Come, Holy Spirit

When Jesus had his after-hours meeting with Nicodemus (Maybe the original Nick at Nite), he talked about the Spirit. Jesus said: “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” (John 3:8,9).

If Nicodemus, seasoned religious expert, sounds confused, is there hope for the rest of us? He gives us all permission to recognize that the movement of the Spirit is mysterious, often difficult to pin down, and really hard to predict. So we come to know the Spirit based on the effect the Spirit has, or perhaps as St. Paul puts it, we know the Spirit by the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22,23). But how does that all happen?

The collect we heard in church yesterday (above) reminds us that all is grace. The collect tells us that the Spirit comes to us as a gift, one that is unexpectedly expansive, probably more expansive than we might expect or even want. It is human nature to want to know who is in and who is out. We want to limit the influence of the Spirit so we can explain that influence, and perhaps control the movement of the Spirit.

But the Day of Pentecost as described in the Acts of the Apostles was anything but controlled. Holy chaos broke out, in a reversal of the Tower of Babel. The good news was mysteriously proclaimed in languages of those gathered in Jerusalem. It was like a rapid spreading fire. It was like the blast of a mighty wind. It was not the frozen chosen. I can imagine that members of the religious establishment were thinking: “Wait a minute. We’ve always known how things work. We’ve known who is to be included. We need religion to be predictable.” And of course, I can imagine hearing those six words most dreaded by clergy: “We’ve never done it this way.” Maybe not unlike the parishioner who couldn’t understand why her rector talked about reaching out in the community and practicing evangelism. She said: “In this town, everyone who ought to be Episcopalian already is.”

So when we pray “Come, Holy Spirit”, or when in the eucharist we pray for the Holy Spirit to bless gifts of bread and wine, or when we echo the psalm which asks “Take not thy Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51), we’d best be ready to fasten our seat belts. We’d best be ready for the circle to widen, to broaden our vision of who can be moved by God’s Holy Spirit, to get a surprising vision of holiness.

Yesterday’s collect tells us that the work of the Spirit is for every race and nation. These days, we could really use that kind of work. On a global, national, ecclesiastical, personal level, we contend with great energy around division, about defining self by excluding someone else. We build walls to decide who is in and who is out, imagining that they solve anything. Religious folks consider that they have a corner on the truth. We are made to fear the other.

We need the gift of the work of the Spirit. As we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, pray for the Spirit to come with surprising effect in your life and in your community. Pray for the power of the Spirit to knock down walls the divide us from each other. Pray for the fire of the Spirit to burn away resentments and the pride that fuels resentments. Pray for the wind of the Spirit to breathe new life into relationships that have gotten stuck or stale, our relationship with neighbors, maybe our relationship with God. Pray that your own circle be widened to extend the love of God in some new way, maybe in some way you hadn’t even expected. What might that look like in your week?

-Jay Sidebotham

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The gift of loving God

O God, I do not love you. I do not want to love you. But I want to want to love you.

-A prayer attributed to St. Teresa of Avila

The wisdom of Teresa, coming to us from the sixteenth century, makes the point we heard in church yesterday in the collect (above). In a word, we need help. The prayer signals our absolute dependence on God for all things, including the ability to love God. That kind of love comes as a gift for which we pray.

That may run counter to how we think about love, a many splendored thing. We may think that love is involuntary. We fall in love. It takes over. We may think that love is something we choose, a decision we make. It’s up to us.

Yesterday’s collect says something different. It says that even our ability to love God is a gift, a grace. That wisdom echoes what we heard in a prayer earlier in the Easter season as we ask God to increase in us gifts of faith, hope and charity, asking God to make us love what God commands.

If I take a good look in the mirror, with a searching spiritual inventory of my soul, I can admit that left to my own devices, I may be able to count on loving myself (looking out for number one), and probably not a whole lot more. It’s why I appreciate the candid prayer of St. Teresa.

