mud, to long-distance. If ever there was a time for long-distance healing, keeping up boundaries (social distancing!) it was in dealing with this demanding leper (recall Leviticus). And Jesus “stretched out his hand and touched him.” How can we be empowered to follow Jesus’ example, blowing through the cultural, political, social barriers that divide us? Again, God’s Wind.

From the dark, chaotic world at the beginning of our story, through Ezekiel’s valley filled with very dry bones and the Day of Pentecost, to our day, not lacking in darkness and chaos: Come, Holy Spirit; Veni Sancte Spiritus!

The verses to the linked song:

  1. Come, Holy Spirit, from heaven shine forth with your glorious light.
  2. Come, Father of the poor, come, generous Spirit, come, light of our hearts.
  3. Come from the four winds, O Spirit, come breath of God, disperse the shadows over us, renew and strengthen your people.
  4. Most kindly warming light! Enter the inmost depths of our hearts, for we are faithful to you. Without your presence, we have nothing worthy, nothing pure.
  5. You are our only comforter, peace of the soul. In the heat you shade us; in our labor you refresh us, and in trouble, you are our strength.
  6. On all who put their trust in you, and receive you in faith, shower all your gifts. Grant that they may grow in you and persevere to the end, give them lasting joy.

Holy Saturday

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The Readings: Lamentations 3:37-58; Hebrews 4:1-16; Romans 8:1-11

The Lectionary readings bridge from the pain of Good Friday to the joy of the Jesus’ resurrection. On both sides of the bridge, the perhaps unexpected call to repentance and self-awareness:

Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD. (Lam. 3:40)

Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may
fall through such disobedience as theirs. (Heb. 4:11)

Even here, it appears to remain true that

  • Nothing is foolproof.
  • The line between wisdom and folly is often razor-thin. (See particularly Proverbs 26:1-12, particularly vv.4-5.)

Repentance itself is tricky. On the corporate level, C. S. Lewis’ “Dangers of National Repentance” warns “The first and fatal charm of national repentance is, therefore, the encouragement it gives to turn from the bitter task of repenting our own sins to the congenial one of bewailing—but, first, of denouncing—the conduct of others” (reprinted in God in the Dock; for a longer excerpt, Ken Symes’ blog).

In this election year the sins of our opponents are important; the challenge is to not let awareness and amendment of our own sins get lost in the shuffle.

“Indeed, the word of God is living and active.” In the tradition in which I received my early formation this was the go-to text regarding the Bible. Reading it today: it’s not about the power of God’s word as we choose to deploy it, but as God is already deploying it for/against us. To be wise is to recognize the deployment, to be a fool, to ignore it—like the wilderness generation of whom the epistle’s author is speaking.

Still speaking of our salvation, hard to say whether it’s Jesus or the Spirit doing the really heavy lifting. Jesus’ victory brings the Spirit onstage in a new way (Romans 8); it’s the Spirit that deploys the word for/against us (Heb 3:7—hat tip to Koester’s commentary). So, already in Holy Week: “Come, Holy Spirit.”