Come Creator Spirit

Why is the priest wearing a hard hat? What am I expecting? What are you expecting? Jesus’ disciples were waiting and wondering. They didn’t know what to expect. What are you expecting? Same old, same old?

There they were, gathered in Jerusalem. There they were, waiting, waiting, patiently waiting. Jesus had told them to wait. Most of them had seen him after he’d been raised from the dead. Some of them had been with him ten days ago, when he was taken up from them, when he’d told them to go back to Jerusalem to wait. Just before leaving them, he’d reminded them that he would send them what the Father had promised them. He reminded them that John had baptized them with water, but that they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit. He told them that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. They prayed in the temple, they chose another leader of their group to replace Judas, and they waited. Now it was fifty days after Passover. It was the day of Pentecost, one of the three great Jewish festivals. It was the day when, as Jews, they’d offered the first fruits of their harvest to God, and they’d celebrated God’s gift of the Law, the Torah, on Mt. Sinai. Now they were all together, perhaps 120 of them, the twelve and all those others, some women, some men, some younger, some older. Probably even some kids. Perhaps they were gathered in someone’s courtyard after their temple worship.

They were good Jews who knew their Scripture. They knew about the fire on Mt. Sinai when Moses received the law. Perhaps some of them remembered the other times God came to people in fire: when God sealed the covenant with Abraham; when God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush; when the Pillar of fire led the people through the desert; when the angel purified Isaiah’s lips with a burning coal as God commissioned Isaiah to be a prophet.

Perhaps some others remembered how God came to people as wind: how the east wind sent by God allowed the people to cross the Sea of Reeds from Egypt; how God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind; how Elijah was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind. Perhaps they remembered Ezekiel’s vision of how God commanded the four winds to breathe new life into the dry bones of the house of Israel. And they all knew the psalms. Perhaps they sang the psalm we said today. Perhaps they remembered that God sends forth God’s spirit and creates the entire world, that God’s breath is what gives every creature life, and that God continually renews the face of the earth. As they sat there waiting, perhaps they remembered the promise that Jesus made when he was at dinner with them for the last time, his promise that, because he was going away from them, he would send a counselor, an advocate, a helper, to guide them and lead them into all truth.

And then it happened! They felt something like a great rush of wind. As they looked at each other, they all seemed to be on fire! They knew that God was with them, and that Jesus’ promises had come true. They rushed out of the courtyard and starting addressing the people who had gathered round, people from all over the Jewish Diaspora, who had come to Jerusalem to worship on Pentecost. They were empowered! They were filled with the Holy Spirit! They were out there laughing and dancing, hugging, and singing. They spoke in new languages. They might have been Galileans, but they could talk about God’s mighty acts in Jesus to everyone, whoever they were! And then Peter gave a wonderful sermon, telling how they were all doing what the prophet Joel had promised they would, explaining that it was God’s Spirit through Jesus crucified and risen who was empowering them. After it was all over, 3,000 people believed Peter and were baptized!

Could such an event happen again? Did it ever happen again? It did, believe it! The Holy Spirit was there when St Francis heard Jesus’ command to rebuild his church, and when Julian had her visions, lying, as she thought, mortally ill. Don’t you think the Holy Spirit was there when John Wesley felt his heart “strangely warmed” at the Aldersgate meeting? The Holy Spirit was certainly present to Zilpha Elaw, an African American Methodist preacher. Zilpha was 27 when the Spirit literally knocked her down at a camp meeting in 1817. Lying on the ground she felt her own spirit ascend to heaven and a voice assuring her that she was sanctified. After she recovered from her vision, she began to lead those around her in prayer. The Holy Spirit was there when Mother Teresa picked up a dying person on the streets of Calcutta. The Holy Spirit was there when Martin Luther King, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and countless other clergy people marched from Selma to Montgomery.

