Certainty

John 3:16-18(NRSV)

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God."

Do you know or remember what it feels like to be drunk? Tipsy?

Intoxicated?

Generally speaking, when we think of those words we think of them in relation to alcohol. But we can be drunk on other things too. I once had a German professor tell me once he got "drunk" on coffee. He was intoxicated - lost control of himself - from the caffeine.

And we know about people getting "drunk" on power. It is "intoxicating" to be given so much authority. I think we can see that playing out daily in the news.

Plenty of things can be intoxicating. I am currently reading Rachel Held Evans newest book, Searching for Sundays, and a line in it struck me in a deep way. She spoke about her temptation as a Christian to be "intoxicated with certainty."

Intoxicated with certainty.

That stuck me to the core, because, if I'm honest, I've been there.

We all have, haven't we?

Sometimes it isn't about religion. Sometimes it is about politics, or household rules, or how to cook a steak, or any number of things that we choose to live or die on.

Yet when it comes to our faith, certainty is the last thing we should be intoxicated by.

Certainty is in fact, as writer Anne Lamott says, the opposite of faith.

Where do we get this certainty? Well, one of the quotes we might cling to it is from John 3:16. Do you see it there?

"...everyone who believes in him may not perish."

Believe. We tend to get pretty certain about our beliefs.

And yet the next line says what?

That the son came into the world not "to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."

The world.

The 'cosmos' as the Greek says. 

In other words, everything.

Where does our certainty sit with such magnificent grace?

Where in that do we come to understand that our own understanding is more correct - more 'believable' - than someone else's?

Instead, this verse gives us the freedom to see the mercy that comes from being wrong sometimes. From needing that extravagant unmerited goodness from God that we deserve no more or no less than our neighbor.

Who may or may not believe what we do.

Certainty is intoxicating. Humility is hard.

And yet either way, God is working through our beliefs and our certainties to save the world. In spite of us.

Lord of mercy save me despite my doubts and my certainties. Amen

Mystified

John 20:19-23(NRSV)

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

Another reading we didn't hear at St. Paul's on Pentecost.

But a reading we heard recently. In Easter.

This is the beginning of the reading probably more known for the character introduced here: Thomas the Twin, also known as Doubting Thomas.

And when we talk about Thomas after Easter, we often talk about what his doubting means. I've heard some great sermons on that.

Big stuff happened while Thomas was out.

Big stuff he missed.

And he doubted.

But here's something I've never heard about and always wondered about:

The disciples tell Thomas that they've seen the Lord. That's what he doubts.

But what's missing in what they tell him?

"Oh, yeah, Thomas. And he breathed on us and gave us his Spirit."

There's that Spirit showing up again before Pentecost.

And it seems as if it is as mystifying to the disciples as it still is to many of us today.

How do we show God's Spirit in our lives? Maybe the Disciples were onto something by not bragging about it to Thomas. 

Maybe they had no understanding about what had just happened to them.

We forget sometimes that even post-resurrection, the Disciples weren't always quick to get it or believe or understand.

They weren't apparently ready to lead.

So we too sometimes are mystified, don't understand, slow to believe, quick to doubt.

Not too different from the disciples, huh?

And yet the Spirit comes anyway.

Not as something for us to brag about having.

But as something for us to use for living.

Come Holy Spirit, Come. Amen.

Spirit

John 7:37-39(NRSV)

On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

This is one of the chosen Gospel readings by the lectionary for Pentecost that my congregation didn't use. And I have to say I'm a bit grateful for that.

This is a particularly confusing text. In some ways, I suppose it isn't. It reinforces this amazing coming of the Holy Spirit story we get on Pentecost.

But yes, confusing, because quite honestly, it isn't true that there was no Spirit because Jesus had not yet been glorified. 

The Spirit hovered over the waters as God created the earth.

In Genesis we meet the Melchizedek, an unexpected priest who operates clearly with God's spirit and speaks God's word.

In Numbers we hear that the Spirit rested on the seventy elders with Moses and they prophesied. 

In Zechariah, the Spirit is with Zerubbabel.

So what is John getting at?

A Sunday morning sermon is sometimes a difficult place to wrestle with contradictions like these from scripture. And maybe there is no easy, clear cut answer. (which is OK for me since wrestling with the questions themselves is part of the journey).

I can guess though. I can imagine that we are supposed to know that what happened with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost was bigger, more amazing, and more comprehensive than anything that God had done before. The Spirit spread further and wider and more audaciously than ever in a way that no one had ever anticipated.

The Spirit was given to those who had never expected it.

To those some thought never deserved it.

By a God whose story arc in scripture continued to widen and widen and widen.

And if that Pentecost was just the start, imagine what that Spirit is doing today!

Holy God, Father, Son and Spirit, help me to be part of your ever spreading arc of love. Amen.