The Spirit wants to lead you into the wilderness, away from distractions, so God can speak clearly to you and strengthen you for your ministry and life as Christ.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The First Sunday in Lent, year C
Text: Luke 4:1-13

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

If God wanted to speak to you, how would God get through?

Today Jesus walks away from the Jordan, wet from baptism, and the Holy Spirit leads him into the Judean wilderness, a harsh landscape. There he fasts for forty days, faces temptation, and at the end of his time in the desert, steps back into the world and begins his ministry.

If this story we hear every first Sunday in Lent is to be more than just an historical curiosity, if it’s supposed to mean anything to your life, then let’s be clear: Jesus intentionally enters the wilderness.

This isn’t a story about how life is sometimes a wilderness, how we can face threats, struggles, difficulties, and survive. This wilderness was completely avoidable. Jesus could’ve left his baptism and immediately begun teaching, walking his way back north to Galilee. But the Spirit led him another way.

Because the Son of God, needed to listen, needed to be connected into the life of the Triune God. The crowds, the noise, the world were all awaiting him. But first he needed to get away.

This was a critical time for Jesus.

We have no idea what it meant for the divine inner relationship of the Trinity to have the Son in human flesh. But we do know Jesus prayed. He spoke to the One he called Father and was filled with the One he called Spirit. Being in the wilderness, focused, listening, helped Jesus know clearly who he was, what he was meant to be, and what path he would be walking as he left the wilderness.

Every temptation, every challenge he faced in the wilderness, returned in his ministry, and most clearly in Gethsemane that night before his death. Would he take advantage of his divine power to help himself? Would he try to win the world over by force? Would he trust the Father and the Spirit to be with him even if he were threatened with death? This isn’t the last time he’d face these questions, nor the last time he’d get away to pray and listen. But from here, Jesus knew how he would answer them.

If God wanted to speak to you, how would God get through?

If Jesus, the very Son of God, needed to get away from distractions and noise to focus, listen, and be prepared and strengthened by the voice of God for the life he would live, don’t you also need that? But how will God get through the distractions?

What’s the last thing you see at night – is it the light of your phone screen? Is it the television, putting you to sleep? How quickly after you rise in the morning do you reconnect with news, music, social media? How often is your house or office or car quiet of any noise – radio, music, television?

Certainly some here don’t live by the light of a smartphone, that’s a generational thing. For some, rather than the noise of small children or the bustle of getting ready for work, the tiredness of coming home late and crashing on the couch for something mindless, for some perhaps the day is filled with too many empty hours, with too little to do. But what do you do with those hours? Do you fill them with distractions?

In our chaotic world we’ve lost any sense of still places, of going aside from the day even a few minutes, simply to listen. We don’t often speak to each other of seeking wilderness, places to listen to God’s voice for the day, or find time for it.

This isn’t meant to be a guilt trip. But ask this again, “If God wanted to speak to you, how would God get through?” Would God be able to get you to put aside the latest news, turn off your favorite program, stop your rushing or sleep-walking through the day and get your attention?

And if God can’t get through, then ask this: “Whose voice am I listening to every day? Who really leads me?”

It’s complicated, because everyone might need a different wilderness.

I’ve learned more of my need as I’ve gotten older. I’ve always struggled with the traditional fifteen or thirty minute “devotions” in the morning. It’s hard for me to remember it, and I often fall asleep. But I’ve learned silence in the morning as I walk around and prepare is deeply helpful. I also read and contemplate on a daily email devotion. But I’ve recently realized how often the last minutes of my day are spent with a lighted screen in my face, and I need to consider if that’s how I want to end each day.

A number of years ago I discovered that I loved walking as an exercise. But it has also become my best wilderness. For nearly an hour almost every day I can walk in silence – no music or podcasts – and listen to the world, listen to God. The walking becomes prayer, give and take with God, listening and speaking. It’s harder to find silence walking in winter – due to the weather I do it inside, and the gym is noisy – but it’s still a wilderness walk for me.

I don’t have a prescription for each of you. But consider Jesus’ experience and look at your day with new eyes. And pray – the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness and longs to lead you as well. How might the Spirit help? Are there places you can set aside time from distractions and other things? Can you start with five minutes of simply being open to God’s voice – perhaps beginning with reading Scripture or a devotion? Two of the classic Lenten disciplines – fasting and prayer – could be especially helpful. And whatever discipline you find, seek something you’ll continue after Easter comes, not just something for these forty days.

