05/05/2024 ~ Sixth Sunday of Easter ~ *Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17 ~ Communion Sunday ~ VIDEO OF FULL SERVICE: https://vimeo.com/showcase/7960701/video/943824620

Whence the Spirit?

“Then Peter said, ‘Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?’” — Acts 10:46b-47.

What I am about to say may sound I’m repeating something I’ve said already. But this is my very personal take on things. I have lived long enough that I know life is unpredictable. As we live through our time on this blue green orb, life demands we take risks. But very few of us like to take risks. We like control, to be in charge.

As to my own life, it could be argued I’ve taken a lot of risks. But in part that’s a result of my experience in my family of origin. Some of you might not have heard me address the details of my childhood I am about to offer. This is a short version.

When I was about five my father had what was in that era called a nervous breakdown. Today we would have diagnosed it as the onset of a mental illness labeled as passive dependency, sometimes called passive aggression. So when I was young my father figure left the scene.

From a Freudian perspective one of the functions a father figure provides children is an enhanced sense of order and the safety we feel order brings. But sone can get along well without a father figure. I did.

In my case at least and as a result, I developed a degree of comfort with the idea that life might lean more toward the chaotic than the ordered. So I identified absolute safety as, at best, unrealistic and became inclined toward taking risks.

That life is filled with chaos and risk got reinforced for me when I was drafted and sent to Vietnam, where chaos and risk are a given. For 20 years after that army stint on an off I worked in professional theater mostly as a writer— theater where risks are a given.

What is that risk? How do you earn enough to put food on the table while you try to communicate through art? To paraphrase the words of the late artist Al Hirshfield, the products which artists sell no one really needs to buy.

Let’s move the clock ahead a number of years. I meet Bonnie. She lives in Maine. I live in New York City.

I move to Maine to marry Bonnie. I don’t even know how to drive but I move to Maine where the only subways are sandwich shops. Yep— that’s a risk.

Move the clock ahead a little more. At age 44 I hear a call to Seminary. At age 44 Seminary is a risk. I invite Bonnie to take that risk with me.

Praise God, she does. And yes— I, for one, count that as a expression of a true love— a willingness to take a risk with a risk taker. Thank you Bonnie.

Then we took another risk together and go to a place where I was called to be a pastor, a very rural town in upstate New York. We had visited there only once for several days, met with the search committee and looked around town.

We were there for over 23 years. Then we embarked on yet another risk— retirement and moving back to Maine. All kinds of things could have gone wrong but we bought a house and things have gone well. It seems like, since I am standing in this pulpit, the only problem is I have failed at retirement. (Slight pause.)

This is what we find in Luke/Acts in the section of that work known as Acts. “Then Peter said, ‘Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?’” (Slight pause.)

In conversations with other pastors a very specific concern is often brought up. People in congregations seem to be expressing fear of all kinds.

These range from a fear about what’s happening in politics, income, jobs. I probably don’t need to give you a list of the fears. I’m sure you have heard them or have them. And yes— there is a fear about the church— about congregational vitality.

In the course of these conversations I suggest two things. First, whatever you see happening in society outside the walls of a church will be seen inside the walls of a church. The church is not immune to what’s happening in the culture. And right now much of what we see in the culture expresses fear.

Second, I think fear, I tell these pastors, is not the root cause. Fear is a reaction, a symptom, a result, not a cause. I think people become afraid about a broad range of things for one reason and one reason only.

People become afraid when they feel they are not in control. When you are not in control, taking risk is a given and a necessity. But as I just suggested risk taking, not being in control, is something with which we humans have a hard time. (Slight pause.)

Here’s an interesting piece of data. I recently saw polling that says people on the political left and people on the political right both think they are on the losing side in our society. Yes, both sides think they are losing— amazing.

What this data really shows is not that one or the other side is actually losing or even thinks it is losing. It shows people are afraid of losing. I am convinced the possibility of losing turns into fear because we think it means we are not in control. (Slight pause.)

In a recent book, Courageous Faith, the Rev. Dr. Emily Heath states the two human reactions to risk commonly noted are called flight or fight. She points out there is a third response on which behavioral researchers agree: freeze.

So, flight or fight or freeze are three responses to risk. Heath then describes what she calls a Christian response. Christians, she says, need to respond to the world and the reality we see in the world with action— moral action. And moral action is the place to which God invites us.

I’m not sure why the Rev. Dr. Heath fails to use another word to reenforce the alliteration of the ‘flight,’ ‘fight’ and ‘freeze’ trio— so I shall. I call the Christian response forward. That completes the alliteration with this quartet of words— flight, fight, freeze, forward.

In moving forward we need to strive to listen to God, work toward the world God sees. We need to work with the arc of moral justice envisioned by God, cooperate with God, cooperate with the Spirit of God, God Who we, as Christians, believe is present among us.

Put another way yes, we Christians do assess whatever risk is out there. But we need to seek and to find the places to which God calls us despite the risk. And I would suggest God calls us to places where risk is real, risk is tangible. (Slight pause.)

So, what’s happening in this reading from Acts? God is in charge. If you do as I suggested, read Chapter 10, you can see that message repeated throughout the chapter. You can even see the surprise of the people involved.

In the verses quoted today you can detect both uncertainly and surprise at the work of the Spirit when Peter asks, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people…?” (Slight pause.)

As to a theological issue here, not only do we humans want to be in control. We humans like to put God in a box, domesticate God, control God. That raises what I think of as a significant question: are we really in control with anything? No. (Slight pause.)

I say we need to be willing to cooperate with God as we go forward, forward toward the freedom God seeks for us, forward toward what God wants for us. If God is who we say God is— a God who seeks peace, loves justice, treasures equity, putting God in a box will not empower us to see the world the way God sees the world. (Slight pause.)

So yes— I guess I, for one, am a risk taker. Why? In the depth of my soul I want to move forward, cooperate with the will of God, be empowered by God to seek freedom, love justice, treasure equity.

We humans need to stop trying to put God in a box. If we just learn to let God out of the box (and we like to keep God in), then we might get to a place where the justice, freedom, equity, peace, joy, hope and love God wants us to have will be a reality. Amen.

Elijah Kellogg Church, Harpswell, Maine
05/05/2024

ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Choral Response and Benediction. This is a précis of what was said: “I think as a community of faith, as a church, we need to let God be God and be aware we are human and finite. Hence, we do need to participate in the work of God here, now since it seems to me the world could use the justice, freedom, equity, peace, joy, hope and love of God which we, the church, claim to be about. Given what God seeks for us, I think being church means taking risks. So, let me ask this: what risks have you, yourself, taken as an individual and what risks does this church take as a community of faith?”

BENEDICTION: May the Holy Spirit inspire our words, and God’s love in Christ empower our deeds, as, in Christ, we are no longer servants, but friends, learning to love as we have been loved. And may the peace of God which surpasses our understanding keep our hearts and minds in the knowledge of God, the love of Jesus, the Christ, and the companionship of the Holy Spirit, this day and forevermore. Amen.