Holy Spirit on a Mission

A sermon for the fourth Sunday after Pentecost given at the United Church of Acworth on June 24, 2012.

Mark 4:35-41

Our Faith and Covenant goes on, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, who takes of the things of Christ and reveals them to us, renewing, comforting, and inspiring the souls of men.”
Who is this Holy Spirit that we believe in?
Some call the Holy Spirit the Holy Ghost.  In fact that’s what we sing when we sing our gloria.
Of course Ghost may remind us of Casper the friendly ghost.  Not the worst association -- we do believe that the Holy Ghost is friendly -- but the Holy Ghost is so much more.
So let’s stick with Spirit.
We first meet the Holy Spirit moving upon the face of the waters in the creation story of Genesis chapter 1.

There is darkness and there are waters -- and this we are told is formless, void.
But the Holy Spirit is present on this formlessness, the Holy Spirit is moving, hovering over the waters.
The Holy Spirit creates light, land, life -- something out of nothing, order out of chaos.
The Holy Spirit is the giver of life.  In the beginning throughout the story of the scriptures and even today, the Holy Spirit is the source of our life.
Clearly Casper cannot compare.
Unless we see the Holy Spirit in this way, we are in danger of reducing the Holy Spirit to our own spirit, our own power.  The Holy Spirit is not an extension of our energy, the Holy Spirit is not the power we have from positive thinking, caffeine, or high-powered, high-energy music or dance.  The Holy Spirit is the source, not the substance of that life.
The Holy Spirit is God, active in God’s creation, creating, sustaining, and redeeming.
The Holy Spirit is on a mission.
And it’s that mission that we have been brought into by the Holy Spirit as we have found ourselves learning from and following our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on the path of salvation in the family of God our Father.
The Holy Spirit is on a mission.  What God has brought into our world in the in-breaking kingdom we are carrying forward by the agency of the Holy Spirit working through us.
Just as the Holy Spirit created in the beginning, the Holy Spirit is creating anew in each generation.
The Holy Spirit is on a mission.
To be on a mission is to recognize that the goal of life is not our own personal fulfillment, our own personal peace.  If the Holy Spirit were our own personal possession, something we could go out and buy with our credit card at Wal-Mart, then the Holy Spirit’s mission might be our personal fulfillment, our pleasure and satisfaction.
But the Holy Spirit is on a mission that is bigger than you and me.  
The Holy Spirit is bringing us together for this higher calling -- the mission of new creation.
St. Paul writes, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”
Just as the Holy Spirit was over the waters anticipating the cosmic music: existence bursting forth, out-of-nothing (ex nihilo), light, land, and life, 
So also the Holy Spirit was over the waters of our formlessness, our existential loneliness, our directionless wandering, our burdensome slaving.  And just as God spoke being out of nothingness, God spoke order into our chaotic lives.
New creation.  The Holy Spirit is on a mission. And we're being enlisted for that mission.
Imagine the Uncle Sam posters for World War II:  “I want you for U. S. Army!”
That piercing stare and the unrelenting pointing finger that you can’t avoid.  Perhaps you saw these during the War itself -- or perhaps, like me, you’ve only encountered it in textbooks or antique shops.
Imagine the Holy Spirit as saying to you, “I want you for Reconciliation.”
The Holy Spirit is on a mission -- so St. Paul continues, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
Reconciliation is what new creation is all about.  Reconciling us to God, reconciling us with our neighbor (even the neighbor that we want to call our enemy!), and reconciling us to the creation.
“I want you for Reconciliation.”
So if we’re going to avoid making the good news of salvation only about our own personal fulfillment, personal peace and pleasure -- we’re going to have to see the Holy Spirit as on a mission, to restore the world to what it was made to be when God declared it good.
This requires an in-breaking of grace into a world of judgment.
This requires an in-breaking of love into a world of self-hate and other-hate.
This requires an in-breaking of a cosmic and universal perspective into a world which is used to creating tribal identities by all of the brand-names and labels: political parties, family, town, nation, race, gender, etc.
The Holy Spirit says “I want you for Reconciliation.”
So when we say, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, who takes of the things of Christ and reveals them to us, renewing, comforting, and inspiring the souls of men.”
We don’t mean that the Holy Spirit is our comfort blanket or our lucky charm, we mean that the Holy Spirit is the source of our new life as those who have been reconciled and are traveling as pilgrims on the path of reconciliation.
“I want you for Reconciliation.”
So we are not alone in this journey.  God is with us, God is near to us, indwelling us, calling us to live out the challenge that is the life of faith.  The life of faith in God who is on a mission.
I want us to hear again the story of Jesus calming the storm and rethink what it is telling us.
Jesus and his disciples went off in a boat across the sea of Galilee.  “And there arose a great storm of wind....”
We watched Wizard of Oz the other night because Rachelle hadn’t yet seen it.  And I was surprised at how tense I felt in the tornado scene.  Of course tornadoes have been a recurring nightmare of mine -- so I’m sure it was tapping into some of that subconscious fear.  But for a 1939 movie, they did a good job at creating a stressful effect with the wind and the loud noise.
But I don’t think we’re dealing with a tornado in our text in Mark -- or waterspout as the case may be.  This is a typical kind of wind storm that arose in that area because of how the lake was shaped like a bowl.  
“And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.”
Here’s a stressful scenario -- stuck out in the waters at the mercy of the forces of nature -- wind and water which are devastating powers as New Hampshire and Vermont have come to know very well in the past ten years.
And what’s worse -- Jesus is asleep.  The disciples are panicked and now hurt and angry because Jesus doesn’t seem to care.
“Teacher, don't you care that we are about to die?”