But we don’t have to overthink this, either.

The wonderful poet Mary Oliver, who died recently, had this wisdom to share:

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak. [1]

“A silence in which another voice may speak.” That’s what Jesus was looking for as the Spirit led him into the desert. Where can you find such a silence? As the poet says, it doesn’t have to be elaborate or complicated. Just pay attention – even to weeds or small stones or piles of snow – find a space in your day where you are able to notice what is around you and learn to focus, a space where you aren’t filling it with any outside noise or internal anxiety. And listen.

We could help each other, starting with this Lent.

We could share, “here’s how I listen to God; here’s where my spirit is fed and I’m strengthened.” Certainly our worship here each week is a shared time apart, a wilderness to seek and listen for God. But the more of us that share our wisdom with each other about our daily walk, the more chances there are you’ll hear of possible paths into the wilderness that could help you hear God’s voice.

So if you have ways you’d like to share, talk to me. We could put these in the Olive Branch, either written by you for the community, or given to me to write up. And if you wonder about other people’s practices of seeking wilderness, ask them. Trust each other that we’re all desiring a faithful path, and we’re all struggling to find it. Trust that God has already planted a lot of wisdom in this community. Let’s take advantage of that to help each other in this path.

Because here’s the Good News, the great news of this story of Jesus’ temptation for you: God most definitely wants to speak to you and draw you into God’s life.

The Holy Spirit desires to take you into a wilderness, to connect with the Triune God who loves you and knows you and dreams for you. The Spirit says, “Come, find a place of silence where another voice may speak to you.”

You know you are sent into the world as Christ. But what you need, what I need, is to be as prepared as Jesus was for that sending. To be so joined into the life of the Triune God that when setbacks or temptations or suffering or frustration or boredom come, you are strong because God is in you and you can hear God, speak God into what assails you. You are clear about your purpose, and Who sent you and Who still walks with you.

So, come. Let’s help each other find wilderness. Let the Spirit lead you into a place where you can hear God’s voice and be strengthened to re-enter your life’s mission as Christ.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1] Mary Oliver, “Praying,” from Thirst, Beacon Press, 2006, p. 37.

Whether you’re a life-long church member or hearing for the first time, God’s trying to get your attention and call you to follow, trusting you’ll be guided and directed.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Lectionary 5 C
Texts: Luke 5:1-11; Isaiah 6:1-8

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Fifty-six years ago today my parents carried me, twenty-two days old, to the baptismal font at St. Matthew’s in Worthington.

My truth is that from my earliest memories I have been part of a Lutheran congregation. I have worshipped very nearly every Sunday for these 56 years. I have heard the Gospel read and preached my whole life, I have sung the hymns of the Lutheran Church my whole life, I have prayed and walked with Christians my whole life. I can’t imagine what it would be like outside the Christian faith.

I have absolutely no idea what Simon Peter is going through. Meeting God’s Son for the first time as an adult and being called to follow could never happen to me. I expect many of you are the same. Some of us here came to faith later in life, but in the established church, most congregations are full of people with no other experience than being a member of a congregation.

Today Jesus grabbed Peter’s attention, and set a clear choice before him: follow me with everything you have, or don’t.

Have you ever known such an experience? Has God ever grabbed your attention, and showed a clear crossroads in front of you, a path to take one way or the other? The challenge of being an established congregation in an established church is that rarely do any of us have this moment of sensing something new from God and knowing we’re being asked to decide what to do.

Now, Isaiah is more like us than Peter.

Isaiah is a regular practitioner of the Jewish faith, like Peter, but he’s in the Temple, worshipping. It’s likely he has only ever known the worship of the One Who Is, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Yet on this day, Isaiah had a vision: the presence of God filling the Temple, so large that God’s hem filled up the immense interior.

And then God called Isaiah. God grabbed Isaiah’s attention with this awe-inspiring, terrifying vision, and set a clear choice before him: go where I send you, or don’t.

In Isaiah we see that even if you’ve never known anything but the faith you’ve practiced, even if you’ve always walked with people who shared your faith, God can still get your attention and set a crossroads in front of you, a path to take one way or the other. Established church or not, God’s not interested in us sitting on our status quo.

Maybe the question is, what is God doing to get your attention?

Isaiah’s vision feels like the events of Pentecost. Worship becomes this massively charged moment that can’t be avoided or unseen, whether it’s God’s hem filling the Temple or the wind and fire of the Spirit blowing through the believers. We don’t usually expect such things in our worship.

