The late Mary Oliver wrote a poem entitled “The Wildest Storm. Her poem ends with three questions.
The answer to all three of Mary Oliver’s questions is the same: “The answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind!”[ii] The wind of the Spirit, that is; specifically, the Holy Spirit. The author of the Gospel of Luke, and its companion, The Acts of the Apostles, features the Holy Spirit prominently, almost relentlessly. Witness the opening lines of today’s reading.
Luke’s
description of the beginning of Jesus’s ministry starts out like this: “Then
Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit returned to Galilee” (4:14). Then, in his hometown synagogue, in front of
his friends and neighbors and members of his family, Jesus’ reading from Isaiah
begins like this: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” (4.18). Spirit filled, Spirit
led, Spirit driven, Spirit empowered are recurring themes in Luke and Acts,
first in the people who populate the birth stories, next in Jesus, then in the
disciples, and finally in the descriptions of the early church. All of it
summed up in Mary Oliver’s reminder, seen and heard in the storm, “seemingly
something to do with power!” Like all the faithful ones who come to us on the sacred page, we too,
require the Holy Spirit to fill us and fuel our efforts.
Luke’s
Gospel begins by telling of people who were, or would be, “filled with the Holy
Spirit.” While putting in his shift in the temple at Jerusalem, the old priest Zechariah
was told of a baby about to be conceived in his wife, Elizabeth’s womb, a child
who would be “filled with the Holy Spirit,” and turn many of the people of
Israel to the Lord their God,” (15-16).
An
angel of the Lord appeared to a young woman named Mary and told her she too
would bear a son. She asked how this
could be and was told, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, (1: 35). When she went to visit her pregnant cousin,
the older woman’s child performed his first prophetic act by do-ing a prenatal
somersault. Then Elizabeth was also “filled with the Holy Spirit,” and offered
a blessing over her young visitor and the child being knit together in her
womb. When John the Baptist was born, Zechariah
had his “filled with the Spirit” moment too, proclaiming what God would do
through the two bouncing baby boys when they grew up.
After
Jesus was born, his parents obediently followed the steps outlined for the
faithful of Israel, circumcising the child on the eighth day, dedicating their
first born in the temple. Along the way
they encountered Simeon and Anna, two Spirit-led senior citizens, who confirmed
the identity of Jesus as God’s anointed one.
It
is no surprise then, that when Jesus arrives on the scene, all grown up and
ready to do all those Spirit powered things Spirit-filled people spoke about,
the Spirit is leading the way. The
pattern set in his home as a child continues as he arrives back in Nazareth.
Like his parents before him, Jesus is faithful in observing the
traditions. Luke tells us Jesus went to
the synagogue on the Sabbath, “as was his custom.” That is not a throw-away
line. Fred Craddock explains: “It is important first of all to allow the
passage to remind us of that which Luke never tires of telling: all that Jesus
says and does is within the bosom of Judaism. By his faithfulness, Jesus
affirms the Sabbath, the Scriptures and the Syna-gogue.”[iii]
On
the place of the synagogue in Jewish life, Craddock adds: “This institution of
Judaism ap-parently arose during the exile as a temple surrogate, but of course
without altar or priest. Led by the laity, the Pharisees being the most
prominent among them, the synagogue became the institutional center of a
religion of the Book, not the altar, and in time became and remains today the
dominant form of Judaism…The synagogue was not only an assembly for worship but
also a school, a community center and a place for administering justice.”[iv]
The
importance of the Holy Spirit in the life of Jesus is hard to miss. After his
baptism, while he was praying, the Spirit descended on him like a dove. Then,
the Spirit led him into the wilderness where he faced testing to see if he would
be true to his calling or abandon it under pressure. The Spirit gave him the
power to say no to the shortcuts and power plays offered by Satan. Now, as his
work of teach-ing begins, Luke is careful to note that Jesus wasn’t operating
on his own steam: “Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to
Galilee…and began to teach in their synagogues,”(4:14-15).
Robert
Brearley shines a spotlight so we won’t
miss what Luke is doing here. “Now he is telling us of the Holy Spirit’s
involvement in the life of Jesus as he steps forth in public ministry. Even Jesus is not self-sufficient.
