Not sure what to do? Here comes the Spirit

So it’s the day of Pentecost: there they all are, gathered into one place, praying. They’re together because it’s a Jewish feast day, Pentecost, 50 days after Passover, a day of pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and the Jesus followers aren’t really sure what else to do. Jesus has appeared over and over to them since his crucifixion, risen from the dead, and now he’s ascended, he’s not appearing to them anymore, and, what are they supposed to do next? So they come together, and they pray, because well, what else can they do? And suddenly there is violent wind, and flames on their heads, and they all start praising God and proclaiming the gospel in languages they didn’t think they knew. It’s like they’re drunk. It’s like they’re crazy. It’s the birth of the church, the beginning of the people that would carry on Jesus’ good news right on up to our present day, and it’s all total chaos. And we’ve heard the story so many times that we simply say, Thanks be to God, and sit quietly in our seats.

And then there’s the other story, a much calmer version of the same thing, the disciples gathered together in fear with the doors locked. The risen Jesus shows up and says, Peace be with you. And then he breathes the Holy Spirit on them. Less chaos and drunkenness. But the same Spirit.

There’s something to learn from these stories:

When you’re not sure what to do, get together and pray.

Because when you do that, the Holy Spirit is bound to show up.

So what IS the Holy Spirit, anyway? We have all kinds of titles for the Spirit: the Advocate, the Comforter, the Breath of God, the Life Force. It’s the thing that gives us goosebumps sometimes, that feeling of euphoria that comes upon us when we least expect it, the gift of tears at a moment of grace. The force at work when things fall together so easily and rightly, when we’re in the flow; the sense we have when a Presence beyond our own seems to be there in our midst. The Spirit of Truth, when for a moment the questions all fall away and clarity comes. The thing Jesus promised when he left his disciples and ascended into heaven: God active in the world, present in the church, moving among us for reconciliation and forgiveness, igniting in us new life. Ruach in Hebrew, pneuma in Greek, both of them meaning wind, fire, breath. 

The Holy Spirit is God beyond our theological systems. It’s not like we haven’t tried to capture it, of course. Pneumatology, it’s called, the branch of theology that tries to say just what the Holy Spirit is. The problem is, you can’t say a whole lot about the Holy Spirit that makes logical sense. The Spirit is more like God’s intuition. You just know; we just are known. And, well, what else is there to say?

So we come together and we pray, because we don’t know what else to do either. And the Holy Spirit shows up. But when she does, things start changing. It’s chaos and confusion and everyone is talking at once.

We call the Holy Spirit lots of things, but ‘Comforter’ is probably the most misleading term we use. We hear that word and think: down quilt. Cozy. Nurturing. We’re always trying to make God be that for us. But the intent of this word ‘Comforter’ is more like strengthening, building up, giving fortitude. Fortitude that we need, because there’s something we have to do – something there before us we have to face. As one writer put it, the Holy Spirit doesn’t come to solve our problems…The Holy Spirit creates problems. There’s nothing swaddling about the Holy Spirit. The disciples did what made sense to them in their uncertainty, hanging out in their clubhouse, the upper room where Jesus had been with them, praying and sticking together. They could have stayed there and been safe and lived out their days. But the Holy Spirit came and blew them out of there, gave them different languages to speak and different missions and sent them out, some going here, some going there, most of them, it seems, heading off to places they’d never been before. Out to danger and difficulty and, for many of them, martyrdom, suffering and death. No more status quo. No going back to the life they had before Jesus came along. 

And we too gather and pray here at church, because what else are we going to do? The world is hard and confusing. The terrible shooting at the Islamic Center on Monday already feels like just one more tragedy in the news cycle. Our lives have traumas and tragedies in them too, and a day like Memorial Day brings that home again to us. We are lost and lonely and we need other people and sometimes we’re really at the end of our rope. So we come to church, and we pray. And sometimes the Holy Spirit comes too. And she doesn’t say, you just stay right here where it’s safe with all these nice people. The Spirit pushes us to go out. He brings us to other people who need to hear about God through us. Different people, different places, who knows where we’re going and what’s coming next. It’s a challenging path we’re walking – the Spirit gives us the strength and courage to walk it.

We know this, even we haven’t always named it so clearly for ourselves. The Spirit’s work is there to be seen in every one of our stories. Every time in our lives we find connection with another person, when we suddenly realize we’re talking soul to soul; every time doors open that we didn’t expect, opportunities we never saw coming around the bend in the road; every time deep peace settles into us in the silence of a long night. But we can forget those stories once they’re past. What’s happening now seems more total and final than anything that happened before. What’s coming next makes us anxious, and we fear things will never change. We have to go back and look – we have to reread and retell our stories – inviting God to join us in the process. Like we’re sitting down with Jesus at the kitchen table and spreading it all out to look at – because then we see, even in a life full of tragedies, the sweetness of joy; in a life of routine and duty, the unexpected chaos of the new; in a life of isolation, strange voices calling our name. Pentecost happens to us. Over and over again. In each of our lives. In the life of our church. In the life of our world. The Spirit is always arriving with her unanticipated hope.

So when you don’t know what to do next, get together with other people and pray. The Holy Spirit is bound to show up.

When she does, yes, the Spirit may throw things into chaos and confusion. Many things may change.

But new possibilities emerge, things that are bigger than us. New possibilities that happen so that we, and the whole world, may know God and make God known. Which is the whole purpose God has in mind for us from the start.

So don’t be afraid. Just breathe in the Spirit. And we’ll see what comes next. Amen.