It’s why the words of the confession in our liturgy provide a good starting point, being realistic about where we are. We confess that we have not loved God fully. We have not loved neighbor as self. There’s not a day that that is not true in my life. There’s always a way to grow in that regard. The growth can happen when we recognize we need God’s activity in our lives to make that happen, to be transformed. Heaven may be that place where such love is fully realized. It may not happen until then.

I recently read a story Jesus told (Luke 7:36-50). While visiting a home of a Pharisee (I sometimes wonder if they were the Episcopal clergy of the day), a woman of questionable reputation comes in and anoints Jesus’ feet with her tears, pouring expensive perfume on those dusty feet, drying those dirty feet with her hair, an intimate act of loving worship. Jesus compares her action to the ho-hum complacency of the Pharisee, who made no fuss about Jesus’ presence. Jesus says that one who has an awareness of being forgiven is more inclined to deep love than someone like this Pharisee who seems to think that God is lucky to have him on the team.

I’m wondering this morning what has prompted love of God in your life? Did that prompting feel like a gift? Did it feel like a choice? Was it some awareness of God’s grace, the knowledge of forgiveness, the glimmer of being on the receiving end of unconditional love? Was it some sense, amidst all the challenges of life, that we are surrounded by gift?

As you think about that, consider what the collect says about the love of God. It lets us know the love of God is our aim. That’s not because God is in need of affirmation or approval. Rather, the collect contends that love of God allows us to obtain the promises offered by God. In other words, it fulfills God’s best intention for us. It fits the way we were designed. With that in mind, think this week about the growth opportunity that lies before you to grow in love of God. If you’re not sure how to go about that, channel the feisty saint from the sixteenth century, St. Teresa, who prayed: I want to want to love you.

I’m guessing that’s a prayer we can each offer.

-Jay Sidebotham

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The Way

The collect we heard yesterday in church (above) is based on the gospel reading we also heard that day, an excerpt from Jesus’ farewell address to his disciples at the Last Supper. In that conversation, Jesus tells his disciples: “Let not your heart be troubled.” I’m mindful that the disciples at that critical moment, had plenty to be troubled about on the eve of Jesus’ arrest, torture and execution. Judas left that dinner table to betray. Peter promised not to deny Jesus right before he did three times. A rough evening.

As disciples wonder how to move forward, Jesus reassures them by saying: “I am the way, the truth and the life.” I’ve been thinking how that is different from saying that he knew the way, the truth and the life, which he did. It’s different than saying he would show the way, the truth and the life, which he did. It’s just one of the times that Jesus talks about himself in that way, beginning a sentence with the words: “I am.” In other places in John’s gospel, he says things like: I am the door. I am the vine. I am the light. I am the bread. Whenever Jesus begins a sentence with the words “I am,” it’s a loaded reference. For when Jesus says “I am,” he utters sacred words revealing the identity of God. YHWH can be translated “I am who I am.” Jesus is making a bold statement, to say the least, and it got him in a lot of good trouble.

But when he talks like that, it also represents a holy invitation. The way to truth and life comes in a personal relationship with the one who has risen and ascended, who in other words is not just an important historical figure, but is an active presence. How do we enter into relationship with that kind of presence?

Jesus’ final address to his disciples before he dies (John 13-17) seems to me to be about how the disciples are to stay in relationship with him after he has left them. He makes the audacious and mysterious suggestion that they could still do that. In John 15, he says that he was the vine and that the disciples would always be able to draw strength from him as the vine’s branches. Jesus extended an invitation to the disciples in the upper room to stay in relationship with him. He extends that invitation to us as well.

So what do you make of that idea of an ongoing, personal relationship with Jesus? Do you think that’s possible? It may sound weird or spooky. It’s mysterious, for sure. It may sound irrational and unscientific. It may not sound like the way that Episcopalians talk. Maybe it helps to think of it like any other relationship.