They don’t just wake Jesus up -- in their stress, in their fear, in their impatience they actually accuse him of selfishness, of cold indifference to their predicament.
Stress and fear bring out the worst in us.  Couples fight and accuse one another when there is financial stress.  Our way of making sense out of chaotic circumstances is to blame one another or ourselves or God for not caring or not planning well enough, etc.
We find meaning in the pain by scapegoating the blame.
But this storm is obviously a natural occurrence.  No one is to blame for this.  And so perhaps because of that, they just turn that blaming energy into an accusation of Jesus for not feeling the same panic, for not reacting with the same intensity as the rest of them.  How can he sleep?!  The disciples had fallen back into the realm of fear -- they were in survival mode -- what matters now is me, myself, I -- my personal safety, my comfort.
“Jesus stood up and commanded the wind, Be quiet! and he said to the waves, Be still! The wind died down, and there was a great calm.”
Jesus did not enter into a stress-laden panicked interchange with his disciples, because Jesus did not see the situation with the same eyes as his disciples.  While the disciples saw that situation from a human perspective in the realm of fear, Jesus saw the situation from a divine perspective in the realm of faith.  Whereas the disciples were crippled and stressed by doubt and fear, Jesus was strengthened and calmed by faith.
In fact he turns to his astonished and probably slightly sheepish disciples and says his first words since being woken up:  “Why are you frightened? Do you still have no faith?”
The disciples struggle again and again to put their faith in God.
From their perspective, God had abandoned them to the waves and the wind.  But Jesus calls them to remember that God is with them, that the God who spoke creation into being out of the chaos of nothingness is in control of even the waves and the wind.
It would be easy to stop there and make a point about how the Holy Spirit is always with us in the storms of life, renewing, comforting, inspiring as our covenant reads.  But that would not only misread the story, but again make God too much like a product that we’ve purchased to make our life easier.  The truth is that storms do come and destroy our bridges and homes.  And there’s no Jesus present in the same way as the story, telling it all to stop.
The point of the story is not that God will fix everything the way we want it.  That’s not true.
The point of the story is not that God will make our life more pleasant.  That’s not true.
The point of the story is not about us at all.  The point of the story is that God is in control even when it seems that God is absent or aloof. That God is fulfilling God's purpose even when we have no idea how that could possibly be what's happening.  That we are obviously not in control and are therefore to put our trust in the one who controls our destinies and leads us through the dark valleys.  And the God who leads us through the dark valleys, the winds and storms, the chaotic formlessness is -- you guessed it-- the Holy Spirit who is the source of our life.
The point of the story is not that Jesus is a lucky charm that somehow will answer all our prayers in the way that we deem fit and save us from “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”  The point is that whatever the circumstance the answer is: trust God and continue the mission.
Well that doesn’t really help us have a happier life, does it?
Well, I suppose it depends on what the purpose of your life is and how you define happiness.  And that’s why we run into all sorts of problems reading the story of Jesus calming the storm as if it is an isolated story meant to make us feel better.
The story is a training course in the mission of the kingdom of God.  Jesus is training his disciples to put their faith in God because they will encounter scarier things than windstorms in their attempt to spread the good news of the reconciliation of God.
They may encounter even what Jesus himself faced on the cross.
But what makes sense of all of this suffering, all of this difficulty -- what gives it meaning is the higher purpose which is given to it when it is endured by a life that by faith has entered the Holy Spirit’s mission of the kingdom of God.
“I want you for Reconciliation” the Holy Spirit says.
The way of faith, being enlisted in the mission of the Holy Spirit, is not easy but it’s good.
It’s not always pleasant but it’s true. 
If we are going to live our lives in light of the mission of the Holy Spirit, we are going to have to accept that we will encounter storms and chaotic events and we will suffer.
But we can like Paul rejoice in our sufferings because we know that despite or perhaps through our sufferings the good news is proclaimed.
When we suffer, do we blame ourselves or others or get angry or wallow in self-pity?  Do we yell at Jesus and say, he doesn’t care?  Or do we remember that our purpose is not personal peace and satisfaction, but the mission of God:  reconciliation.  We can’t be about the mission of reconciliation if we don’t trust God.  And we can’t truly trust God if we aren’t following God into the mission of reconciliation.  
To live in fear and blame-games and self-doubt or anger is to proclaim not the good news, but the empty news that human life is all about personal satisfaction. Such satisfaction is elusive and unattainable.
To live by faith in God the Holy Spirit, the maker of life and sustainer and redeemer of the world, is to face storms and struggles, pain and confusing circumstances trusting God and seeking reconciliation in and through those circumstances.
The victory of faith is new creation, the redeeming of lives and the redeeming of circumstances by seeing God’s redemption and reconciling possibility in and through those circumstances.
The Holy Spirit says, “I want you for Reconciliation.”
The Holy Spirit calls us to make manifest a robust peace, not a lazy or personal peace, but the peace that comes from the reconciliation of ourselves with God and reconciliation of ourselves with others through truth-speaking and forgiveness.  And like the man who sold all he had to buy the field with buried treasure, we have to give up our personal pursuit of pleasure and satisfaction and put our trust in the God in control of the wind and waves.  Because the treasure that is the kingdom of God is a deeper and eternal treasure, truly a higher calling that makes all of our struggle in pursuit of it worthwhile.