Peter’s crisis is also rare. An experienced fisherman knows what happens fishing at certain times and places, and he’s knocked over by a catch that is threatening to sink two boats, a catch that just shouldn’t be. Like Isaiah and the believers at Pentecost, Peter’s just seen something that clearly says “God is now present, in front of you.”

What do you do if you’ve never seen such things? This is why we might sit idly by. We haven’t seen sights like these. So maybe we’re not called like these were.

But you have seen and heard wonders from God. You have heard God’s Word, and have been moved to joy and tears by it. You’ve felt pulled into God’s love for the creation. You’ve seen the pain of God’s children and the suffering of the world and heard God say, “whom can I send?” You’ve experienced God’s forgiveness calm your heart, you have had a sense of God’s Spirit in you. In this very place, you’ve experienced God’s presence in worshipping with these people. Maybe what you’ve seen and heard isn’t as cinematic as these stories, but it’s no less powerful or real. Maybe what you’ve seen and heard hasn’t happened every week, but neither did these spectacles.

God is trying to get your attention, and in those moments you are no different from Isaiah or Peter.

And like them, every day Christ is saying, “Follow me, I have things I need you to do.”

Tiny choices of how you will treat the stranger you meet at the store or the driver of the other car. Larger choices of what you will do next in your life, or whether you will make changes to your lifestyle to join Christ’s blessing for the world.

God’s Word is filled with such calls, once you realize that, while your experience isn’t like exactly like Peter’s or Isaiah’s it is just as real, and that such crossroads as God places before you today have much the same clarity and much the same finality.

Because when you choose to follow, you choose to turn away from other things. Likewise, if you choose not to take Christ’s path this afternoon, or tomorrow, you choose to turn toward other things.

The question is: are you paying attention, and if so, do you see the crossroads? Then the only thing left is your answer.

A couple things can trip you up. The first is a sense that you’re not worthy.

Both Isaiah and Peter felt this. Facing the unmistakable presence of God, they both fall down and say, “I’m a sinful person! I shouldn’t be in God’s presence.”

But Isaiah’s guilt and sin are burned away. Peter is told not to be afraid, that he’s just who Jesus needs.

When we consider the immense, undying love we know from God, and then hear calls such as Paul’s call we heard last week, to love as Christ loves, we can feel our own imperfection and sin and weakness. To consider that you might be God’s chosen person to bear God’s grace and love to others can seem ludicrous.

So we make excuses, covering for our fear: I’m too old, there’s nothing I can do. I’m too busy, I can’t add anything to my life. It’s too complicated, there’s nothing I can do to make a difference. I don’t know what to do.

These are dodges, not reasons to stand still at the crossroads. But like Isaiah and Peter, God has something to say to your fear. Hear God’s words of grace to Peter as yours: “Do not be afraid.” Taste in Christ’s Meal the wonder that you are forgiven, your life cleansed by Christ’s body and blood. These are for you. These are your truth. So you can, like Isaiah and Peter and millions before you, stand up. And hear the call: “Follow me. I have need of you.”

The second thing is fretting about the details.

I can’t tell each of you right now what your crossroads are today, or what they’ll be tomorrow, or exactly what you should do. It’s easy to get stuck worrying about all the things you don’t know about following and never decide to follow. To get lost in the weeds of what might happen or what exactly God needs.

Isaiah isn’t told anything about how his ministry will work, what risks there are. Peter has no idea what it will be to fish for people, what crises he’ll face, or even what he’s supposed to do that day.

That’s always the way it is with God’s call: you hear it and you decide to follow. Or not. And if you follow, you trust God’s promise to always lead and guide you in the Spirit. The details will come later, and that’s where we help each other. We talk about our paths, about our call, and we help each other figure out the details of what it will look like today, and tomorrow. We listen to each other’s questions.

Don’t let the lack of details make you sit back into the pew and do nothing. The only question that matters is “Will you follow?” If the answer is yes, the rest will become clear.

This disconnect we sometimes feel between our lives and those of the biblical people called to follow can be dangerous and lead us to do nothing.

We can hear Peter’s call and Isaiah’s vision and decide we’re just fine as we are, assume we aren’t called. Because we didn’t experience what they did.

But the Triune God is seeking your attention, and has a path for you to follow. You are being called, you have crossroads before you every day, and choices to make.

So how will you answer God?

