Western Christians of most stripes, especially most of the Anglicans I know, both here in the U.S. and in the U.K., are not typically known for what I would call a particularly robust doctrine and experience of the Holy Spirit.
In fact, when many of us think about experiencing the Holy Spirit, many of us think about “other people” in those “other churches,” where they have things like rattlesnakes and tambourines.
Believe it or not, I’ve actually met a number of self-professing “Christians” who haven’t ever even thought about the Holy Spirit, much less what the Holy Spirit means in their own lives.
And this has sort of produced a class of what me might call functional binatarians – not classical Trinitarian Christians who worship the Father, through the Son in the Power of the Spirit – but binatarians, who are people focused on just two aspects of the Divine Nature, usually the Father and the Son.
Finally, and frankly, I think there is this silent, but persistent, snobbiness in our tradition – of which I’ve certainly indulged from time to time – that prides itself in restraint, dignity and reason.
And somehow, before you know it, we sort of project our supposed restraint and dignity and reasonableness onto the Holy Spirit Himself, and in our minds He is the one who becomes reasonable and restrained.
But the real irony, of course, is that even a quick self-examination our own inner-workings, proves that none of us are all that dignified or restrained at all, and fewer still are reasonable!
Fortunately, however, we are forced, by the power of the Church Calendar, to deal annually with the Day of Pentecost, which doesn’t look very restrained or reasonable to me:
“And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”
Ah, yes, the power of the Holy Spirit: active and dynamic:
“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit,” said our Saviour to Nicodemus in the Gospel according to St. John.
The Holy and life-giving Spirit of God’s love, you see, is not something we achieve or find or control. The operative phrase in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles is this: “as the Spirit GAVE them ability.” The Holy Spirit is something given: given to all the baptised to sustain and bless us – to lead us into eternity.
Lancelot Andrewes, the 17th century saintly bishop of Winchester, reminds us that on Pentecost, and each time we remember it yearly, the Spirit “will bestow some gift upon God’s people – some gift He will give, either from the wind, inward, or from the tongue, outward.”
That’s why we’re here today: to receive a gift that the Spirit has in store for each of us.
For some of us, it is simply affirmation that we’re on the right path. For many of us, we are seeking direction – direction in our lives and in our relationships. For many of us, we are seeking forgiveness for what we’ve done and left undone since the last time we were here.
For some of us it’s about alleviating acute pain of some sort – physically or otherwise. Interestingly, I read an article this week that, although the US makes up only about 6% of the world’s population, we routinely consume 75% of all opiates. So, whether or not we have a monopoly on pain, we obviously think we have at least 75% of the world’s pain. You and I both know a lot of that pain is emotional, and that’s why we’re hooked on the opiates.
Still some of us have no clue why we’re here and even less of a clue what we’re saying when we say hold out our hearts – risking life as we currently know it, I might add – and pray, “Come, holy spirit…enter in…our souls inspire.”
I love how only Annie Dillard can put it:
“Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.”
My brothers and sisters, the Spirit of God is indeed “awake,” and He is ready, willing and certainly able to give us – once again or for the very first time – that same Spirit of Pentecost – that flaming fire of love to heal us, the bind our wounds and to begin making us whole again.
I know we don’t build many campfires in hot and humid Sarasota, so I can’t do much with the fire metaphor, but we surely know that we can’t live without the warmth and light of God’s love.
And it is that flame that He wants to give us afresh and anew today.
“The Holy Spirit,” writes Michael Ramsey, the late archbishop of Canterbury, “keeps the light of Jesus glowing within us,” and, “enables us to see like a Christian, perceiving things as they really are….and perceiving what a Christian out to be and to do.”
“Resolve then,” Lancelot Andrewes reminds us, “not to send Him away, on this His own day, with nothing done, but [resolve] to receive His seal, and to dispose yourself to Him, being pliable and ready to receive.”
Take the time. Ask God to renew His Spirit within you.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Charleston David Wilson
The Church of the Redeemer (Episcopal)
222 South Palm Avenue
The Day of Pentecost
14 May 2016