Pentecost 1997
Sermon given at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church
Brentwood
By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart
John 20:19-23
Acts 2: 1-11
Come
Holy Spirit, come, come like the fire and burn, come like the wind and blow.
Take our eyes and see through them, take our ears and hear through them, take
our mouths and speak through them, take our hearts and set them afire.
Have
you ever had to write something, maybe a paper for school or a report for work,
and you just sit there in front of the paper, empty, tried, thinking you’ll
never get that done, and all of a sudden, a thought enters your mind, seemingly
out of nowhere, and soon you are off and writing, feeling energized, creative
again.
Or
perhaps you have sat at a meeting where all you wanted to do was go to sleep.
You know the feeling, bored, drowsy, the meeting is going nowhere and you have
a hard time concentrating. And you can tell that the others around you feel the
same way, even if they are suppressing their yawns. When, suddenly, someone
comes up with a comment or idea that seems to set the place alive. Suddenly the
tiredness is gone and the ideas begin flying. What seemed like a waste of time
that you would do anything to leave, is now the place you most want to be.
We’ve
all known those flashes, those breakthrough of illumination, where suddenly the
energy is there to make a difference. Sometimes we refer to it as inspiration -
to be in the spirit - to breath in.
Today,
on Pentecost, we celebrate the Holy Spirit, the third person of the trinity.
Today is also considered the birthday of the church. Before my sermon I invoked
the presence of the Holy Spirit. At the baptism today we will ask for the Holy
Spirit to come upon the child Jacob Rhys Cropper. But what are we talking about
when we refer to the Holy Spirit?
When
I was growing up the third person of the trinity was referred to as the Holy
Ghost. In my child’s mind I imaged it to looks something like Casper the
friendly ghost. It was a white, see through kind of thing. But that is not at
all how the Holy Spirit shows itself in the Bible.
One
image is of a dove, and we can see that dove represented on the back window,
that descended upon Jesus when he was baptized. The other images are presented
in the readings today. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit comes as wind and fire. It
is also represented as breath in the Gospel as Jesus breathes upon the
disciples. Breath, fire, wind, a dove. These are the images. But what do they
represent. At first look they are very comforting, the gentle dove, the fire
that warms us when we are cold, the gentle breeze that cools us, the breath of
Christ. Who wouldn’t want the spirit to be present, to give us support and
peace.
But
there is one thing we need to remember about the Holy Spirit - it is not
domesticated. The Spirit blows where it wills. It can be a gentle breeze that fills
us with comfort, or a tornado that turns our life upside down. - Just ask
Dorothy when she finds herself transported from the gray of Kansas to the vivid
colors of Oz. The Spirit can be a warming fire, and it can rage and burn bright
and hard like the fire that purifies metal, burning away all our impurities.
And if you have ever felt yourself in the refiner’s fire you know how
uncomfortable that can be.
And
even the image of that gentle dove is deceptive. After Christ’s baptism, we are
told that the spirit drove him into the desert for 40 days of fasting and
temptations. I’m not sure I’d want that kind of gentleness.
And
finally we have the image of Jesus breathing onto the disciples. He tells 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.” What a powerful,
daring, incredible responsibility, and awesome power.
The
Holy Spirit is sometimes described as God’s action in the world. So what is
this action like. First of all, when the Holy Spirit comes into our lives
everything is turned upside down, everything is changed. We are no longer the
same person we were before the spirit enters our life. Dorothy is a wonderful
image for this. Her old life was destroyed by the tornado. She finds herself in
a whole new world, a world full of wonder, and fear, and temptation, and hope.
When we ask for the presence of the spirit, be ready to be transformed.
Next
we find that the action of the spirit is the beginning of a process, of a
journey. Christ goes to the wilderness, the disciples go out of the room they
are hiding in and begin to preach.
When
Dorothy finds herself in Oz she begins a journey, a journey that transforms
her. She goes from being a weak and frightened girl, into the leader of a group
of travelers who has the courage to confront the false wizard and demand gifts
for her friends. And she also develops the wisdom to realized that she has, and
always has had, the power to go where she most wants to be, to go home.
The
spirit transforms, purifies and empowers. Empowered to do what God calls us to
do. Christ is empowered to follow his call to teach, and heal, and sacrifice himself.
The disciples are empowered to forgive, to preach and to teach the good news.
The
Holy Spirit is God acting in the world, and when it comes upon us, it is to
prepare and empower us to act. One must be very careful what one asks for.
After
my brain surgery, and the difficulties I went through for the first year, I was
so grateful to be alive, to be enjoying my family, to be able to think and act,
that I prayed in thanksgiving, “How can I serve?” I prayed this almost every
day for several years, not having any idea what the answer to this prayer would
be. Suddenly one day I felt the Spirit upon me, and felt I had received the
answer to my prayer - I was to become a priest - it was something I had never
even imagined. And it was the beginning of one of the most difficult and
rewarding journeys of my life. I knew what I felt called to, but getting their
involved dealing with the diocese, going to seminary, confronting many inner
doubts and fears, learning things about myself that I would just as well have ignored.
It was years of burning, purification, tempering of the instrument (and it
still goes on), for a purpose. So I could be empowered. So I could act.
Every
experience of the Holy Spirit in the Bible is associated with empowerment,
empowerment to action. When we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit we are
called to action. Those of us who are baptized had the Holy Spirit invoked in
our lives. Those of us who feel touched by the spirit of God’s love, have been
touched by the spirit and are empowered to act, to make a difference, to tell
others, to be God’s instruments on earth.
The
Holy Spirit is far from domesticated. It can and will turn your life upside
down, sending you to place you have never imagined, testing refining and
purifying you, and most importantly, empowering you. Empowering you to make a
difference in the world.
Come
Holy Spirit, come, come like the fire and burn, come like the wind and blow.
Take our eyes and see through them, take our ears and hear through them, take
our mouths and speak through them, take our hearts and set them afire.
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