Who is the Holy Spirit?
Genesis 1
The second in a three-part series, The
Fruits of the Spirit
A Sermon Preached by Dave Shull
University Congregational United
One of my favorite scenes in “The Wizard
of Oz” is when the scarecrow, tin man, and cowardly lion are trying to figure
out how to rescue Dorothy from the clutches of the Wicked Witch of the
West. The lion hatches a plot that will
demand huge amounts of the courage he lacks.
His companions agree to follow his lead.
When they’re ready to set off on their
dangerous mission, the lion says, “Just do one thing.”
“What’s that?” the scarecrow and tin man
reply.
“Talk
me out of it!”
The Holy Spirit is the face of God who
inspires us with bold dreams. The Spirit
is the face of God who most often puts us in situations where we find ourselves
pleading, “Talk me out of it!”
I like to think of the Holy Spirit as the
verb in the Trinity. If the God who is
Abba or Mother is the Giver, and if Jesus Christ is the Gift, then the Holy
Spirit is the Giving. The Spirit is the
face of the trinity that makes things happen. She is the creating, the loving, the calling,
the resurrecting, the becoming.
And so the Spirit is the scariest face of
the Trinity. Because we can ignore
nouns. If we’re confronted by an
unpleasant noun, we can step around it, or go another direction, or look the
other way. We can turn up the volume and
drown out a noun. If an unwanted noun
shows up on the computer screen, we can just hit ‘delete’ and it’s safely gone.
But verbs are different. Verbs have lives of their own. And that’s how it is with the Holy
Spirit. Jesus says, ‘the spirit blows
where it chooses; you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes
from or where it goes’ (John 3.8). So
if, like the cowardly lion, we want to be faithful to the situations we find
ourselves in and do what is right, we have to turn ourselves over to this
Verb. And this Verb just might blow us
right into the path of the Wicked Witch’s guards.
Who is the Holy Spirit? It’s the Verb of the Trinity. It’s the descending, blowing, falling,
burning face of God that will not be tamed or persuaded or silenced or
distracted. When I think of the Holy
Spirit, I think of a picnic. I’m
sitting there eating, minding my own business.
Then the wind kicks up, and there goes my paper napkin. So I put down my plate, and chase after the
napkin. Just when I’ve caught up to it,
and I’m reaching down to grab it, it leaps away from my outstretched fingers
and is gone again.
The Holy Spirit is like when someone
throws a Frisbee to you, and it lands on its side, and the wind propels it
onward, and try as you might to catch up to it, it’s like the Frisbee is
increasing in speed.
The Holy Spirit is like Maria in “The
Sound of Music” --
How do you catch a cloud and pin it
down?
How do you keep a wave upon the sand?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?
Because the Spirit is a verb, you can’t
talk about her
in prose for too long. She’s like love
and forgiveness and homemade bread. You
have to experience the Spirit if you have a prayer of really knowing who she
is. The Spirit isn’t an object to think
about. The Spirit is
Dove descending
Wind blowing
Rain falling
Flame burning.
Free-flowing verbs that elude our most
well-timed grasp or well-articulated theory.
One way to honor this Verb of the Trinity
is to sing. Listen as the choir sings
the first verse of hymn #285, “Oh Holy Dove of God Descending.”
Oh Holy Dove of God Descending,
You are the love that knows no ending,
All of our shattered dreams you’re
mending:
Spirit, now live in me.
Spirit as Dove of God Descending is
baptizing Spirit resting on Kyle and Mollie and Klara
this morning. She is naming Spirit,
naming them as children whom God is loving for ever
and ever and ever. Spirit as Dove of God
Descending is the Verb that promises, I will be with
you always even when it feels like at that intersection a couple hundred miles
back you went left and I went right and we haven’t seen each other since.
Spirit as Dove of God Descending is who
Sister John discovers in the novel Lying Awake. In the depths of a
loneliness she describes as ‘the hole in the center of my being,’ she
prays,
Look at me,
answer me, Lord my God!
God’s
response comes in the form of understanding, and it comes all at once, as if a
dam has burst in her soul. Sister John’s
search for God has been like a hand trying to grasp itself.
You were here all along, she
whispers.
