Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, and lighten
us with thy celestial fire. Amen.
The Holy Spirit, in most Christian traditions, is by far the most neglected person of the Triune God. We pray to the Father often and understand that it is from God’s gracious hand that all blessings flow. Rightfully so, Jesus stands at the center of our faith. And that leaves the Holy Spirit. Part of this neglect is because we can sort of get our minds around God the Father – we even have a helpful metaphor built into it: a loving parent. And Jesus walked this earth and we have earthly stories to help us in knowing him. But who is the Spirit? Do we really mean that part of God is something like a ghost? And the ways that the Spirit shows up in Scripture aren’t always clear – water, wind, breath, and fire. These are inanimate and amorphous things. So who is the Holy Spirit?
The thing to keep
in mind this, and every, day is that the Holy Spirit is God just as much as
Jesus is God or the Father is God. The Spirit isn’t simply Jesus being
dissolved into something that fills each of us. No, the Holy Spirit is a
distinct person of the Holy Trinity along with the Father and Son. And we know
from Scripture that it was the Spirit that hovered over the waters of the deep in
Creation. It was the Spirit that God breathed into humanity to give life. It
was the Spirit that drove back the waters of the Red Sea. It was the Spirit
that filled the lungs of Moses, Ruth, David, and Isaiah as they proclaimed God’s
glory. It was the Spirit that reanimated the dry bones in Ezekiel’s vision. It
was the Spirit that filled the ever-blessed Mary’s womb. It was the Spirit that
anointed Jesus at his Baptism. It was the Spirit that was upon Jesus as he
engaged in his ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing. And that’s just a
slice of the Spirit’s activity recorded in Scripture. Long before the day of
Pentecost, the Holy Spirit already has a long track record.
Now, you’ve
probably heard of the Holy Spirit referred to in many different ways, but on
this Pentecost, I want to focus on how the Spirit can be understood as the active
and animating breath of life. As I’ve already alluded to, when the Bible speaks
of life, it speaks of breath. We know that if we have breath, we have life and
we if we do not, we do not. This simple truth has been made painfully aware to
us in recent weeks. Thankfully, it hasn’t turned into a shortage crisis, but
there’s been a lot of talk about ventilators. The human body can recover from
all sorts of trauma and injuries, but not breathing isn’t one of them. The
coronavirus so often kills by making it so that people cannot breathe.
And, tragically,
the news of another one of our black brothers being killed as he said “I can’t
breathe,” as a police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes reminds
us how quickly, suddenly, unjustly, and indiscriminately that the breath of
life can be taken away. It’s a disturbing video, but it painfully tells us that
we have much, much work to do in pursuing Beloved Community when black men are
killed in our streets while armed protestors are allowed to gather in huge
crowds in defiance of public safety orders. To be clear, this isn’t about
stirring up controversy or being political – it’s at the heart of Pentecost.
In John, Jesus
tells us that, with the gift of this Holy Spirit, “If you forgive the sins of
any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
And right before this, Jesus says “Receive the Holy Spirit.” When Jesus says “receive,”
it’s in the imperative mood, meaning that it is a command. Jesus is not
offering us the Holy Spirit as something to take or leave, as if it’s a glass
of lemonade offered to a guest at a backyard barbeque. No, he’s thrusting the
Holy Spirit upon us. He’s made us responsible and able to respond by the giving
of the Spirit. And he tells us that with this Spirit, we have the duty and
power to forgive and retain sins. What we do with the Spirit in us matters. If,
by our silence or actions, we forgive racism, white supremacy, selfishness, greed, lust, or
hatred, then we allow those destructive forces to stay on the loose in our
society. That’s what the word “forgive” means – to loose. But if we retain,
which means to hold or restrain, those sins, they are held back from wreaking
havoc.
Sometimes you’ll hear
people talk about what is referred to as “the unforgivable sin” that Jesus says
is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. While we have to be very careful in
treating such a sensitive topic, it may well be that when we have been given
the Holy Spirit, the very breath of God, and we take that breath from others or
do not use our breath to speak out against such atrocities then we transgress against
God in profound way. I am not saying that there can be no forgiveness in such
instances, for with God all things are possible. The Holy Spirit has been given
to us and, as Jesus says in one of his parables, “to whom much given, much will
be required.” We have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit and a voice; and the Church, if we are to be who we claim to be and who God has called us to be, must use our voices at this moment - not merely to not be racist, but to be anti-racist in speaking about against this scourage of racism and white supremacy on our nation. The work of Becoming the Beloved Community is why we have been given the Holy Spirit.
