Pray the Jesus Way

Here is the transcript of my latest podcast, 'Pray the Jesus Way'. It is based on the Gospel reading for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity.

The Sixth Sunday after Trinity

Reading: Luke 11:1-13

In St Luke’s Gospel particularly, Jesus is regularly described as praying. In our reading, Jesus has been praying ‘in a certain place’; we are not told where. This prompts one of Jesus’ disciples, we are not told which one, to ask him to teach them to pray ‘as John taught his disciples. ‘John’ here is John the Baptist. Some of Jesus’ followers had previously been disciples of John the Baptist, so they would have known first-hand what John taught his disciples.

Prayer was an essential part of Jewish society. Jews prayed three times a day, and prayer was a central part of synagogue and Temple life. The disciples, then, would have been used to praying. The key part of this request to Jesus lies in the phrase ‘as John taught his disciples’. What Jesus’ disciples are asking is for Jesus to teach them what to pray for. They want to know what the subject or content of their prayer should be. In reply, Jesus gives them a prayer to say.

This prayer became known as the Lord’s Prayer, and it is one of the best-known of all prayers, although it is more accurately described as the Disciples’ Prayer. This is a prayer for those who have become followers of Jesus. The Lord’s Prayer exists in three versions. This version in St Luke’s Gospel is the shortest. The longer version in St Matthew’s Gospel is the version we are most familiar with. There also exists another version in a document called the Didache (Didache 8).

The Didache is most probably a late first century text. The full title of it is, ‘The Lord's Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations’. The version of the Lord’s Prayer in the Didache is essentially the same as that in St Matthew’s Gospel. The Didache tells believers to pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day. The importance of the version in the Didache and the teaching that goes with it, however, is that it shows how quickly the Lord’s Prayer became an integral part of the prayer life of believers, both corporately and individually. Nowadays, the Lord’s Prayer is prayed everywhere, often by people who have little connection with the Church or the Christian faith.

When I was growing up in the UK, every child would learn to say the Lord’s Prayer by heart, and it was said together by the whole school at the school assembly every day. This is less common today, but the Lord’s Prayer is still taught in church schools, and many remain familiar with it more widely. Despite this familiarity, however, very few would be able to tell you what it means. Even amongst church-goers, many would struggle to explain what it is they think they are asking for when they pray the Lord’s Prayer. Its use is more symbolic. We pray it because it is the Lord’s Prayer. It’s what we should do. And so it is, for example, prayed in every church service, prayed, that is, but not understood.

This lack of understanding when praying the Lord’s Prayer is somewhat ironic, as in St Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 6:5-15), Jesus, in his introduction to the prayer, tells his disciples not to heap up ‘empty phrases’ as the Gentiles do. Jesus warns against using ‘many words’. There is no need for them, Jesus explains, as the disciples’ Father knows what they need before they ask him for it. It is after saying this that Jesus teaches the disciples the Lord’s Prayer, which is itself a short prayer. The version in our reading from St Luke’s Gospel is even shorter than the version we typically use.

All of this seems very straightforward, no matter how hard it might still be in practice. It is, however, not quite as straightforward as it may initially seem. Firstly, especially in St Luke’s Gospel, Jesus himself is portrayed as a role model in prayer (Luke 5:16). Jesus prays regularly and often all night (Luke 6:12). It is seeing Jesus pray that leads the disciple in our reading to ask Jesus to teach the disciples to pray. So, what did Jesus himself pray, and how could it take all night?

Secondly, Jesus also teaches the importance of persistence in prayer. This is one of the points of the teaching that Jesus gives in our reading following Lord’s Prayer. The disciples are to ‘ask, seek, and knock’; they are not to give up. Then later, in chapter 18 of St Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells a parable of a widow who gets justice from a judge, not because the judge thinks her cause is just, but because she persists in asking him for it. The judge gives her justice just to get her to leave him alone!

So, Jesus gives a short prayer and warns against many words, but he then encourages his followers to be persistent in prayer and to keep praying. There is both a paradox and a challenge to us here when it comes to how we should pray.

In seeking to understand the Lord’s Prayer itself, we should note not only its brevity but that it is a prayer for those who are Jesus’ followers. In the past, the Lord’s Prayer has been taught to everyone routinely without also teaching people about the importance of having a relationship with God in Christ. The prayer begins, ‘Father’. It assumes that a relationship with God has already been established. Now some may ask whether God isn’t everyone’s father naturally, and the answer from a New Testament perspective is, no.

In chapter ten of St Luke’s Gospel, when the 70 (or 72) return from the work Jesus has given them to do and have reported their success, Jesus rejoices in the Holy Spirit and prays thanking God for revealing these things to them. Jesus continues to say:

‘All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.’ (Luke 10:22)

As his chosen people, the Jewish people did see God as their Father, but Jesus takes seeing God as our Father to a new level. Jesus spoke in Aramaic, and the word he used in Aramaic for father is ‘abba’. St Mark records Jesus’ actual use of the word ‘abba’ in addressing God in Jesus’ prayer in the garden of Gethsemane on the night he is arrested (Mark 14:36). Jesus’ use of this word impressed itself on his disciples, and so special was it to them, that they continued to use it in Aramaic even in a Greek-speaking environment. St Paul uses it in his letters to both the Galatian and the Roman believers (Galatians 4:6; Romans 8:15).

It is sometimes said in sermons that ‘abba’ was the word used by very young children at the time of Jesus and was the equivalent of ‘daddy’ in English. This is not true. It is the word that was used by all family members whatever their age; what is true is that it is an intimate word speaking a close relationship between a son or daughter and their father. The Lord’s Prayer begins with and is rooted in our relationship with God as our Father.

Turning to the Lord’s Prayer itself, there are 5 petitions in the version in St Luke’s Gospel. Using traditional language, they are:

1. Hallowed be your name

2. Your Kingdom come

3. Give us each day our daily bread

4. And forgive us our sins, for we forgive everyone indebted to us

5. And lead us not into temptation.

Let us look briefly at each petition:

1. Hallowed be your name

Keeping the traditional language highlights at once a problem we have with the Lord’s Prayer. The very familiarity of the words obscures their meaning. Does anyone talk about hallowing things nowadays? To hallow is to treat something as holy, but that does not add much clarity. One translation has, ‘Honoured be your name’ (NET Bible), which is much better, but what does it mean to honour God’s name?

The thinking behind this is that the name represents the person. God’s name is about who he is. The Lord’s Prayer begins not with us and what we want of God but with God himself. The Hebrew prophets express the importance of God’s name being honoured. What is more, it is God himself who will cause his name to be honoured. For example, in an important passage in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, which is worth quoting in full, God says through the prophet:

‘So I poured out my wrath upon them for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for the idols with which they had defiled it. I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries; in accordance with their conduct and their deeds I judged them. But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name, in that it was said of them, “These are the people of the Lord, and yet they had to go out of his land.” But I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations to which they came. 

Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when through you I display my holiness before their eyes.’ (Ezekiel 36:19-23)

Likewise, Jesus wants his disciples to make God’s honour a priority. We begin the Lord’s Prayer by praying for God to be treated with the respect he deserves.

As a mark of respect, many Jews won’t use the name of God, not even when writing it. They will write G-d. You can see an example of a Jewish writer being careful in their use of God’s name in St Matthew’s Gospel where St Matthew changes references to the ‘Kingdom of God’ to ‘Kingdom of heaven’. We can learn from this. But there is more to honouring God’s name than not using it lightly or flippantly as a swear word, although that in itself would be a start. The popular exclamation, ‘O My God’, for example, is not one that we should be using as believers.

People are not honouring God’s name even more, however, when they deny or question his existence, for example. Or when we fail to take him seriously or accuse him of wrong-doing. Nor are we honouring God’s name when we see the worship of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as just one option among many. To honour God’s name is to exclude all other names.

This is a much-needed petition, as God is not treated with respect in our world, and the sad thing is that we as believers contribute to this lack of respect by our behaviour and failure to keep Jesus’ commands, not least his command to love one another. One day, God will cause his name to be honoured. Until then, we honour it by taking God seriously, worshipping him alone as those who belong to him.

2. Your Kingdom come

This petition would have had a great deal of meaning to the first disciples, but, again, to us, not so much. In the first place, Kings, seen as supreme rulers over a kingdom, are now largely a thing of the past. What is more, a longing for God’s Kingdom is not an intrinsic part of our life and the focus of our hope as believers in the way it was for those who had previously been disciples of John the Baptist and who had become disciples of Jesus because they thought he was the One John spoke of who would bring about God’s Kingdom on earth.

What the disciples were looking for was for God’s rule to come in this world and for everyone to be subject to it. For them, God’s rule wasn’t something that existed solely in a heavenly realm that would only be experienced after death. God’s rule was about God ruling on earth. God’s rule, they believed, would mean peace on earth and an end to sickness, suffering, and death. But it would also mean the defeat of Satan, the punishment of wrong-doers, and an end to sin and its effects.

God’s rule, the Kingdom of God, was at the heart of Jesus’ preaching. Jesus in his ministry gives a preview of what this will look like. This is what Jesus’ miracles are all about. They are not just supernatural acts designed to impress, but signs of what God’s rule on earth will mean in practice. God’s rule will ultimately only come when Jesus comes again, when, as St Paul puts it, ‘at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10-11).

In the meantime, by praying for God’s rule to come, believers also commit themselves to living under it now. This means obeying God and following Jesus as our ruler as we live our lives in a world that is not yet subject to God’s rule. Not only as individuals but also together as a Church, we are to embody God’s rule and demonstrate what it means in the practical day to day business of life. We hope that as we demonstrate what God’s rule looks like that some will be drawn to it, while realizing that, sadly, many will rebel against it.

