holy spirit – Leah Wise

“Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!”

Today’s readings, taken together, give us a sense of the character of the Spirit of God, who is always on the move.

In Numbers, she rests gently, like a butterfly, on the heads of elders surrounding Moses, as God prepares the tired and hungry Israelites to receive a feast in the wilderness. In the Psalm, she is sent out, like a dove, to create new life, adding to the number of varied and marvelous creatures of the earth. In John, she flows out, like water, from the hearts of Jesus’ followers, providing refreshment to those without hope. In Acts, she erupts – like gale-force winds and rampaging wildfire – causing the disciples to tumble out of the isolation of their gathering place.

And, of course, she speaks – in dead languages and living ones – uniting the people in Jerusalem, not in a common language, but in common understanding. Flowing and flying and rushing and disrupting – the Spirit is not the gentle presence we might imagine. To paraphrase theologian Will Willimon: where the Spirit is, something is coming to life (Acts: Interpretation, 30).

(Just so you know, I am using feminine pronouns for the Holy Spirit today because the Hebrew word is in a feminine form. That doesn’t mean that the Spirit is a woman – it just means that the Spirit is not an “it.”)

Our scriptures make clear that the Spirit of God has been present since the beginning of time: The Spirit is where God is. But until this day in the Book of Acts – which we call Pentecost – the Spirit was thought to be something that might land on you for a little while, and then depart. And, if the Spirit of God was “on you,” you would almost certainly begin to prophesy.

We see it in our Numbers reading: “Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied.”

But what does it mean to prophesy?

First, let’s define some terms. To prophesy is to proclaim a message from God. The person who prophesies is called a prophet. And what the prophet proclaims is called a prophecy.

Rabbi Abraham Heschel says that:

“The prophet is no hireling who performs his duty in the employ of the Lord…The fundamental experience of the prophet is a fellowship with the feelings of God, a sympathy with divine pathos, a communion with the divine consciousness which comes about through the prophet’s reflection of, or participation in, divine pathos” (The Prophets, 31).

What he means by this is that the prophet is so close to God that it is as if they share the mind and heart of God. They become more than a messenger or mouthpiece for God – because the Spirit resting on them connects them to God’s reality.

In other words, the Spirit enables them to look at the world with the vision of God – and this new vision reveals the smallness of their human point-of-view: the pride, competition, and needless division that leads to conflict on the ground.

This new vision forces the prophet to “tell it like it is” with divine clarity. It compels them to tell the truth. And from this truth-telling, an opening is made for something new.

…

When the Spirit of God arrives like a storm at Pentecost, she lands on the disciples – not as a butterfly – but as fire. Hot, burning, and wild – the disciples move like sparks, tumbling out into the street where they start to speak at least 15 languages. They surprise themselves before shocking the crowds.

It is the Jewish Festival of Weeks in Jerusalem, and a jumble of people from many places are in the street to celebrate God’s gift of the law to Moses.

When the disciples speak, the chaos of their outburst has the surprising effect of unifying the crowd. Because, suddenly, everyone can understand what the disciples are saying. In fact, the disciples are even speaking dead languages – almost as if the Spirit is calling all of history to attention.

And then, from the chatter, one clear voice rings out. It is Peter! Jesus’ friend who put on a brave face when Jesus was with him, but denied him three times as soon as he was alone. This man Willimon calls “cowardly” is now speaking boldly in the public square – the Spirit has gotten ahold of him!

He uses the words of the prophet Joel to frame this event as evidence of the old prophecies coming true. “Don’t you see?” He says: “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.”

He also uses Joel to proclaim that the Kingdom of God has come near, through the person of Jesus Christ: and “all who call on his name will be saved.”

The Spirit of God is on the move once again – connecting humanity to the heart of God. And now, she is available to all, without reservation or limitation, and without an expiration date.

As Willimon puts it: “…in Jesus the Christ, there is a power loose in the world which is power for them.” (36).

This miracle of many languages proves Peter’s proclamation. The people in the crowd are from different places, have different concerns, and speak different languages. But all of them understand God calling to them, because the Spirit uses the language of their hearts to bring them into the very heart of God.

And there, they are brought into the unity of the Body of Christ.

…

We are blessed beyond measure to be a congregation that relives the miracle of Pentecost every time we get together.

On any given Sunday, we worship together in two or three languages: English, ASL, and even Spanish. With the help of our human interpreters – and the Spirit of God – we are able to participate, together, in the life and love of God.

And because of this, we know that barriers don’t have to be burdens. We know that the Spirit doesn’t privilege some languages, people, and cultures over others: She will always speak in a way we understand – even when her call is beyond words.

We know that Jesus made a Way for us to join in the hard and joyful work of his kingdom. And we know that, in our own ways, we are called to prophesy.

Drawn into the heart and vision of God, we are called to tell the truth about what we have seen in this place, even and especially when it defies the world’s tired old stories. So that an opening is made for new life to grow amid the world’s decay.

…

No matter what brought you here today, know that you are unconditionally and endlessly loved by the God who existed before the world began, and you are held by the Spirit who rushed in like the wind to get to you.

And no matter what anyone says, you are called to participate in God’s own life. You are called to give water to those who thirst, in body and soul. And to follow the Spirit, who is always on the move.

But you are not called alone. Above all, you are called to participate the Body of Christ – which is to say, the church. Here in the church, we are delighted to discover surprising unity in our differences, and reassurances that these differences are not insurmountable.

Our differences are a gift of the Spirit. By softening the barriers between us, they make us brave like Peter. They allow us to speak in the multi-lingual voice of God, which transcends the smallness of our individual points-of-view, a nd beckons us back to the heart of God: to the source of Love that will be our salvation.

