The Holy Spirit: Nudging Us Away from Complacency

The word ridiculous is a lovely word that can often be used to put people in their place; naming their thoughts or actions or motivations as ridiculous sets the record straight… at least in your own mind.  The word ridiculous could be defined as deserving or inviting derision or mockery; absurd.  Some of the synonyms linked with ridiculous are:  laughable, amusing, entertaining, harebrained, idiotic, preposterous, farcical, ludicrous.  I could go on but if you have sat with the word ridiculous you can think of a few other words to associate with it.  Maybe you are thinking them now.

Many philosophers, theologians and poets have noted that there is a ridiculous aspect to life.  We scurry after so many things which in essence do not bring us joy or peace or hope.  We chase after things many of which draw us away from our true intents.  We treat others differently than we might want to be treated and puzzle over how it could be different.  In the world of today we seem to be bombarded with things that come across as ridiculous, strange, unnecessary, discouraging.  I will let you think of the things that could be on that list but trade tariffs, the treatment of refugees and little compassion for those in need are certainly on my list.  It is not hard to see that we get drawn into so much that really, if we are able to take a bird’s eye view, a God’s eye view, seems quite absurd.  Maybe that is just the way it is… or maybe it is that when we observe and name ridiculousness we are being invited to pay a little more attention to the voice of God in our life.  

            In his book The Idiot, Dostoyevsky wrote: “You know, in my opinion, being ridiculous is sometimes even a good thing, and better than that: we can forgive one another more quickly, and acquire humility more quickly; after all, we can't understand everything at once, we can't begin directly from perfection!” 

            Listen as well to these words from the Book of Acts in our Bible:  “When the Day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.  And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.  Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit…”  It all sounds rather bizarre.  It seems so far removed from a faith and a hope in God that is logical, predictable, comfortable, unchanging, reasonable.  It moved away from a faith centred upon rigidity and clear definitions.  And I am pretty sure that was the point.

            Folks who were standing around on the street with clearly little else to do on this 50th day after Easter, roughly two thousand years ago, certainly seemed to have lots to say.  They were the ones, and I am sure that I need to be careful here so as not to offend anyone, they were the ones who were the sneerers; quick to judge, quick to label, quick to say exactly what was going on even if they hadn’t quite taken the time to listen, intently, ferociously listen to the full story.  So they sneered and said of those who seemed to have had some sort of encounter with the Holy Spirit, “They are filled with new wine.”  They are ridiculous…  And perhaps so are we… but I also think that we, you and me, we know a lot more about the story of the arrival of the Holy Spirit and how she still brings wisdom, courage, insights and vision in the world of today and tomorrow.  Rather than ridiculous, the Spirit invites us to engage and awaken more fully into the true purposes of life, the true passions, the true relationship with God, the true encounter of God’s grace showered upon us.  She invites us into a fuller and richer experience of God.  Ridiculous.

            Have you ever had an experience of the Holy Spirit?  A moment, a time, an event where you felt the presence of the Holy Spirit?  If you have it is often hard to put into words and we often worry that others might see us as strange.  But if we take the time to really affirm that Holy Spirit presence we usually see that she is inviting us closer in relationship to God.  It may not come to us as wind or fire or new language.  But it may come to us as a presence in the birth of a child or the death of a loved one. We will recognize the presence of the Spirit this morning in baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist.  The Spirit may be known when someone tells us they love us or when we are all alone on a mountain-top.  The Spirit may be felt when we pray with the whole of our heart and mind in a church, in a field or by still waters.  The Spirit may be known in a thunderstorm or the quietness after it has snowed.   The Spirit often sneaks into our hearts and souls and causes us to look at things differently, leading us to forgiveness, compassion, peace, justice, delight and concern.  The Spirit nudges us away from complacency and urges us to see moments where God can be known.  Barbara Brown Taylor writes this: “There is some very fine teaching available on the Holy Spirit, and I hope that none of you is satisfied with it.  I hope none of you rests until you have felt the Holy Spirit blow through your own life, rearranging things, opening things up and maybe even setting your own head on fire.  There is nothing you can do to make it happen, as far as I know, except to pray, ‘Come Holy Spirit’ every chance you get.  If you don’t want anything to change in your life, then for heaven’s sake don’t pray that…”  She said “On the whole I find there are a lot of people in the world who say they have never encountered God as Father, Son or Holy Spirit, but when they start talking about their lives it seems pretty clear to me that they have.  They just did not know what to call the experience.”  Ridiculous is what some, the sneerers, might call it but if we invite the presence of the Holy Spirit we are changed and refined and carried away from tight definitions of how God moves in this world. We discover what we have been looking for much of our lives.

                Thomas Merton wrote this: “The contemplative is… the one who has risked their mind in the desert beyond language and beyond ideas where God is encountered in the nakedness of pure trust, that is to say in the surrender of our own poverty and incompleteness in order no longer to clench our minds in a cramp upon themselves, as if thinking made us exist.  The message of hope the contemplative offers you, then, is not that you need to find your way through the jungle of language and problems that today surround God; but that whether you understand or not, God loves you, is present to you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you, and offers you understanding and light which are like nothing you ever found in books or heard in sermons.”       

Recently I was reading about the painting that Rembrandt created entitled The Return of the Prodigal Son.  A painting of the parable Jesus told of the son who took his inheritance from his father and spent it on all sorts of wasteful ways only to return home to his father’s welcoming embrace.  I was intrigued to learn that this was the second version that Rembrandt created of the scene.  In the first, a woodcut, Rembrandt was a young man and created this piece of art where the son is dressed in fancy clothes falling before his father.  We see the son’s face but not the father’s, the emphasis is on the son.  Later in life Rembrandt painted the scene again and this time the son is in rags kneeling before his father.  We don’t see the son’s face only the father’s gazing compassionately at the son.  The contrast is striking and seems to suggest the changes in the artist himself between producing the two works of art.  Henri Nouwen wrote this:  “As Rembrandt’s own life moves toward the shadows of old age, as his success wanes, and the exterior splendour of his life diminishes, he comes more in touch with the immense beauty of the interior life.  There he discovers the light that comes from an inner fire that never dies: the fire of love.  His art no longer tries to grasp, conquer, and regulate the visible, but to transform the visible in the fire of love that comes from the unique heart of the artist.” (page 94).

To be true the Church is not quite sure what to do with the Holy Spirit of God.  We affirm the presence of the Spirit but all that wind and fire and new languages blurs nice neat boundaries and definitions.  It takes away predictability and leads us on paths that may appear ridiculous and we don’t always like that.  But I think that this is part of God’s plan.  Leave room for mystery, for wonder, for awe, for the Spirit to move despite our best efforts to tie down the Spirit with our words, predictions and judgements.  Ridiculous. But the wisdom of God is not limited by our expectations, she is beyond that… as will see in Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist this morning.

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Photos from the Archbishop's visit to the parish are available here