On a normal
Sunday, I’d be able to read the room right now and see how this sermon is
landing – but I, obviously, can’t do that right now. Talking about race can be
challenging and uncomfortable – but let’s struggle with the issues and not each
other. This isn’t a “left” or “right” issue, it is about being “pro-life” in
the most holy and Godly sense of that word. This is just one of those things
that go along with being united to Jesus. We’ve been given the Holy Spirit
because of our relationship with him. Now, honestly, if I were Jesus I’d
probably think twice about giving something as powerful and holy as the Spirit
to a bunch of sinners like you and me. Talk about casting pearls before swine.
But in John, Jesus
says “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit,
essentially saying, “Well, I’ve done my part, now take it from here.” To be
clear, it’s not us who are doing this, it’s the Spirit working within and
through us. So glory and praise still all belong to God, it’s just that we’ve
become the tools that God chooses to act through. A paraphrase from one of St. Augustine’s
sermons is: “Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not.” Now why this is
how God acts, I really don’t know. You’ll have to ask him when you get the
chance. But for some reason that I can’t entirely understand, God seems to enjoy
using imperfect vessels like us to manifest his glory and complete his mission.
The word that
Jesus uses here for this sending is, in the Greek of John’s writing, apostello – this is what it means to be
an apostle. It means that we are sent – we are sent into classrooms, into board
rooms, into operating rooms, onto production floors, to feeding ministries, to
the halls of Congress, into Zoom meetings. Just as Jesus was sent by the
Father, we have been sent by Jesus to be apostles, people sent forth. You might
say that we’ve been deployed by Jesus.
But Jesus does not
send out alone or unequipped. We are sent out as the Body of Christ meaning
that we are never alone in this. We are accountable to one another, for one
another, and we can take comfort in being united in his Body. And we have been
given what we need to be sent into this world. Earlier in John, Jesus uses this
same linguistic construction to say “As the Father as loved me, so I have I
loved you; abide in my love.” We are given love and we are sent out in love.
And to do this
loving, we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. Though we might be
tools that God uses, the Spirit is not a tool that we use. Whether we read
Acts, where the Spirit fills the believers or we read John, where Jesus breathes
the Holy Spirit into us, it is clear that the Holy Spirit is something at the
very core of who we are. It is the breath that animates us. The breath that
gives us life is the very same Spirit of God. In John, the text says that Jesus
breathed on the disciples. Now, our first reaction these days might be “Whoa,
Jesus. Wear a mask, man.” But breathe “on” really is a bad translation. It’s breathe
“in.” It’s the word that you’d use for a musician who blows wind into an
instrument to make music. No one would say that a tuba player blows on the
tuba; no, they breathe into it and, in doing so, they make music and they give
life to the instrument. That’s what Jesus does – he breathes the Holy Spirit
into us. Each of us has this Holy Spirit within us – and so though it may seem
overwhelming to be sent just as Jesus was sent, we have been given what we need
to go.
Now, the obvious
question is – Robert, how are we supposed to be sent when we’re supposed to be
staying at home? That’s a question that I’ve been wrestling with for the past
two months. What does it mean to be the Church when we’ve been told that, for
our safety and good of society, we need to stay home? Maybe we can’t be
physically sent out in the same way – but our love can still be sent via
letters and phone calls. Our generosity can still be sent via secure credit card
transaction. Our words can still be sent to elected officials who need to know
that Christians care more about the safety of the most vulnerable than we do
about being inconvenienced. We might not be able to get out there as much as we
want to – but our love can still be sent in the name of Jesus into all the
world.
The Holy Spirit is
God taking up residence in our very bodies, giving us life and breath, but also
equipping and empowering us to be sent as Jesus was sent to forgive the things
that ought to be forgiven and to retain the things that need to be locked away.
There is great danger in letting loose the things that should be restrained and
keeping restrained matters of justice, dignity, and peace for all of God’s
people.a
In this season of
Easter, as we’ve been reaffirming our Baptismal Covenant, we’ve been praying for
God to help to “nurture this gift of the indwelling Spirit with a lively faith
and worship God with holy living.” At the core of this is an awareness that
this Holy Spirit of God is active in your life. So simply meditating and paying
attention to your breath is a profoundly spiritual and prayerful exercise. Or
you might borrow a line from a hymn and use it as a prayer mantra: “Come, Holy
Ghost, my soul inspire,” or “Breathe in me, breath of God, fill me with life
anew that I may love what thou dost love and do what thou wouldst do,” or “Spirit
of the Living God, fall afresh on me.” And you can remember that the very same
breath which fills your lungs and gives you life is the very Spirit of God who
also gives breath to all of God’s children. We use our voices to cry out for those who have had their breath taken from them.
Come down, O Love divine, seek thou this soul of mine, and visit it with thine own ardor glowing; O Comforter, draw near, within my heart appear, and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing. Amen.
