May 5, 2013 "Listen for the Holy Spirit"

John 14:23-29 Acts 16: 9-15 Take a deep breath and let peace come upon you. Take a deep breath and let it out, and listen. Anything and everything we need is right here. But rarely do we stop to listen, to wait, to pray. Few of us really ever expect the Holy Spirit to come to us, to dream, to have a vision, that God would be real. Recently I was speaking with a group of perspective members, persons who had been baptized and grown up in the church, but been away for a time, saying: Let's talk about the Trinity. Who are the three identities of God? They quickly identified the Creator, that Supreme Deity who formed the cosmos and set everything in motion; and they identified Jesus who entered into life, to redeem, who came to die and be raised again. There was an awkward pause as we each recognized there are three persons of God in the Trinity, when someone suddenly said, Oh yeah, there is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! But No, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is that same Supreme Deity, who formed and created, who wandered with these ancestors, and later caused plagues upon Egypt that led the people out of bondage and slavery and gave them the Covenant of the 10 Commandments. There is the God of the Old Testament, and the Christ of the Gospels, but the third is the Holy Ghost, that from the Beginning has brooded over the face of creation, that on Pentecost called the Disciples out of the Upper Room, and for over 2,000 years has been present in and challenged the Church. We often forget and ignore the Holy Spirit. That there is a God, certainly, this universe is too complex, too inter-related, too ironic to simply have come by chance, and it is certain we did not make ourselves. That there is a Christ, we affirm every Christmas with the gift of a baby, a sweet gift of love, who historically we know was not only a Carpenter, but a teacher, a miracle worker, and who died but there was a happy ending because death was not the end and he returned on Easter. But Spirits and Ghosts, scare us! God is safe if a Creator who formed life Millions of years ago with Adam and Eve. God is safe if a baby in a Manger in a far off place and forgotten Empire. When a circumstance is before us, we hire consultants, we make plans, we analyze and do studies, and create SWAT analyses, and Strategic Plans, and Longitudinal Studies. We have learned how to meditate, all the poses of Tai Chi, we can sing and harmonize hymns, but do any of us really expect an answer to prayer coming from the Holy Ghost? Many of us anticipate and expect a Second Coming, an Apocalypse, in which Jesus will judge the world, but taking seriously that God would speak to us in visions, in dreams, about ordinary experience, seems like fantasy. And yet, the George Gallup Institute of the Gallup Studies, asked people if they had ever had a Vision, and over 50% of Believers claimed they had, even more surprising over 60% of clergy claimed to have had a vision. When we do pray, our prayers sound like like Aladdin with the Lamp, like children writing to Santa... Lord, I wish so-and-so would fall in love with me... Lord, I want to have a baby... I want this malady this problem taken away... Dear God, I want a new job, and I want it locally so we do not have to take the kids out of school, or sell our house and if it could provide Dental and Retirement Options that would be great... Almighty God, lower my weight, take away my cancer, make my marriage better, fix me. Instead of listening, for where the Spirit will lead. Personally, I love the irony of Acts of the Apostles. We have this character Saul, who is a bully, who is obsessed with being right and feeling righteous, so much so that anyone who disagrees should be put to death, though Saul will not dirty his own hands with the killing. Once he convinced others how dangerous these Christians might become, he gets a warrant to have them arrested and persecuted, only to have Saul himself knocked down, humbled, blinded and baptized. The leaders among those he had been persecuting to death have a little trouble trusting him, so Saul, who now is named Paul goes out to spread the Gospel. His first journey is extremely successful, although in a very limited region. So Paul sets out to go on a Second Journey, still not too far away, not leaving Asia. And the Holy Spirit will not let him go. It is not a question of authority from the Apostles. It is not a question of finances. Paul tries and tries, and the Holy Spirit will not allow him to go. Have you ever been set on doing something, and you try and you try, but we are frustrated. Finally, Paul has a Vision, in this vision a man in Macedonia pleads with Paul to come there. And suddenly, according to Book of Acts, Paul is not longer alone but accompanied by companions, and they make every connection, setting out across the Sea instead of across land, the winds blow them to Philippi, and with this, Christianity comes to Europe. It is easy enough to imagine Christianity having remained with Peter and the Disciples, extending only to Jews to become Christians as a sect within Judaism, a Jewish reformation. Paul's Gentile ministry set out to take the faith of this Galilean Jew (Jesus) to all those who were not Jews, but in these verses Paul takes Christianity to the whole of the Western World. The case could be made, that had Paul not taken this second journey, European Colonialism might never have happened, the Crusades might never have occurred, but also Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Mozart and Beethoven, Brahms and Bach might never have been inspired. As many throughout humanity who quote the Creation of Genesis, who know of Noah and the 40 Days of Rain, as many as know the road to Bethlehem, and the way to the Cross, as often as we read the story of Pentecost, this venture of Paul to Philippi where he meets a woman named Lydia, a seller of purple cloth is how the Christian faith was brought to most of us in North America! Like Paul, life is often frustrating, and what we want rarely happens we we desire. But even more, when we do receive what we had hoped and prayed would miraculously take place, we rarely give thanks. We move on to the next thing. We mouth the words of commitment and affirmation, claiming to believe, but what Jesus described was Every time you break bread, do so in Remembrance, Every time you lift the glass to your lips pray for reconciliation and forgiveness. Like Paul, I know I was a self-made individual. I had had a good education, I had worked hard, and kept my nose clean, and success seemed to happen just by showing up. But then hardship came, circumstances I could not fix no matter how hard I worked or what it cost. Increasingly, I am convinced that while we often bring problems upon ourselves, there are times in which we get knocked down only to be able to hear the Spirit which otherwise we are too pre-occupied too busy to listen. A good friend described, his wife had been ill, bed-ridden for years. One day he commented to the nurse, that he had not held his love in his arms in years, she was too ill, too frail. The nurse said “Ridiculous” and she transferred his wife fro her hospital bed to their bed and placed his wife's head upon his shoulder. He described holding her, just holding her, and that he slept through the night, the best sleep he had known in years. When he awoke, his wife was looking up at him, smiling. A sort-time later, she died. If he had not stated his need. If he had not listened to the other who said his fears were ridiculous, he never would have had that closure, that experience of love. Years ago, we had a number of problems. Problems we had brought upon ourselves both by deferred maintenance, lack of vision in anything beyond what we had known, and conflict from having too many secrets buried and kept down. We could not even agree on which direction the Church should face, let alone our missions were gifts to charity. We can honestly say, that all those problems are addressed. We worship in an air-conditioned Sanctuary, we have met all our bills, and found the way to do mission locally and around the world. Where most churches have ten times as many funerals a year as Baptisms, and cannot recall the last wedding, through care and support many of our most senior have lived into their nineties and surpassed 100. We have move Baptisms than Funerals and more Weddings than we can keep track of. But the underlying problem of faith is still here, do we take time to listen, to wait for and look the Holy Spirit to lead? I am told there is a story of Columba a 6th Century priest from Ireland. One day, he set out in a rudderless boat to go wherever the Spirit would lead. He pushed off from shore, and at one point, when the boat touched shore he looked round and saw he could still see home, so pushed off again. When next the little boat touched shore, it was on the isle of Iona, when Christianity first came to Scotland.