Could such an outpouring of the Spirit happen here? Like Jesus’ first disciples, we’re all gathered together. We’ve heard readings from Scripture. We’re singing songs and praying. We’ve been hearing all these fifty days how Jesus’ rising to life again changes our lives. We’ve heard Jesus’ promises. We know about the Holy Spirit. What are we waiting for? Annie Dillard warned us that we ought to wear hard hats to church, because the Holy Spirit is so dangerous. So are we sitting on our hands, still waiting for the Spirit, still waiting for throngs of new people to find their way through the red doors? Wait a minute. Suddenly we too feel something like a mighty wind blowing through us. In the sanctuary the light fixtures are beginning to shake, the wonderful old windows are starting to rattle, and we worry about the stained glass. The electric power flickers, and we feel caught up in something mighty and overpowering. We feel as if fire is coursing through us. We want to shout out loud. We want to dance and sing. We want to shout, “Hallelujah!” Then we rush out through the doors and run into the parking lot. There’s a crowd gathered out there, people from all over, black and white, rich and poor, young and old, native-born and immigrants. They’re just milling around, as if they’re waiting for something to happen. We start talking to them about Jesus! Some of them think we’re drunk – perhaps we’ve had too much of that Episcopal communion wine -- but others get it! The church is alive, and they want to join it! And they do, hundreds of them! We can’t baptize them fast enough!

Can’t happen here, you say? Not so. The Holy Spirit doesn’t work that way anymore? Yes, she does! Believe it! The Holy Spirit is still very much alive in our churches, in us who were sealed with the Spirit in baptism and born anew. She has changed our born flesh with her touch, and she is still leading us into all truth. She still comes to us in the depths of our hearts, when, in silence, we open our ears to God’s word. She still teaches us how to pray and what to pray for. She still calls us to be prophets. She still teaches us how to proclaim the good news of God’s love for us and God’s promises of renewal for all creation. She still sends us out into the world to tell everyone that God’s kingdom has come near, that God’s future has broken into our present, and that we glimpse that future in Jesus and in the communities gathered in Jesus’ name. She still sends us out to remind people that God is remaking the world. She still empowers us to share with God in God’s great work. She still reminds us of God’s great “nevertheless.” As we despair of the evils we see around us, she still whispers, “Nevertheless God will….” She still teaches us not to be “however” people: people who see, for example that children are hungry and say, “However, we can’t….” The Holy Spirit still teaches us to be “therefore” people: people who see that children are hungry and say, “Therefore, let’s….”

And our churches are reborn. Wherever we gather, to hear Scripture read, to pray with every fiber of our being, to sing with all the fullness of our hearts, to thank God for God’s great gifts to us, to share God’s love with those around us, whenever we trust God to do more than we can ask or imagine, there the Spirit joins with us, renewing and rebirthing us. And we cry out, O come, Holy Spirit, move us, blow us away, make us laugh, shout, dance, sing, speak, preach, make us joyfully seize your presence among us. Come, come, Holy Spirit! Come, come among us and change us!

Love is a Verb

A parish member who often seemed angry tackled the rector after worship one Sunday morning. “I’m so glad you preached a historical sermon,” she said. The rector was shocked by this unusual praise and beamed his thanks. The parishioner continued, “Yes, because I am sick and tired of hearing about love all the time.” In the interest of truth in advertising, I am warning you up front: this sermon is about love. Actually, we have been hearing about love throughout Easter tide, in all our Scripture texts. God loves us. God sent God’s Son to live, die, and rise again for us. We are branches of the vine that is God’s Son. As God’s beloved children we are commanded to love one another. But the “love” we are talking about is more than a feeling, more than a word, more than even a gesture. Loving one another as Jesus loves us means realizing that we are not the center of the universe, committing ourselves wholeheartedly to working for the good of others, serving others as widely and generously as we can, and enabling others to know God’s great love for them. As St. Augustine said, “One loving heart sets another on fire.”

One of those many loving hearts who set others’ hearts on fire was Harriet Bedell. When so many of us suffer from lack of love, Harriet Bedell models for us the love to which Jesus calls us. Bedell was born in Buffalo, New York in 1875 and was originally trained as a school teacher. However, she was inspired by an Episcopal missionary to China, and so she enrolled as a student in the New York Training School for Deaconesses. There she was instructed in religion, missions, teaching, and hygiene. After a further year of nurse’s training, she was sent as an apprentice deaconess to Oklahoma to minister among the Cheyenne. Her love for the people she served was so great that she was adopted into the tribe. In 1916 she was sent to Stevens Village, Alaska. She also served as a teacher and nurse at St. John’s in the Wilderness at Allakahet, just 40 miles south of the Arctic Circle, where she sometimes travelled by dogsled to remote villages. When she went home for a sabbatical in 1932, Bedell agreed to begin ministry to the Seminoles in Florida. She used her own salary to reopen a mission among them. She encouraged them to revive native crafts and to use the sale of their handicrafts to improve the local economy. Bedell knew that love is a verb, and that our love in and for Christ is to be a way of life. Even after officially “retiring” at the age of 63, Bedell continued her ministry of health care, education, and economic empowerment until Hurricane Donna wiped out her mission in 1960. Even after she finally moved into a retirement community at the age of 85, she continued to model Christ’s love for the residents of the community by teaching Sunday school, working in the infirmary, recruiting mission workers, and writing for the national Episcopal mission periodical, The Spirit of Missions. Bedell died on January 8, 1969, just short of her 94th birthday.