He is dependent upon God for his life, faith, and mission.”[v]
How about that! The work of Jesus does
not begin until the Holy Spirit has descended on him, led him where he need-ed
to go, and filled him with all he needed to do what he was sent to do.
Later,
at the end of Luke’s Gospel, and at the beginning of, the Book of Acts, Jesus
tells his disciples to wait for the Spirit: “You will receive power when the
Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all
Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8). What is good for the Teacher is good for the
students too.
If
Jesus needed to pray for and wait for the Spirit to guide and empower his work;
if the disciples needed to do the same, then we need to remember to preface our
discerning and our doing by seeking the Spirit’s help. That is why we Reformed
Protestants insist on beginning and ending our meetings with prayer. It is not empty ritual. Like Jesus and the
earliest disciples, we know that those who are connected to the vine, that is
Christ, bear much fruit, and that apart from the flow of nutrients through the
vine, we can do nothing. So it is necessary to remind each other frequently to
seek and to wait for the Spirit to work on us and in us and through us.
This
will become increasingly important in the months ahead as your Interim Pastor
arrives to help you discover the future direction of this congregation. The pastor is not and should not be the only
person lifting up your congregation’s future in prayer. Do your part, invite
the Spirit’s help. As that be-loved old
hymn encourages, “Take it to the Lord in prayer.” And don’t worry about being eloquent,
as Mary Oliver reminds us in a poem called “Whistling Swans:”
Do you bow your head when you pray or do you look
up into that blue space?
Take your choice, prayers fly in all directions.
And don’t worry about the language you use,
God no doubt understands them all.
Even when the swans are flying north and making
such a ruckus of noise, God is surely listening
and understanding.
Rumi said, There is no proof of the soul.
But isn’t the return of spring and how it
springs up in our hearts a pretty good hint?
Yes, I know, God’s silence never breaks,
but is that really a problem?
There are thousands of voices, after all.
And furthermore, don’t you imagine (I just suggest it)
that swans know about as much as we do about
the whole business?
So listen to them and watch them, singing as they fly.
Take from it what your can.”[vi]
Reflecting on
the role of the Holy Spirit in the work of
Jesus and those who followed him leads professor Ruth C. Duck to
ask: “Why do we attempt to live as Christians
without seeking the guidance, gifts and strength that the Holy Spirit
brings?”[vii]
Downstate
from here, Pam McShane served for years as the pastor of two Presbyterian congre-gations
in neighboring towns. In a story that is all too familiar, these congregations
were aging, their numbers had dwindled, and the sustainability of each was
questionable. They began to talk of merger since they already shared a
pastor. They engaged in a period of
discernment to see if the Holy Spirit was leading them to come together. In
time, the leadership of the two congregations agreed that it was, so they
forged a plan to make it happen.
Then
came congregational votes. The move to merge was nearly unanimous in one congrega-tion.
In the other, it was narrowly defeated. There was sadness all around as the
congregations separ-ated. The pastor went half-time in the positive
congregation and many from the other church joined with them as they continued
to seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance for the future.
That was a little over five years ago. Since then, their discernment led to the recognition of an underserved population of children and adults in their communities with special needs. A Friday night dinner with musical entertainment was begun, designed to provide a place for these special needs neighbors to socialize.
Some of those folks began to show up at Worship. Modifications were made to the Sunday morning worship service to accommodate people who are not able to read a printed Call to Worship or Prayer of Confession. Tolerance of noise and restless activity has increased. A contest was held to re-name the revitalized church. It is now called The Tree of Life Presbyterian Church, and gives every evidence of being filled with the Spirit. Like every congregation, they have had to adapt during the pandemic, but creatively, compassionately, they have continued to carry on the work Jesus spoke of in the synagogue in Nazareth long ago.
The importance of the work Jesus talked about that day is highlighted by the way Luke tells us about it. In broad strokes encompassing much movement over time, Luke set the scene: “Then Jesus, filled with the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the countryside. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. (4: 14-15). Without details the story is swiftly told.