3. Give us each day our daily bread

At first sight, this seems one request that is clear and which we can understand. We are asking our Father to provide us with the food we need to live. Later in St Luke’s Gospel, Jesus will teach his disciples not to be anxious about their life, what they will eat and what they will wear (Luke 12:22-34). Their Father, Jesus will tell them, knows they need food, drink, and clothing, and he can be trusted to provide it. God will, however, provide what we need, not what we want. As we will see next week, Jesus teaches people not to store up riches in this life (Luke 12:13-20) and warns of the dangers of doing so.

Our prayer as Jesus’ followers, then, is a simple one that God will provide us with what is essential for life, knowing that he has promised to do so. Given, however, that God has made such a promise, do we need to ask him for even the basics? Can’t we just take it as a given that he will do as he says? The answer is that by praying for our food, we are accepting that we don’t have a right to it, but that it is graciously and kindly provided for us by God.

But more than that, by asking God to provide for us, we are recognizing that we need God to give us our food. We are acknowledging that we are not self-sufficient in anything. Everything we have is given to us as a gift from God our Father. We do not even provide for our own most basic needs. St Paul writes to believers in the Church at Corinth:

‘What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?’ (1 Corinthians 4:7)

The petition in the Lord’s Prayer for bread is not just a request for food but is an open statement of our dependency on God as the One who gives us everything we have.

4. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us

Sadly, we don’t honour God’s name as we should; we don’t submit to his rule in our lives; and we don’t want to depend on him for everything, preferring instead to assert our self and our claim to independence and freedom. In other words, we sin. Sin, in the first place, is against God. The Psalmist writes:

‘Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight …’ (Psalm 51:4)

It is as we pray the first petitions of the Lord’s Prayer that we become aware of just how much we fail as followers of Jesus.

All sin is sin against God, but we don’t only sin against God, we sin against others as well, even hurting those we love the most, whether simply by an unkind word or by a more serious betrayal.

The good news of the Gospel is that forgiveness is not only at the heart of the Lord’s Prayer, it is at the heart of what Jesus came to do and of what he now offers us. In Jesus’ ministry, we see him offering the forgiveness that will become the message the Church is entrusted to preach. Whether it is to the paralyzed man let down through the roof (Luke 5:17-26) or to the woman who washes his feet with her tears when he goes to dinner with a Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50), Jesus offers forgiveness to all who need it. None are excluded. After Jesus’ resurrection, when he appears to the disciples, Jesus will tell them that ‘repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem’ (Luke 24:47).

The forgiveness we see Jesus offering in the Gospels and which he makes possible by his death, we are now to offer people in his name.

We do this with no sense of moral superiority. We are all sinners who need forgiving. We fail, but we are not overcome by our failure, as we know that forgiveness is offered by God to all those who confess their sins. But not only are we to tell other people that Jesus offers forgiveness, we too are ourselves to forgive those who sin against us. We are to model forgiveness in our lives.

Let’s be honest, it can be difficult to forgive, especially when the sin against us has gone deep and caused real pain, but those who are aware of their own sins and the hurt they have caused, not only to others but more especially to God, cannot refuse to forgive. A failure to forgive others means we don’t really appreciate the reality of our own sin and how utterly unworthy we are to receive God’s forgiveness.

5. And lead us not into temptation

Which brings us to the final petition. It seems an obvious enough request, but this petition has proved to be one that many people have difficulty with, including Pope Francis no less. It is argued that for us to ask God not to lead us into temptation, we are suggesting that it is possible for God to lead us into sin, something that our Lord’s brother rejects out of hand. St James writes:

‘No one, when tempted, should say, 'I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one.’ (James 1:13)

Concerns such as these have led people to try to interpret the phrase in a way which avoids any suggestion that God is responsible for us being tempted. Some have argued that a better translation is ‘time of trial’ and the request is to be spared the final trial that they believe will happen at the end of this age before Jesus returns. If that is what Jesus meant, it isn’t very clear from the text and context. Others argue that what Jesus has in mind is not temptation to sin but testing of our faith. Translating the Greek word ‘test’ rather than ‘temptation’ may appear to soften the request, but in the Old Testament not only does God test his people, he tests them by putting them in situations where they are able to sin. We should accept the translation ‘temptation’ and ask what it means, rather than trying to side-step the issue.

Firstly, we need be clear that however we understand this petition, Jesus does not tell us to ask God not to tempt us to sin. We are to ask God not to lead us into situations where we may be tempted to sin, which is very different. St Paul expresses well the nature of the temptations we face. St Paul writes:

‘No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.’ (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Secondly, the Lord’s Prayer expresses negatively what is in fact a positive sentiment. It is because we are aware of our weakness having just asked God for forgiveness that we ask God to keep us from situations where we might be vulnerable to sin and find ourselves in spiritual danger.

In the same way that by praying for God to give us our daily bread, even though he has already promised to do just that, we are expressing our dependency on God, so too by praying for God not to lead us into temptation, we are acknowledging our weakness and dependence on him to keep us from falling. By asking God not to lead us into temptation, we are in reality asking him to lead us out of it!

The final petition in St Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer is, then, a recognition of our weakness and an implicit prayer for protection.

The Lord’s Prayer is both a prayer for us to pray and a template for us to use for our prayers. This then is the answer to our original paradox. As a prayer to pray, the Lord’s Prayer is short and reminds us that prayer is not about how many words we use, but the God we address them to. As a template for our own prayers, the Lord’s Prayer gives us enough to keep us up all night!

In answer to the disciples’ request for Jesus to teach them how to pray, Jesus gives them words to use and guide them. Jesus immediately, though, goes on to talk about what their attitude should be when they pray. As he often does, Jesus first tells them a parable. Jesus invites them to imagine that one of them has a friend that they go to for help at midnight. Another friend has turned up unexpectedly, and they have no food to give them. In the cultural context of the time, this was a social disaster. Showing hospitality was taken very seriously. Jesus then asks them to imagine what will happen if the friend who has been turned to for help, at first refuses to help because it is so late, and the friend and his family are in bed. Jesus says that although the friend won’t help out of friendship, because of the sheer cheek of the one who asks for help, the friend will get up and help them. The one who asks for help is desperate, and they are not prepared to let even the late hour stop them seeking help.

So, Jesus tells the disciples, they are to ask, seek, and knock. Jesus is wanting to stress the seriousness and persistence with which they should pray. Such seriousness and persistence, Jesus tells them, will be answered: those who ask will receive; those who seek will find; and those who knock will have the door opened to them.

Jesus then says something that is at first sight somewhat puzzling. Jesus asks them which of them if their child asks for a fish will give a snake, or if their child asks for an egg will give a scorpion. If, Jesus continues, they who are evil know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more, Jesus asks, will the Heavenly Father give … give what? How would we expect that sentence to finish? Having observed that they who are evil know how to give good gifts to their children, the obvious way for it to finish would be: how much more will the heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him? Indeed, that is basically how a similar passage does finish in St Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 7:11).

It is not how it finishes here, however. Jesus actually says: ‘how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?’ There has so far been no mention in what Jesus has been saying about prayer of the Holy Spirit. Why does Jesus suddenly mention the Holy Spirit now?

This is perhaps the most exciting part of Jesus’ teaching about prayer. The answer to our question is provided by St Paul in his letter to the Roman believers. St Paul writes:

‘For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God …’ (Romans 8:14-16)

We are to approach God as our Father, but for us to approach him as our Father, he must first become our Father, and the way God becomes our Father is through the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to begin our prayers by calling God our Father, both meaning it and knowing what it means. As we cry out to him as our Father - for having God as our Father is an emotional experience – the Holy Spirit assures us that this is exactly who he is; he is our Father revealed to us by the Son through the Holy Spirit.

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus has told us that we are to pray that our Father’s name be honoured and for his rule to come; we are to trust him for our needs; ask for his forgiveness, while extending our forgiveness to others; and to seek his protection from spiritual danger. All of which is another reason we need the Holy Spirit. St Paul, again, explains why. St Paul writes:

‘Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought …’ (Romans 8:26)

To be able to pray the Lord’s Prayer as it should be prayed, we need the Holy Spirit to help us in our weakness. St Paul goes on to tell us that the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God (Romans 8:27). We need to align our prayers with the Spirit’s prayers for us.

As I said in my podcast for Pentecost, our most urgent need is to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and then, having received the Holy Spirit, to allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit.

 
May our most earnest and serious prayer, therefore, be for the Holy Spirit, knowing, as Jesus says, that the Father wants to give him to us.

 
All we have to do is ask.

Amen.

All You Need Is Love?

Here is the transcript of my latest podcast, 'All You Need Is Love?'. It is based on the Gospel reading for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity.

The Fourth Sunday after Trinity

Reading: Luke 10:25-37

A major feature of St Luke’s Gospel that distinguishes it from St Matthew and St Mark’s Gospel, with which it otherwise has much in common, is the journey that Jesus begins in Luke chapter 9 verse 51. St Luke writes:

‘When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.’ (Luke 9:51)

Jesus in obedience to his Father undoubtedly did journey to Jerusalem, where he was to be handed over and crucified. St Luke, however, also uses the journey as a literary device to structure this section of the Gospel. Lasting until chapter 19, it is a section that contains a lot of material only found in St Luke’s Gospel, such as the parable we will be looking at later. As Jesus journeys to Jerusalem, Jesus sends people ahead of him to prepare his way (Luke 9:52).

