"The Holy Spirit Revealed, Part One"
God's love is good news to be shared, not a secret to be guarded
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Text: John 15:26-16:15
It's an incredibly empowering thing to know a secret, to know something that others don't know, to be able to talk to them knowing that you know something they don't know. There is that sense of authority, of power that comes with having a secret. Having that secret and having that knowledge that others do not have, gives you a sense of purpose, of identity and, at times, of prestige.
This week like so many Canadians and others all over the world, I was talking soccer with a gentleman on a street corner. He was apparently of Italian descent and he confided in me, thinking I think that I was a priest rather than a minister. He said, “On Tuesday, I think I'm going to feel sick.”
I said, “Why do you think you're going to feel sick on Tuesday?”
He looked at me, winked and said, “Well, Italy is playing on television and I won't be able to go to work. I think I'm going to be sick on Tuesday.”
He expected me to give him some kind of divine dispensation, so I said, “I'm sorry, but I'll probably be sick on Tuesday as well.”
When I'd left, I thought, “My goodness, can you imagine what power I would have over this man if I knew his employer?” Just to know a secret, to have the inside track, made me feel rather good that he confided in me. Of course, I don't know where he works, so his secret is safe. But to have that knowledge, to have that secret, to have that power over someone or something is a tremendous thing. So, too, it is awfully revealing and exhilarating when you can share a secret that you've had to keep hidden, locked away in your heart.
In his wonderful poem “At Last the Secret is Out,” W.H. Auden expressed this succinctly and beautifully:
At last the secret is out,
as it always must come in the end,
the delicious story is ripe to tell
to tell to the intimate friend;
over the tea-cups and into the square
the tongue has its desire;
still waters run deep, my dear,
there's never smoke without fire.
Just that joy of being able, finally, to tell the secret, to articulate it. People listen to you because you are telling them something they don't know. It's a very empowering thing to tell a secret, as well as to keep it.
Back in my college days, my roommate came to me one day, absolutely ecstatic. He was going to join a very special group on campus. To join this group, he had to learn certain phrases and code words. He had to be able to exchange particular gestures. He took the greatest delight in knowing that I could not join because I had no knowledge of it.
For six months it drove me absolutely crazy, trying to figure out where he belonged, where he disappeared to and what he did when he was there. At the end of term, he finally announced to me that he belonged to a wine-tasting group. All this fussing, nodding, winking and whispering, and he belonged to a wine-tasting group! He had power though, in his secret, and it drove me crazy because I did not know it.
So often, my friends, when you want to keep a secret to yourself, although it is empowering, it can also be wrong. Often people think that religious ideas and symbols, beliefs and dogmas are like a secret that you somehow have to unlock. Maybe there is a special code that will unlock the story for you, and when you finally get to the end of it all, you will know the truth and you'll be part of the group that knows that truth. Maybe there is a mystery and a secret to the hidden-ness of religious ideas that only the most intellectually empowered, only the great scholars, can access, and maybe we defer to the powers within the church to know what those secrets are in order that we might be able, sometime, to get a taste of the truth.
I would like to look at this idea of the secrecy of religion in terms of what I call, “the code, the chain and the community,” because in the gospel of John there is a profound sense that power of the Holy Spirit is there not to conceal, but to reveal.
Let us look first at what I call the code. By the code, I mean this idea that the knowledge of God is hidden in some sort of secret idea or secret thought. Through history, most cults have based much of their identity on having a specific code. They believe that they have a secret knowledge and understanding of what God is like that nobody else has, and nobody else can understand God quite the way that they do. Many cults invite you to join them in order that you might know the secret. They use the idea of the secret as a way of drawing you into the cult. Over time, when you go through certain steps and rituals you will eventually be able to see the pot of gold at the rainbow's end, and have the full knowledge of God. If you join our particular organization and belief set, you will be able to see for yourself what God is really like.
From the very earliest Gnostic movements that actually predated the time of Jesus, right through 2,000 years of Christian history, there have been these groups and cults that have built up their own myths and legends, built up their own secret ideas, actually put a structure of power in place with people who have certain knowledge and illumination that the people below them don't know.