I do not
think; I am thought.
I do not
know; I am known (Mark Salzman,
Alfred A. Knopf, 2000 p. 115).
The
Spirit thinks us. And knows us. And carries us into the arms and heart of
God. Which is the only
place where shattered dreams can be mended. And the only place where we’ve wanted to be
all along.
Let us all sing verse 2:
O holy Wind of God now blowing,
You are the
seed that God is sowing,
You are the
life that starts us growing:
Spirit, now
live in me.
Wind
of God Now Blowing is the creating God who sings through this morning’s
scripture reading from Genesis. She is
poet Gerard Manley Hopkins’ Holy Ghost that
over the bent
World broods with warm breast and ah!
bright wings.
This
Wind of God Now Blowing is the birthing God who blows life into a soup of
nothingness and suddenly nothing is the same.
She is the Breath of Life. And
she will not be tamed by deadly either/or debates about creationism and
evolution and intelligent design. One
writer says this about the Wind of God Now Blowing:
As
particles of hydrogen and helium separated out from radiation and formed the
first atoms, as the clouds of gas compressed to form the first generation of
galaxies, as the universe was lit up by the first stars, it was the Spirit of
God who breathed life into the whole process.
This Breath of God was at work as Earth began to form around the young
Sun 4.5 billion years ago, as the first bacterial life emerged on the new
planet 3.8 billion years ago, as simple cells became more complex and
multi-cellular creatures emerged, as life forms developed wonderfully in the
seas, as life moved onto the land, and as mammals and then hominid species
evolved. The Spirit [is] . . . the
Breath of God, . . . the one who goes forth and fills creation as the power of
continual creation, . . . the power of becoming (Denis Edwards, Breath of Life,
Orbis: 2004, 171-2).
So
much is dying in our lives and our world, Wind of God. Blow us out of our comfort with what is
dying. And into the places where you
need us to be midwives, birthing what you are making new.
Let us now sing verse 3.
O holy Rain of God now falling,
You make
the Word of God enthralling,
You are the
inner voice now calling,
Spirit, now
live in me.
The Holy Rain of God Now Falling is
the Verb in the Trinity who wants to water our imaginations. She wants to keep us open to the new because
it is so easy to cling to what is familiar and to the way we like things to be.
The Holy Rain of God Now Falling is
the Verb of the Trinity we need during the next three months when we will
worship in a new place, with new pewmates, and with
new ways to praise. When we learned we
had to vacate our sanctuary for the summer, we prayed for guidance. And the Holy Rain of God fell upon us, and
upon the leaders of University Christian Church. The Rain of God broke open our
imaginings. And called University
Christian Church to offer us the chance this summer to come together in
Christ’s name to join our songs.
The Holy Rain of God refreshed our shared
memories of the days not many decades ago when our congregations were part of
United Ministries. At that time, the
United Church of Christ, the Disciples of Christ, and the Church of the
Brethren in this region did all of our summer camps together, held our annual
meetings together, and sponsored shared ministries that celebrated the richness
of God more faithfully than we ever could hope to express alone.
The Holy Rain of God fell on our open
spirits to remind us that a United Church of Christ and a Disciples of Christ
on Capitol Hill have formed a permanent marriage and have discovered life and
joy they never knew were there. So we
know our congregations can come together in Christ’s name for three months and
bless each other with new life and unimagined joy.
I’ve heard a number of people in this
congregation talk about this summer when our sanctuary is closed as a time to
take a break from church, or a time to visit other churches. I do not understand such talk. Because in a time of uprootedness
and dislocation we need each other more than ever. At such times, we need to bring our best to
the faithful members of University Christian Church who have invited us into
their home. And our best is all of
us. Our best is all of us. Because the hand cannot say to the foot, I
have no need of you. Nor can it say, You have no need of me.
Especially in times of uprootedness and
dislocation, we need each other, and the fresh imagining that is our gift from
the Rain of God Now Falling.
Finally, let us sing verse 4. After we finish singing, let us be in silence
together, letting the Holy Flame of God Burn in us, and live in us.
O Holy Flame of God now burning,
You are the power of Christ returning,
You are the answer to our yearning,
Spirit, now live in me.