If there ever was a day
in which God would rain down lightning bolts upon his church it would be today.
Today is Trinity Sunday and I would wager a guess that there will be a heresy
or two spoken across this land as clergy everywhere try to explain how God is
three persons in one or one in three. We
will craft cute sermons and use metaphors and analogies like God is like water
in three forms liquid, solid and gas and yet somehow our analogies will not
come close in uncovering the true
essence God as Trinity
We might be better off
this morning just to skip the sermon and
cut straight to the Nicene Creed.
But we clergy are not a
smart lot. We try to explain things that
might be better off left as mystery.
I am always thankful that
we pretty much always say the Nicene Creed right after we say the sermon because
I know the creed has my back- that whatever heresies pops out of my mouth will
now be made right in the Creed.
Rather than unpack the
entire Trinity today- I would like to continue the conversation I started last
week about the Holy Spirit or as the old timers call it the Holy Ghost.
Just about half of John’s
Gospel reading today is Jesus talking
about the work of this person of the Holy Spirit.
The passages starts out
with this rather cryptic conversation in which Nicodemus and Jesus just can’t
quite get on the same page- When Jesus speaks about being born from above
Nicodemus thinks he’s speaking literally about being shoved back inside his
mother’s womb to be born again— Of course Jesus is not speaking literally
pushed out but speaking of about this spiritual overhaul that happens
when the Holy Spirit descends into our lives.
Jesus further goes on to
describe the Holy Spirit almost as this free spirit wild child that goes where
it wants to go and does what it likes. Jesus says, The wind blows where it chooses,
but you do not know from where it comes or where it goes.
I think we in the
Episcopal Church have an uncomfortable relationship with the Holy Spirit – We
are little reticient about embracing this third person of part of the Trinity
cause if we get to close to the Holy Ghost we might start to do things sway or clap in church during a
hymn—we might raise our hands over our head in praise. We might just love Jesus a little bit more
that we should.
Now I have to be honest
with you- I don’t clap during songs in church not because I don’t feel moved at
times- but because I can’t keep the beat- when I am clapping along- I have to
watch someone else to make sure I am keeping the rhythm.
Watch me sometime times
its comical.
I think we are also
reticent to embrace the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit pushes sometimes
outside our comfort zone, to do or try something that may not seem logical-
that may even fly in the face of reason.
The Holy Spirit just
seems a little edgy.
Jesus though speaks in
this passage about a spiritual overhaul that happens when the spirit descends
and people are born from above.
I have to be honest with
you that I don’t think I would be standing before you if I didn’t believe the
Holy Spirit was alive and well –I don’t think I would be standing here if that
16 years ago- I didn’t have had some sort of spiritual
overhaul in my life Now it wasn’t
instantaneous flashing light conversion but it was something that happened over the course
of a few years attending church and participating primarily in that churches
Alpha program but also more regularly engaging the practice of reading my bible.
I would say that in some way the Spirit was
born a new in my life in the late 1990’s I had a new clarity to my faith- a clarity
that help me to understand in a way that wasn’t just cognitive that God loved
me—but somehow connected with my being that God didn’t just love the world but that
God loved me, Sean Thomas Leonard in a deeply personally and that God didn’t
just love me but that he was at work in
my life.
Because of this I have
lived the last 16 years my life differently than I lived the first 25 years of
my life. It has meant that I believe that there is something bigger than all of
us that is at work in our lives, at work in my life, that is at work in your
live- that is at work in the life of the
church-- at work in the community beyond our doors at work in the diocese of
Western New York-- at work in the larger church in general and I guess what it
is, is the Holy Spirit of God
And because I believe
that there is something bigger- the spirit. I also believe we need to pay
attention to that spirit- pay attention to where that spirit might be directs
us, lead us, pay attention to where that
Spirit prompts and guides us.
On Wednesday at my clergy
bible study we were talking about the Holy Spirit and Gary Schindler, the
priest in Spring said, “You know what you can’t get on the ‘do not call’ list
for the Holy Spirit”—The Spirit calls
every single one of us and it happens again and again and again. We don't have to answer the phone- be the Spirit will keep calling.
I guess if we believe
that the Spirit is alive and well and at work then our work is to wet our
finger to put it in the air to determine the direction the wind is blowing,
that the spirit is blowing and head in that direction. I think sometime we will get it right and
move where the Spirit prompts us and amazing things happen- sometimes we will
misjudge the wind and go the wrong way- but you know what I think God honors
that effort because our intention is to follow the Spirit in those moments. Sometimes we will find the direction that the
spirit is blowing but we dig in our heels and cross our arms and refuse to go—I
find that often in my life—sometimes we we don’t bother to test the wind –were
oblivious to the wind.
I guess we have to
Remember what Jesus said that following the Spirit, that when we our born from
above we get to glimpse the kingdom of
God.
Not just the kingdom when
we take our last breath when our heart stops beating, but the Spirit takes us
there now- we get to walk in the kingdom now.
That’s the amazing thing about the last 16 years of my life is that when
I’ve followed—I have got to see God among us, I’ve got to meet God in so many
amazing people and watched him work in amazing situations and the kingdom has
opened right in front of me.
Today and every day I
invite you to wet your finger, to find the wind and go there—cause you know
what that’s where God is, that’s where God is working and that’s where the
kingdom resides here on earth.
Amen
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