The Spirit of God

A sermon based on the readings for Pentecost: Acts 2:1-21 and Romans 8:14-17

In the name of Jesus; amen.

For several years now I have belonged to an on-line discussion board of other pastors from many different denominations from all over North America. I’ve never met any of these people in person, but despite that fact there have been some friendships formed and I have come to care very much for the people I have met on-line. And despite the fact that we are from different places, different denominations, different political backgrounds and climates we have become a community. It’s the wonder of the internet that such a thing could take place.

Well, yesterday as I sat down to write this sermon, I stopped first at this discussion site. I wanted to get some information about Pentecost and I knew I could find it there when I saw a post entitled: “Sad news. Death of AWG.” AWG was the screen name for a Methodist pastor who serves the church in Maine.

Someone else on the site had noticed that he hadn’t been around for awhile and did some searching for him. AWG, or Allan, had a web-site that he ran for congregations that had been wounded by clergy misconduct and had just finished a book on the topic. He and his wife also kept a small cabin as a retreat center for pastors and their families who needed time away to refresh and renew themselves. When our son was diagnosed with lead poisoning Allan offered it to Scott and me, but we never took him up on the offer.


Allan suffered from diabetes and a bad heart. His health had started to fail and according to his web-site he died on March 27th.

This might sound like a strange way to being a sermon for Pentecost. Pentecost is, after all, a festival day, a day of celebration and rejoicing. Today we remember the Holy Spirit coming with wind and fire. We sang, “Every time I feel the Spirit” one of the most joyful spirituals I know as our canticle of praise.

It seems a strange time to talk about someone dying, except that my heart is heavy from this news about this man I never met who I know prayed for me and offered me encouragement and sound advice when I asked for his support. And that isn’t because of the wonder of the internet, but because of the grace of God and the wonder of God’s Holy Spirit.

AWG had been my friend through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit might have worked through the computer, but the Spirit worked none-the-less because the Spirit works through relationships. Certainly the Spirit works in us as individuals, but the true purpose of the Spirit is to draw us together as a community and to bring us as individuals in community closer to God.

Those that gathered that first Pentecost shared a history with us as a people of faith. It began in a garden where life was perfect. It was a garden called into being by God’s own breath which in Hebrew is the same word as “spirit.” Ruah.

There we walked and talked with God, lived in relationship with God, until we decided perfection wasn’t perfect enough unless we could be like God and so we ate the fruit that the snake promised would make us know everything that God knew.

And out of the garden we were sent and as time passed we decided we wanted to be able to go where God was and so we built a tower. It was so tall that we were certain that soon enough it would reach heaven until God confused us by making us look different and talk different from one another.

The story of Adam and Eve being thrown out of the garden and the story of the tower of Babel were meant to explain how our relationships with God and our relationships with one another are broken relationships. But the story of Pentecost is a story of God putting the pieces of our relationships back together.

On Pentecost, the Spirit, the breath of God, breathes on us forming a new creation. It’s the same Spirit that is present in baptism where we are made children of God. And the Spirit works in us, pulling us together as God’s adopted children.

That pull happens in all sorts of strange ways and it binds us together with God and with people we haven’t even seen but are connected to by God’s love.

We are meant to be in relationship with God. God formed us in God’s own image so that we could be with God. The creator created us for the purpose of relationship. Not as playthings, or toys, or as a hobby, but as beloved children who love the one who made them.

We are also meant to be in relationship with one another. God saw that Adam was lonely and knew it wasn’t right. We were created to honor and care for one another. God sees that we struggle to understand and listen to one another and knows it isn’t right because we were created to honor and care for one another.

And the wonder of God making things right is that God decided to come and be with us. Jesus came as a real human being, lived with us, laughed and cried with us, and died for us. Then, when it was time for Jesus to return to God, God came to us again in the Spirit. No more trying to know everything God knows… no more trying to climb up to heaven… God came to us, to live in relationship with us.

My heart is weighed down by the death of a really wonderful person who I hardly knew, but I am filled with joy that God gave me such a relationship in the first place. And because of the Spirit my heavy heart soars with the knowledge that God is making all things right in the promise of the resurrection and in the promise of a tomorrow where even death cannot break relationships that God has called into being.

God’s purpose in us cannot be thwarted. Death, hell, and the devil have been defeated. The Spirit of God dwells with us and gathers us together in grief and in celebration.

Amen.


For AWG, rest in the peace of God.