The journey begins on a negative note, with a Samaritan village refusing to welcome him (Luke 9:52-56). James and John are indignant, and they ask Jesus if he wants them to command fire to come down from heaven and consume the villagers. Jesus, however, rebukes James and John, and they go on to another village.

The reaction to Jesus is by no means all negative, and there are those who want to join Jesus. Jesus is not looking for popularity, however, and Jesus makes clear to potential followers that following him is demanding and involves serious sacrifice (Luke 9:57-62).

While some make excuses, there are those who are prepared to meet Jesus’ demands. In fact, there are so many that Jesus is able to send out 70 (or 72; the manuscript tradition disagrees on the precise number) in pairs to go ahead of him to every town and place he intends to visit (Luke 10:1-12). This may seem a large number, but Jesus himself describes the labourers as few and the harvest as plentiful (Luke 10:2). Jesus’ followers need to pray that the Lord of the harvest will send out workers into his harvest. Those Jesus sends ahead of him are to cure the sick and tell people that the Kingdom of God has come near (Luke 10:9).

Jesus’ rebuke of James and John at the start of the journey to Jerusalem may give the impression that if people choose not to welcome Jesus that is their choice, without them having to worry about there being consequences if they do not welcome him. Jesus makes it clear that this is not the case (Luke 10:13-16). Jesus says that places such as Chorazin, Bethsaida, and even Capernaum, where Jesus has been based in Galilee, will suffer terribly for not having listened to Jesus and for not having repented. Jesus’ followers represent Jesus and how people react to them is as if they have reacted to Jesus himself.

When the 70 (or 72) return and report to Jesus how they have got on, they are ecstatic, even the demons are subject to them in Jesus’ name (Luke 10:17-20). Jesus tells them he has watched Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Jesus has given them authority over the enemy and protection from harm. They should rejoice, however, not at the power Jesus has given them, but that their names are written in heaven.

Nevertheless, Jesus is also pleased at how the mission of the 70 (or 72) has gone and rejoices in the Holy Spirit (Luke 10:21-24). Jesus praises the Father for hiding ‘these things’ from the ‘wise and intelligent’, while revealing them to ‘infants’. Jesus tells them that the Father has handed over all things to the Son. The Father and the Son alone know each other. Only those whom the Son wants to reveal the Father to can come to know the Father. Jesus then tells his disciples privately how privileged they are to see and hear things that prophets and kings had wanted to see and hear, but hadn’t.

This is the background and context to our Gospel reading, for it is immediately after Jesus says that the ‘Lord of heaven and earth’ has hidden things from the ‘wise and intelligent’ that one of the wise and intelligent stands up to test Jesus.

The ‘lawyer’, that is, an expert in God’s Law, asks Jesus what he must do to ‘inherit eternal life’. The person, then, to whom Jesus will tell the story we know as the Parable of the Good Samaritan doesn’t ask his question so much because he wants to know the answer, but to see if Jesus does. The lawyer is an authority on God’s Law, so Jesus asks him what the Law says. The lawyer knows the answer to this question perfectly: to love God completely and your neighbour as yourself. Exactly, replies Jesus, if the lawyer does this, he will live.

The lawyer now looks a bit foolish. He knew the answer all along, and his motive in asking the question has been exposed. So, to save face, he asks, ‘But who is my neighbour’? All Jews would understand the need to love God completely: ‘heart, soul, strength, and mind’. Every good Jew recited this command from God’s Law (Deuteronomy 6:5) twice every day as part of what is known as the Shema. Having asked a question, the lawyer already knows the answer to, in an attempt to catch Jesus out, the lawyer asks a follow-up question to justify having questioned Jesus. Who is his neighbour that he must love as himself?

The lawyer probably thought he knew the answer to this question as well. The command itself is also from God’s Law (Leviticus 19:18). His neighbour would be anyone who is a fellow member of Israel. The lawyer, however, is in for a shock. Sadly, we know the story that Jesus tells in answer to the lawyer’s question so well that we don’t share in the shock, and because we think we know the story, we are in danger of missing not only details in the story, but its message to us today.

Jesus says that a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. This would have been a road that Jesus’ hearers knew well. It is one of my favourite roads today! But in Jesus’ day, it was a dangerous road where robbers would prey on travellers. The journey was about 18 miles, and it really did mean going down: from about 2,600 feet above sea level to about 825 feet below it.

We are not told the ethnicity of the man, but the assumption is that he is Jewish. The man falls into the hands of robbers who not only take all that he has but beat him up so severely that he is left dying on the roadside. First, a priest comes by. You would think this was good news. Surely a priest of all people would stop and help? But no, the priest passes by on the other side. We are not told what was going through the priest’s mind, as that is not a concern in the story. Secondly, a Levite also comes down the road. A Levite was one who worked in the Temple assisting the priests. He also passes by on the other side. Again, we are not told his thoughts in doing so. But then thirdly, a Samaritan who is travelling in the region comes to the place, and, when he sees the man, he is moved with pity. As is well-known, there was real animosity between Jews and Samaritans at this time. In St John’s Gospel, St John writes of an occasion in Samaria when the disciples had gone to buy food, leaving Jesus alone at a well. Jesus asks a Samaritan woman for a drink. She is surprised at Jesus speaking to her, and she says to Jesus:

‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (John 4:9)

St John then adds, by way of explanation, that Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans. Feelings ran deep!

The Samaritan in Jesus’ story, however, doesn’t just feel sorry for the man, he pours oil and wine on the man’s wounds to clean and soothe them, before bandaging them up. The Samaritan then takes the man to an inn where he nurses him. The following day, the Samaritan gives the inn-keeper money to take care of the man telling the inn-keeper that when he comes back, he will pay the inn-keeper whatever extra it has cost. This is quite clever, as it provides an incentive to the inn-keeper to look after the man, knowing that there will be money in it for him if he does.

Having told the story, Jesus asks the lawyer a question. Remember what the original question was that led to Jesus telling the story in the first place. The lawyer asked, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ Jesus now asks the lawyer:

‘Which of these three do you think became a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ (Luke 10:36)

The lawyer’s framing of the question implied that there were people who were not his neighbour. The lawyer’s focus was on deciding who the neighbour was that he should love. Jesus’ question is who became a neighbour to the man in need. The lawyer answers:

‘The one who showed him mercy.’ (Luke 10:37)

Jesus tells him to go and do likewise.

All you need is love?

Jesus tells the lawyer that if he keeps the two commandments, to love God completely and his neighbour as himself, he will inherit eternal life. So, with these two commandments is Jesus in effect saying that ‘all we need is love’?

Here in St Luke’s Gospel, it is a lawyer who identifies the two commandments with Jesus agreeing with him. In St Matthew and St Mark’s Gospel, it is Jesus himself who identifies them. In each case, Jesus approves these two commandments as a summary of God’s Law, describing them in St Matthew’s Gospel as the two great commandments. We read these two commandments at every Eucharist at Christ Church. Although we are happy with them as a summary of the Law, when it comes to the detailed commandments of the Law that they summarize, there are many commandments we think we no longer have to keep.

We don’t worry, for example, about wearing a garment of two types of material, even though God’s Law commands us not to (Leviticus 19:19), and many of us like to eat prawns and similar types of seafood, even though God’s Law forbids us to do so, describing such food as detestable (Leviticus 11:9-12). These are strong words, but we are happy to ignore them. We don’t insist on men being circumcised if they want to join the Church, even though God’s Law says that no male can be part of God’s people unless they are (Genesis 17:9-14), and we don’t stone people caught in adultery, even though God’s Law commands us to do so (Leviticus 20:10). We have, in other words, basically abandoned most of God’s Law, even though we are reluctant to admit it.

So, does abandoning the Law mean that anything goes? It seems that St Paul was accused of teaching a version of this (Romans 3:8). If we don’t keep God’s Law, how is human behaviour to be regulated? It used to be said that Christians are not under an obligation any more to keep the civil and ceremonial parts of the Law, but that we still have to keep the moral law, basically the Ten Commandments, or more accurately the nine commandments, as very few think it is morally wrong to work on a Saturday

In the past, it was the Ten Commandments and not our Lord’s summary of the Law that were read at the Eucharist. Our liturgy still makes provision for us to read the Ten Commandments if we want to. While Christians may have drastically reduced the number of commandments from the Law that they believed they had to keep, it was still felt that there were specific commandments that should be kept, even if it wasn’t totally clear why.

A major change in churches in recent years has been that the Ten Commandments are no longer read in our services, and the Summary of the Law is read instead. The timing of this change was, I think, significant. It was a change that occurred less for religious and theological reasons and far more for social and cultural ones. As people in the West in the last century abandoned traditional religion and the morality that went with it, the mantra in the Church, as well as outside it, became ‘all you need is love’; not rules and regulations, just love. Our Lord’s words about loving God and loving your neighbour came to be seen not so much as a summary of the Law, but as a replacement of it. Out with rules and in with love!

What is disturbing is that having convinced people in the Church that God wants us to serve him by living according to love and not by obeying commands, we now neither serve him by loving nor obeying. Love itself is interpreted as doing what you think best in any given situation, and best is normally interpreted in terms of what is best for me.

The command to love your neighbour as yourself is even interpreted as a command to love ourself, as, it is argued, you can’t love your neighbour as yourself unless you first love yourself. I totally understand that there are people who don’t love themselves in the sense of having a totally negative, even destructive, self-image. This, however, is not the case for the most of us. The problem for most of us is not that we don’t love ourself, but that we do love ourself, first and foremost. The message to those who hate themselves is not to tell them to love themselves, but to help them to see themselves as loved by God. The result of our present preoccupation with ourself is that we are so busy loving ourself that we forget all about God and our neighbour.

