In preparation for officiating at a wedding I consulted a long out-of-print book, The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary, and in the marriage rite I found a prayer that begins,
O ETERNAL God, Creator and Preserver of all mankind, Giver of all spiritual grace, the Author of everlasting life; (1928 BCP Marriage)
Reflecting on that prayer, I realized that it applied well beyond that moment - that special moment indeed when we invite the blessing of the spirit upon the now-to-be wed couple. It applies to all sorts of occasions. And I noted that the spirit, the holy spirit, is there in the marriage rite, as it is in pastoral and episcopal offices of all kinds, from marriage to baptism to burial, reconciliation of a penitent and ministrations to the sick or dying, from confirmation to ordination to the celebration of a new ministry and the consecration of a sacred space. Some of these may come up soon in this congregation.
And of course in our new (1979) prayer book all of these rites and offices take place in the context of the community that is gathered in the Eucharist. We are one body, and we are one in the Spirit.
The Spirit gives us utterance in different ways, expressions in different gifts. The Spirit gives us understanding and inspiration in different ways and by different means. This is the one Spirit that God breathed upon the waters at creation, that inspired ecstatic prophesying - dancing and exclaiming in praise - inside and outside the camp on Sinai, that frightened the prophet Joel.
This is the same Spirit that reversed the babble of the Tower into coherent speech for a diverse multitude on the first day of the church, the day of Pentecost.
It’s amazing! It’s as if you’ve been running around a foreign country and you’ve finally bumped into people who are speaking your language.
We remember, as every school child must, that the feast of Pentecost expands for us the meaning of an earlier festival, the Jewish feast of Shavuot, that was a harvest feast at first, then became the day of thanksgiving for the giving of the Law to the people, through Moses, on Sinai.
How is the gift of Law, of Torah, to a distant people at a distant time, almost mythical, to help us today? How is the experience of the gathered disciples and their hearers on the day of Pentecost, two thousand years ago, to make a difference to us now?
Will we, gathered or scattered, hear, each in our own heart language, the word of God? Will we be inspired? Will we act - apparently crazy - as the Israelites did, dancing and singing and praising God? Will we - apparently sober - go out and do the things Jesus commanded us to do?
Will we visit the sick, pray with the despairing, speak out for justice, reach out to the lonely? Will we listen to each other in solemn assembly, seeking the guidance of the Spirit in our decisions?
Will we have reason to? And how will we encounter the Spirit in our own life and times?
The Rev. Kaji Douša, senior pastor at Park Avenue Christian Church in New York City, traveled to Tijuana, Mexico, in 2018 to provide pastoral care to asylum seekers. Douša has said, “To reject a migrant is to cast away God’s angels, which I am unwilling to do.” https://theconversation.com/when-faith-says-to-help-migrants-and-the-law-says-dont-203087
On the border now they talk of encounters with migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, and the desperate wanderers who lose their way. Encounters. Better perhaps than simply saying arrests, as many have entertained angels unawares. This week I encountered a man who asked directions to the bus station. I gave them to him. Then I thought, too late, that I could have given him a ride in the heat of the day.
There is a story in the book of Genesis. In the heat of the day, while he was sitting in the door of his tent, Abraham encountered three men, strangers to him, who came to him at the Oaks of Mamre, and he offered them hospitality. The hospitality of his tent, his household, his family.
Sometimes all someone asks of us is directions. Sometimes we are offered the chance to do much more. If we have eyes to see. The three strangers were indeed grateful for the hospitality they received and in turn gave a blessing only they could give. Your wife, they said, will at last bear to you the child you both have sought. And that child - through its descendants - will become the host of the world.
We do not meet God in the person of three angels, dressed as strangers who wander through the desert. (Do we?) We do not meet Jesus in the flesh. (Though sometimes we wonder.)
The Holy Spirit is the God we encounter. We have not seen the Father, and Jesus, since his Ascension, has left us in the care of the Comforter, the Advocate, the Teacher; the one who comes alongside us, and yet remains unseen. Unseen, that is, except through permeance.
Permeating through all of our encounters with each other, and, all unawares, with angels. Pervading too all our days, ordinary and especially significant.
Look through the prayer book pastoral offices and you will see the Spirit landing upon the baptized, inhabiting the confirmed, blessing the married, consoling the bereaved and accompanying the sick even unto the death bed. And it is the Spirit of God that enables us in turn to comfort, celebrate, cajole, and encourage, the baptized, the married, the bereaved, the sick and dying, the joyous and even the oblivious.
Look through the Episcopal offices and you will see the Spirit invoked upon the ordained, and the presence of the Spirit called upon to bless new ministries and sacred places.
Listen as we celebrate Eucharist, or say our daily prayers. You will hear the Spirit speaking. For the Spirit is here present among us, and through that invisible permeating influence God is here.
Hear the Word. Touch the cup. Taste the bread. Say “peace” to your neighbor. Come Holy Spirit. Come to us. Amen.
***
Sunday, May 28, 2023: for the Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew, Tucson, Arizona.
permeance
'Cause I feel like I-I've been running around a foreign country and I've finally bumped into two people who can speak English. (https://transcripts.thedealr.net/script.php/yesterday-2019-XtmS)
Veni Sancte Spiritus (Taizé) Come Holy Spirit... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8yOAxWyfvA
A meditation based on this sermon appeared on the Arizona Daily Star website June 4th 2023: https://tucson.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/encounters-with-the-spirit-are-all-around-us/article_a00ae510-ff02-11ed-a83c-2788b4905516.html
The Lessons Appointed for Use on the Day of Pentecost (Whitsunday) Year A:
- Acts 2:1-21
- or Numbers 11:24-30
- 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
- or Acts 2:1-21
- John 20:19-23
- or John 7:37-39
- Psalm 104:25-35, 37
O God, who on this day taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.Amen.
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