March 30, 2008 Second Sunday after Easter
First Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont, UCC
Psalm 16; John 20:19-31
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth
was without form, and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” That is how the book of
Genesis begins in the King James Version. Then in the second chapter it says,
“And the Lord formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” And then in the gospel
of John, Jesus came through the locked the doors and stood in the midst of the
disciples and said, “‘Peace be unto you; as my Father hath sent me, even so I
send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and saith unto them,
‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost.’”
Remember that the same word that means Spirit or Ghost also means wind
and breath—ruah in Hebrew and pneuma in Greek. God breathes or blows the
Spirit and creation happens. God breathes the Spirit or breath of life into mere
dust and it becomes a living human soul. And Jesus comes back from the dead
and breathes on his disciples and the Holy Spirit fills them and gives them new
life. Miraculous powers of creativity are released in them, and the church is
born. All the good things that today’s beautiful Psalm talks about come to
them—the comfort, the guidance, the joy. They find the path through life
revealed—the sacred way. The Psalm says, “I keep the Lord always before me,”
and doesn’t that make sense to do if all these good things come from the Spirit of
God?
Today we have heard stories out of our own experience that show that the
same Spirit still moves on the face of the earth—stories of people crossing the
boundaries of death as Jesus did, stories of receiving help from beyond, help
from a spiritual higher power. So the question is, if this power is real, why don’t
we keep it always before us? God knows we need it. Why don’t we trust in it
and use it?
The other day my daughter Cary was home from a work project in Hawaii,
and she wanted to watch a movie about the Pacific Island culture, so we watched
Whale Rider. It is a story about a traditional Maori community on the coast of
New Zealand, a community endangered by forces in contemporary western
culture. The tribal leader and his granddaughter both turn to the old ways and
traditional spiritual powers to try to find help, to try to find the path of life for
their community through this entirely new and strange and life-threatening
territory. Their Maori creation myth is that their ancestors first came to the land
riding on a whale, so they look to the sea and the whales and their sacred
ancestors for a sign and an answer.
What struck me in the movie was the persistence of the older man and his
granddaughter in chanting and praying and searching for spiritual signs, taking
risks and working hard every way they knew to open themselves and invoke the
spirit’s response—diving down in the depths of the sea or climbing up on the
back of a whale.
I asked myself, why are we not going to those extremes now? Do we not
believe in the Spirit’s power? Do we not face situations that require power and
wisdom and comfort beyond our human abilities?
Last night I stood down in Thetford Center at the vigil in front of the 4004
red flags, one for each American killed in Iraq. The cold wind was making the
flags flap, and I thought of the Holy Spirit moving over the water at creation, and
I thought of the world we have made of this earth. I felt so powerfully that what I
need to do is find a way to live that will make it so that not one more soldier has
to die—anywhere, ever. I felt an overwhelming desire to help create a new
world, a new culture that is founded on the principles of Christ’s nonviolence
and justice and forgiveness and compassion. But I look at the enormity of the
military industrial complex and the arrogant accumulated power that can hear
two-thirds of the nation say we want the war to stop and say “So what?” I look at
the plans they have for endless war, and I look at how I have no plan and no path
that I can see to a world without war, and I know that the only hope I have is in
the Holy Spirit’s comfort, guidance and power. It is the only power higher than
the power of the military industrial complex. It is the only power high enough to
show us a way and give us the strength to change our lives as we must to heal this
earth and return to the sacred way. So why are we not doing what that Maori
village did, praying and following the traditional teachings of our religion to try
to open ourselves and invoke the Spirit’s help? Why are we not taking more
risks? Why are we not hearing what God surely must be trying to say to us?
The different characters in the Whale Rider village can help us understand
why. Some were so discouraged by the way things were that they gave up. Some
were seduced by the pleasures and riches, the ways of greed and pride of the
modern world. Then there was the grandfather who was the tribal chief. He had
not given up or been seduced, he was working hard to understand where the
Spirit was leading, but his problem was that he was so attached to the old ideas
and his own need to be in control that he was not open to the new path the Spirit
was indicating.
I think these are all reasons why we are not looking more persistently to
the Spirit to lead us and transform our lives and our world—a mixture of having
given up hope, having become addicted to the seductive, comfortable way of life
our culture offers, and having a desire to hold onto our illusions of being in
control.
The best thing—what turned out to be the saving thing—that the
community did in Whale Rider was establish a wisdom school to revive the
traditional spiritual ways. The chief kept teaching and pushing and straining, and
though he himself was too closed to hear what the Spirit was saying, because of
his efforts others were able to hear and see, and others could read the signs and
find the new way to go to save the community. In the end it was a child who led
them, but it took both elders and youth to get there, and it took the wisdom of
heart and head and hand.
In the past the church has often turned away from the Spirit’s path
because it is not an exact science and it can be abused or misused, as the tribal
chief in Whale Rider shows with his misguided fundamentalism; but we have to
trust in the Holy Spirit to use even our imperfect efforts to good ends. We have
to trust in this, we have to put all our effort into this, I believe, because only
through the higher power’s greater wisdom and strength will we re-find the path
of life that our culture left long ago for its Spiritless ways. The power of the
Spirit that God is still breathing into the earth and into us can save us. The
resurrection power Christ is still breathing into his faithful followers can lead us
to the hope and vision of a world transformed into the ways of God’s realm. That
higher power will do the miracle through us—all we have to do is, as the Psalm
says, keep it always before us. We need to learn whatever we need to learn and
change whatever we need to change to keep the Spirit always before us. We need
to keep taking risks and trying, and not give up until the miracle has come.
Let us pray in silence…
Sermon 03/30/2008