To focus on loving ourself misses the point that Jesus is making. We generally don’t need any encouragement to love ourself; it is something that just happens naturally. The whole point of the commandment to love our neighbour is that it is based on the assumption that we do love ourself, in the sense of caring for ourself and our needs. Given that we do, Jesus is saying that we should care for our neighbour in the same way we care for ourself. Jesus is not concerned here with the image we have, either of ourselves or of others, but with our actions.

Love, St Paul writes, is the fulfilling of the Law (Galatians 5:14; Romans 13:8-10; see also, James 2:8), not its abandonment. What the Law with its various commandments was seeking to achieve is fulfilled when we love God completely – heart, soul, strength, and mind - and when we love our neighbour as we love ourselves.

God’s Law expressed God’s guidance for every aspect of a person’s life: what they wore, ate, said, and did as well as who they could and could not have sex with. No area of life was excluded from God’s Law because God was not to be excluded from any area of life. The Law wasn’t given to be onerous or burdensome; it wasn’t given to limit life or to prevent people from enjoying themselves or to stop them from living a full life, it was rather an expression of God’s love for his people.

We often see ‘love’ as the alternative to Law. The Law, however, was itself all about love. God’s people were to love God by keeping his Law because God’s Law was an expression of his love and care for them. They loved because he first loved them by giving them his Law. The Law showed them how to love.

Now Christ has come, we are still to love God completely and to love our neighbour as ourself, but the way we do it is different. We don’t look now to God’s Law to guide us, but to God’s Spirit, who is given to all those who have faith in Christ. St Paul writes that in serving God those in Christ are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit (Romans 7:6).

Fulfilling the Law doesn’t mean being set free from serving God in all we do, it means instead a renewed commitment to do just that. St Paul again writes:

‘I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.’ (Romans 12:1-2)

The two commands to love God completely and our neighbour as ourself together sum up what God’s Law was all about. Under the Old Covenant, a person loved God completely and loved their neighbour as themselves by obeying the commands of God’s Law. This was how they were to know what the will of God was. Now, under the New Covenant, we love God completely and love our neighbour as ourself by being led and guided by the Spirit as our minds are renewed and we present our bodies in worship.

This doesn’t mean that the way the Spirit leads us is unpredictable and that the Spirit’s leading always varies from one situation to the next. There are some things that are always incompatible with the Holy Spirit’s leading. St Paul describes these as ‘the works of the flesh’ (Galatians 5:19-20). Equally, there are some things that are evidence of the Holy Spirit’s leading and, again as St Paul puts it, ‘against which there is no law’ (Galatians 5:22-24).

The problem is that for many people, being free from God’s Law and the command to love mean freedom to do as we want, as long as we do it ‘out of love’. I am now of the opinion that the word ‘love’ has become so sexualized and self-centred that, as a word to describe what God wants of us, its use is highly problematic. The trouble is that it is hard to find another word to use instead, especially given how established the word love is. So, while we have to go on using it, we need to remember that the command to love is not a licence to decide for ourselves what is right and wrong. Sin is real and some things will always be sinful. No longer being ‘under Law’ does not change that. St Paul asks:

‘What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace?’ (Romans 6:15)

He answers emphatically, ‘By no means!

Sin remains objectively definable and real; there are some things that are always wrong.

Just Do It

When the lawyer asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, the lawyer was testing Jesus to see how Jesus would answer. Jesus, as we have seen, turns the tables on him by asking the lawyer what God’s Law says. The lawyer becomes the one being tested, and he gives the right answer: love God completely and love your neighbour as yourself. Jesus tells him, ‘Do this, and you will live.’

Then, after the lawyer has correctly identified the one who became a neighbour to the man who was robbed, Jesus says to him, ‘Go and do the same.’

The lawyer knows what he should do, now he has got to do it. The problem is, of course, that left to ourselves, we can’t do it. We are given the Holy Spirit to enable us to do it. But even then, it isn’t just going to happen. Having been given life in the Spirit, we need to walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16). St Paul writes to the believers in the Church at Philippi:

‘… work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.’ (Philippians 2:12-13)

‘Walking in the Spirit’ is the way to fulfilling the Law. What the Law pointed to, we now do - or at least we should. What the Law was saying to God’s people was that love of God and love of our neighbour should characterize everything we do. The way we do this now is not by following rules and regulations (the old way), but by following the leading of the Holy Spirit (the new way), but we still need to do it. We still need to love God completely – heart, soul, mind, and strength – and our neighbour as ourself.

I say this because having decided we want to live by love not by Law, we have come to see ourselves as free from having to worry about what we do. Instead of our commitment to ‘love’ resulting in a greater devotion to God and our neighbour, it has resulted in a greater focus on ourself. Freedom from the Law does not mean freedom from serving God. [As I sought to explain in the podcast, ‘Freedom in Christ’, for the Second Sunday after Trinity.]

If we walk in the Spirit, we will seek to love God completely and love as our neighbour as ourself. I think, like the lawyer, many of us know this in theory. Doing it, however, is something else. It is tough and demanding, not helped by the way we regularly compartmentalize our lives.

What I mean by this is that we understand ‘loving God’ to refer to those things that are religious in nature. So, we equate loving God with attending church services, reading our Bible, praying, and church activities in general. Loving our neighbour, we see as being about such things as giving to charity or helping someone who is in obvious need, perhaps someone we know who is in hospital, for example. This then leaves time for us to love ourself by doing what we want to do for ourself. Now, if we divided our time in this way, it would at least be a step in the right direction. Most of the time, however, we don’t even manage this three-fold split. Even so, it is not what Jesus has in mind.

Jesus told the story of the Samaritan because the lawyer had a question about who his neighbour was. Jesus didn’t have to explain what loving God was all about; all good Jews knew that. Loving God was not confined to activities that were religious in nature, such as praying and going to the synagogue, but involved every aspect of a person’s life: what they ate, what they wore, how they raised their children, harvested their crops, organized their communities - nothing was excluded. God was to be a part of everything they did. That is still what it means to love God; the way we do it now may be different, but we still need to do it. St Paul writes that we are to present our bodies as living sacrifices which is our spiritual worship. He is telling us we should present everything we are and all that we have and do to God as a continual act of worship. St Paul writes to the Church at Corinth:

‘So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.’ (1 Corinthians 10:31)

It is not that some things are God’s, some things our neighbour’s, and some things ours: everything is God’s. This means that loving our neighbour is also part of our love of God. St Catherine said that as we cannot see God to love, we love him by loving our neighbour. We love God and our neighbour, not separately, but concurrently.

The way we are to love our neighbour is by becoming a neighbour and to become a neighbour is to show mercy. There is a problem for us in understanding the story Jesus told the lawyer. The reason that Jesus told a story about a Samaritan showing mercy is that the lawyer wanted to limit whom he showed love to. Jesus challenged his prejudices about people and the restrictions he placed on who he reached out to.

We know the story and, in theory at least, would not limit who we think we should help. Instead, we place limits in other ways. We limit when we help. The story Jesus told the lawyer had to be a dramatic example of someone becoming a neighbour to make the point to him, but, as a result, we now think of being a neighbour in terms of helping people in dire need of help like the man beaten and left for dead by robbers.

Jesus’ message, however, is that we should love our neighbour by becoming a neighbour and showing mercy to whoever needs mercy, whenever they need it. By becoming a neighbour to someone in need, we make that person our neighbour. It could be someone lying on the road after a heart-attack and in need of emergency first-aid. It could just be someone at work who is feeling sad and lonely. We should not limit who we are merciful to, the situations where we show mercy, or the times when we are merciful.

What Jesus teaches in today’s reading, then, can be summed up in two common sayings: ‘all you need is love’ and ‘just do it’. But what Jesus means is very different to what is commonly meant. All you need is indeed love, but that means that we need to give ourselves completely to God and to others, and just doing it means relying on God for us to do it, not just occasionally but continually, every moment of every day.

‘Do this’, says Jesus, ‘and you will live.’ And so, he tells us, ‘Go, and do likewise.’

Amen.

Pentecost

This is the transcript of the podcast version of my sermon for Pentecost.

Pentecost 2022

Reading: John 14:8-27

We are celebrating the festival of Pentecost the time when we think of God’s gift of the Holy Spirit and of what is also the official birthday of the Church. The birthday of the Church we understand, but we still have difficulties understanding what it means to receive the Holy Spirit. On the Day of Pentecost, those who came to see what was going on with those gathered in ‘one place’ were, St Luke writes, ‘amazed and perplexed’ by what was happening (Acts 2:12). We may not be amazed, but most churchgoers are certainly perplexed when it comes to understanding the Holy Spirit. This despite the growth of the Pentecostal churches and of the charismatic movement.

The Pentecostal churches and the charismatic movement each stress the place and role of the Holy Spirit both in the life of the individual believer and of the Church.

Pentecostalism is normally seen as having emerged at the beginning of the 20th century out of the holiness movements of the previous century. The beginnings of the Pentecostal movement are normally traced back, firstly, to 1901 and events in a Bible school led by Charles Fox Parham in the city of Topeka in Kansas, and secondly, to a series of revival meetings that took place in Los Angeles beginning in April, 1906 led by William Joseph Seymour, an African-American preacher.

At first, these meetings were in a building at Bonnie Brae Street, but, because of the numbers wanting to attend, they soon moved to a larger meeting hall at 312 Azusa Street. At these meetings, people experienced the Holy Spirit in a dramatic and visible way. This experience was described as being ‘baptized in the Holy Spirit’, with ‘speaking in tongues’ being seen as the ‘initial evidence’ that a person had received the baptism of the Spirit.