Throughout her long ministry Bedell showed no partiality to anyone, ministering alike to Native Americans, whites, and blacks. She too had seen Peter’s vision of God’s love for all. She too had learned the lesson that Peter and the other Jewish Christians learned in their encounter with the Roman commander Cornelius, that God has no favorites, and that the power of the Holy Spirit is available to all, regardless of community or ethnicity. Bedell also understood the lesson we heard in today’s second reading. She knew that her ministry was grounded in her relationship with Jesus. She believed that Jesus is the Son of God, and that we are freed by Jesus from the values of this world, and so she was free to minister to her neighbors, both inside and outside the church. Just as God had sent Jesus into the world, Bedell knew that she was sent to carry out Jesus’ mission. Like Jesus, she accepted her ministry not as a painful or burdensome duty, but as a joy-filled response to God’s call to her.

Indeed, Bedell was grateful for having been chosen by Jesus. She knew that she was not Jesus’ servant or slave, but rather that she was his friend, truly Jesus’ beloved. As Jesus’ friend, she had the honor of sharing with Jesus all that Jesus had learned from the Father. As Jesus’ friend, and as a member of the community called into existence by Jesus, she did her best to go and bear fruit that would last. Although Hurricane Donna destroyed her physical mission, Bedell is still remembered among Native Americans for her compassion and her respect for their way of life. The diocese of Southwest Florida continues to honor her memory on January 8, the anniversary of her death.

So, are we ready to follow Harriet Bedell’s example? Bedell’s example should help us to understand how, through committing ourselves to Jesus, we may carry forward God’s mission. Bedell shows us how to offer real witness to Jesus’ love. We too may be inspired to bear in our own time and place the fruits of love, generosity, and service that Bedell bore in her life. Oh yes, we have families, we have jobs, we have lives, we have duties, we have civic obligations to which we must attend, and surely we need time for rest and recreation. Certainly, our obligations are real. Even so, we too have been called into relationship with Jesus and with each other. We too have committed ourselves in baptism to prayer, witness and service. We too have been called Jesus’ friend, and we too have heard his commandment – his commandment, not his suggestion -- to love one another as he has loved us.

How can we too live out Jesus’ command to us, both as individuals, and as a Christian community called together by God in this place? I invite you to remember a simple formula: ASAP. No, not “As Soon as Possible.” Rather, Acknowledge God’s sovereignty, seek to do God’s will, accept personal responsibility and accountability, and place Jesus first.

ASAP. To what do those letters call us? A: Acknowledge God’s sovereignty. Who is the Lord of our lives? Is it God, or is it something or someone else? Is God someone we think about only between 10:30 and 11:30 on Sunday morning, or does our commitment to God impact the rest of our day and week? Are you putting your skills and talents to use everywhere but in this parish? Would this parish benefit from your deeper involvement in its life?

S: Seek to do God’s will. Do we prayerfully invite the Holy Spirit to guide us? Not only as we sit in this place, but in all that we undertake? I commend to you the prayers for guidance in the Book of Common Prayer. I especially invite you to ask God to direct us, so that “in all our works begun, continued, and ended in you, we may glorify your holy Name.” I challenge you to pray this prayer daily for the coming week. Let the Holy Spirit guide your works. May we continue to follow that guidance as we embark on ministry wherever we go.

A. Accept personal responsibility and accountability. What limitations and weaknesses in our lives do we need to acknowledge, so that we can begin to heal and grow? With what are we unhappy in our lives that we may personally begin to change? Are there old enmities that we need to put to rest? Whom do we need forgive and by whom do we need to be forgiven?