Cults can be very powerful, because if you want the secret, if you want to be in the know, then it's enticing to join them. When you join them you can get carried away in a whole idea-set that you never would have believed in the first place. It's also very hard to get out of cults, very hard to exit. Why? Because niggling in the back of your mind is this question: “If only I had stayed, maybe I would have learned the secret after all.” Whereas what happens is, the secret is designed to conceal, not to reveal the truth - to hold it in rather than to let it out. You notice many of the cults will use the words of the Spirit. Many of them will talk about the Spirit, many of them believe that they were established by the Spirit, but their purpose is to hold and to conceal, rather than to release and to reveal.
The church however, does not have such a code. There is no sense in today's church of something being held back, nor was there in the early church. Now, I know that some people might question what I'm saying. They may say, ”But look at the parables of Jesus. They didn't seem straightforward. Weren't they a code? Weren't they designed to hide a secret from everybody?”
I would say, categorically, the opposite. The parables were designed to reveal the truth, to let people know and understand the nature of the kingdom and to understand the ministry of Jesus. Not everyone was able to get them, not everyone was able to understand them, or to follow them, but the parables were designed to convey a message - not to hide a secret, but to reveal the truth.
Others have said, “Oh, but Andrew, look at the doctrine of the Trinity; if there was ever something mysterious and secretive. After all didn't you write a book on the Trinity, and aren't you wrapped up in this because you are part of a group that believes in it and keeps it to yourselves, and the rest of the world doesn't have the foggiest idea what you're talking about?” The answer to that is exactly the opposite, just like with the parables.
The doctrine of the Trinity is the most simple way that the church could use to describe the relationship among the Father and the Son and the Spirit. The understanding of the existence of the Trinity came out of Scripture, rather than being imposed on Scripture. It was a result of revealed truth, and was designed and put together in such a way that it made sense of the nature of God's self-revelation. The Trinity was not made by the church, the church was made by the Trinity for the purpose of revelation.
The very purpose of the ministry of the church as powered by the Spirit that infuses the church is not to hold God to ourselves, as if we have this special truth that no one else should have, but to share that truth. Jesus made it abundantly clear to his disciples in this morning's passage: “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.”
Now, this is hardly what you'd call an attempt to hide a secret. This is the exact opposite, this is the power of the Spirit revealing the truth.
So, how is it done if it's not in a code? I think it's in a chain. By a chain I mean that the New Testament, and particularly the Gospel of John, goes to great lengths to show that God desires the world to know him. From God's point of view it moves like this: God the Father reveals himself through the Son and the Spirit bears witness to the Son who bears witness to the Father.
In other words, it's like a circle. God the Father sends the Son, who is sort of in the middle, who then sends the Spirit to the believers and then from our side the power of the Spirit moves upon us to recognize and to understand the Son, who then in turn glorifies the Father. The Father begins the chain and the Father is at the end of the chain and the way this is carried out is through the Spirit and through the centre is the Son. It's very simple: it's not complicated.
The role of the Holy Spirit is to reveal. The whole movement and power of the Holy Spirit is to let us know and to confirm first of all, the ministry of Jesus. John makes it abundantly clear when he quotes Jesus, that the Spirit speaks only what he hears. In other words, the Spirit has heard the word of Jesus and passes it on. The Spirit glorifies the Son; the Spirit bears witness to the Son. The Spirit does not come up with new truth, but rather points us to the truth that we see in the Son. All of this to the glory of the Father. The power of the Holy Spirit then, comes upon us, comes upon the Church for the sake of revealing the power of almighty God.
I liken the Holy Spirit in some ways to a labourer. Many, many years ago when Sir Christopher Wren was building St. Paul's Cathedral, there was a journalist of sorts who decided to interview some of the builders. He wanted to know what each of these different builders did in creating this magnificent edifice. So he went to the first builder and said: “By the way, what do you do here?”
The builder said, “I am paid three shillings a day to cut stone.”
The journalist said to another builder, “Well, what do you do here?”
The second builder responded, “I work 10 hours a day making sure that there is mortar ready.”
The journalist went to a third man and said, “What do you do?