Out of these meetings came the creation of new churches separate to the established mainline denominations. There is not one single Pentecostal denomination today, but several different groupings of Pentecostal churches. What each grouping has in common is their emphasis on the importance of being baptized in the Spirit. These groupings now take their place alongside the other older denominations.

The charismatic movement, which shares much in common with the Pentecostal churches, started as a movement within the mainline churches in the 1960s and 1970s. The charismatic movement also stressed the work of the Holy Spirit and emphasized the importance of experiencing the Holy Spirit, an experience which manifested itself in ‘spiritual gifts’ such as, but not confined to, speaking in tongues, prophecy, and supernatural healing.

After encountering resistance, and often outspoken opposition within the mainline churches, some in the new movement left the traditional churches, seeing them as blocking what the Holy Spirit was wanting to do. Those who left went on to form ‘house churches’. They became convinced that it was only outside the traditional structures of the Church that they were going to be able to be faithful to what the Holy Spirit was doing. Ironically, many of these house churches were to grow and become much like the mainline denominations they had left. It is a religious version of Orwell’s, Animal Farm!

Those who stayed hoped that they would bring renewal and new life to their churches, and they sought to make the Holy Spirit central to the life and worship of the Church and its members. As time went on, however, those who stayed found themselves dropping the more contentious aspects of the movement, so that charismatic today can mean little other than liking a more contemporary style of worship.

In the 1960s and 70s, the charismatic movement seemed to offer the hope of the revival of otherwise declining and moribund churches and of attracting people back to the church in what were seen as traditionally Christian nations. In the West, at least, neither has happened with church numbers continuing to drop and secularism continuing apace. While many people’s lives have undoubtedly been touched by the charismatic movement and while some churches have seen numerical growth and success, if it is to be judged by its fruits, the results are disappointing. I speak as a disappointed charismatic. [I have written about my own experience under ‘Personal Journey’ on my website.]

There are many reasons for the failure of the charismatic movement to produce what it seemed to promise, but a significant part of the blame lies with the charismatic movement itself. The movement was in part a reaction against the formality and lack of warmth and emotion in the established churches. It was, then, perhaps inevitable that the movement would end up focusing on experience and emotion. My own criticism of the movement, for what it is worth, is not that the charismatic movement focused too much on the Holy Spirit, but that it didn’t focus on the Holy Spirit enough. And so today, when the Holy Spirit is spoken of, people still remain perplexed, even if they don’t care enough to be amazed.

For the past few weeks since Easter, we have been building up to the festival of Pentecost. Our Gospel readings have come from what is known as the ‘Farewell Discourse’ in St John’s Gospel. This is Jesus’ final words to his disciples in the Upper Room before being arrested and crucified. Our Gospel reading is taken from it, and in our reading, Jesus has some important things to say about the Holy Spirit.

It has already been quite a night when Jesus speaks the words in our Gospel reading. The disciples have gathered in the Upper Room to eat the Passover meal, just a few days after Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem (John 12:12-19). Everyone is expecting Jesus to lead a rebellion against the pagan power and to establish the Kingdom of God. You can feel the excitement in the air as the disciples gather. The disciples are even discussing who is going to be the greatest in the Kingdom when it comes (Luke 22:24-27).

Jesus soon puts an end to such talk by getting up from the table during the meal and washing their feet (John 13:2-5). He tells them that they also must wash each other’s feet (John 13:14-15) and that anyone wanting to be great must become the least. As if this is not shocking enough, Jesus puts an end to any thought of triumph by telling the disciples that one of them will betray him (John 13:21) and that the one he himself has made their leader will deny him (John 13:37-38). We can understand why the disciples are troubled after this!

So, chapter 14 of St John’s Gospel begins with Jesus trying to comfort his disciples (John 14:1-4). He doesn’t tell them off for being troubled; St John has told us that Jesus is himself troubled (John 13:21). Jesus does, however, encourage them to trust him. Yes, he is going away. He has to leave them, but he will come again and take them to himself, so that where he is, there they may be also. Jesus also makes the famous statement about there being many rooms in his Father’s house (John 14:2).

These opening verses to chapter 14 are often read at funerals, and they are taken to refer to Jesus’ second coming or to us meeting Jesus when we die. Jesus is coming again, and if we die before he does, we will go to be with him at our death. Both are true, but this is not what Jesus is talking about in chapter 14. Jesus, in what he says to his disciples, is not concerned with what will happen at their death but with what will happen at his.

Jesus is concerned with how his disciples are going to get on in a world that will hate them as it has hated him (John 15:18-19). Jesus is sending the disciples into the world as his Father has sent him into the world (John 15:16; John 20:21) and Jesus knows it isn’t going to be easy for them (John 15:20; 16:1-2, 33). They are troubled now because of Jesus’ words that he is leaving them (John 16:6), but Jesus also leaves his peace with them, and he repeats that they should not be troubled (John 14:27; 16:33). Strangely, although Jesus tells the disciples he is going away, Jesus keeps repeating that he is coming to them. Jesus says this four times in chapter 14 alone (John 14:3, 18, 23, 28). But if Jesus is not talking about his second coming or coming to meet us when we die, what is Jesus talking about?

Jesus tells his troubled disciples that he will ask the Father, and the Father will give them another ‘paraclete’ to be with them forever (John 14:16). The Greek word ‘paraclete’ that St John uses is notoriously difficult to translate into English. It is sometimes translated ‘comforter’ and that is certainly an aspect of its meaning. This Comforter, Jesus explains is the Spirit of truth who abides with them, but who will be in them (John 14:17). Jesus will not leave them orphaned; he is coming to them (John 14:18). Jesus tells the disciples that he and the Father will both come to them and make their home with them (John 14:23). The way the Father and the Son will do this is through the Holy Spirit who will be in them. This must have been a lot for the disciples to take in, just as it is for us! Jesus reassures them that the same Spirit whom the Father will send in Jesus’ name will teach them everything and remind them of what he has said (John 14:26).

The way Jesus talks and the language he uses makes absolutely clear that what Jesus is talking about is not some theoretical idea, but a real and intimate relationship, so real and intimate that Jesus can describe it as the Spirit being in them and as he and the Father making their home with them and dwelling in them (John 14:20).

Jesus says, however, that this experience is not for everyone. Jesus tells them that the Spirit of truth whom he will give them cannot be received by the world (John 14:17). This is because the world neither sees him nor knows him. Judas (not Iscariot) asks Jesus why Jesus will reveal himself to them and not to the world (John 14:22). Jesus answers that those who love him keep his word and the Father loves them. As is often the case in St John’s Gospel, it is not immediately clear how Jesus’ answer answers the question! What Jesus is saying is he will reveal himself to those who love him and keep his word. Those who do not love him, do not keep his words (John 14:24). It is, then, because the world does not love Jesus and keep Jesus’ words that Jesus will not reveal himself to the world. In his life and ministry, Jesus has revealed the Father, so that whoever has seen him has seen the Father (John 14:9), by rejecting Jesus the world has rejected the Father (John 13:20). The world will no longer see Jesus, but the disciples will see him (John 14:19).

While what Jesus says can be hard to understand and, on their own admission, Jesus’ disciples certainly did find it hard to understand (John 16:17-18), the main point of what Jesus says is clear enough. He is going to come to them in the person of the Holy Spirit who will establish an intimate relationship between him and the Father and them. It is a relationship that the world cannot have. This relationship will enable the disciples to do the works that Jesus does and, indeed, to do even greater works because Jesus is going to the Father (John 14:12). They have only to ask for something in Jesus’ name and he will do it (John 14:13-14).

Jesus will say to the disciples later in the Farewell Discourse:

‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me.’ (John 16:16)

It is this reference to a ‘little while’ that the disciples find particularly hard to understand. Jesus asks them:

‘Are you discussing among yourselves what I meant when I said, ‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’?’ (John 16:19)

Jesus goes on to tell them that they will weep and mourn and have pain now, as he is about to leave them, but their pain will turn to joy when they see him again (John 16:20-22). Jesus repeats that if they ask anything of the Father in his name, the Father will give it to them. If they ask, they will receive that their joy may be complete (John 16:23-24).

Jesus’ reference to the disciples not seeing him in a ‘little while’ and then seeing him a ‘little while’ is a reference not simply to his resurrection, but also to the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Father will send the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ name (John 14:26). In chapter 15, Jesus says he will send the ‘Paraclete’ to them from the Father. When the ‘Paraclete’ comes, he will testify on Jesus’ behalf (John 15:26). In St Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples before he ascends to heaven that they are to wait in Jerusalem for the ‘promise of the Father’ (Acts 1:4; see also: Luke 24:49).

The Day of Pentecost is when all that Jesus has spoken about a ‘little while’ earlier takes place, and they receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus baptizes the believers in the Holy Spirit, as he promised he would (Acts 1:4-5). St Peter tells those who gather outside to find out what is going on:

‘Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear.’ (Acts 2:33)

The language St Peter uses is important: ‘poured out’, ‘that you both see and hear’. St Paul writes in our second reading from his letter to believers in the Church at Rome:

‘For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God …’ (Romans 8:15-16)

In other words, the giving and receiving of the Holy Spirit is definite and tangible. It is something we know about and which can be seen and heard. It is the Holy Spirit who makes real our relationship as children of God with the Father through Jesus, the Son. The language St John and St Paul use is the language of experience. Unfortunately, our own experience does not match the language of the New Testament.

Jesus, in the Farewell Discourse, describes a relationship between the believer and his Father and himself made possible by the Holy Spirit that the believer knows to be real. It is not something based on a doctrinal or sacramental deduction. It is not a theological calculation. What do I mean by that?

