Trinity - Understanding (or not) the Holy Spirit

May the Spirit of God infuse my words and all our lives that we may come from here bursting forth with God’s purpose. Amen.

Today we have four readings from four different books in the compact library we call the Bible. Next week we will have another four readings from this library. And the next. And the next ….

Sometimes, in the seasons which we call Ordinary Time, three of these readings march through our library picking up near where we left off the last week. Sometimes, like the seasons of Lent and Advent and on feast days like today, these readings are grouped loosely around some theme. In both cases, the psalm is chosen as a reflection on one of the readings.


Today’s theme is the Trinity. Today’s readings all try to help us understand the mystery of One God in Three Persons. Since we spend most of the year reading and talking about Jesus and God, they all focus our thought on the Holy Spirit. Each of them does it from a different perspective.


Wisdom literature like we find in proverbs is some of the oldest recorded thought about God. In ancient Hebrew thought, Wisdom is birthed by God made out of God’s own essence. Wisdom comes before creation and either assists with creation or is delighted by it like a child looking on in wonder. Wisdom is always female and is looked at as the mothering part of God. Wisdom was seen as being active in our lives, helping us to understand our purpose in the world and giving us good advice on how to live. As I understand Wisdom, Wisdom is less powerful than God but uses what power she has all the time.


Next we move on to the Gospel of John. Does anyone remember the first words of the Gospel of John?
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This is one way the Greek culture interpreted Wisdom in John’s community. What follows is the Word “became flesh and lived among us.” So Jesus is Wisdom in a human body.

John also talks about the Spirit of truth which is another view of Wisdom. John understands the Spirit of truth as a messenger, continuing to bring God’s word to the disciples after Jesus’ ascension. The Spirit of truth does not have knowledge of its own, it merely bring the words of the Father, through Christ, to the disciples.


Finally we have the reading from Romans. This is the first time we directly refer to the Holy Spirit. In Paul’s understanding, the Holy Spirit is a gift from God. It serves as kind of a conduit connecting us to God’s love. Like wisdom, it continues to advise us and encourage us to live a life according to God’s plan.


But wait, we have two more descriptions of the Holy Spirit yet to come today. When we recite the Apostle’s Creed, we are saying how we understand the Trinity. In that creed we give three lines to describe God and eleven lines to describe Christ. How many lines do we use to describe the Holy Spirit? … One … “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” Period. Not very helpful is it?

The last spot we describe the Holy Spirit is in the Eucharistic Prayer. Today we use Prayer 3 with the Trinity preface. In this prayer we say “you reveal your glory as the glory of your Son and the Holy Spirit: three persons equal in majesty, undivided in splendour, yet one Lord, one God.” We also talk about the activity of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that sanctifies, or makes holy, both the Eucharistic gifts and us.

These last two reflect current thought about the Trinity. The Apostle’s Creed, which was written and rewritten starting somewhere between the second and fourth centuries and ending around the seventh century, is so vague about the Holy Spirit that it would be hard to disagree with it. Our Eucharistic prayer today is much more specific. It gives an equal position to all three persons of the Trinity, including the Holy Spirit. It gives us some ideas about what role the Holy Spirit plays in our lives and in the activity of God. It doesn’t say a thing about how the Holy Spirit does its work or the gender of the Holy Spirit.


Are you confused yet? … I definitely am. We have several descriptions of the Holy Spirit which are at the least inconsistent and maybe even contradictory. Either that or the Holy Spirit has evolved from Wisdom into one of the Trinity. So how do we choose? Which one is right? Three of these are directly from this library and the other two are based on it.


This is where we see the grace of God. We don’t have to choose. All of these descriptions are probably in some way right. They are all examples of people, human beings with all of our frailties, seeking to understand their faith; trying to understand what the Holy Spirit is doing in their lives. They are all images which can help us to find the Holy Spirit in our own lives.

My favourite way of looking at the Holy Spirit goes a bit like this. Jesus told us that the good news, the Gospel, would continue to be written in our hearts. The Holy Spirit’s job is to help us release that good news into the world and she won’t give up until she succeeds.

Thanks be to God.

Gifts of the Spirit - Pentecost

May the spirit of God infuse my words and carry them forth with God’s purpose. Amen.

Throughout the church year we have several seasons and days to which we give names. A couple of the seasons are Advent and Lent. Some of the days are Christmas, Easter, and the Ascension of Jesus. We just talked about that last one a week ago. Why do we name these days and seasons?

Do we do it to fill up our calendar? Or maybe to make our calendar more colourful? Maybe someone high in the church was just bored and started coming up with names to pass time?

No. We divide up the church year so that we can explore different parts of what it means to be Christian.

Advent and Lent are penitential seasons. This does not mean that they are times to remember everything that we’ve done wrong. They are times when we examine ourselves. When we look and see what we are doing wrong, what we could do better, and what we are doing right. They are times when we ask God to help us see ourselves more clearly.

Following Christmas and Easter we have seasons of celebration. Seasons when we rejoice in the grace of God; in the gifts of Jesus as the Son of God born in a human body and Jesus our resurrected saviour. We spend time talking and thinking about what those gifts mean to us.