P: Place Jesus first. Does Jesus really have first claim on us? Does faithfulness in our commitment to Jesus come before anything else in our lives? Here’s another challenge for you. Today, think about the person in your life, either someone you know personally, or someone you know about, who for you comes closest to modeling the kind of deep love for others that we see in Harriet Bedell. Can you follow that person’s example more closely? Are there ways in which you can love people you may never meet through working for justice and through financially supporting ministry to those in great need? At the end of the day, how can you tell if you’ve been a genuinely loving person that day? I commend to you a spiritual discipline that many have found a source of growth. Take a few minutes in your last prayers of the day, perhaps before bedtime, to reflect on the day. Thank God for all that went well, for all of God’s many blessings to you in that day. Ask God’s forgiveness for those unloving things you have done or the loving gestures that remained undone. Ask God to help you deepen your relationship with Jesus, so that you may truly live out your commitment to Jesus and obey his commandment to love one another as he has loved us.

In all that Harriet Bedell said and did for the sake of the Gospel, she brought to life the texts that we heard today as we live into resurrection life in Christ. May Harriet Bedell encourage us to offer our own witness to God’s power, and may we too partner with God so that God’s reign of peace and love may come into being.

Questions

It’s OK to have questions. Of course, children have lots of questions. Anyone who’s been a parent or been around children knows that some of children’s questions are off the wall, and some are unanswerable. “Why is the sky blue, Daddy?” Unless you’re an atmospheric chemist, and even if you are, you’re likely to answer, “Because it is.” Teens have lots of questions, too, as they wrestle with issues of personal morality and identity. How do we answer when a teen asks, “When can I start having sex?” Or, “what should I do with my life?” As adults, we too have questions. About ethical issues: “Should we continue to have capital punishment?” In times of disaster: “Why did God allow…?” Despite our extensive confirmation materials, our confirmands still had questions – lots of them. And just when we think we have most of life’s big questions answered, many of us find that in midlife we start asking questions again: “Is this all there is?” and “To what am I called?” It’s OK to have questions. It’s necessary to have questions and to seek the answers to our questions. We must not be afraid of expressing our doubts and asking questions. Ultimately it’s the only way to continue growing, most especially to continue growing spiritually.

The Ethiopian eunuch had questions. Beginning with Easter day, our first Scripture readings have been from the Book of Acts, the sequel to the Gospel according to Luke. As you’ve probably guessed, The Acts of the Apostles, to give the book its full name, is a record of the outward expansion from Jerusalem of the earliest community of the followers of Jesus. What is more important, Acts details the transformation of the Way from a reformist Jewish sect into a distinctly inclusive community that welcomed people of all classes and ethnicities and that enabled followers of both genders to assume leadership roles. Our readings in Easter tide come from the first part of the book and encourage us to consider the question of what it means to be an Easter people, a people living with and into the resurrection of Jesus. Although we hear selections from Acts every Easter tide, it’s worth reading the whole book for yourself, especially if you want to get a sense of the questions with which Jesus’ earliest followers struggled.

Today we heard the story of the encounter between Philip the Evangelist, as tradition now calls him, and a royal official from Ethiopia. An aside: this Philip is not to be confused with Philip from Bethsaida in Galilee, one of the twelve apostles, who appears in the gospels. We encounter Philip the Evangelist only in Acts, as he is commissioned one of the “seven” to take charge of the charitable work of the community, in an encounter with a sorcerer named Simon, in this story, and in Acts 21, where he is at home in Caesarea Maratima.

As we heard, impelled by the Spirit – another important player in this story – Philip flees the persecution of Jesus’ followers in Jerusalem and heads down towards Gaza. Presumably on foot, he hears a man reading aloud – as people commonly did in the ancient world – from the prophecy of Isaiah. The man, an Ethiopian and a eunuch, welcomes Philip into his chariot. Philip asks a leading question, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And then the Ethiopian begins to ask questions.

