The Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A

An Altar on Every Street Corner

Readings: Acts 17:22-31; Psalm 66:8-20; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21

Paul is in Athens preaching in the Areopagus. It is a quiet place where speakers can present their ideas to those who gather to listen. There, people are able to speak freely without interruption. Freedom to speak out about your beliefs and concerns is typical of this centre of Greek culture. Athens is a cosmopolitan city where people are cultured, eager to learn, well read. Here lies the difficulty for Paul, for this is a city overloaded with statues and altars, an altar on every street corner. They worship many gods. And when they are unsure which of their gods has helped them, they set up yet another altar to an unknown god.

Paul sees and judges the city as an apostle of Jesus Christ. Before he even gets to Athens he is feeling down about his mission. He has had little success in establishing a faith community in the Greek world. He views their lifestyle, their secularism, their materialism, their indifference to his message with disdain. He is indignant to find so many pagan symbols in this cultured and beautiful city. He is not enthused by its historical and art treasures. And so he finds himself presenting his views to anyone who will listen.

"I found an altar to an unknown god,” Paul begins. He understands their hunger for spiritual knowledge; he can see it in their responses. He proclaims the Spirit to the Athenians who somehow knew that such a Spirit existed but were unable to name it. He tells them about the God he worships, the Creator of the world, the one true God who does not need temples or sacrifices. He tells them about God who needs only that humanity should seek out and find; God who longs to be known, not fashioned in human or animal form, but known as one who is present; God who longs to be in relationship with humankind.

The altar to the unknown god! What a haunting image that is! What a haunting image it must have been to Paul who served a living God, whose image of God was of one who cared so much that he became one of us, that he died for us.

What Paul said of the Athenians could well be said of our own culture. Statistics show that one in three people in Canada will not attend a single church service this year. We are becoming an unchurched society. Yet many of those same people who never attend church are groping for spiritual fulfillment. Our groping for God, our searching, our longing, is all part of the human condition. People are seeking, but sadly they are not seeking in our churches.

Did it amaze you as it did me how much interest there was last weekend in the possibility that the world was going to come to a sudden and disastrous end? The search for God can take on surprising and frightening elements. Movements predicting the end of the world have surfaced from time to time, but it seemed different somehow as the media listened and took to the airwaves. It is an indicator of how spiritually hungry people are.

Our concern should be why they are not searching for spiritual fulfillment in the Christian Church. At least it should concern us if we, like Paul, know God as our creator, as the one in whom we "live and move and have our being." Can we proclaim that one to the world, because if we cannot how can we expect them not to build "altars to unknown gods"?

And what altars we humans build! Our gods are many, gods of greed, gods of power, gods of lust. We live in a society that needs to know God. It is often difficult to judge whether churchgoers themselves really have a relationship with God. It is difficult to see what difference God makes in their daily lives. It is difficult to recognize any sense of commitment on their part.

Do you know that God is present with you? Do you look with expectation for an answer to your prayers? Do you believe that God makes a difference in your life? If we as the People of God don't really know that God is present to us, how will we ever convince those who are seeking God? People are looking for answers to their spiritual thirst. They are looking for meaning. They are looking for ritual. They are looking for answers to the difficult questions of our age. They are looking for help in making ethical and moral decisions. Who better than Christians to offer them answers?

The first step, of course, is getting to know God in that way ourselves. We need to know and experience God in the same way Paul did. We must know and search out that living God, that God who is present in our lives, not just on Sundays, but every day of our lives.

It is there so clearly in the gospel. Jesus is speaking to the disciples about his need to leave. "God's purpose," he is saying "comes about not through a cold exercise of the will, but by the warm and personal love of the disciple for the teacher." That love is not a one way street. When we reach out to understand and know God, then God reaches out to us. We are not alone. God has sent another Advocate, the Spirit of truth, to be with us. We are not orphans.

