“The Father, Son and Holy Spirit” – Sermon for June 8, 2014
June 8, 2014
John 20: 19-23 That Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! Again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
Acts 2: 1-24 On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.
At that time there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem. When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers. They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages! Here we are—from all over the map, Asia, Egypt, even Rome. And we all hear these Gallileans speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!” They stood there amazed and perplexed. “What can this mean?” they asked each other. But others in the crowd ridiculed them, saying, “They’re just drunk, that’s all!”
Then Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles and shouted to the crowd, “Listen carefully, all of you, fellow Jews and residents of Jerusalem! Make no mistake about this. These people are not drunk, as some of you are assuming. Nine o’clock in the morning is much too early for that. No, what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on my servants – men and women alike- and they will prophesy. And I will cause wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below. But everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
“People of Israel, listen! God publicly endorsed Jesus the Nazarene by doing powerful miracles, wonders, and signs through him, as you well know. But God knew what would happen, and God’s plan was carried out when Jesus was betrayed. With the help of lawless Gentiles, you nailed him to a cross and killed him. But God released him from the horrors of death and raised him back to life, for death could not keep him in its grip.
“The Father, Son and Holy Spirit” – Sermon for June 8, 2014
by Reverend Doreen Oughton
John the Baptist predicted it when he said, “I baptize you with water, but there is one coming after me who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” And here it is, baptism in the Holy Spirit. In the readings today, we have two versions of how the followers of Jesus underwent such a baptism. Gospel-writer John tells of that Sunday night, after Mary Magdalene and Peter and another disciple saw the empty tomb, after Mary told of her encounter with the risen Lord. Jesus comes to his disciples in their locked house, with greetings of peace. He tells them he is sending them out of that locked house, as his father sent him, and he breathes on them. He says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And he talks about forgiveness. There is no sound like wind, no tongues, like that of fire, just Jesus breathing on them. How do you picture it?
And then we have the story from the physician Luke, who wrote the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. In his version it is 50 days later, the occasion is a Jewish festival, and they are in still in Jerusalem, waiting, as Jesus told them they should. This instruction came, according to Luke, on that Sunday evening of the resurrection, after the two return from Emmaus and tell their story. Jesus is again suddenly among them with greetings of peace. He declares to them that repentance and forgiveness of sin is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. They are to stay there, he tells them, until they have been clothed with power from on high. They have stayed, and they are all together in one place for the holiday. And the signs are unmistakable that something is happening – sounds, visions, noise, a cacophony of voices, all in different languages, yet all comprehensible. And it is not just experienced by the disciples, but witnessed by crowds of people.
Now the Holy Spirit, or Spirit of God, is not a new concept to the disciples, who are all Jewish at this point. The Hebrew scripture has many references to it, right from the start in second verse of the bible – Genesis 1:2, “the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the water.” The Spirit of God, right there in the beginning. The Psalms reference it, as a manifestation of God’s presence – “Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me” and “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” As a guide and teacher – “You gave your good Spirit to instruct them,” and “But it is the Spirit in a man, the breath of the Almighty, that gives him understanding.” The Holy Spirit filled and empowered people chosen by God – Joseph son of Jacob, Joshua, Moses, David, Saul and many prophets.
So what is so extraordinary about this? Is it the prodigal nature of this event? Remember that prodigal means spending freely and recklessly, wastefully extravagant. This Spirit of God is not just for the holiest or the most faithful or the most learned; it is witnessed not just by insiders or believers or those who stayed with Jesus through his crucifixion or did not deny him. It was a big thing, impossible to contain in that house where they gathered. It spilled out into the streets and compelled crowds to wonder what was happening. And so even though there’d been a sense of God’s Spirit before this, something new was being born. And it was being born out of the suffering and loss of Jesus. I find it so striking that in both accounts, the message of forgiveness is so important. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that when they are clothed with the Holy Spirit, they are to go out and proclaim a message of repentance and forgiveness to every nation. In John’s gospel the disciples are invited to receive the Holy Spirit and go out and remember that the sins they forgive are forgiven.