Let’s look at those questions. Answering Philip’s opening question, the Ethiopian says, “How can I understand unless someone guides me?” Now, this eunuch is a wealthy, important man, in what was, in the ancient world, a wealthy and important country. He could actually have been an Ethiopian Jew, or, more likely, one of what were then called “God-fearers,” gentiles who embraced the monotheism and ethics of Judaism but did not undergo circumcision. Whichever he was, and though he had come a long way to reach Jerusalem, as a sexually mutilated man, he could not be admitted to worship in the temple. If he knew his Scripture, he knew that Deuteronomy 23:1 was absolutely clear on this point: “No one whose testes are crushed or whose member is cut off shall be admitted into the congregation of the Lord.”

But the Ethiopian was not reading Deuteronomy, he was reading Isaiah. Isaiah 11 had assured him that God would redeem God’s people from all over the earth. God had also declared through Isaiah that, “As for the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths, who have chosen what I desire and hold fast to My covenant – I will give them in My House and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters” (56:4-5). So which is it? Is he, as an Ethiopian and a castrated man, welcome in God’s house or not? He needs help in understanding the Scripture in front of him.

As do we in reading Scripture. Like the Ethiopian we too may discover that Scripture offers us different, even contradictory, perspectives. Like him, we too need to know the historical and narrative context of what we read. More important, we too need informed guides -- good teachers or books – who help us to understand Scripture. Even if we fervently believe that the “Holy Scriptures … are the Word of God,” and that they “contain all things necessary for to Salvation,” we still need help in understanding how to pattern our lives after the teachings of Scripture.

The Ethiopian was reading the passage from Isaiah about what we have come to call the “suffering servant.” Christians now commonly see this passage as foretelling Jesus’ crucifixion. But the Ethiopian did not know this yet, and so he rightly asked, “About whom does the prophet says this, about himself or someone else?” In hearing about the humiliation and injustice suffered by Isaiah’s servant, could the Ethiopian also have been wondering, “Does this Scripture also apply to me? Does it speak to the humiliation and injustice that I, as a mutilated male, have experienced? Is there good news also for me?” Indeed, there is. As he heard Philip’s explanation, as he heard the “good news of Jesus,” and especially as he heard that the community of Jesus’ followers welcomed all comers, surely he came to understand, that, even in his condition, there was welcome and acceptance among those who strove to “abide in Jesus.”

And is that true for us? Do we hear the good news of Scripture? Although we always need to remember that the Scriptures were not written yesterday, we also need to remember that Scripture is never solely about the past. The good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection and of God’s love for all of God’s children should also be cause for rejoicing for us.

Encouraged by what he has heard, the Ethiopian then asks, “What is there to prevent me from being baptized?” Conceivably, there could have been several real obstacles, especially if the Ethiopian was a gentile and thought he would have to convert to Judaism. As a foreigner, he would be very far away from the center of the Way, which was still in Jerusalem. As a sexually damaged male, he was unwelcome in traditional worship settings, and as the finance minister of the queen of Ethiopia he was clearly loyal to a foreign power. Can you imagine the Ethiopian’s joy when Philip replied, “Absolutely nothing?” Can you imagine the overwhelming sense of God’s grace that he must have felt when he and Philip came up out of the water? Foreign and damaged though he was, he was now irrevocably a part of God’s household, forever a member of the Body of Christ.

All of us have been baptized. Perhaps instead of the Ethiopian’s questions we might ask, “What is to prevent me from taking the next step in my spiritual journey?” Perhaps you need to ask yourself, “What is to prevent me from being confirmed?” What is there to prevent me from reaffirming what was done for me as a child? What is there to prevent me from making an adult commitment to the church or from renewing the commitment I made when I was baptized? If you have been confirmed, perhaps you need to ask yourself, “What is to prevent me from seeking to take my baptismal vows more seriously?” What is to prevent me from taking the risk of leaving my comfort zone and taking another step in my journey of faith?

It’s OK to have questions. No, it’s necessary to have questions. Questions, and even doubt, are integral parts of the faith journey of an adult. To continue to grow in faith, like the Ethiopian, we need to continue to ask our questions, as we confront the Scriptures in Bible study, as we study theology, as we try new forms of prayer, and as we engage in ministries that stretch our understanding of the world around us. We need to open ourselves to the leading of the Holy Spirit and trust that the Spirit will continue to guide us into answers to all our questions. Most important, we need to trust that God’s grace abounds, and that all of us are embraced and welcomed into fellowship with Christ – wherever we are on our journey of faith.