Like any relationship, it involves spending time together. When it comes to relationship with the Holy One, that sounds to me like contemplation, meditation, prayer. It involves learning about the other person, which we can do through scripture and by hanging out with a community of Jesus followers. It involves being present where Christ is present. I find that kind of presence in the bread and wine. Where do you find it? That kind of presence can be discovered in each other, and especially in those who are pushed to the edges who experience suffering. It can be found in service to those folks, as in baptism, we promise to meet the Christ present in all persons, even when Christ comes very well disguised.

I’ve appreciated the way that the baptismal service frames this kind of relationship with Jesus. When someone is to be baptized, they get asked a few questions:

1.    Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?

2.    Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?

3.    Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?

These are three strong ways to describe a relationship with the living Christ. What ways make sense to you this Monday morning. This week, what steps can you take to deepen your relationship with the risen Christ, the one who said and says: “I am the way.”

-Jay Sidebotham

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RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

Feeling Sheepish

Knowing nothing about sheep, I spoke with a friend whose son has 400 sheep in Vermont. She said that sheep are simply as dumb as a post. Asked what she meant, she said that unless they are led, sheep will walk along, nosing towards the next piece of grass even if they are walking into a blazing fire or over the edge of a cliff. They need a shepherd.

I probably could have deduced that from scripture which again and again speaks of our relationship to God as similar to that between shepherd and flock, beginning with Moses, himself a shepherd, leading the complaining, clueless children of Israel through the wilderness. Psalms (not only the 23rd) speak of the joys of having a shepherd who walks us through the valleys. Psalms speak of how dangerous it is to be without a shepherd. The prophets warn of false shepherds, as did Jesus, particularly in the tenth chapter of the gospel of John, which is always our focus on the fourth Sunday of Easter (yesterday).

Yesterday’s collect (above) makes that point. Our liturgy picks up the need for a shepherd, particularly in the conclusion of the burial office, where we commend the person that we love but see no longer to the care of the good shepherd. We pray: The God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant: Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight; through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

So, fellow sheep, how do we get our noses out of the grass and enter into relationship with the one who is called the good shepherd?

Yesterday’s collect gives us three ideas.

First, it’s a matter of hearing his voice. It’s not exactly a newsflash to say that we are surrounded by a lot of noise. Many voices call to us at once. In all that racket, it’s easy to just keep grazing along without really knowing what we are hearing. That is where it is important to carve out quiet time, not always easy to do. Are you in any way able to have a daily dose of silence? We hear the voice of the good shepherd in attentiveness to scripture. That’s why in the work of RenewalWorks we speak of the importance of embedding scripture in everything we do. We hear the voice of the good shepherd in paying attention to the pain in the world. What are the voices that command your attention? Amidst them all, can you hear the voice of the good shepherd?

Second, it involves coming to know the one who speaks that voice. I’m finishing up a pilgrimage in the Holy Land. There’s a historical dimension to that knowledge, learning to know about Jesus, getting a sense of a real human being, with real family and friends and enemies who lived in this part of the world.

But there’s a deeper dimension involved. It’s not just knowing about Jesus. It’s the marvelous and mystical dimension of knowing Jesus, knowing him personally as the living, active and gracious good shepherd, calling to us right now. What do you make of that idea of knowing Jesus the good shepherd? I confess for me it is often challenging. I’m working on embracing it.

Third, it’s about following, again getting moving (another RenewalWorks principle). It’s not just thinking about where I find the next blade of grass, where I get my next meal, what’s the next thing to do on the to-do list. It may mean stepping out into the unknown. It may mean following into a place of risk. It may mean going to a place of change. It may mean leaving what is comfortable. The truth of our faith is that the good shepherd meets us where we are, but loves us too much to leave us there. How might you be a follower this week?

The hearing, the knowing, the following represent our hope. I love the last stanza of Hymn 645, “The King of Love” that references the parable of the lost sheep. It goes like this:  Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed, but yet in love he sought me; and on his shoulder gently laid, and home, rejoicing, brought me.

That homecoming hope rests with the good shepherd. How will you listen for his voice this week?

-Jay Sidebotham

Interested in RenewalWorks for your parish? Learn more about how RenewalWorks works!

RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth