The first reading is Acts 2:1-21.
The second reading is Romans 8:22-27.
The holy gospel according to John (15:26-27, 16:4b-15)
Jesus said,
26”When
the Advocate comes,
whom
I will send to you from the Father,
the
Spirit of truth who comes from the Father,
the
Advocate will testify on my behalf.
27You also are to testify
because
you have been with me from the beginning.
“I
did not say these things to you from the beginning,
because
I was with you.
5But
now I am going to the one who sent me;
yet
none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’
6But
because I have said these things to you,
sorrow
has filled your hearts.
7Nevertheless
I tell you the truth:
it
is to your advantage that I go away,
for
if I do not go away,
the
Advocate will not come to you;
but
if I go,
I
will send the Advocate to you.
8And
having come,
the
Advocate will prove the world wrong
about
sin and righteousness and judgment:
9about
sin,
because
they do not believe in me;
10about
righteousness,
because
I am going to the Father
and
you will see me no longer;
11about
judgment,
because
the ruler of this world has been condemned.
12“I
still have many things to say to you,
but you cannot bear them now.
13When
the Spirit of truth comes,
you
will be guided into all the truth;
for
the Spirit will not speak out of the Spirit’s own authority,
but
will speak whatever the Spirit hears,
and
will declare to you the things that are to come.
14The
Spirit will glorify me,
taking
what is mine
and
declaring it to you.
15All
that the Father has is mine.
For
this reason I said that the Spirit will take what is mine
and
declare it to you.
The gospel of the Lord.
After all of this time with the risen Christ, those 40 days
from the resurrection to Jesus’ ascension, the disciples find themselves
without Jesus once again. So, they
revert back to the old Jesus-is-missing, resurrection standby: huddling
together, unsure of what to do now, and probably a bit anxious and
apprehensive.
And once again, God breaks in. The Holy Spirit breaks into their huddled anxiety like a
rush of violent wind that fills the entire house.
The Holy Spirit Jesus promised to send—the Advocate who will
make his case for him now that he has ascended—is finally here! The Spirit
comes in a rush of wind with tongues of fire and of new languages. The diversity of the whole world
captured in one place! Being a
pyro and a bit of a language nerd, this is my dream come true!
And the Holy Spirit doesn’t just show up flaming with
different languages. The Holy
Spirit, as Jesus says, advocates, as a lawyer would, for God’s case to the
world. The Holy Spirit comes to
make the case for God’s love and forgiveness in all the world!
Not only that, but the Holy Spirit also intercedes for us,
as Paul tells the Romans, “with sighs too deep for words.” Those prayers that you can’t quite
articulate—the ones that are too private, too personal, too vulnerable, even
too angry for you to voice out loud.
That is the work of the Holy Spirit, to reach into our depths—our
deepest pain and sorrow as well as our deepest joys and bring them to God,
connecting us evermore deeply to God.
Every week we pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on
earth as it is in heaven.” That is
what the Holy Spirit does. She
brings God’s will to us here and brings us and our deep prayers and desires to
God. She is the bridge that
connects us all. The subtle breeze
and violent winds that blow between us.
The one who changes us, makes us grow, pushes us to new depth.
The Holy Spirit is the one who stirs things up, keeps us
from becoming idle in our faith and in our lives. There’s a company called StoryPeople, which sends me a
StoryPeople of the day each day.
It’s usually a quick sentence or short she said/he said kind of
story. Sometimes they’re silly,
sometimes profound, and many times both at once. One of my favorites is called Angels of Mercy, which goes
“Most people don’t know there are angels whose only job is to make sure you
don’t get too comfortable & fall asleep & miss your life.”
Sometimes that is the best description I have for what the
Holy Spirit does—make sure we don’t sleep through life and, even more
importantly, that we don’t sleep through our faith. That we don’t sit idly by passively experiencing God’s love
and the Creation God brings forth all around us. The Holy Spirit is there to nudge us out of our comfort
zones, to nudge us into deeper relationship with God, into greater witness to
God’s loving action in the world. Now
there is the added component
that the Holy Spirit also equips us—gifts us and creates the space to put our
gifts to work. The Holy Spirit
gives us the language of faith.
She is the Advocate that says God’s love is for everybody without exception, who inspires acts of service and generosity. The Holy Spirit brings us new ways of sharing God’s good news of love and grace—through donations for Family Promise, support of Native American Elders, volunteering, caring for children (whether they’re yours or another’s). The Holy Spirit inspires our faith. She gives us infinite opportunities to witness to God’s love in our lives.
The trickiest, or perhaps scariest, part for many of us is
not in the acts of service or donations, which we’re actually pretty good at,
but in the conversation.
Especially here in Utah there can be a fair amount of baggage around
faith-talk. But what a disservice
we do to others when we withhold our faith! When we don’t share with them the real reason we volunteer
or the real reason we give. When
we don’t share what a difference being part of the church, the body of Christ,
makes in our lives. God’s love is
real and active in the world and through us—it motivates our actions. We serve and love in response to God first serving and
loving us and sending us with the Holy Spirit.
If God’s love for us is so important that we keep coming
back week after week, then how can we not share that gift with others? The joy that God loves us just as we
are. How can we not share about
this love that motivates us? Or do
we even notice it?
Maybe we’re just not paying attention to God’s loving Spirit
at work during the week.
In this upcoming season after Pentecost, celebrating the
gift of the Holy Spirit, each week I’ll invite you all to share any Spirit
moments you’ve had. These can be
big moments or small. Glimpses of
the Holy Spirit at work in the world or in your own personal life. Moments where you anticipated something
bad from a situation and yet it was used for good, moments of unexpected grace.
I’ll share first this week as an example and throughout this
week I invite you to be aware of how the Holy Spirit might be showing up so you
can share with us next week.
(This is a short summary, in the sermon I told the story without it written down) Monday during my regular office hours at The Coffee Shop, a torrential downpour of rain led to a conversation about the torrential downpour of God's love in our baptism and the value of affirming our baptism and the faith traditions that brought us to the waters of baptism even as we find new faith traditions.
(This is a short summary, in the sermon I told the story without it written down) Monday during my regular office hours at The Coffee Shop, a torrential downpour of rain led to a conversation about the torrential downpour of God's love in our baptism and the value of affirming our baptism and the faith traditions that brought us to the waters of baptism even as we find new faith traditions.
How is the Holy Spirit already at work in your life? How are you moved by the Holy
Spirit? How are you responding to
God’s love? The Holy Spirit is
already at work. God is already
here. Since the beginning of time
itself.
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