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

Love, agape, the love of Christ, is the only way to live, the only way God will heal all things, and the one thing that makes your gifts healing and blessing to the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Lectionary 4 C
Texts: 1 Corinthians (12:31), 13:1-13 (adding in that extra verse)

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Early in my ministry I got knocked back by a seminary professor.

Ordained for about three years, I had a half hour conversation with a professor with decades of experience, not from my seminary. We talked about Christian ethics, and I shared my growing conviction that the dominant New Testament ethic, from Jesus to the letters, was love of God and love of neighbor.

This professor said I was too simplistic, that I hadn’t factored in all the other ethical considerations to really understand what I was talking about. And, he said, love isn’t enough of an answer. You’ll have to define what love is, he said, and that’s where all the disagreement happens.

Now, I hadn’t yet connected all the dots of my thesis, and I was pretty wet behind the ears. So I didn’t have this snappy comeback: “Well, Paul seems to have pretty clearly defined love in 1 Corinthians 13.” So the professor went on his way having properly put the naïve pastor in his place.

25 years later, I still hold the same conviction, only much more deeply and with far greater certainty. It’s simply too clear in Scripture. And today we hear Paul’s magnificent proclamation of love, agape, that centers it all, the wisdom he gave his fractured church at Corinth.

It’s true, saying love of God and love of neighbor is the heart of Christian ethics might be simple. But the last thing you can say about Christian love is that it’s easy.

You want to know what is easy? Do what you normally do.

If you want me to get angry, I can do that right now. I can be rude without thinking, arrogant without noticing. It comes as naturally as breathing.

Insisting on my own way? Easy as anything. I expect many here are the same. There’s nothing easier than being irritated at someone who bothers us, or resenting other people, nothing easier than losing control and being unkind.

Now, I’ve met people who seem to have Paul’s Christian love genetically written into them. They appear to be naturally kind, gracious, not boastful or arrogant or rude. Maybe they’ve been working on it and it was hard for them, too. But for most of us, that’s not our natural tendency.

Paul writes to a faith community that’s the opposite of this chapter. They’re divided and fighting, and it’s easy for them. So Paul tells them of this most important gift of the Holy Spirit. “Strive for the greater gifts,” he says. “And let me show you this still more excellent way.”

Paul’s argument has three parts. The first is simple: everything you value in yourself has no value if you don’t have love.

It’s an eye-opening argument. He’s just spent a lot of ink talking about the many and various gifts of the Spirit, how each member’s gifts are different and important to the body of Christ. Paul is our greatest proclaimer and describer of the gifts the Holy Spirit pours out on the Church and on individuals.

But now he says: none of these gifts have any worth if they aren’t accompanied by love. Without love, there’s no point to anything you do as Christ. It doesn’t matter how well you speak (he says to preachers like me), if you don’t have love, you’re just noise. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, if you don’t also love, it’s worthless. A prophetic voice in a world of injustice means nothing without love. And even faith. Remember how Jesus said just a tiny bit of faith could move mountains? Paul says, even if you have such faith and move those mountains, if you don’t love, who cares?

All the things we most value about ourselves, gifts of God, things that can make a huge difference in the world for God, if we have no love wrapped around them, flowing out of us, we might as well be a lump of rock.

Ah, but – our professor complains – love is too simplistic a term. What do you mean by it? I’m glad you asked, Paul says. Let me tell you part two.

“This is what I mean by love,” he says.

Love is patient, love is kind; love is not envious, love isn’t boastful. Love is not arrogant, love isn’t rude. Love doesn’t insist on its own way. Love isn’t irritable; love isn’t resentful. Love doesn’t rejoice in wrongdoing – even in our enemies – but love rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, love believes all things, love hopes all things, love endures all things. Love never ends.

Oof. There are literally no loopholes here. No cracks where you or I can sneak out of this, no places to hide. Paul is painfully clear. If you aren’t being kind, you don’t have love, and anything you’re doing means nothing. If you insist on being arrogant or rude, you don’t have love, and there’s no point to anything you’re saying. If you’re happy when someone messes up, if you’re envious or resentful, you don’t have love, and anything else you’re up to has no worth.

These are some of the hardest words in Scripture. Behaviors we claim are “just part of who I am” are signs that we are not Christ, because we are not love. Excuses we make for such behaviors carry no weight, because Paul doesn’t give the option of being impatient in certain circumstances, or insisting on your own way on some special occasions. There is only love, Paul says, love we have seen and known already in Christ. Anything else, you’re just wasting your breath, taking up space, making noise.