Church doctrine teaches that all believers are given the Holy Spirit, so in asking whether a person has received the Spirit, we make the following deduction:

        All Christians receive the Holy Spirit

        Jane is a Christian

        Therefore, Jane has received the Holy Spirit

In sacramental churches, where baptism and confirmation are an essential part of Christian initiation, it can be expressed in a similar way:

        All those who are baptized receive the Holy Spirit in baptism

        Jane is baptized

        Therefore, Jane has received the Holy Spirit

In other words, for Jane, receiving the Holy Spirit is a theological calculation rather than an experiential reality. It is something that Jane needs to take on trust. She must believe it has happened rather than experience it happening. The truth is that our receiving of the Holy Spirit needs to be both: theology and experience belong together. Our theology of the Holy Spirit should not be separated from our experience of the Spirit. The problem is: it is.

When St Paul came across some believers in Ephesus, he knew that something was wrong. He asked them:

‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?’ (Acts 19:2)

St Paul’s theology told him that they should have received the Holy Spirit; his instinct, based on his observation, told him that they had not. His instinct was right; they had not even heard there was a Holy Spirit.

For believers in our churches today, the situation is more complicated. We have all heard that there is a Holy Spirit. We even say we believe in him when we say the Creed together. Next week, on Trinity Sunday, we will celebrate the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Holy Trinity, alongside the Father and the Son. Our belief in him, however, is often not reflected in our lives and experience and in the life and experience of our churches. St Peter on the Day of Pentecost describes the giving of the Holy Spirit as that which Jesus has ‘poured out’, which people can ‘see and hear’. On Pentecost Sunday, we need ask ourselves, ‘Do we see and hear’ the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the life of our churches?’

This immediately brings us up against a problem. What it means to ‘see and hear’ the Holy Spirit has been somewhat hi-jacked by certain groups within the Church.

Many Pentecostals, for example, have claimed that ‘speaking in tongues’ is the initial evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and unless a person speaks in tongues they have not been baptized in the Holy Spirit. This has led to much confusion, especially for those whose own experience tells them they have received the Holy Spirit, even though they do not speak in tongues. It is as if the Holy Spirit is limited to just one of his gifts, with one of his gifts being evidence of his presence more than another.

Many charismatics have thought that for worship to be ‘Spirit led’ liturgical and traditional forms of worship have to be rejected. The result has been that, in many churches, church services are no different from a secular rock concert. It is as if a service with a worship leader and a band are intrinsically more likely to be ‘Spirit led’ than a service with a Choir master and organ, and raising your hands during the service more spiritual that falling on your knees.

By now, I am probably in danger of offending just about everyone. I don’t mean to – or perhaps I do if it helps make the point that an emphasis on experiencing the Spirit should not lead to an emphasis on one type of experience. Experiencing the Spirit is about the Father and the Son coming to make their home in the life of the believer. As the Father and the Son, who come to us in the person of the Spirit are always the same, our experience of the Holy Spirit will have much in common with each other. However, because we are all different, there will be significant differences too. For some, their experience of the Holy Spirit will be highly emotional; for others, it will be quieter but no less real. But whatever form the experience takes what should always be the case is its reality.

So how do we explain the fact that many people in our churches, by their own admission, do not have a direct and conscious experience of the Holy Spirit in a way that enables them to answer with confidence St Paul’s question, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? There is a serious issue here. Many who are unable to answer this question positively are otherwise regular committed churchgoers with a sincere faith.

The way that Pentecostals and charismatics traditionally have tackled this problem is, as I have described, theologically, by arguing that there are two stages in becoming a Christian. Firstly, by a person believing in Jesus and making a personal commitment to him, and then secondly, by that person receiving the Holy Spirit. While, they claim, believing in Jesus and receiving the Holy Spirit may both happen at the same time, they are different and can, therefore happen at different times. Sometimes the two stages can be a long time apart. For some people, the second stage never happens at all.

This second stage itself is described using various terminology. Pentecostals have usually called it the baptism in or with the Spirit. Others use terms such ‘second blessing’, ‘renewed by the Spirit’, or ‘filled with the Spirit’. The reason for the terminological confusion is that the New Testament simply does not support such a two-stage process. Receiving the Spirit, being baptized by, with, or in the Spirit, and gaining new life in the Spirit are all used to describe what happens when a person first becomes Jesus’ disciple.

Recognizing this, some have argued that a person indeed receives the Holy Spirit when they believe, but they don’t necessarily know about it. They need a subsequent experience for the Holy Spirit to become real to them. Often this is described using the phrase ‘filled with the Spirit’. On this understanding, then, a person receives the Holy Spirit when they believe in Jesus, but they are filled with - some would say baptized with - the Spirit as a separate experience. But again, this is not how the New Testament describes receiving the Spirit. And ‘being filled with the Spirit’ is something which needs to be a continual experience throughout the life of the believer from the very beginning of their life as a believer (Ephesians 5:18).

Quite simply, if a person has not received the Holy Spirit, they are not one of Jesus’ disciples. As St Paul writes:

‘Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.’ (Romans 8:9)

The problem, then, is that theologically anyone who is a committed believer has received the Holy Spirit, but the experience of many believers is that they haven’t.

The approach I have been describing seeks to tackle the problem theologically by separating becoming a believer from a full experience of the Spirit (whatever language is used to describe it) creating a two-stage process and, it could be argued, two classes of believers. Instead, I would argue, the problem is not primarily a theological but a pastoral one. As a pastoral problem, it has many different causes.

1. Not having made a commitment to Jesus

Firstly, the reason many in our churches have not directly experienced the Holy Spirit for themselves is because they have not yet received the Holy Spirit. The reason they have not received the Holy Spirit is because they have not yet made a commitment to Jesus.

They may be very regular churchgoers, but people have many different reasons for coming to church. Some come, for example, for social reasons because they are looking for community and friendship. Others enjoy the style of worship on offer or come because of the church’s stance on social and political issues. Others simply because their family has always attended a particular church. It is right that churches welcome everyone who comes, and we should try to create a safe place for people to explore faith and find answers to their spiritual questions. Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit is given to those believe in Jesus and make a commitment to him. He is not given to those who are just interested in Jesus or admire him. At the Feast of Tabernacles, when Jesus invites anyone who is thirsty to come to him to drink, St John writes:

‘Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.’ (John 7:39)

The first question, then, to ask if someone who comes to church says they have not experienced the Holy Spirit is whether they believe in Jesus in the sense of having made a personal commitment to him. It is all too easy for someone to come to church, and even to be active in a church, without having made a personal commitment of faith. Until they do, they remain like those on the Day of Pentecost who can see and hear without knowing what it is. After Peter explains to the crowd what it is all about, they ask him what they should do. Peter replies:

‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’ (Acts 2:38)

In preaching the Gospel and telling people what being a follower of Jesus means, we need to preach the full Gospel, and this will always include teaching about the Holy Spirit and God’s promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit to all who believe in Jesus. In bringing people to faith, we should also bring them to expect to experience the Holy Spirit in their life. We also need to encourage those who have experienced the Holy Spirit to share their experience with the body of Christ. It is important to teach people that the gift of the Spirit is given, as St Paul teaches, for the common good and not just for our own benefit (1 Corinthians 12:7).

2. Not having been told about the Holy Spirit

Secondly, there are those who will say that they do believe in Jesus and have made a commitment to him. What is more, they seek to live faithfully for Jesus in their lives and are active in the Church. Nevertheless, their experience of the Holy Spirit is not what I have been describing. When it comes to the Holy Spirit, they too have not directly experienced the Holy Spirit.

There can be many reasons for this and the best next step for them is to talk to a priest or pastor who believes in the Holy Spirit. The reason, however, for many in our churches not experiencing the Holy Spirit lies not with them personally, but with their church. St Paul tells the Church at Thessalonica not to quench the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19). A major reason many people in our churches have no direct personal experience of the Holy Spirit is that the Holy Spirit is effectively quenched in the church they are attending. In their answer to St Paul’s question about whether they had received the Holy Spirit when they believed, the believers in Ephesus replied:

‘No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’ (Acts 19:2)

Churches, and clergy in particular, have to take a large share of the blame for people not having experienced the Holy Spirit. We have failed to tell people about the Holy Spirit in a way that leads them to discover him for themselves. Clergy can be guilty of talking about the Holy Spirit in such away that people don’t realize that a person can experience the Holy Spirit for themselves or else think that such experiences are only for the saints or for those who are that way inclined! St Peter says:

‘For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.’ (Acts 2:39)

People need to be introduced to the Holy Spirit and be made aware that the promise is specifically to them too and not just to the select few. We need, however, to make sure that it is the Holy Spirit we introduce people to and not our own ideas of who he is and what it means to know him. Jesus says that the wind blows where it chooses (John 3:8). We often understand Jesus’ words to refer to the Holy Spirit, but what Jesus actually says they refer to is anyone ‘born of the Spirit’.

A person’s experience of the Spirit is up to the Spirit to determine. The Holy Spirit will not be confined by the limits we seek to place upon him. The Father and the Son want to make their home in the life of all who believe in Jesus and keep his commandments. They come to do this by the Spirit, but the home the Father and the Son make in a believer’s life is for them to decide, not us.

3. Being afraid of the Holy Spirit

Finally, many in our churches have not directly experienced the Holy Spirit for themselves quite simply because they are afraid to. On the one hand, this may be a perfectly reasonable fear. It may be a fear of the unknown, and the Holy Spirit, as I have been saying, is still the unknown person of the Holy Trinity for many in our churches. It may also be because of what they have seen and heard in some churches or in the behaviour of some people who claim to have experienced the Holy Spirit.