Today is the day of Pentecost. This is another one of those named days where we change our focus.

Today is not about self examination. Today is not about specific gifts that God has given to all people.

Today is about God giving gifts all people.

Just a second … didn’t I just contradict myself?

Today is not about gifts that God has given to all people. Today is about God giving gifts to all people. These are subtly different. The first is about gifts like the resurrection. This is one gift given to all people. The second is all about Pentecost.


“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.”

We have all received the Spirit of God. This is a gift of God, but that gift looks different in each of us. Each and every one of us has been given personal gifts by God: different gifts from everyone else. We call these Gifts of the Spirit.

In the first letter to the Corinthians, some of these gifts are listed. “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.” This list is a good place to start looking, but it is by no means complete.

During Advent and Lent, we spent several weeks looking inwardly. Part of what we were doing was trying to identify our own gifts; the talents given to us by God.


Today, on Pentecost, we try to be aware of those gifts in a different way. Today we look at the difference between work and calling.

We all know what we are good at and what we are not so good at. We also know what jobs to avoid because we truly suck at them. Knowing this can help us make good career choices, good choices about hobbies, good choices about many things we do. This is looking at things from the perspective of work.

When we look at things from the perspective of calling we have to look in a different way. We don’t say “is this easy” or “is this hard.” We say “how does it make me feel to accomplish this.” When we make choices in life based on calling the things that are hard for us seem just a little easier. Things which we though we could never do become possible. Things which were already easy become a joy to do.

Finding your talents is relatively easy. Finding your calling takes more work. To find your calling you have to try different things; some things which seem likely because they fit your talents and some which you would say “I’d never be good at that.” Your calling might become your job. Your calling might be something else you do. You might have more than one calling.

When you find your calling and follow it, your life will never be the same. It won’t necessarily be easy, but it will satisfy your soul. When you find your calling and follow it, you won’t have to look for your gifts … they will be bubbling up within you looking for a way to explode out into the world.

This is what Pentecost is about.

Thanks be to God.

Christ's Ascension Charge to Us

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.


Who here knows what special day we celebrated on Thursday in the church? – Anyone?


We just celebrated ascension day. Some pretty special things happened long ago on ascension day. According to the Bible, this is the last day that anyone saw Jesus walking among them in the flesh. On that day, his closest followers saw him rise up or ascend through the clouds.

This may seem like a big deal, but really it isn’t. After all, Elijah did the same quite a bit earlier (though he did need the help of a fiery chariot). Ascending is not the amazing part of the ascension.

So what is important about the ascension? – We have a clue to it in today’s Gospel. Jesus said “The glory that you have given me I have given them.”

All through the Easter season we have been talking about the risen Christ. About what it means to us that Christ rose from the dead and walked again among his followers. We talked about God’s gifts of the sacraments and of the Church. We talked about God being with us no matter what happens. We talked about God’s unending love. We talked about all this and much more.

“The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” Jesus is talking with our Father in heaven. When he says this, Jesus is passing on his purpose in the world to his followers … to us. Jesus, in that last day walking on Earth, gave us his greatest gift of all. He gave us the ability to carry out his purpose. He gave us the gift of unconditional love. He gave us the gift of being able to see the Kingdom of God.

Together with these great gifts, Jesus gave us a great challenge. … He sent us out to use these gifts. He told us to carry on in his name. He charged us with bringing about the Kingdom of God.

That is certainly something that deserves at least a few minutes to think about. (Several minutes of silence)

The Bible - A Message for Today

Glorious God, let your light so shine upon us here in your house that only Truth may be spoken and only Truth may be heard, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(Have a Bible handy)

Why is this book so important to us?

Not one word in it was written more recently than about two millennia ago. How can something written two thousand years ago by people who spoke languages which really don’t exist any more, living in times which are vastly different from our own say anything about how we should understand our world?


No answers?


Let’s look at our first reading today. Hmmm. Some place names .. Samothrace, Neapolis, Philippi, Macedonia, Thyatira …. If it weren’t for this book, I would never have heard of any of these places.

Well, the place names don’t tell us much, maybe if we look at what they are doing in the reading. We start with someone having a vision. Having visions today is not looked upon as a blessing. At the very best, talking about your visions would label you as eccentric, at the worst … I’ll leave that to you. Either way you would basically be ignored as having nothing valid to say. In Paul’s time, having visions labelled you as a prophet. At best, that meant that people listened to you. At worst, they stoned you to death. Either way your words were taken seriously, either as words to live by or as words that are in some way dangerous and should be stopped.

Having visions is just not the same as it used to be.


Next they go sailing. Getting from one city to another was a major expedition. Most people only did it once or twice in their lifetime if they did it at all. Sailing from Israel to Greece would take days if not weeks. This saved huge time because the only other way for most people was to walk. Flying from Israel to Greece is about a couple of hours (plus baggage check-in and customs of course so maybe a day or two).


