A
Friend with Us (Easter 6C)
Homily delivered at Trinity Parish,
Ashland (OR)
Sunday May 1, 2016 8:00 a.m. said,
10:00 a.m. sung Holy Eucharist
The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP,
Ph.D.
God, take away our hearts of stone
and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.
and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.
At a
recent clergy gathering, I was asked what my most embarrassing moment in
ministry had been. I did not have to
think long. I already knew the
moment. After being regaled to several
hilarious stories by others, it was my turn to tell a story on myself. So I told them about my first Maundy Thursday
at Trinity. The service had gone
well. And we got to that most solemn,
heart-wrenching moment at the end of that gentle, loving service: the stripping
of the altar. The altar guild had
removed everything. There in the
darkened church, I began to wash the altar.
Lovingly, gently, like the women washing the body of Jesus. And then it happened. MY CELL-PHONE WENT OFF IN MY POCKET. LOUD.
INCESSANT. An unmistakable phone
call in my pants pocket, beneath my cassock. It would not stop. So there, in front of everyone, I had to
remove any doubt about just who was the graceless oaf who had not muted his
phone—I digged into my pocket and retrieved the offending piece of demonic
technology and turned it off. Then I
tried to calmly and quietly return to the task of washing the altar, as if
nothing had happened… The Worship
Committee and Altar Guild have never let me forget it.
Ever
since that moment of horror, I have been religious about muting my phone at the
start of Church Services and meetings. I
learned my lesson! Now I forget to
unmute it and sometimes miss important calls: from Elena when she needs help or
parishioners trying to get in touch with me.
My phone
doesn’t do me any good if I turn it off, or if I keep it muted all the time and
cannot here when people need me. As
important as it is to mute phones when they need to be muted, you must remember
to always turn them back on. Otherwise,
you might as well not have a phone. And
in this, I think, there is a lesson.
You need to be attentive to keeping the lines of communication
open.
Today’s
scriptures are all about, in one way or another, with us being in touch with
God, and God being in touch with us. The
reading from Acts portrays a scene where the early apostles are led by the Holy
Spirit to make major decisions on where to place their missionary efforts. And they find surprises in the process: a
wealthy non-Jewish woman who attends synagogue and is just right for hearing Paul’s
message. And they let her convince them,
seemingly against their better judgment, to make her home their base of
operations. The Psalm, a favorite of mine that was sung
when Elena and I celebrated 30 years of marriage by taking for the first time Christian
vows of marriage, tells of gentiles, the “nations,” “all the ends of the
earth,” also being welcomed to the hymn of thanks and praise sung to the one
God by his covenant people. The reading
from the Revelation of John tells of the final state of God’s created world, a
beautiful city without tears or darkness, where there is no need for temples or
churches, because God dwells with its inhabitants personally.
The
Gospel reading is part of the great farewell discourse in the Gospel of John,
given by Jesus just before he is “glorified,” what John calls Jesus’ being
handed over to suffering and death before his victory. Here, Jesus says he will not leave his
friends alone behind, bereft. He will go
away, but yet come back soon to them, by sending them “another, a
paraclete.” Parakletos means someone
called to stand beside you. Translated
verbally in Latin as Advocatus, we sometimes hear it translated as “Advocate,”
with the overtones of someone who stand beside us in court to defend us. But another way of understanding the word
comes from a very similar abstract noun, paraklesis, which means “a standing
with,” in the sense of someone who consoles and empathizes, a “Comforter.” But probably the best way of expressing for
us what John means here is found in Eugene Peterson’s The Message
translation: “The Friend, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will
send at my request” (John 14:26).
In
John, the evening of the Resurrection Jesus returns to his friends and says,
“Peace,” and then breathes on them adding, “receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:21-22). In Luke/Acts, the coming of the Holy Spirit
to the Church is placed on the day of Pentecost, after the Ascension of
Jesus. But John’s identification the two
appears to be the more ancient view:
Paul writing just a decade or so after Jesus’ death, says that “the
Lord” (that is, the Risen Jesus) “is the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:17)
A footnote for the curious: This early identification of the risen Jesus
made present to us with the Holy Spirit was the start of a three century long
process of doctrinal development that clearly distinguished between the second
and third persons of the Holy Trinity.
When the Creed in the 400s finally spelled it out, it relied on Scripture
when it said that the Spirit proceeds from the Father. Some scriptures suggest that the Spirit
proceeds from the Father through the Son, or, as here, in the form of the Son
made present to us. It was only later
that a local Church Council in Spain changed the Creed and added “and from the
Son.” Endorsed by the Bishop of Rome,
the change was never accepted by the Eastern Church and this was the cause of
the Great Schism between East and West in 1054.
Because the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion have said we ought to
return to the original form of the Creed as a sign of Christian unity, Trinity
Church’s vestry voted to use only the corrected Creed authorized by General
Convention in our liturgies. That’s why
you see those little stickers emending the Creed’s text on pages 358-59 of the
pew Prayer Books. End footnote.
Having this “Friend” beside us, the
Holy Spirit who makes Jesus present for us, is the basis of Christian spiritual
life.
It is a much abused concept. People say the Spirit inspired them to do
this or say that, to find a parking space here, or excommunicate that person,
or go to war. Simply because people
think the spirit is talking to them does not make it so.
We often hear at ordinations or at
Pentecost hymns to the Holy Spirit that refer to the “seven-fold gifts” of the
Spirit. These seven gifts of the spirit
in classical Christian theology are all taken from Isaiah 11:2-3: 1) wisdom, the capacity to rightly order
our loves, 2) understanding, to
comprehend how to put rightly-ordered love into practice, 3) counsel, actually to know the difference
between right and wrong, and choose to do what is right, 4) courage, to overcome the fears that
block our way in following God and taking risks for him, 5) knowledge, to perceive with certitude
the meaning of God and the universe, 6) reverence,
a deep respect for and humility before the Holy, and 7) fear of the Lord, a sense of wonder and awe at the beauty and
majesty of our Maker.
But Saint Paul gives a much more
practical guide. He says, "the
fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self control" (Gal 5:22).
Note that in today’s passage, the Holy Spirit has two functions: to “teach” us new things, and to “remind” us of what Jesus has already taught us (v. 26). This puts to rest the old conflict between standing with the tried and true versus being bold in seeking new truth.
I have had moments in my life where I know I felt the Spirit: peace, clarity, loving kindness, and courage. I felt it when I asked Elena to marry me. I felt it when I sought confirmation in the Episcopal Church, and when I recognized God’s call to me to be a priest. I have felt the gentle promptings from Jesus as I have counseled and consoled people, and as I have needed consolation and courage.
We need to mute phones to allow for concerts, worship, and uninterrupted time. But we must always remember to unmute them if we want to have others communicate with us. We are well advised to reason and study things out, to seek counsel and advice to help us get our bearings and direction. And it is wise to be cautious in making claims of “being guided by the Spirit,” if only to relieve God of the burden of having silly or wrong things chalked up to his account. But we need to listen. An active and regular prayer life as part of a rule of life, reading scripture as well as thoughtful, uplifting and even challenging books, a regular practice of contemplating beauty and serving others, and listening—all these are ways to help us unmute the spirit phone.
I invite us all this week to look at how we’re doing in pursuing such regular practice.
Jesus is here now, present for us. The spirit of love and holiness is here now. It is up to us to do what we can so that we might perceive this.
In the name of Christ, Amen
During our Rogation Sunday Procession at 9:00 a.m.
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