Tragically, many who claim to have had experiences of the Holy Spirit have been given to excess and to behaviour which has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit and everything to do with their own emotional desires. Jesus, however, says that the Holy Spirit is given to those who love him. The Holy Spirit is a gift of God given out of love. St John writes in his first letter:

‘There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear …’ (1 John 4:18)

We need to reassure people that there is nothing about experiencing the Holy Spirit for those who love Jesus to fear. The Holy Spirit’s role is to be another ‘paraclete’. The original paraclete is, of course, Jesus himself. The Holy Spirit is given to enable us to stay close to Jesus and to do his work in the world, so that the world may know that the Father sent him. If we are not frightened of Jesus, we should not be frightened of the Holy Spirit. Again, as St Paul writes in our second reading:

‘For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God …’ (Romans 8:15-16)

On the other hand, however, our fear may be to do with losing control and, in a sense, we are right to feel this way. This is not because the Holy Spirit is going to take us over and possess us like a demon or make us do things we don’t want to do, but because being a follower of Jesus is about giving up control. To be a follower of Jesus is to submit our will to his, and if we are unwilling to submit our wills to his, then our fear is justified. The Holy Spirit won’t make us submit our will to Jesus, but he will help us and encourage us to do so as he draws us closer to Jesus and reveals him to us, as Jesus said he would. As St Paul tells us, submission to Christ is not the reluctant submission of a slave, but the willing obedience of a child to their Father, a Father who only gives good gifts to his children (Luke 11:9-13).

Conclusion

The Nicene Creed that we say together each week describes the Holy Spirit as the Lord and giver of life, and each week we say together that this is what we believe. Rather than changing our theology, we need to change people. As both churches and individuals we need the life-giving Holy Spirit.

Being a follower of Jesus in a hostile world is not easy. We can feel very isolated and alone. But we don’t have to do this on our own. What is more, we can’t do this on our own. Jesus told his disciples that he would not leave them orphaned. St Peter told the crowd that the promise was for them, for their children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him. That includes everyone listening to this podcast. God wants you to receive the promise of the Holy Spirit. The Father and the Son want to make their home in your life. The only thing that’s stopping them is you.

The distance between theory and reality, however, can seem very great. Again, it doesn’t have to be. Jesus said

‘If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’ (Luke 11:13)

If we want to receive the Holy Spirit, all we have to do is ask. This promise is for you.

May we each receive the promise of the Father and experience our own personal Pentecost.

Veni, Sancte Spiritus
Come, Holy Spirit.

Amen.

The Second Sunday of Epiphany

Here is the transcript of the podcast version of my sermon for the Second Sunday of Epiphany.

The Second Sunday of Epiphany

Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:1-13

In last week’s sermon, we began to look at the importance of baptism in the New Testament and in the early Church as the God-given way for a person to respond to the Gospel. We saw how the New Testament stresses the importance of receiving the Holy Spirit. We also made a distinction between baptism in water and baptism in the Spirit. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to the sermon yet, it is still available on YouTube and as a podcast. The transcript of the sermon is also available for those who would like to read what was said.

In our reading this week, St Paul writes:

‘For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. Whether Jews or Greeks or slaves or free, we were all given to drink of the one Spirit.’ (1 Corinthians 12:13)

I want, then, this week to explore in more detail what happens both when a person comes to Christ and is baptized in water and also when they are baptized in the Spirit, and then to look briefly at what St Paul tells us in our reading about the work of the Holy Spirit.

Describing what takes place when a person to comes to Christ is not exactly simple! Firstly, so much happens when a person comes to Christ in faith that it is all too easy to focus on just one or two aspects of what takes place to the exclusion of others. This leads to an incomplete picture of what belonging to Christ and following him means. Some, for example, will focus on how Christ forgives us our sins. Others, on the new life the Spirit enables us to lead. Still others, will focus on the peace and security belonging to Christ brings. We need, however, to see the full picture of all God has done for us in Christ and not only focus on a part of it, even if it is our favourite part!

Secondly, related to this is the problem of understanding the meaning and significance of the language that the New Testament uses to describe what God wants for us and of us. What, for example, does Jesus mean when he tells us that ‘no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit (John 3:5)? What does St Paul mean when he writes that we are ‘justified by faith’ (Romans 5:1)? What does St Peter mean when he writes that we are being protected by God’s power through faith ‘for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time’ (1 Peter 1:5)?

The New Testament writers wrote in Greek. As with any translation from one language to another, when the New Testament is translated into English, the words and phrases used in English may sometimes actually distort the original meaning of the words they translate. It is particularly a problem with the words used in association with coming to Christ. This can, in turn, result in a distorted understanding of what it means to come to Christ and to belong to him.

In translating the New Testament into English, the English word ‘believe’ is often used to translate the Greek word that is used in the New Testament to describe what people must do in response to the preaching of the Gospel. So, for example, in the book of Acts, when the Philippian jailer asks Sts Paul and Silvanus what he must do to be saved, they reply:

‘Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household.’ (Acts 16:31)

In Greek, the verb ‘believe’, the noun ‘faith’, the adjective ‘faithful’, and the adverb ‘faithfully’ all belong to the same word group. You can tell the words are related and have a common meaning because they contain a similar sound. In English, you know that the words ‘faith’, ‘faithful’, and ‘faithfully’ are related to each other as soon as you hear them spoken, but the word ‘believe’ sounds completely different.

To complicate things further, the word ‘believe’ in English is often used in the sense of what we think about something intellectually. It refers to my assent to an idea, a creed, or a proposition. So, when someone says ‘I believe in God’ this may mean simply that I think that there is a God. It is all too easy, then, when someone encourages us to ‘believe’ something, to understand what is being asked of us in a predominantly intellectual or theoretical way, that is, as a command to think that what we have heard is true.

Now the way the New Testament writers use the word translated ‘believe’ does require that we think what they have said is true, but there is more to it than that. ‘Believing’ requires a decision and commitment that involves the whole of our being, including our intellect and our emotions. To put it another way, to ‘believe’, in the New Testament sense of the word, is about the heart as well as the head. In many cases, the word ‘trust’ more accurately catches the sense of the New Testament word than the word ‘believe’.

I personally think the intended meaning of the New Testament word, normally translated using the word ‘believe’, is better conveyed in English by translating it using the phrase ‘have faith’. There is nothing wrong with using the word ‘believe’ as long as we realize that it involves trust and commitment and not just intellectual assent.

So, for example, imagine someone lost and in danger. They meet a stranger who, seeing that they are lost, tells them he can help them get to safety. If the stranger says ‘believe in me’, he is not saying that the person who is lost needs to believe in his existence; that is assumed. What the stranger is asking is for the person who is lost to ‘believe in’ him in the sense of trusting in him or, as we may say, in the sense of ‘having faith in him’. The person who is lost is being asked to trust that the stranger can help and do what he claims.

Now I realize that this may all sound very theoretical, but it does make a very real difference to our understanding of how we should respond to Christ and the Gospel. Protestants, for example, often single out the phrase ‘justification by faith’, which is used especially by St Paul, and see it as expressing the heart of the Gospel and of how we should respond to it. What matters, they argue, are not any ‘good works’ we may do, but that we ‘believe in Jesus’. We are saved, they argue, by faith not by works. This, however, is all too easily understood as meaning that we are saved by ‘believing in’ certain things about Jesus. Worse still, sometimes, the need for us to ‘believe’ will be understood as the need for us to ‘believe in’ certain doctrines and ideas as well as certain things about Jesus himself.

What, though, St Paul is telling us when he uses the phrase ‘justification by faith’ is not even that we should simply ‘believe’ certain things about Jesus, but that we should ‘trust’ in Jesus. Put like this, we can see that the way faith and works are often understood as being in opposition to each other is a false dichotomy.

So, to come back to the stranger and the lost person: suppose the person who is lost says he does ‘believe in’ the stranger, but then ignores what the stranger tells him to do. By not doing what the stranger tells him to do, the lost person is demonstrating that he does not in fact ‘believe in’ the stranger.

Equally, if the person who is lost really does trust in the stranger and does everything that the stranger tells him to do, when he gets to safety and escapes the danger, the person who was lost doesn’t say, ‘I saved myself by what I did.’ He tells people the stranger saved him.

Before we have faith in Jesus in this way, before we trust ourselves to him, we will, of course, want to assure ourselves of the truth of what he claims for himself. We will need to be convinced that the New Testament writers are right when they tell us that there is a God who created us and who loved us by sending his Son to die for us. We will have questions that we will want answering. There will, however, come a point when we will have to make a decision. We will have to decide whether we will have faith in Jesus, that we will both trust him and trust ourselves to him. This is what the New Testament means by ‘believing in Jesus’.

Yes, we are saved by faith and not by works, but we are not saved by faith without works. Our works on their own cannot save us no matter how good or well-intentioned they may be. Nor are we saved by ‘faith and works’, if faith and works are thought of separately and a distinction is made between them. Rather we are saved by a faith that works. This is what St Paul is getting at when he writes in his letter to the Ephesians:

‘For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.’ (Ephesians 2:8-10)

To put it another way: we are justified without works by a faith that works.

The relevance of all this to baptism is that in the New Testament it is by being baptized that a person declares their faith in Christ and commits themself to Christ. After his resurrection, Jesus gave this commandment to his first disciples:

‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’ (Matthew 28:18-20)

By being baptized, a person is making a decision to become a follower of Christ and is committing themself to trusting in Christ and Christ alone for salvation. This is a trust that will be expressed in a life of obedience to Christ and to his teaching. As the old hymn has it:

‘Trust and obey,
for there’s no other way
to be happy in Jesus,
but to trust and obey.’