He replied, “I am working for Sir Christopher Wren to build the greatest cathedral in Great Britain for the glory of God the Father. That's what I'm doing.”
The work of the Holy Spirit is like that last builder, working for the great designer, working for the Father, working for the Son, for the glory of God. That is what the power of the Spirit does. The Spirit doesn't do anything on its own behalf, the Spirit does not illuminate in a way that causes new truth. Rather, the Spirit is a servant of the Father and of the Son.
So often, my friends, we misunderstand that chain. I am always really, really wary when people ascribe things to the Spirit that do not coincide with the teachings of the Son. I am wary when people say, “This is what the Spirit does,” if it is not for the glory of the Father, for the role of the Spirit is to glorify the Son and speak what he hears to the glory of the Father as well. It's a chain.
The community is really what intrigues me. The Holy Spirit not only reveals, the Holy Spirit not only speaks what he hears, but the Holy Spirit creates the church. We call ourselves the church of Jesus Christ but by what power, by what authority do we exist? What do we have that motivates us, if we do not have the power of the Holy Spirit?
Many years ago I read a passage by Samuel Stevenson, in which he was addressing in poetic form what sometimes seems like the weakness of the church. It sometimes seems like the church dallies with the world but doesn't really know where it is going. This is what Stevenson wrote:
A city full of churches,
Great preachers, lettered men,
Grand music, choirs and organs;
If these all fail, what then?
Good workers, eager, earnest,
Who labour hour by hour:
But where, oh where, my brothers!
Is God's Almighty power?It is the Holy Spirit,
That quickeneth the soul.
God will not take man-worship,
Nor bow to man's control.
No human innovation,
No skill, or worldly art,
Can give a true repentance,
Or break the sinner's heart!Great God, revive us truly!
And keep us every day;
That men may all acknowledge
We live just as we pray.
The Lord's hand is not shortened,
He still delights to bless;
If we depart from evil
And all our sins confess.
It is the Holy Spirit, he says, that quickens the soul and the church has no reason to exist, no power to proclaim, no truth to reveal unless it is that which comes from the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, what great reason is there for us to be devoted to the Holy Spirit in all things?
Many years ago, King George V was due to address a great gathering in New York city. But at the last minute, one of the technicians in the building accidentally destroyed the main wire that enabled a million people to hear what King George was going to say on the radio. So a million people would not be able to hear what he was going to say. Then along came a man called Norman Vivean. He was so convinced that the world had to hear what King George had to say that he grabbed both ends of the broken wire. Two hundred and fifty volts went through his body, and the broadcast from New York could be heard.
Now, I've never heard whether Norman Vivean survived this experience, and it has always disturbed me, because all of the books that I've read - and there are many stories giving this account - never seem to say whether he survived, but I'm guessing that he did. Regardless, he saw that there was a brokenness, and he stood in the middle of it in order that a message could be proclaimed and a truth revealed. The power of the church is to be like Norman Vivean, to open our arms so wide that we are filled by the power of the Spirit, in order that through the ministry of the church the truth of God and God's love in his Son may be revealed to the world.
We are experiencing some sad stories with the arrest of the suspected terrorists here in our city at the moment. When I'm speaking to my cousins in England, they are talking about only one thing here in Toronto. All of this my friends, is profoundly, profoundly sad. Religious leaders of all stripes are struggling to deal with it. It seems to me that any discussion about God in the midst of all this must not be some sort of secretive, closed, cloistered, dogmatic thing, but that from our point of view as Christians, how important it is to talk about that love of the Father through the Son in the power of the Spirit for the world. It is not God's desire to sit in heaven and do nothing. It is not God's desire simply to call out a few in order that only a few may hold a secret. It is God's desire to reveal God's divine mercy, love, forgiveness and power. I believe that that is the call of the Spirit at the moment, and I think that as Christians it behooves us to share that love and forgiveness and that power.
There are other things over which we have no control. There are other people and creeds over which we have no control, but under the guise and the grace and the leading and the comfort of the Holy Spirit, there is something that we can proclaim, and that is not a secret we should keep. It is a truth that we need to share. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.