Acts 2:1-21, Psalm 104:25-35, 37, 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13, John 20:19-23
A couple years ago I told you that before I could retire, I had to do three things. I had to lead you back into the sanctuary, I had to help you get used to the sanctuary, and we had to bring the public back into the sanctuary. Which all we did. But then a virus came. And now you’re going to have to do all three all over again.
So it’s like my legacy is cancelled—that is, if you’re one of those who have said that the return to the sanctuary is my legacy. But I don’t think it ever was my legacy. It’s the legacy of Jenn Cribbs and her team. She and they deserve the credit, not me. And even now their work is not in vain. You will get back in there, and the public too, I have no doubt, in less than seven years!
I admit that it’s premature to be speaking about my legacy, and I had not dared to think about it, until a consistory member brought it up this week. We were having coffee, six feet apart, my first live meet-up with a consistory member, in the flesh, since Lent. Remember Lent? She told me that my legacy was not the sanctuary, but something else. She said that what I gave you was “a vision of the kingdom of heaven.” Well, I was gratified. And I do think Jenn Cribbs would agree that the sanctuary is an expression of that vision, if you use it that way, which you will do.
I want you to see the kingdom of heaven as something big and over-arching and spacious and welcoming, and all the way down to the ground. I want you to see it as rich and colorful and vibrant and vital, right now, not just for when you die, but for now so that you can engage it and rejoice in it. And I want you also to see it as tiny and fragile and vulnerable and hidden and patient and generous.
I want you to see it as embracing you but not controlled by you, and enriching you but also beyond you. I want you to see it as both dependable and constantly surprising—because it is of God. I want you see it for the sake of God. The kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of God, the realm of God, the reign of God, the rule of God, the dominion of God, the sovereignty of God. It’s about a sovereign God and it’s for the glory of God.
But it’s also for you, and for your salvation and your flourishing. It was for you that God did all these things in history that we’ve been celebrating since Lent, from the Passion to Pentecost. The death of the Lord Jesus and his resurrection—he did that for you. His ascension in his body and his gift of the Holy Spirit—he did that for you. The Kingdom of Heaven does not belong to you but it is for you. We don’t build it, it is not ours to build, its builder and maker is God, but you receive it because God gives it to you. The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to God but it is for your flourishing.
And that’s partly why a human being is in charge it. Last Sunday when I preached about the Ascension, I said that it was hard to believe that an embodied human being, an earthling, should now be seated in heaven at God’s right hand. Well, it gets further complicated today, at Pentecost, when that earthling is in charge of pouring down the Spirit of God, God’s inner self. And that’s what the Holy Spirit is—not just a third of God but God’s inner self, God’s very soul. And poured out by an earthling!
A human being in heaven sends God down to earth! All this up and down, all these exchanges. The Son of Man goes up to inhabit God, and the Soul of God comes down to inhabit you people. It’s all quite hard to believe, but I invite you to believe it for the praise and glory of God, and also for your good and for the good of the world.
How do you feel this Spirit within yourself? What are the signs of this Spirit within you? Fire on your head? Speaking in tongues? Ecstatic prophecies, the thrill of healing? Something supernatural or inexplicable? People do look for that—impressive manifestations sharply contrasting to ordinary experience. “Oh yes, I felt it, and there is no other explaining it.” They want the Spirit to draw attention to itself, to prove the Spirit’s presence in them.
But the Spirit does not like to draw attention to herself. She likes to be hidden within the baptismal water, and hidden within the broken bread and poured out wine. She prefers to be known for doing such wonders as the forgiveness of sins.
What kind of signs you want for the wonder of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you depends, I guess, on how deep and wide and all-encompassing your vision of the kingdom of heaven is. Both how all-pervasive the Holy Spirit is and yet how hidden, not drawing attention to herself but to her work.
So let me return to my conversation with that consistory member. I said that the legacy I had always wanted was a strong consistory, not only competent and capable but also spiritually strong. I learned that from my dad, and what he did with his consistory in Bedford-Stuyvesant. That consistory was the joy of his ministry. Our Old First consistory is a joy to me as well, and full of the Holy Spirit.
And then we talked about our zoom worship services. I compared them to those of my pastor colleagues. Their services are broadcast from their sanctuaries, and because of social distancing it’s always the same two or three professionals who do everything. But in our service we have half a dozen different leaders every week, and you read and you pray and you sing and you testify and you set your table and break your bread each in your own creative ways. I said that I’d like that for my legacy, that I’ve left a congregation that does all this.
And she said, Well, that’s because you support us.
And I said, Thanks, but actually I’m the most privileged pastor I know, when I consider the power of the people I serve.
That’s you! In your power hides the power of the Holy Spirit, whenever you exercise your power in the name of Jesus Christ and you experiment for the kingdom of heaven.
The legacy of the Lord Jesus was the Holy Spirit. Notice that Our Lord had to leave for heaven for the Spirit to come down. If the risen Lord Jesus had remained among us, he could be in only one place at a time, though any place he chose, and we’d be tempted away from the expansion that the Holy Spirit loves.
The wonder of the Holy Spirit is the sheer multiplicity of her actions and investments. She likes manifold pluriformity. Many languages. Many cultures and many creatures. She likes to come down on physical things like water and oil and the human body and she likes to ride the column of your breathing down into your soul. She likes your mind and she loves your creativity. She likes experiments. It was right for the Lord Jesus to be perfect, but the Spirit does not mind passing ventures and only momentary monuments as the results of your experiments.
In both Judaism and Islam, the authentic Word of God is confined to just one book in just one language. But if you love someone, you want to speak their language, and so at Pentecost the Holy Spirit expressed God’s love for the many nations and cultures of the world. We Christians too have just one book, but in any language it’s just as much God’s Word. And even our preaching from that book in many languages becomes the passing and experimental Word of God again each week. The churchly gift of tongues is a sign of the Spirit.
And prophecy is a sign of the Spirit, because she likes your minds when you use them. And she likes physical things, so physical healing is a sign of her, even when done with ordinary medicine. But she’s just not into being impressive or spectacular. She isn’t into proving God, and so she’s hiding in plain sight. You will see no sign of her unless you seek her with a humble and repentant heart. So you look for her from out of the forgiveness of sins.
She loves to give the forgiveness of sins. That’s a real sign of the Holy Spirit, and she delights in peace and the giving of peace, as when Our Lord gave it to his disciples and breathed on them. You don’t win peace, you give it, as a gift of the Holy Spirit. And you give understanding, as a work of the Spirit, and you cultivate wisdom, yet another sign of the Holy Spirit.
But as you knew I’d eventually come to, the greatest sign of the Holy Spirit is love, the miracle and wonder of God’s love. The energy of God is love, passing between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God’s inner self is love, for God is love. So when you see a miracle of love, that’s a sign of the Spirit. When you just try to practice that love, you signal yourselves as experiments by the Spirit. You know that fire upon the heads of the disciples? That fire is the heat and passion of God’s love.
Copyright © 2020, by Daniel James Meeter, all rights reserved.
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