SERMON: “…depending as our ancestors did upon the Holy Spirit…”

It was one of those nightmare spiritual direction sessions. Mary was a regular client, and had been wrestling hard with God. As is often the case, the God she had been given as a child in a very conservative Catholic home was rearing his ugly head, and she felt angry, hurt, and abused.

 

Now, normally, I do a lot more listening than I do talking, in spiritual direction. Mostly I just nod, say an encouraging “uh-huh,” and trust that the client and God are going to do most of the work. I just rent the space, watch the clock, and referee, when either God or the client get out of hand.

 

But sometimes, just sometimes, I feel compelled to say something. I usually resist this impulse, because, well, what do I know?

 

On this particular occasion, as Mary was tearfully agonizing over a God that didn’t deserve her, I felt this insistent nudge, and a complete sentence leaped into my head. Inwardly I recoiled at that thought. “I can’t say that,” I thought, “that’s malpractice!” And I ignored it, and just stayed present with my client.

 

But a few minutes later, there was that nudge again, and once again, that dangerous thought, fully formed in my mind.

 

In my mind’s eye I turned to God, who, inexplicably appeared to me as an insistant basset hound. “No,” I said firmly, “Bad god. Go away.” And I turned my attention once again to Mary.

 

But the dog god was not to be so easily rebuffed. A few minutes later, it felt like someone was poking me in the kidneys with an arrow. And again, this irresponsible sentence presented itself.

 

I didn’t know what to do. Or rather, I did know what to do, but I didn’t want to do it. Finally, I realized that God wasn’t going to shut up until he got what he wanted out of me, and if I wasn’t going to listen to him, I might as well go into some other business. So I screwed up my courage, opened my mouth, and let that horrible sentence fly.

 

“You know, your god sounds like a real jerk. Why don’t you fire his sorry butt and hire someone else?”

 

She looked at me as if I had just slapped her. “Can I do that?” she asked.

 

“Heck, I even have some pink paper, here,” I told her. “I’ll help you write out his pink slip.”

 

She looked transfigured, as if this thought had never occurred to her. She looked scared, but hopeful, too. I breathed a great sigh of relief when I realized that I was not in danger of a malpractice suit, and inwardly begging God to behave himself. 

 

God is not going to behave, however. It is not in God’s nature to behave according to culturally accepted norms and standards of behavior. As Lucy Pevensie says in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, “He’s not a tame lion, but he’s good.”

 

You can’t trust him to behave, but you CAN trust him to do the right thing in the long run. This is especially true when we are discussing the Holy Spirit, which, as the Gospel of John tells us, “lists where it will.”

 

Now the Holy Spirit gets kind of short shrift in Christianity these days. It’s kind of the afterthought in church teaching—and practice, for that matter.

 

But really, the Holy Spirit is that part of God with which we are most intimately concerned. Whilst God the Father is usually pictured as a remote, aloof, absentee landlord, and everyone loves Jesus, because he’s a nice guy and, arguably, has the Greatest Story Ever Told, it is the Holy Spirit that is that part of God that is actually here, rolling up her sleeves, and doing the hard work.

 

According to Christian theology, the Holy Spirit is that part of God that is also part of us, filling us, mystically uniting us to the Body of Christ, and therefore, to God. Because the Holy Spirit is in us, we are united to God, and have the wisdom of God at our disposal at all times. The Holy Spirit is that part of God that whispers to us, when we cooperate and get quiet enough to hear her, that is.

 

In the Feast of Pentecost, we celebrate that time when our reading from the prophet Joel came to pass, when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon all the earth, and the power and wisdom of God became available to all peoples, including you and me.

 

But it’s one thing to have power, to have wisdom, but it’s another thing to trust it. The problem is that in trusting God we put ourselves in a very vulnerable position, because often what the Holy Spirit counsels us to do just seems crazy, or irresponsible, or embarrassingly bad form. But as scripture reminds us, “God’s ways are not our ways,” and as I experienced with Mary, sometimes we have to take that leap of faith, and trust that what the Holy Spirit is poking at us about is really the right thing to do, scary as that might be.

 

But this is precisely what our covenant calls us to do, to depend upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit, just as our ancestors did.

 

It seemed easier somehow, when our ancestors did it. After all, it was THEM taking the risk, not us. But in truth, it was just as scary for them—and often even scarier, because there was often a lot more at risk for them than there is for us today.

 

Honestly, sometimes I just feel like a spiritual whiner. I can just hear God mocking me, “What? You don’t want to look like an idiot? You don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable? That’s nothing! Why not try contemplating burning at the stake sometime?” I realize this is a curmudgeonly game of “you think you’ve got it bad,” but when you play with saints, they can almost always trump you.

 

Which is humbling, and inspiring, because our tradition bears testimony to God’s faithfulness throughout the ages, in far more dire circumstances than you or I will ever face. Trusting God seems easy when there is little at stake, but when it’s your life or your family’s life, that’s hard.

 

Fortunately, there’s a learning curve, here. God isn’t asking us, here and now, to gamble everything. God is asking us to trust in small ways. Once we have learned that God is faithful in small things, we feel better about trusting him with the big things as well. Sure, it’s not terribly heroic, but it’s human, and God’s pretty good at working with humans. Didn’t used to be, but hey, even God has a learning curve, and is much better at it than he used to be.

 

And the Holy Spirit is always with us. Directing our dreams, pricking our conscience, making maddening suggestions to us when we’re trying to work responsibly. And here’s what we can trust—that God is not going to go away, that the Holy Spirit is always available to us, comforting us and whispering to us. She is, if nothing else, dependable. Relentless? Sure. Infuriating? Often. But dependable? Oh, yes. If only we will be quiet enough to hear her, and trusting enough to heed her. Let us pray…

 

Come, Holy Spirit,

Fill us with your wisdom, love, and power,

Help us to trust thy still small voice within us, to lead us into all truth,

And make of us a blessed community,

bearing witness to the world of they faithfulness.

For we ask this in the name of Jesus,

who had to go away so that you could come and minister to us. Amen.