But hear Paul’s third part before you despair.

Paul says we only see dimly now, have imperfect knowledge. But that will change.

All those things that mean nothing without love don’t last into the next life. But love such as Christ has, love like this, never ends.

So you don’t stay in dimness of sight, lack of knowledge. You are being changed by the Spirit into a new creation in Christ. Day by day you will see love more clearly, live love more deeply. It will become a part of you and transform those parts that are not of Christ. At some point it will become like second nature to you.

It’s like growing up, Paul says. You mature from childish ways, you become an adult. The Spirit is likewise growing you into maturity of love, until you look like chapter 13, like Christ.

And when you move through death into the life to come – something Paul will proclaim in great detail in chapter 15, which we’ll hear these next few weeks – when that happens, your dim sight will turn to clarity of vision. Your imperfect knowledge will be complete.

But you know what will still be there? The Christ-love that has matured in you. That love – for God and neighbor, for the creation, for all things – all the growing into Christ you’ve done here, when you are raised into eternal life through Christ’s resurrection, that love comes with you.

Love’s not only the greatest gift the Spirit gives. It’s the gift that never goes away.

Love isn’t easy at all. It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do. But it’s the way god will heal all things.

Consider a world filled with creatures who are kind, humble, patient, generous, sharers of joy, where anger and rudeness and arrogance and irritation aren’t known. Can you imagine living in such a world? God can.

So strive for this greatest of all spiritual gifts, Paul says. “Strive” carries with it the word “zeal,” so Paul’s saying two things. Zealously pray for the Holy Spirit to give you this gift, transform your heart and your life. Put all your prayer into asking for this gift. But also be zealous in your actions, your thoughts, your decisions, your life, zealous to live this kind of love.

Then all the many gifts of the Spirit that we see here, your gifts, my gifts, that work for the common good together, then they also mean something. Covered by such love, shaped by such love, your gifts now become part of God’s blessing of this creation. As God always intended.

This is the more excellent way, Paul says. Will it be yours?

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

Paul and Jesus declare to be reality what we do not yet see: they invite you to be what you are, and you will see astonishing things.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday after Epiphany, Lectionary 3 C
Texts: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

There’s something troubling about what we hear from Paul and Jesus today.

Paul boldly tells his Corinthian church that they are the body of Christ, they are one in the Holy Spirit. Everyone matters, no matter how small or great. Everyone’s gifts are needed. This is reality, Paul says.

Jesus declares that the wonderful things he’s anointed by the Holy Spirit to do are already done: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” he says.

But it’s hard to see a lot of evidence of the unified body of Christ or the healing of all things no matter what Paul and Jesus say.

This is a good, healthy community here. But none of us would say it’s perfect.

People are here, part of Mount Olive, because this place has blessed them, this community of faith has been a gift. Each of us have different reasons that draw us here; some become members, some don’t, but we all journey together, each with different experiences of this community. Most days, on our good days, we find this is a wonderful, supportive body of Christ. On those days it’s easy to tell others how much we love these people with whom we worship and serve.

But not all our days are good days. Some days we’re disappointed by others in this community. Some days we feel alone, even unsupported. Some days we don’t like decisions that are made. Some days someone says something that offends us. And each of us likely has things we don’t share with others here, things we could use support with, because we don’t fully trust that someone, or this community, will have our back.

Paul’s vision is beautiful. But we know that it doesn’t always happen, not even here. People can fall through gaps. And beyond just this community, the Church in the world’s got even more problems.

So: is Paul declaring what our aspiration should be? He seems to be doing something else. He seems to be saying “This body, where each member is valued and loved, where all are supported and cared for, this is what you are.” Not what you should be, or could be.

It’s even clearer with Jesus today.

We believe he was anointed and filled by the Holy Spirit to do these things: proclaim release to captives, good news to the poor, freedom to the oppressed, sight to those who cannot see. We claim that from Pentecost to today, the Holy Spirit anoints us, fills us, to do the very same things.

But even though Jesus says “today this has been fulfilled in your hearing,” there are still lots of people captive literally and figuratively, in prison, trapped in systems, caught up in their own sinful, destructive patterns. There are still millions who are poor who hear no good news. Oppression still crushes millions in our own country and around the world.