But once he arrives in the synagogue, Luke slows the story to a crawl, adding details: Jesus stands to read and he is handed a scroll. Luke tells us the scroll is the one with the words of Isaiah. Jesus unrolls the scroll until he finds the passage he wants to read. The reading is read. Then, after the reading is concluded, every movement of Jesus is recorded: he rolled up the scroll, handed it to the attendant, and sat down. Through it all, “the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him” (4:20).
The actions before and after point like arrows to the words carefully chosen from Isaiah:
His neighbors, friends and family were all waiting to hear what he will have to say about this servant song from Isaiah. Just by choosing it, he has given voice to words which define what he sees to be his Messianic mission. When the servant claims the Lord has “anointed me” he is saying the Lord “made me the Christ.” Fred Craddock spells out what the passage Jesus read means: “When understood literally, the passage says the Christ is God’s servant who will bring to reality the longing and hope of the poor, the oppressed, and the imprisoned. The Christ will also usher in the amnesty, the liberation and the restoration associated with the proclamation of the year of jubilee.”[viii]
But
wait, there’s more! The very first word Jesus says after he sits down…the very
first words we hear him say after his tussles with Satan, the very first word
recorded as part of his “teaching in their synagogues” is “today.” “Today this
scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Blair
Monie, who mentored many a Presbyterian pastor writes: “Note that the first
word spoken by the public Jesus in Luke’s gospel, other than the reading of
Isaiah, is ‘today’—not yesterday, not tomorrow, not someday…A stress of
immediacy pervades Luke’s Gospel. The time of divine action is always now. This
today continues throughout Jesus’ ministry.
Now is always the time to release the captive, to give sight to the
blind, to free the oppressed, to pro-claim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[ix]
The immediacy Monie speaks of is timely. Last Monday we paused to celebrate the life of a man who knew the importance of “today;” a man who knew that when push came to shove (literally!) the time to speak up is now. Monie explains: “When Martin Luther King Jr. gave his clarion call for racial justice, some wanted to be supportive of his cause but feared acting too soon. Their message was, in essence, that it was a good idea but the time was not right. They told him to wait. Then, in his ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail,’ he replied, ‘This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”’”[x] Sadly, any idea that Dr. King’s dream has been realized has been dispelled by new manifestations of racism of late. The work of making King’s dream a reality is still something to pursue each day.
For
almost two years now, the “today” of Jesus’ mission statement has been before
our eyes. Food insecurity came out of the shadows as workplaces closed their
doors and children couldn’t get breakfast or lunch while at school. Blind eyes saw the need for food pantries to
expand their hours. Churches and
restaurateurs packed to-go meals to proclaim good news to the poor in the form
of fresh produce, a tasty meal, and other necessities.
“Today”
is always the day to continue the work of Jesus. After the initial months of
lock down and precaution, and the advent of vaccines and boosters, good folks, filled
with the Spirit, have found ways to mask
up and begin projects to help others now rather than wait for some distant day
when the all clear is sounded. Quilters
are making bedding for the homeless; clothing and home goods have been
gathered for victims of flood, fire and wind. And we’ve heard today some of
what the people of Cove-nant Presbyterian Church, filled with the Spirit, will
be doing with the canned goods collection for Safety Net before your next
concert, and your participation in the SouperBowl Sunday Offering.
Now, we end as we began with words from Mary Oliver, this time from a poem called “The Gift,” which suggests how to live filled with the Spirit.
[i] Mary Oliver, “The Wildest Storm,” Felicity, (New York, Penguin Books, 2016), p. 23
[ii] Bob Dylan, © 1962, M. Witmark & Sons
[iii] Fred B. Craddock, Luke – Interpretation- A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Louisville, John Knox Press, 1999), p. 61
[iv] ibid., p. 62
[v] Robert M. Brearley, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 1, (Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), p. 284
[vi] ibid., Oliver, p. 29
[vii] Ruth C. Duck, Feasting on the Gospels, Luke, Vol. 1, Chapters 1-11, (Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 2014,) Pastoral Perspective, p. 98
[viii] ibid., Craddock, p. 62
[ix] Blair Monie, “Commentary 2: Connecting the Reading with the World,” Connections, A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, (Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), p. 207
[x] ibid., plus Martin Luther King, Jr., “Why we Can’t Wait” (New York: Harper and Row, 1964) p. 83
[xi] ibid., Oliver, p. 77
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