The Episcopal Church of the Epiphany

Trinity Sunday, June 7, 2009

Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Some Christians, particularly those in fundamentalist traditions, mistakenly believe that when Jesus was talking with Nicodemus about the necessity of being "born of the spirit," He was speaking of an event in which a person goes through a great spiritual struggle, like the struggle of birth. It is a struggle in which the person comes to a moment of decision to accept Jesus as "Lord and Savior," and then after the painful moment of decision - making, they experience relief, joy, exhilaration, forgiveness and love. This spiritual experience, they believe, is what it means to be "born in the spirit." That is, they believe it is all about this single spiritual experience. Now religious experiences do occur, and may have occurred for some of us here or it may occur for some in the future. And these kinds of spiritual experiences are indeed a gift from God. But many people have not had such an experience, and will never have one. Either way, this is not what Jesus was talking about, and it certainly doesn't mean that those who have never had such an experience are less accepted, treasured, and loved by God. And it doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit is any less a part of their lives than those who have had one of these dramatic experiences.

Jesus was talking to Nicodemus, a religious leader, who believed what all Jews were concerned about; and that was the importance of being born into the right family. One must be a child of Abraham. Jesus was telling Nicodemus, this isn't enough or even necessary. Jesus said, "the wind blows where it will." The Greek word for wind is the same word for breath and spirit. In other words, the initiative always remains with God. Jesus went on to tell Nicodemus, we must be born of water and spirit.

There are two sides to this "new birth" that Jesus was talking about. Being born of water is the first part. That is, at our baptism we are brought into a community who promise they are committed to learn Jesus' Kingdom Way of living. Our decision - making comes with this part of being born of water. At our baptism we are only brought into the beginning of the Kingdom journey - the spirit led life. At this decision - making time it is the beginning of the transformation process by which we invite the Holy Spirit to enter our lives and work with us, guiding us, strengthening us, leading us into Christ likeness. But understand the Holy Spirit has all along led us to this point.

The other part of this "new birth" then is the Holy Spirit residing in us with our full participation. We are giving new life and power to begin the journey into this life of the Spirit. As wonderful, overwhelming and life changing as a spiritual experience may be for those who have them, what really matters is the life one is living now. What matters is that one's "present life, day by day and moment by moment is showing evidence of health and strength and purpose" which are the fruits of a spiritual life."?

The spiritual life that Jesus was trying to get Nicodemus to understand is about new life. The apostle Paul fully understood this, because he was born into this new life, and he was brought to this new life completely by God's initiative, certainly not his own. The "life from above" that Jesus was talking about with Nicodemus, and what Paul came to have full knowledge of, is about the extraordinary power of God that enters a life, "a spiritual power that comes with regeneration." We may feel it as a great force or we may not.

I think Dallas Willard describes this power best in his book, The Great Omission. He said: "This power is, of course, God Himself and all the instrumentalities at [God's] disposal, from the Holy Spirit to the resurrected Christ in His Kingdom, to the power of the written Word, to the angelic ambassadors, to other individuals who are heirs of salvation, and to the spiritual life and treasures that are in the body of Christ, visible as well as triumphant."?

All these God uses to bring us into a deeply personal relationship with Him, the Triune God. This is what we are born into when we are born into the spiritual life, "the life from above." Dallas Willard goes on to say that "Spirit is personal, not impersonal. None of that 'the force be with you' stuff is relevant here. And the personal nature of the spirit is seen at its highest and clearest in the Trinitarian nature of God. "God is in himself a sweet society," an old Puritan writer used to say. "What personality is, is finally understandable only in the light of the Trinitarian nature of God." Our personalities and our relationships are to become more and more like the "sweet society" of God. When we enter the life of the Triune God, we don't lose who we are; we don't lose our personalities; we don't lose our relationships. Rather we become fully all that our personalities and our relationships were created to be. We lose all that is not love within ourselves and our relationships. We lose fear, jealousy, anger, hatred, violence; everything that is not truthful and good.

With this new birth into the spirit led life the Spirit provides us with new knowledge; that is a new way of knowing that was not available to us before when we were living "lives of the flesh." We are giving the capacity to have and develop a new understanding of the magnificence and magnanimity of God.

With the birth of the Spirit residing in our hearts we receive a fresh and new knowledge of God as Parent, as the ultimate provider, as the one from which all truth and goodness in our lives come. God the Parent can be understood as Mother as well as Father.

With the birth of the Spirit residing in our hearts, we come to understand Jesus, God's Son as the merciful One, the great Empathizer, the One who limited Himself to live as one of us in the midst of this suffering and painful world.

We come to the full knowledge that He understands our suffering; he came in the midst of it, and remains with us in the midst of it through the Holy Spirit that He promised and sent. And Jesus showed us how to live in this world with love. So when Paul said to live the spiritual life we must suffer with Jesus, what he meant was, when we suffer, as we all do at one time or another, we must suffer with faith that Jesus understands what we are going through. We must trust that Jesus is with us in our suffering. And we must learn to respond as Jesus would respond in our suffering. Many people, when suffering occurs in their lives have their faith severely tested. Some turn away from God. They suffer without belief, faith, and trust that Jesus is present with them. Many blame God for their suffering, believing that God does not care, or that God is punishing them and condemning them. They don't believe and trust that the Holy Spirit is in the midst of their suffering with them, comforting and guiding them through it all. Jesus said, "God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him." When we allow the Spirit to reside in our hearts, we come to have knowledge of the Holy Spirit's ever - present power to help us if we desire to be and grow into the likeness of Jesus Christ.

The Spirit is always present to comfort, strengthen, and guide us when we get tempted to stop and retreat from this spiritual journey and go back to the slavery of our old way of living, just as God was present to the Israelites when they were tempted to go back to the slavery of Egypt. Finally, when we invite the Spirit into our hearts we come to have knowledge of the awesome and complete love, power and holiness of God. "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Host. Heaven and earth are full of Your glory." That is what we come to know. When this knowledge is first fully made known to us, like Isaiah, and later, like Peter, we see ourselves clearly; we see our own incompleteness, our own lack of holiness. It's hard to stand in such revealing light and we feel the desperate need and desire to be cleansed. Because we become aware of all of our selfishness, our hatreds, our duplicity, our refusal to forgive and our complicity and failure to love. But we also come to fully see God's mercy and His ability to purify us, transform us and make us new. We realize we are called to the same holiness of God. We are called to be holy people, God's people. And it becomes very clear to us that we could never, ever, accomplish this on our own, but with our desire and invitation, God will come and dwell within us and will accomplish holiness within us.

When we cry "Abba, Father," that is, when we desire God, it is the Spirit of God working in our hearts moving us toward the all complete goodness, power, and love and holiness of God. We are born anew, and we begin our journey out of slavery. Amen.