Amen.

Readings here

Last weekend, I was at a community choir event when I saw an older man wearing a sweatshirt that read: “Be salty. Stay lit.” My first thought was, “I wonder if he knows that passage is coming up in our lectionary next week!”

It’s always fun to see the Bible “out in the wild.” When I was in seminary, an author – I can’t remember who – talked about reading scripture in random parts of town just to see if the context changed the meaning. For instance, I imagine that reading about Jesus’ trial before Pontius Pilate in front of a courthouse would be an interesting experience.

During the pandemic, one of my fondest memories was reading Psalm 84 during an outdoor service, as the birds sang around us in the trees:

Even the sparrow finds a home
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.

When I saw that man’s sweatshirt – “Be salty, stay lit” – I was in a warehouse venue space singing with a bunch of musical theatre nerds. But only a day earlier, I was outside a very different warehouse. And I couldn’t help but think about it then.

On that day, I went to pray with a group of other Christians in front of a warehouse-turned-immigrant detention center. Though we were on public property, as we sang and prayed, we were increasingly being surveilled by federal officers. And by the time I opened my eyes and turned toward the building, the anti-terrorism agents had arrived. When our service ended, we quietly scrambled back to our cars; but I spent the next few days worrying that they were coming for me.

When I read, “Be salty, stay lit,” on a man’s sweatshirt the next day, I was in a context of raising my voice in song. But I couldn’t stop thinking about raising my voice in song at that other warehouse – about what it meant to live my faith boldly and in public.

What do these words call us to? Let’s see if we can figure it out…

Our Matthew reading today is just a little piece of a much bigger teaching, which we often refer to as the Sermon on the Mount. It comes immediately after the Beatitudes, which we talked about last week. And what follows it, is a series of teachings that expand the Ten Commandments.

A Torah scholar in my Bible study group points out that the Sermon on the Mount is a direct reference to Exodus, with Jesus paralleling Moses and the “crowds” paralleling the Israelites. In addition to the Exodus reference, the “city on a hill” language in our passage is a direct reference to Isaiah. In Isaiah chapter 2, the prophet reveals God’s vision for all people:

In days to come
the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains
and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
Many peoples shall come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”

In these subtle and not-so-subtle parallels, Jesus is revealing himself as the fulfillment of the story of the God of Israel. He is in the direct line of its patriarchs and prophets, and intends to follow its ethical and religious commands.

Up to this point in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has been focused on his own identity and call. But in these verses about salt and light, we receive his first instruction to “the crowd,” This crowd includes all of us, who gather before the altar of Christ today.

How he phrases his first call to action is surprising. Instead of telling us to “do” something, he tells us that we “are” something.: “You are salt, and you are light.” In other words, you are called to rise to who you were made to be, to use your intrinsic properties – your gut, your conscience, your mind, your body, and your soul – for the good of the Gospel.

You are the salt of the earth. As a matter of who you are, you have the power to preserve and sustain those around you; to make things good or to make things rotten; you have the power to make the roadway safe or slippery; you have the power to bring healing.

You are the light of the world. Like a spotlight in a darkened theater, you have the power to make meaning for others; to direct their gaze to where the real story is taking place; you expose what was in shadow; how you move and what you focus on shows others what really matters.

So…will you be discerning? Pouring out your life-sustaining salt to provide for those around you? Or will you be careless? Using too much or too little in ways that cause rot and bitterness?

Will you be bold? Shining a light that casts away the dark shadows of sin and death in this world? Or will you be distracted? Putting a spotlight on unimportant things that distance you and others from the love of God?

You are salt, and you are light – you were made to share the good news of God’s freedom, abundance, and love. Your choice is not to become, but to properly use your intrinsic call.

In the earliest versions of our strategic plan, our mission statement said that we wanted to be a “community lighthouse.”

As a congregation literally sitting “on a hill,” we want to be like a light that pulls people away from danger, and toward safe harbor. When we workshopped this, a few people noted that the image of a lighthouse made no sense in our landlocked context. So, you’ll see our current form of the mission statement reads a little bit differently:

Rooted in Christ’s vision of reconciliation, mutual care, and love of neighbor, the Hill is a beacon of God’s love in southeast Austin.

A beacon can be a lighthouse, but it’s broader than that…The basic definition of a beacon is: “a fire or light set up in a high or prominent position as a warning, signal, or celebration.” But I came across an alternate meaning online. A beacon can also describe “a hill suitable for a beacon of fire or light.”

I believe the desire of all of our hearts is to make this church on the hill suitable for a beacon of fire or light. We want this place to be a home to the Holy Spirit, so often depicted as fire. We want it to be as life changing as the burning bush, from which God called Moses to deliver his people from slavery.

We want the light of Christ to remind us that we are salt, and we are light. So that we can act as beacons that shine a light on the lost and endangered, and help them find safety. And, so we can invite others “to taste and see that the Lord is good.”

As we let our strategic plan guide us in the coming years, today’s scripture reminds us that God has already made us exactly who we need to be for this world, in this moment.

Our choice is not about becoming a beacon. It is about turning our spotlight on the story of God, as it is revealed to us through the patriarchs, prophets, and commandments. And in the incarnate Christ – whose first act of ministry was to heal the sick, the suffering, and the lost.

Be salty. Stay lit. Amen.

Thanks to Andrew McGowan’s substack, Warren Carter for The Working Preacher, my colleagues, and my Bible Study group for the insight.

Tag: holy spirit

That the Lord would put his Spirit on them | Pentecost

Be salty. Stay lit.