So what is the Holy Spirit? What does it mean to baptized in the Holy Spirit, and how do you get to be baptized in it if you were not there at that first Pentecost? Any answer I give will be inadequate and incomplete, so it is with humility that I share my thoughts. Our Christian doctrine holds that the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity, along with God the Creator and Christ the redeemer – Spirit is the sustainer. Another metaphor for the Trinity is that there is the lover, the beloved, and love itself. Spirit is the love. In the Trinity we have God the Creator over us, God in Christ for us, and Spirit of God within us. I believe she is in each of us, and is the connecting force of God. This Spirit connects us to God, reminds us that we are of God, and that God is always with us.
I believe it happens on an individual level and on a communal level. Because of that communal level, Spirit likewise connects us with one another, and with grace. It is the force that draws us to God, perhaps when we read or pray or listen to music, when we spend time alone outside and feel the wind or the sun or watch a storm. And it is the force that sends us out – that sudden idea to call an old friend, or to show up at a certain place, to buy something extra, to tell a certain story. And it was just what was needed. The Spirit whispers and nudges and invites you to change direction, which is what repentance is. She helps us understand what would otherwise be incomprehensible, and gives us language for bridging divisions.
Sounds awesome, right? So as I said, I believe the Spirit has always been present. It is and always was part of God, always with the same function of sustaining and connecting. And still John the Baptist said it would be Jesus who brought this Spirit, and Jesus directed his followers to wait for it in one story, and told them to receive it in another. So again I ask, what does it mean to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, and how does it happen? Does it happen at a Christian baptism? Is it only available to Christians? Was it present but dormant in people before Jesus came and died and was resurrected? Again I am feeling my way here. My thought is that people misunderstood the Spirit, or had an incomplete understanding of it, until the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ. They saw great things being done by certain people, and attributed such success to God’s Spirit being sent to them. Moses, David, Saul, Elijah and Elisha – great leaders and prophets. The evidence of the Spirit at work was so obvious, right? And there is some of that in the story of Pentecost. After Peter gives his speech, he goes on to baptize thousands of people – creating a mega church in one day.
But I keep coming back to the notion of people being closed up in a room, waiting, and then being sent out with a message about mercy and forgiveness. I keep coming back to this new thing that was born out of what looked like failure and humiliation and suffering. And yes, I look at the prodigal nature of this event – Spirit just spilling out all over the place. Pentecost is recognized as the birth of the church, and we do not mean a church building. Church was born when people, made aware in a dramatic fashion that they are of God, connected to God and to all others, left the building and shared the good news with the people around them. They let go of their fear and invited other people to open their eyes to God’s Spirit all around them. And they didn’t stay in Jerusalem but went out to all nations bearing Christ’s message of repentance and forgiveness.
How do we, here at FCC, come to trust that we have been baptized in the Holy Spirit, that there is something new waiting to be born? How can we remember that the Church is the Body of Christ – a people connected to the Triune God and to each other and to the world around them. It is not a building. If people aren’t coming in, maybe we need to let the Spirit drive us out, send us out with fresh eyes to see where things around us need to be turned around through the healing love of God?
It can be scary. For all the bold talk of Peter, I can’t imagine that none of the disciples were fearful. They must have been. You know that saying, baptism by fire? It means you learn, that you find your way by being challenged, right? We go out, even if we are afraid, and discover that the Holy Spirit is with us, shaping us, inviting us to new understanding of faithfulness, of what “success” in a church looks like. I believe we will find it is not in membership numbers or pledge amounts. It might be found in taking risks, in doing some of the things that Jesus did, like standing with those on the outside – the sinners and tax collectors and lepers. It might mean speaking God’s truth to those in power even when it is dangerous. It might mean loving those who are against us, even turning the other cheek. It might mean we try not to worry about what we will eat or drink or wear, remembering the lilies and how God cares for them. Can you hear that Spirit, see it, feel it? What will we do in response?