Next they talk about the Sabbath. We talk about the Sabbath too. We observe it on Sunday. We go to church. Many of us spend family time on Sunday. Many of us don’t work on Sundays. So we keep the Sabbath, don’t we? Well, they would say we don’t. To them, keeping the Sabbath meant that you really did no work at all. You didn’t cook on the Sabbath. You prepared the meals in advance. You didn’t clean on the Sabbath (no dishes, no washing clothes, no bathing). You didn’t walk far on the Sabbath, maybe just a bit outside your house where you could talk with people. For the most part, talking wasn’t considered work. You didn’t even play on the Sabbath (no golf).


Maybe we should look at this a different way.

Who is this Jesus guy to us anyway? I mean he’s been dead for two thousand years. How can anything he had to say way back then have any real meaning for us today?

I think the answer to that can be found in our Gospel today. “I have said these things while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.”

Jesus, the Messiah, the anointed one, brought the good news to God’s people.

Jesus, Emanuel, God with us, knew that what he told us was rooted in the society in which he said it.

Jesus, the Son of God, died on the cross to change our relationship with God. Jesus died so that we could live.

Jesus, the Light of the World, rose from the dead. Jesus showed us that through the resurrection we are no longer living until we die, we are living until we reach the Kingdom of God.

Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, continues to be with us. Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, continues to teach us; to guide us while we read words that are two thousand years old and older. Through these words we are shown a glimpse of what eternity is about because they are still relevant. They do have meaning in the twenty-first century. These words resonate with things that we know to be Truth, with things that God continues to in our hearts.

Yes, the times have changed. Yes, the language has changed. Yes, the world is a different place …. Yes … this message still has meaning.


Thanks be to God.

Draw the Circle Wide

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.


How many of you have friends?

Families?

Acquaintances?


I bet every one of us could fill a page with groups we belong to. It might take a bit to get started, but then they just keep coming. Does anyone have any examples of groups you might belong to?

Cape Bretoners, Canadians, Men, Women, Octogenarians, Mid-lifers, over or under educated, teachers, nurses, park-workers, fishermen, Anglicans or any other denomination, Christians.

The list of groups is endless. We are very good at putting ourselves and others into groups. They help us understand each other. They help us define our own roles. They help us to say that we belong, to unite us with others.

This is the good side of labelling, of defining groups to which we belong.


These groups have a bad side too. Any time we say some people are in a group, it means we are saying that others are outside the group. While we could fill at least a page with groups we belong to, we could fill volumes with groups we are not part of. I am not a nurse. I am not a mother. I am not an octogenarian. I am not a teenager. I am not a world traveller. I am not a fisherman, or at least not of fish.

Putting ourselves and others into groups can be incredibly divisive. It can let us feel superior. It can make us feel left out. We can use it to include those we like and exclude those we don’t.

I believe Jesus asks us to use groups in a different way. He turns them upside down. In our reading from The Acts of the Apostles today we hear about Peter’s vision. In this vision God is redefining Peter’s understanding of who belongs in the group Christian and who is excluded. He is pushing the boundaries of Peter’s group. He is drawing the circle wider than Peter had drawn it.


God does not tell Peter that he should not define his group. What God does is to tell Peter that instead of describing his group by who is in and who is out, Peter should define his group by who is in and find ways to make it possible for others to be in. He tells Peter to push the boundaries of his group.

Jesus teaches us again and again to push our boundaries. To draw our circles wider and to draw them wider still. But no matter how wide we draw our boundaries they are still there, or are they?

Think of the boundary of our circle as a rubber band. We start with just a few inside and everyone else outside. We find a way to move a few more from the outside to the inside. The rubber band stretches. We move a few more in. The rubber band gets very tight. We move some more in. The rubber band breaks and suddenly everyone is in.

Let’s look at a couple of examples of this. Take for instance the group, nurses. First it is just those who are actually nurses. Then we expand it to include everyone who has a nurse in their family. The circle gets wider. Next we include everyone who knows a nurse. Wider still. Next we include everyone who has ever needed a nurse. Wider still. Finally we include everyone who has ever known someone who needed medical assistance, whether they got it or not. The rubber band snaps.


Or the fisherman. Maybe we start with everyone who fishes for crab. Then we expand to include everyone who fishes for any kind of shellfish. Wider. Add those who fish for anything else. Wider still. Add anyone who has ever eaten something caught by a fisherman. Even wider. Finally we add everyone who has an ancestor who has heard of a fish. That probably got everyone.


In our gospel today, Jesus gives us a new commandment. “That you should love one another.” Who should this apply to? If we use the same process and push our boundaries we start with Jesus’ disciples, that means those of us here and other Christians. We draw that circle wider by including all who revere God in any way. Finally we break the circle wide open by including all whom God loves. As Peter said “The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us” and “who was I that I could hinder God.”

God does not ask us to stop defining groups. To do that would not be human. What God does ask us to do is to follow Jesus’ example and to find ways to use our groups to include rather than to exclude. This might still be hard, but it is something that we can work at. When we finally manage to get rid of the circle altogether we will have found the Kingdom of God.


Thanks be to God.