So: How can Jesus say this has been fulfilled? It can feel dishonest to proclaim in this space all these wonderful things Scripture says God is doing and has done in the world in Christ and through us, and not admit that many days it’s almost impossible to see evidence of this.

Here’s what you need to remember: Jesus and Paul aren’t fools. They see what we see.

If the Corinthian church was actually living as the body of Christ, where each felt welcomed and part of the mission, where all were loved and supported, Paul wouldn’t have to write these words. In fact, the church at Corinth had all sorts of divisions and fractures. The letters to Corinth, more than any Paul wrote, reveal the often ugly realities a Christian community can experience. This was a community divided between wealthy and not wealthy, between people of different ideologies, between people who saw their relationship to other religions and practices of their neighbors very differently, between people who had radically different expectations of Christian behavior.

Today we see that exclusion from the body went two directions. Some – like Paul’s image of the foot and the ear –self-excluded, feeling they themselves and their gifts weren’t worthy of being in this body of Christ. And some – like Paul’s image of the eye and the head – excluded others, saying some folks just weren’t good or valuable enough to count. As beautiful as Paul’s image of the body of Christ is, created in baptism by the Holy Spirit, clearly the Corinthian church didn’t look like that.

And Jesus obviously understood that ending oppression and poverty and captivity and bringing healing to the world didn’t just happen by his sermon that day. His ministry that followed embodied what the Spirit filled and anointed him to do. It also showed how much needed to be done.

But Jesus and Paul see something deeper than what seems the obvious reality.

Paul knew the Corinthians were divided and full of infighting. But he says, “That’s not who you are. You are one body, baptized into Christ, made one in the Holy Spirit. This is your truth: everyone belongs, whether they appear to be weak or strong, gifted or not. Everyone is supported and loved, whether they suffer or rejoice. And everyone has different gifts to serve God, and each are important.” Jesus says the same, in the face of a world that’s still in pain: “today this is fulfilled.”

They believe this reality they describe is, in fact, already upon us. Maybe we don’t see it in the Church here and across the world all the time, or in the brokenness and pain of the world. But the body of Christ exists, is real, is made by the Holy Spirit, no matter what we see or do. God’s healing of all things has come in Christ and continues in you and me, because the Holy Spirit is making this happen.

Instead of commanding us to do something, Jesus and Paul speak in the indicative mood: “This is what you are. This is what God is doing.” So, they say, “Be who you are. Be a part of what God is doing.”

Because that’s how these realities become visible.

If you live in this community expecting the Spirit to make us one body, where all are valued, welcomed, loved, and supported, where many gifts of differing kinds are evident, you will see that is, in fact, our truth. Flaws and cracks will still be there, but they are part of the growing and knitting the Spirit is doing. They are mended through grace and forgiveness as you live in this body of Christ expecting to see what Paul says already exists. And astonishingly, this is also true of the whole Church in the world, not just here.

And if you live believing that God in Christ has already fulfilled the promise to come and end oppression, captivity, poverty, and all the suffering of this world, you will see over and over that this, in fact, is happening. Your eyes – blessed by the Spirit – will see the healing strands of grace and hope. The tiny growths of green life and joy that cannot be stopped. As you participate in these acts of healing as Christ yourself, you will see the Spirit making an impact through your hands and your voice and your heart.

Because the Spirit of God is upon you. And the Holy Spirit has filled you, anointed you, to be these amazing things we heard today.

To be the body of Christ – and not just in this congregation but across the Church – one in the Spirit, not divided. And to be the healing grace of the Triune God working in you as Christ in the world.

Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. It’s your truth. It’s what you are.

So, be that. Trust the Spirit is moving in you and in the Church, and your eyes will be opened to the deep reality behind what you normally see. You will see God’s reality, and live in it. Until the whole creation sees for itself and rejoices.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

 

The Holy Spirit of the Triune God is moving and breathing in you and in the world: name it, watch for it, confidently expect it.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Baptism of Our Lord, First Sunday after Epiphany, Lectionary 1 C
Texts: Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22; Isaiah 43:1-7

Dear friends in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

The Holy Spirit is like the wind, Jesus taught us in John 3.

The Spirit blows wherever she wills, and as with the wind, we have no control. All we can do is see where the Spirit has been.

It’s strange that Christians often want to control who thinks the right thoughts about God and control what those right thoughts about God are, when the primary way the Triune God lives and moves in the world is through the Holy Spirit, who can’t be controlled, or predicted, or stopped.