There's a story “from the Armenian American writer, William Saroyan; its name is “On the Train” (1966)” that I came across in reading a book by James McClendon.

The setting is America in wartime in the mid-twentieth century; a troop of draftees is being transported toward the front. Two young soldiers talk. One is a product of small-town, apple-pie America; the other is a city waif, an orphan. As the train rushes along, they talk about what they will do if they survive the war. The small-town youth, in a burst of generosity, confides his hope that the other will come home with him after the war, meet and marry his sister, settle down; they will be neighbors, friends for life. Saroyan's “Ithaca” here functions as a symbolic Promised Land. But will they live to fulfill those promises? Other soldiers talk; there are bawdy songs about girls and what they're good for. Then there is a silence, and a soldier asks for “a real song.” An accordion appears, and someone names a song. This turns out to be “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” The accordion plays, and two of the soldiers sing, one with a good voice, the other strong but unmusical. Soon the music draws everyone in.

“What a fellowship, what a joy divine, leaning on the everlasting arms;

what a blessedness, what a peace is mine, leaning on the everlasting arms.”

….The story presents the fears of such as these, fear of the future, fear of war, of alienation, of death. Against war, there is for soldiers the hope of lucky survival; against alienation, sometimes there are new friends. Against death, there is nothing. Nothing but the Good News. Most striking for us is the song's text: it announces itself as a song about … a fellowship...a joy divine.

The Holy Spirit enlists us to the mission of new creation. It's not easy but it's true – it's a return to our true home in God and a journey to the wholeness that God made us for.

“What have I to dread, what have I to fear, Leaning on the everlasting arms; I have blessed peace with my Lord so near, Leaning on the everlasting arms.” Lean not on yourself or your own understanding or you will find yourselves panicked and angry as the disciples in the boat. Lean on God's everlasting arms and you will find true peace in the midst of the storm.
“We believe in the Holy Spirit, who takes of the things of Christ and reveals them to us, renewing, comforting, and inspiring the souls of men.”
As we follow God in the way of reconciliation, we will find renewal, comfort, and inspiration because our lives will be lived for something so much bigger than ourselves, something everlasting, God’s own mission in the world -- the kingdom of God. Amen.