Baptism is an excellent way for someone to declare that they want to trust and obey Jesus as their Lord because baptism expresses in a physical way what the Gospel requires of us. Baptism isn’t simply a choice we make; it is a command we obey. But no-one baptizes themself; everyone is baptized. We have to decide to be baptized, but baptism itself is something that is done to us. For our baptism to happen, we need to submit and trust as the baptism takes place.

In this way, baptism expresses the truth that the phrase ‘justification by faith’ seeks to convey: it’s not what we do, but whom we have faith in that matters. There is, however, so much more to coming to Christ and becoming Christ’s than can be described using just one phrase or idea. ‘Justification by faith’ is an important metaphor that describes one aspect of the process. Nevertheless, there are other equally important metaphors that describe other equally important aspects.

Part of the problem is that some believers are like Sauron in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Sauron wanted ‘one ring to rule them all’; they want one metaphor to rule them all! They seek one idea that is central to what it means to come to Christ and belong to him. St Paul, however, in a letter to believers in the Church at Corinth describes what God has done in their lives using several metaphors and ideas that are all equally significant.  St Paul writes:

‘Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? … But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.’ (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)

Belonging to Christ is a multi-dimensional experience and describing it is like describing a diamond. A diamond has many different facets each beautiful and an essential part of it. While it can’t express all of them, baptism expresses some of these different facets of coming to Christ and becoming his.

When a person was baptized in the early Church, they first took off their old clothes and entered the water. They were fully immersed and soaked in the water. They were then clothed with a new robe. So too, when we come to Christ, we leave aside our old life; we are washed and cleansed from past sin and guilt; we are clothed with Christ himself. The New Testament writers constantly use this imagery to describe our life in Christ. St Paul famously uses the imagery of baptism in his letter to believers in the Church in Rome. St Paul writes:

‘Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.’ (Romans 6:2-4)

Baptism, then, brings together some of the metaphors that the New Testament uses to describe what it means to belong to Christ, but baptism is itself used by St Paul as a metaphor to describe the baptism in the Spirit that a person also experiences when they come to Christ.

So far in this sermon, I have not spoken much about the Holy Spirit. Last week, I spoke briefly about the charismatic movement. The charismatic movement began as a movement that was convinced that not only did the church at the time not talk about the Holy Spirit, the church had, they believed, forgotten there is a Holy Spirit. Those in the charismatic movement not only spoke about the Holy Spirit, they believed the Holy Spirit could be experienced, often in a dramatic way.

The charismatic movement began as a movement that was positive and optimistic. It promised much and hoped for more, but despite the good that came from the movement, the Holy Spirit still remains the unknown person of the Holy Trinity for many in our churches. Whatever we may think of the charismatic movement and movements like it, the Holy Spirit, in the New Testament, is central both to following Christ and to being a member of his body, the Church. St Paul writes in our reading:

‘To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.’ (1 Corinthians 12:7)

Our Lord likened the Holy Spirit to the wind, which blows where it wills (John 3:8). Jesus said that we can hear the sound the wind makes and know it’s there, but where it came from and where it is going is not something we can grasp. In other words, you cannot pin it down. So, too, how a person experiences the Spirit cannot and should not be stereotyped or limited, and that can all too easily happen amongst those who value experiences of the Spirit. It was happening at Corinth. No one experience or manifestation of the Holy Spirit should be treated as normative. The Holy Spirit cannot be limited in that way. What is clear in the New Testament, however, is that the Holy Spirit is real and that we need to know his reality in our lives and in our churches.

Jesus said to his disciples that the Holy Spirit dwelt with them and would be in them (John 14:17). John Calvin, the sixteenth century theologian, wrote:

‘First, we must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value to us. Therefore, to share with us what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and dwell within us.’ (Institutes III.1.1)

The way Christ ‘becomes ours and dwells within us’ is by the Holy Spirit. For St Paul, whether a person has the Holy Spirit living in them is what defines whether that person belongs to Christ or not. St Paul wrote to believers in the Church in Rome:

‘… you are in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.’ (Romans 8:9)

Baptism in water expresses an individual’s faith in Christ and their desire to become his follower as a member of the community of faith. But how is someone to know their application to become a follower of Christ and join the community of faith has been accepted? Nowadays, we largely expect them to take it on trust. We point to the promises of God in the Bible and to our understanding of God as someone who would in any case never reject anyone. But this is not good enough.

In answer to the question, ‘How do I know that I belong to Christ?’ We would answer, ‘By whether you have faith’. The New Testament answer is, ‘By whether you have the Holy Spirit’. As far as St Paul is concerned, for example, a person would know that God had accepted them by the experienced presence of the Holy Spirit in their life. St Paul describes believers as having been ‘sealed’ with the Holy Spirit who acts as a ‘guarantee’ (2 Corinthians 1:22; 5:5; Ephesians 1:13-14; 4:30).

Something I have done for many years now is to put my signature in any book I buy together with the date I bought it. By giving us the Holy Spirit to live in us, God is putting his signature on us to show we are his. Equally, the fact that we have the Holy Spirit living in us is God’s guarantee to us that one day he will bring his work in us to completion and fulfil his promises to us. The New Testament writers all attribute the benefits we receive in Christ to the work of the Holy Spirit. What is promised to us in baptism, they see as being made real and given to us by the Holy Spirit.

The problem is that God giving us his Holy Spirit as a guarantee only works as a guarantee if, like any guarantee, we know we possess it. But most people don’t know they possess the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit may be written on them, but if he is, he is written in invisible ink! This is not to be unkind, quite the reverse.

The unkindness lies in the way so many are missing out on the reality of the Holy Spirit and remain ignorant of who he is and what he wants to do in our lives both individually in us who have faith in Christ and corporately in us as the community of faith. In our reading, St Paul writes of how the Holy Spirit gives gifts to enable us to serve one another and build up the body of Christ. While we, as individuals, continue to remain largely ignorant of the Holy Spirit’s work, we all, as a Church, suffer as a result.

There is much more that needs to be said about how belonging to Christ unites us in a community of faith with all those who also have faith in Christ and belong to Christ. In this community, we are called to unity without uniformity, diversity without division, and equality without the elimination of difference. It is a community in which by the Spirit every member has a part to play and a contribution to make.

As followers of Christ, what we believe, how we live, and the way we organize as a church all matter. They are all important. But all too often, we become so focused on different aspects of our life as his followers that we forget that what matters most is our relationship with him and our commitment to him. This is not entirely surprising given our neglect of the Holy Spirit, for it is the Holy Spirit who makes Christ real to us both as individuals and as a community.

As Christ’s followers, we face many challenges to our faith from an increasingly hostile world. We will only be able to meet these challenges by the renewing power and guidance of the Holy Spirit. The biggest challenge to us, then, turns out to be coming not from the world around us, but from our own spiritual poverty and the church’s failure to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

‘To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.’ We each need to share what the Spirit gives us to help build up the community of faith, so that together we will have the strength to witness to Christ and bring people to know him. But for this to happen, the Holy Spirit needs to become real to each of us and to be allowed to move freely among us.

There is today a resistance in churches to the idea of conversion. We prefer process to crisis, that is, we see coming to faith as something that happens gradually over time, even over a lifetime, rather than suddenly in a moment of time. We distrust dramatic stories of people finding faith and prefer not to use the language of decision.

It is right that we should see following Christ as something that is far more than a one-off commitment to him. Following Christ involves a constant giving of ourselves to him. We need continually to be renewed by his grace, and change is something that should happen in us moment by moment as the Spirit enables us to become more Christ-like in our outlook, character, attitudes, and behaviour.

But this process needs to begin somewhere, and the emphasis on process rather than crisis can mean that the process never starts. Baptism originally was the way a person committed to this process. It was a moment of personal decision and a declaration of commitment to a lifetime of service. For some, the change that came about as a result was immediate and clear for all to see; for others, it was outwardly slower and less obvious. But for all who were baptized the actual change was equally real and dramatic as, in that moment of decision, they died to self and drank of the lifegiving Spirit whom God gave to them.

Years of history and the different social and church contexts in which now we find ourselves mean that baptism is no longer like it was at the beginning. Very often, it no longer represents a time of decision and a declaration of faith.

Furthermore, in the New Testament church, while the giving of the Spirit was distinct from baptism, it usually took place at baptism. As many rightly point out, the teaching of the New Testament is that everyone who belongs to Christ has the Holy Spirit living in them. Receiving the Holy Spirit, in New Testament terms, is not a second blessing, or an event or experience subsequent to coming to Christ and becoming his. A person receives the Holy Spirit when they come to Christ in faith and are accepted by him.

The reality is, however, that, as with baptism, the way we now do things means that we experience the Holy Spirit very differently to how the Spirit was received and experienced in the early Church.

As I have said, we cannot limit how the Holy Spirit works. The Holy Spirit will work in each age and time as he sees fit. Like the wind, he blows when and where he wills. The question is, however, whether we are letting him work or are resisting and rebelling against his working.

We may not be able to be baptized in the way people were baptized in the New Testament era, but we can all make the same decision and declaration of faith. We will not experience the Holy Spirit in exactly the same way as the first believers experienced him, but we can still experience the Holy Spirit.

Much has changed, and will continue to change, but the challenge to each one of us remains the same: personally to decide for Christ and to receive the Holy Spirit.

Veni Sancte Spiritus.
Come Holy Spirit.

Amen.