The Spirit of God moved over the waters at creation, and since then has been moving, inspiring, changing lives and changing the world. Today we see the Holy Spirit come upon the Son of God, and the voice of the Father speak words of praise and love. But this isn’t just a place we see the Triune God together. We also know what this means: Jesus will be Spirit-filled as he does his ministry and work.

Little wonder the early Church, as we see today in Acts 8, always laid hands on those who had just been baptized and prayed that the Holy Spirit would come upon them, too. Claimed in baptism as beloved children, just like Jesus, now the apostles prayed that, just like Jesus, the Holy Spirit would fill these newly baptized.

But the Spirit goes where the Spirit wills.

So, on the Day of Pentecost, when the Spirit of the Triune God poured out on over around 120 believers, we have no idea if any of them were baptized. But when those who heard them speak in many languages asked what they could do, Peter invited them to repent and be baptized, so their sins may be forgiven and so they, too, may receive the Holy Spirit.

Clearly, even if those first 120 weren’t baptized yet, they were so moved by Pentecost that they believed the Spirit would continue to come. They expected it. In Acts, after Pentecost, the early Church watched for the coming of the Spirit, they named where they saw the Spirit, and they lived with confident expectation that the Spirit would continue to bless the Church, and individual believers.

So this became the pattern: baptize, then lay on hands and pray for the Holy Spirit.

Over the centuries, however, gradually the second part, the prayer for the Spirit, grew further and further separated from the baptism.

By the Middle Ages we see the rite of confirmation as the time of laying on of hands and praying for the Spirit. You’d wait years for what used to happen immediately.

I didn’t have hands laid on me at my baptism, and a prayer said for the Spirit. None of you who were baptized before 1978 in the Lutheran church in this country did, either. But since 1978, when Lutherans here restored this ancient practice from Acts, immediately after each baptism hands are laid upon the newly baptized. I will baptize Gus and Howie today, and after each baptism I will lay hands on their head, like Peter and John, and pray that the Holy Spirit come upon them.

But we do not claim any control over the Holy Spirit with this prayer.

The Spirit of the Living God lives and breathes throughout the world, through all God’s children. There is no question that these two boys have had God’s Spirit breathe on them and in them already. The Holy Spirit blows wherever she wills, and we can only watch in wonder. In fact, in Acts 10, the Spirit pours out on a group of Gentiles during Peter’s sermon, and before they ever were baptized. Peter and the others had to catch up.

And even if many of you, like me, didn’t have that prayer prayed over you, the Spirit has been in our lives. We, too, have watched for the signs, and named the Spirit when we saw what she had done, and confidently expected the Spirit would continue to come.

But today we name out loud what we all watch for and expect so Gus and Howie can cling to that promise. Today in this prayer we claim the Spirit who moves like the wind has come upon these two.

And what we pray for, what we name, is astonishing.

In the thrill after Pentecost, the early Church looked at Isaiah 11, speaking of the Spirit falling upon the Christ, the Messiah, and said, “That’s what happened at the Jordan with Jesus. But that’s also what happened to us at Pentecost.”

So they prayed that as a prayer, Isaiah’s promise for Messiah, and so will we: “Sustain this one with the gift of your Holy Spirit: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy in your presence, both now and forever.”

We pray that in baptism we become God’s Christ, God’s anointed for the world, to be part of God’s healing, just like Jesus. This is what we ask for Gus and Howie. This is what we desire for ourselves. We dare to name such a gift because we’ve been promised it in Scripture. We’ve also seen the Spirit do these very things among us and in the world. We’ve seen deep wisdom and understanding come to those who are Christ in the world. We’ve known counsel from the Spirit, and felt God’s power in us. We’ve received insights and a sense of awe before God. And we have been filled with joy knowing God is within us.

The Holy Spirit blows where she wills, but today we say, “here, too, in this place.”

Maybe we should have a liturgy where all who wished could come forward and kneel at the altar, and have hands laid on their heads, and this prayer prayed over them again, or for the first time.

What might it mean for you to hear these words over your head? To be told: the Holy Spirit is in you. And then to live your life, like the early Church, watching for signs of the Spirit’s moving in your life. Confidently expecting wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of God, and joy in God’s presence.

Well, hear them now: Washed in God’s waters and given forgiveness and life, God has called you by name, and you are God’s beloved child; God is well pleased with you. And now God’s Spirit lives, and moves, and breathes, and loves in you. Name that. Watch for it, and confidently expect that you will see great wonders.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen