Pentecost 2017

John 20:19-23

So it's Pentecost again, and we turn our attention to the Holy Spirit. We are not sure who he is or what he does. We get the Father, and even more his Son Jesus, but the Holy Spirit always seems like an afterthought. If any of you read the book “The Shack” you remember that the Holy Spirit was portrayed as a being just on the edge of perception, something like Tinker Bell in the Peter Pan story. So today we could try to talk about who the Holy Spirit is, but people have been burned at stake for getting that wrong; or we could talk about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which is interesting, but what do we do with that? So let's begin with the gospel passage, when Jesus breathes on his apostles and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit”. Now our Church teaches us that we receive the Holy Spirit at baptism, and when we get confirmed, we enter into a sort of spiritual adulthood. So all of us have the Holy Spirit. What does that mean on a day to day practical level?

Saint Paul once said words to this effect: “Do not be drunk with wine, because that only leads to trouble. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit.” He is contrasting the effects of too much alcohol with being filled with the Holy Spirit. People drink alcohol usually to alter the way they see things. Cares slip away, one's conversation becomes more profound, people seem more interesting …” And Paul is saying the Holy Spirit is way better than the effects of alcohol, and there is no hangover.

So what does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit?

A couple of years ago I visited a man every week to sit with him and bring him Holy Communion. He had advanced Alzheimer's disease, and after his caregiver cleaned him up, he would be placed in a recliner and the TV switched on. He would stare at the TV with bathroom breaks and breaks for food. He would be moved around at times to prevent bedsores. He couldn't carry on a conversation. When I tried to talk with him, he just stared straight ahead. I knew I was wasting my time, and so I took his hand and said a silent prayer and prepared to leave. But he gripped my hand and I asked if he wanted communion. I made the sign of the cross, and he sort of did as well. And I said the Lord's prayer, and his lips moved, and I gave him a small piece of the host and he took it and swallowed it. And this went on with every visit. The Holy Spirit reminded me that in God's world, everything matters, and no act of loving concern is wasted.

And there is a lady I visit. She also has advanced Alzheimer's disease. I sit down next to her and she is clutching a doll. I ask her how she feels, and try to get a glimpse of recognition; her nurse tells me that now and then she does say a few words. But I must scare her, because in our encounters, sooner or later she looks at me with a horrified expression on her face and sometimes she cries. In those moments I feel the immense separation between us, the distance. But the Holy Spirit reminds me that at some level this women and I are one – because God is one, and everything comes from God, and there is a unity not only between God's people, but even between people and things.

And for a long time I visited another patient. He was a Vietnam veteran, who had developed severe PTSD, and when he returned from the war he took to alcohol, lost his family, lived on the street for a while, eventually developed a severe neurological disease probably from the alcohol, maybe from something he got exposed to in Vietnam. When I met him he could still get from the bed to the toilet and operate a motorized wheelchair. But a year later he couldn't do anything for himself – but his mind was intact and he could speak and listen. And I thought, what a wasted life. What a purposeless life. But in that terrible situation, he made peace with his wife, was reconciled with his daughter, began receiving the sacraments again, and eventually died peacefully. And the Holy Spirit reminded me that everything has a purpose, that this universe has a plan.

Our Western Civilization tells us that nothing matters, that this life is all there is, that religion is a superstition, that human life, from conception to advanced old age, is cheap and disposable. The Holy Spirit reminds us that that's not true, everything matters, even things we think are total wastes. Because, as the old saying goes, God doesn't make junk. So when you do the laundry or mow the lawn or clean the toilet, those things matter, and they are worth doing well.

Our civilization says that some people are friends and some are enemies, that one political party is on the side of good and the other on the side of evil. We are increasingly told that there is no room for compromise; that people who believe differently than me and my friends are “reprehensible”. But the Holy Spirit says that we are one, because we reflect God, and God is one.

Our world says that this life is all there is, that everything is relative, that one civilization is as good as another, because good and evil are subjective terms. We are just random collections of atoms floating on a ball of mud in a purposeless universe. But the Holy Spirit says that God has a plan, a plan that extends from the fate of the Universe to whether a sparrow falls from it's nest. And that you and I are indispensable parts of this plan.

So he is constantly whispering to us, “everything matters; everything is connected; everything has a purpose.” And when we let that soak in, when we keep listening to his voice – guess what? We experience love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Because we realize, as the poem says,
Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God, but only he who sees takes off his shoes...