That is the profound truth of the Gospel. It is the profound truth of our baptism. It is the most important message to proclaim to a world that searches for unknown gods. Jesus was an advocate for the disciples. He walked with them. He prayed for them. He guided them. He sent the Spirit to continue in that advocacy. The same promise holds true for us. The Spirit of God is within us. In that Spirit we “live and move and have our being.” Love has created a bond that transcends death. It unites us with God. It allows us to encounter the living Christ. We experience him in our hearts.

How do we experience the power of the Spirit at work in our lives? This passage gives us a sense of the bereavement the disciples felt at the loss of their beloved leader. When someone close to you dies, the sense of loss can be overwhelming. And yet we know that the relationship continues. It is different but it continues just the same. We explore our relationship in a different way. We all suffer from the same haunting sense of loss. It is part of the human condition. It causes us to question God’s love. Most of us would admit that it is at times of trouble that we find ourselves turning to God and experiencing God reaching out to us. That makes such sense, because those are the times that we are most open to inviting God to be present to us. Those are the times when we allow God’s Spirit to comfort us.

How do we hold on to that sense of the Spirit at work in us? Certainly there are people who look for signs that the Spirit is present in them. They look for gifts. They seek manifestations. They want to pray in tongues or be slain in the Spirit. They set themselves up as prophets of doom as Camping did last weekend.

The fact is we do not need that kind of sign. We demonstrate the Spirit at work in our lives not by ecstatic manifestations or supernatural gifts but through sacrificial acts of love. We experience God at work in our lives, then we let it happen to others through us. We allow our relationship with God to grow through prayer, through reading of Scriptures and through study of God’s word. Then we risk.

Are we able as a church to allow the Spirit to work within us, to reach out to the community, to draw new people in? Are we able to minister to those already in our midst? Are we able to be relevant at this crucial time in the Church's history? The answer lies in our ability to allow God to be present in our midst. It lies in our ability to experience God "in whom we live and move and have our being."

Pentecost, Year C

An Eyewitness Account

Readings: Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:25-35; Romans 8:14-17; John 14:8-17, 25-27

"I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever." That is what Jesus told us just before he ascended. “The Spirit of truth will be in you. It was clear to all of us. We knew even as Jesus was speaking to us that we would not be left alone. God’s Spirit would be with us, working in us, helping us in our daily lives. The same spirit that guided Jesus in everything he did would dwell in us. Jesus even thought that we, those he taught, those of us who walked with him during those wonderful days of his ministry in Galilee, he actually thought that we would be able to accomplish even more than he himself had been able to do. He healed the sick. He made the lame walk. I even saw him raise Lazarus from the dead. And he said that we would do even greater things than he himself had done!

We couldn’t even imagine it! We had been so afraid of what would happen to us in those days following his death and Resurrection. And then he would be there, filling the room with that wonderful sense of peace that we had always sensed around him. What a joy it was to see him again, to be with him. We had all hoped that he would never leave again. So when he told us that he was leaving, when we realized we were losing him all over again, it was heartbreaking. But Jesus said that we would be God filled. Even as he was saying it, my heart stirred with anticipation. I know how badly the world is in need of Jesus’ transforming grace. He did so much in the short time he was with us. To be able to continue that work would be wonderful.

Jesus told us to wait for the fulfillment of his words. While we were still grieving his departure from us, still it filled us with such excitement. Small groups of us were gathering whenever we could for prayer and to support one another. We would share the good things that were happening in our lives. We would break bread together as Jesus had taught us. It was not very long afterward, just a few days, actually on the day of Pentecost that the whole community of Christians got together. There must have been fifty of us in one small room. You will never believe what happened next. It started with a roaring sound. Like a rushing wind. It was so loud that it filled the whole house. The house shook with the power of the wind. Then I saw it. It was hovering over Thomas. A flame of fire! Then I noticed that it was not just over Thomas. It was over each one of us. And we were transformed. It was amazing to see. We knew immediately that it was exactly what Jesus had promised. The Holy Spirit had been given to us.

And that is only the beginning. The rest of the story is equally amazing. We felt empowered to leave the safety of our meeting place. We headed out into the streets of Jerusalem. You know we have been afraid to proclaim our beliefs. We have been afraid to say too much about Jesus’ Resurrection. But here we were, speaking to anyone who would listen. The look on peoples' faces as we all poured out of that little house. Then I found myself talking to a man from Mesopotamia. You know how shy I am. And yet there I was talking to a complete stranger about Jesus. And you know what? He could understand what I was saying. He kept saying to me, “You're not Mesopotamian. Where did you learn to speak my language?” I looked around me. All around the square were clusters of people listening to us talking about Jesus. There were people from all over the world. Asia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Lybia. They all understood what we were saying. They all heard the story about Jesus’ death and Resurrection. Some people actually thought we were drunk. I can certainly understand why.

Then Peter got up and preached. You should have heard him. What a powerful sermon it was! He explained that we were not drunk, but that God’s Holy Spirit had filled us, not with new wine, but with the wine of Christ. So many people turned to Christ that day.

But you know, it was not just about that day. It has made such a difference in my life. I simply cannot explain it to you. It is as if all the gifts that I have had my whole life have suddenly come to fruition. I am no longer tongue tied when it comes to sharing my faith. I see the same change in my friends and family. Our little Christian community is growing by leaps and bounds. It is a constant reminder to us that Jesus is alive and victorious. It is an affirmation that God's promises are true.

That is a fictional account of what might have taken place on Pentecost. Pentecost is an important event in the life of every Christian. We all need to find a way to express what happened at Pentecost in our lives. Jesus makes it clear that, just as the Spirit was made available to the disciples, so the Spirit would be with us working in us. We too are called to be enthused with the Spirit, to be God filled.

The experience of Pentecost is about how we begin to express that in our lives. Sometimes there are no words to express what we want to say about God. We grope for the right words. We sit in silence and soak in the beauty of a sunset. We dance. We sing. We pray. We express the Spirit in whatever way is right for us.

Do we really know that the Spirit is in us? The Spirit waits to be released and used as the greatest resource for living that we possess. Pentecost is about the energy and strength that come from being enlivened by God’s Spirit. It is about freedom from fear. It is about releasing us from being tongue tied about the faith. It is about the power to transform lives. It is about celebrating the diverse ways in which God’s Spirit works.

But most of all, it is about doing greater things than Jesus did. “The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these.” Can we even comprehend that? It is not enough to simply go on thinking that what we do is enough. Jesus healed the sick. He ate and drank with outcasts and sinners. He freed people from bondage.

We all have Spiritual gifts. If we used our gifts as God would have us, they could transform the world. The mark of a gift of God is its ability to transform those it touches. Which gifts can you identify in yourself? Which gifts can you see in others in our community? Reflect for a moment about the gift that is yours. Is it your gift to bring joy or hope to others? Do you have a gift of compassion? Are you one who easily encourages others and brings out the best in them? Do you bear the prophetic word? Do you have a dream for this place? Are you a visionary?

Whatever your gift, I encourage you to name it. Write it down on the piece of paper in your bulletin and place it on the offering plate. No one will read it. It will simply be offered in thanksgiving. Our gifts are the means of transformation for God’s creation. God continues through the Spirit to teach us, to be with us, to bring peace. Amen.

The Baptism of the Lord, Year B

The Spirit Working in Us

Readings: Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11

During this season of Epiphany we focus on how God is made known to us. Today we read in Scripture of how God is revealed to us through the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In the Old Testament reading, the spirit is revealed as “a wind from God which swept over the face of the waters.” The creating spirit of God hovered over the waters, the source of life. In the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Paul points out to the people of Ephesus that the Holy Spirit should have been the great gift of their baptism. He is surprised to find their lack of understanding at how God is revealed. He wants them to experience the Holy Spirit in their lives as a gift of grace. Finally in the Gospel, God is made manifest through the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River.

