Sermon preached on May 5, 2013 at St. David’s Episcopal Church,
Washington, DC
Sixth Sunday of Easter: Acts 16:9-15,
Revelation 21:1, 22-22:5, John 14:23-29
This is a sermon,
albeit my last at St. David’s, and not a farewell speech. But I still couldn’t help
noticing that the themes from today’s readings still seem strangely appropriate
for the occasion! The passage from the Gospel according to John is part of what
we call Jesus’ long farewell discourse when Jesus gets his disciples ready for
his departure. He wants them to rejoice in his returning home. And in Acts Paul
receives a vision telling him to cross the sea to Europe because he is needed to
mission there! Do you see the connection? But let’s stop there, I don’t want
you thinking that I am comparing myself with Jesus or with Paul.
Yet the fact is that the
Gospel is about departure and more specifically about the disciples’ fears
on Jesus’ departure. “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let
them be afraid” (John 14:27) Jesus says to them. So what are they worried
about? Well about questions such as how will they know what to do when Jesus is
no longer with them? Or how will they know what is right or wrong when he is
not there to tell them? Of course these are not just issues for the 1st
century disciples but for us too.
How do we
discern God’s will for us and for the world when we do not have Jesus, the Son
of God, with us to instruct us directly? Jesus’ promise to the disciples and to
us is that our guidance and instruction will not cease. The Father will send
the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ name to act as a teacher, guide, advocate, and
companion. As an aside, and as I won’t be here to use this on Trinity Sunday, next
time someone tells you that the concept of the Trinity is a later invention and
not found in the Bible – point them to this section of John’s Gospel as this is
where a lot of the ideas about both the differences between Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit and their ultimate unity come from!
But let’s stay with the
Holy Spirit for now, especially as we approach the feast of the Holy Spirit,
Pentecost. Where do we find the Holy Spirit and how does the Spirit of God help
us discern
God’s will for us and for the world? The Spirit is God within us, this is what
Jesus means when he says “we will come to them and make our home with them”
(John 14:23) or as Paul says in Romans, (8:9) “the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” In
John’s version of Pentecost, the story in which Jesus appears to Thomas, the
disciples receive the Holy Spirit when Jesus breathes on them, which reminds us
of the second of the two creation stories: Adam receives the breath of life
when God breathes into him: By the way, that’s why we refer to the Holy Spirit
as “the Lord, the giver of life” in the Nicene Creed.
So how does the Holy
Spirit guide us, how do we access the Spirit? In Scripture, in prayer, in
visions, and even in preaching!
Let’s start with
Scripture. The Holy Spirit, Jesus says, will act as a teacher and help us understand
the meaning of what Jesus did and taught, literally will cause us to remember
what Jesus said. Scripture is how we remember all of God’s saving acts. When we
say that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, we do not mean that every word
was dictated to the writers by God. But we do believe that God’s Spirit was
with the authors as they wrote down and interpreted both their own experiences
and the stories they had heard. We also believe that the Spirit inspires us
when we listen to Scripture, that the Spirit helps us find meaning and
relevance in the passages we hear in church, or read at home, or study as part
of a group. There is no one right way of doing this. There is a lot to be said
for group Bible Study. Quoting Frank Griswold our former Presiding Bishop, “the
truth Christ seeks to convey us is larger than any one person’s perspective. In
order to know the truth as revealed in Christ, we must seek it together.” (Griswold 2009, 119) But sometimes we
need a very personal message which a more contemplative method such as Lectio Divina might help us hear: Read a
short passage of Scripture very slowly. Reflect carefully on the meaning of a
phrase or word that catches your attention. Pray about these thoughts and
feelings. Finally rest in silence and in the Word of God, listening for that still
small voice that speaks within us.
That very conveniently
brings us to prayer. There as many ways to pray as there are people who pray! We
can use our own words, we can use Jesus’ words, we can use the words of prayers
others have written, for example from our Prayer Book, we can pray in silence, or
prayer can be also be in the form of meditation: Centering Prayer is another
popular method of Christian meditation, one that places a strong emphasis on
interior silence and just being open to God’s divine action within us. But in
all cases it is the Holy Spirit who helps us pray as Paul emphasizes in his
letter to the Romans (8:26): “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for
we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with
sighs too deep for words.”
I suspect you do not
tend to have visions, and we are often suspicious of those who claim to have
had and to be guided by a vision or dream. But this form of guidance is part of
the scriptural witness. In today’s reading from Acts it was the vision of a man
from Macedonia that caused Paul to change his plans and to cross over into
Europe. This was a turning point in his mission: the moment when the Gospel
went westward. And in Acts this is only the first of a total of five visions
Paul that receives and through which the Spirit guides Paul. This is how God gives
him both encouragement and instruction. [Then in Revelation (21:10) we also hear
of a vision through the Spirit when John of Patmos recounts how “in the spirit
he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city
Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.”] Martin Luther King Jr. made
very good use of his vision of the Kingdom in the famous ‘I have a dream’ speech
of 1963. And every church is well served to have a vision, developed
prayerfully with the help of the Holy Spirit, to guide and inform its mission. The
vision of this church is to be “A place for all at God’s Table.”
Last, and hopefully not
least, the Holy Spirit works through sermons! I certainly pray for inspiration,
for the Spirit’s guidance, when I am writing them: What message should I be
taking from the text? What message do we need to hear right now? But just as
the Spirit inspires us when we listen to Scripture, so too it can inspire us
when we listen to a sermon, allowing us to find that particular message or
meaning that we need and more importantly to recognize what this message is
calling us to do. That is what happened to Lydia when “the Lord opened her
heart to listen eagerly to what was said” – or preached – “by Paul.” Her heart
was opened to listen, to understand, and then to act on this understanding. For
her the right actions were to show her full acceptance of the Good News by
being baptized together with her household and then demonstrating that hospitality
to others that is a key part of the Christian ‘Way.’
And that answers one
more important question about being guided by the Spirit: How do we know that what
we hear or understand is the right message, and not just something we are
reading into the text? Or as the
Catechism puts the question: “How do we recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit
in our lives?” Our Church’s official answer is that “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.” (The Book of Common Prayer 1979,
852)
What sort of love is
this? Just last week Robin+ preached about the different types of love in the
Bible and the different Greek words: philia,
eros, and agape. The
love Jesus both promises, and demands in today’s gospel passage is agape, selfless love, the love that stands
for the willingness to act for the benefit of another even against one’s own
interest.
So the message we hear
and understand and feel called to act on must be a message of agape love. Not romantic love or love as
an expression of affection and friendship, but the love that can be very
costly, just like God’s love for us: the love of the Cross. If this is the
basis of the message we find in Scripture, in prayer, in visions, or in
sermons, then we are truly hearing God’s Spirit acting within us, for it is only in love
that we know God.
Amen
Bibliography
Griswold, Frank T. Praying Our Days.
Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2009.
The Book of Common Prayer. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.