The Jews were constantly looking for God’s revelation. But they came to a time in their spiritual life as we all do when God seemed not to be present with them. As God became more and more absent in their lives, they looked back with yearning to the days of the prophets when God had been very much a part of their experience. They felt as if the Holy Spirit had been absent since those days. The voice of God which had spoken to the prophets was heard now only as an echo. They looked for the time when the sky would be opened and God would once more speak directly to the people.

And then it happened! Jesus came to John to be baptised. The heavens opened. The dove hovered over him. God called out words of affirmation. “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Clearly in Mark’s Gospel the voice is Jesus’ personal experience. The onlookers are unaware of what is happening. But we who read the Gospel are to understand it as a revelation, a manifestation to us, the people of God. Through it we are to understand Jesus’ unique relationship to God, and his call to ministry.

But we are called to understand far more. For this incident in our Lord’s life is within the experience of each of us. We are intended to experience that same descent of the dove in our own lives. We are to experience God’s presence in our lives. How is God revealed to us? Where for us is the deep sense of peace, the sense that our wills and that of God are in harmony? Where is the sense of a presence from whom we receive affirmation of our call to ministry?

When I was leaving my teaching position to prepare for ordination my colleagues had a farewell for me. One of my good friends gave me a lovely gift, a glass swan on a mirror. She explained that it was intended as a ‘marker’. Her mother had always marked special occasions in her life, graduation, changes in her job and so on, with something that she could treasure and keep. She wanted me to have such a marker for my own life. I do treasure that keepsake that she gave me. Yet I know that in my life is a far more significant ‘marker’, one that in pursuing ordination I was attempting to live out. For at my baptism I was marked with the sign of the cross and made Christ’s own for ever.

In our Baptismal preparation we remind parents of that marker in their child’s life. We remind them first of all that baptism is a sacramental act. There is an outward and visible sign, the water that is used to remind us of our need to be renewed, to be cleansed, to die to sin, to be reborn. But there is also that invisible ‘marker’, that inward and spiritual grace that is given that carries us throughout our lives. As we are baptised we become part of the new life in Christ. We share in Christ’s power through the baptismal covenant. We are called by baptism to serve. It is, in effect, our ordination.

At baptism we are promised God’s gift of grace working in our lives. However, like the Ephesians we may not even be aware that there is a Holy Spirit at work in our lives. What is more, our lack of commitment to spiritual things may make it difficult for others to see God in us. We separate the Spirit from our mainline faith traditions, relegating it to the naïve or to certain denominations. Oh! We trot the Spirit out at Pentecost! But we are suspicious of people who are enthusiastic about the faith. We are suspicious of people who study scripture, who pray, and who share their faith. Or we think that we simply do not know enough about our faith to share it with anyone and we are certainly not going to expose our lack of knowledge by attending a Bible Study or a Prayer meeting.

How do we recover that sense of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit as the source of our gifts? We need to experience the Holy Spirit at work in us with the understanding that such encounters with God are God’s gift to every Christian. We need to expect that God will meet us in our everyday lives. God is constantly revealed to us and in us to others. Each new discovery takes us deeper into relationship with God. It is not about knowing everything there is to know about God; it is about knowing God. What a great thing that is to experience in our lives!

No matter at what stage of our Christian life we may be, there is possible a deeper encounter with God who waits to enter our experience. We must be prepared to search and to be open to such a possibility. We cannot be self-satisfied. We must journey into a maturing and deepening spirituality. Each new discovery takes us deeper. It becomes a new beginning, a new birthing, a renewal of our baptism.

In a few minutes we will welcome into the body of Christ our newest member, Andrew. As he commits himself to Christ, we will renew our baptismal covenant. May it bring to us that deep sense of peace, that sense that our wills and that of God are in harmony, that sense of the presence of God in our lives, and our willingness to become all that God calls us to be. May it be a time when we understand that we are beloved children of God. May it be an epiphany for each one of us. Amen.