Church of All Nations

delivered 31 May 2009
by Rev. Dr John Evans

Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Acts 2:1-21
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

For matters of the spirit, for spirituality, it is the best of times; and it is the worst of times.

What can I mean – it is the best and the worst of times for spirituality?

I still think the dominant culture in Australia is to doubt and deny there is a spiritual dimension to our life or within the world.  Spiritual matters are seen to be soft targets.  Scientific and rational approaches we can cope with, but when we start to introduce a spiritual dimension into our discussion and public discourse we can see everyone squirm and shift weight.  Religion – or more generally spirituality – is a still the soft target for our comedians or satirists.  Sometimes they can be funny, other times it is just a cheap shot with the underlying assumption there is no spiritual dimension to life . . . and people who believe such things, are well – funny, someone to laugh at.

Previously in sermons I have referred to the rise in recent years of a militant brand of atheism – like that of a Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris who are reacting to a world that has come to be dominated by religious fundamentalists, from all religions and but particularly those from Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Hinduism (although mercifully the power of the fundamentalists may be changing).  By and large, we would agree with these authors about the dangers of religious extremism, but underneath it all there is still this skepticism, doubt, denial of a spiritual dimension to life.

So I honestly do not know how our state copes when it is confronted with powerful expressions of spirituality – as we see happening in the question of aboriginal reconciliation and at times like the national apology.  Our indigenous brothers and sisters have presented, always consistently presented, the importance of their spirituality in dealing with questions like land rights and closing the gap. Their relationship with the land, their law and their identity have a spiritual dimension.  What do our hard-nosed skeptics do?  Just accept it and hope such spirituality talk will die out?  This is a sign, a glimmer of change.  For spirituality it may not be the worst of times, but actually the best of times.

Matters of the spirit are beginning to get greater airplay, to become subject of discussion and acceptance. Reconciliation with aboriginal people forces us to do this, but more generally there is a whole movement, reaction you might call it, to the power of there just being the one, narrow and rigid paradigm – the understanding of life being just a rational and scientifically verifiable existence. “There is more!”, has become the cry; and we are hearing this more and more today.

In a sense I think we as Australians have always recognised this. So we might speak of the human spirit conquering adversity, or us coming together to achieve great and beautiful things. Our Australian motifs of mateship, or of settlers battling a harsh environment to establish this nation, or our support for the battler, the underdog are all spiritual qualities or features that really defy rationality. That is, if rationality is just all about oneself, and money and it’s ‘the economy stupid’.  Schools and footy clubs are said to have spirit, or ticker.  As a State, we are said to have shown spirit, real spirit, in the face of huge adversity on Black Saturday. This spiritual dimension has perhaps always been recognised, but I think with our environmental crisis and more recently with the global financial crisis, matters of the heart, spiritual matters, spirituality is being recognised as an important part of who we are. We might call it the work-life balance or such like – but there is a broadening acceptance of an increasing spiritual dimension to life.

The prophet Ezekiel dramatically showed this in his famous vision of the valley of dry bones.  (Don’t all start clicking fingers and having your foot bone connected to your leg bone, and your leg bone joined to your thigh bone.)  What he was saying, among many things this passage can mean, was that a people without spirit are dead – just a pile of bones.  Until the Lord put breath, spirit, into these people, they were dead.  Even flesh and bones were not enough.

Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.
And the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude! (Ez. 37:9-10)

There is more to life than just flesh and bone.

And so today we are seeing a veritable explosion of spirituality. From the four corners of the earth, the spirit is moving. And perhaps the psalmist is onto something significant, when in psalm 104 it is said:

You send forth your Spirit, and they are created;
And so you renew the face of the earth. (v.30)

Eco-spirituality, feminist spirituality, Celtic spirituality, aboriginal spirituality, meditation, even karma, the glorious whimsy of Leunig’s cartoons – it is not just the worst of times, it is also the best of times, for spirituality.

The question though is, is all this the Holy Spirit of the Christian’s triune God?

Where does the spirituality of Pentecost; or of the promise of the Holy Spirit in the ‘farewell discourses’ of John’s gospel fit into all of this?   I want to say it is related, but not really the same.  All this spirituality is the background harmony, but I wish to say the melody line, or the musical theme, is the Holy Spirit, that has a specific character.

First of all I want to rejoice at this resurgence in spirituality and the acceptance of spiritual talk – there is a movement of the spirit; people, communities and whole nations are being forced to consider life differently.  It is the breath or spirit of God, moving across creation.  However, it is the background harmony.  For Christians there is a need to be more specific about what we call the Holy Spirit – as especially understood on this day, Pentecost, and within the context of the teaching of Jesus to his disciples recorded in John’s gospel.

Pentecost was – as recorded in Acts 2 – how Luke, ever the historian, presents the birth of a new age, a new epoch, not only in the lives of the disciples and the followers of Jesus, but in the history of the world.  Once, and it was only for a very short time, there was the time when Jesus walked this earth.  He was around – teaching, healing, challenging – bringing in the kingdom of God – his new rule of God.  As Luke records, his birth was thus accompanied with great spiritual phenomena – visits of angels to the mother, angels to the shepherds, a star for the wise men – a full literary array of wonders and glory.

Well the rest was then history – the life, the death and resurrection of this person whom we have come to know as the Son of God, the Messiah.  However, in Acts he is no longer around – but there is a new birth, a birth not of a physical person, but of the Holy Spirit, and if you want to be even more specific, the Spirit of Christ, who will be with the followers of Jesus; with the church as it continues with this mission of bringing about the kingdom of God.  There again are here the signs and wonders, the spiritual bells and whistles of that day, Pentecost – strong winds, tongues of fire, then strange tongues or voices. The Church is born!

However, as John’s gospel reminds us, this profoundly spiritual event (like profoundly spiritual events which we all can experience), this coming of the spirit, is not just any spirit of God across the face of the earth, this is specifically the Spirit of Christ – the re-presenting of Christ, in and through the lives of the followers of the now-departed Jesus.

One commentator I read surmised this way: Perhaps the disciples were there just pondering what they were to do, how they were to be living now that Jesus was not around.  They were pouring over the scriptures, meeting together, recalling the words Jesus had said during his life, and then this day, the penny dropped, the ‘Aha! moment’ occurred – it was life-transforming, powerful.  They themselves had, with this power within in them, this urge, energy had to continue with the message of Jesus, and his hope of new life.  It was like they were given something – they had received a new force and direction; the Holy Spirit.

Previously Jesus’ teaching to these same disciples had been quite clear – they would be on their own. He would have to go.  In fact he had to go away so that they could be on their own.  There would, however, come this time when they would receive what he called an advocate, a representative, in Greek paraclete, who would lead, comfort, guide and direct them.  They would receive the Holy Spirit.

Their spiritual renewal and empowerment would have a specific content and specific purpose – it would be about the life, death and resurrection of none other than Jesus himself. It would lead them into all truth.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit the Church could grow in faith, deepen its relationship with God, and extend the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed he came to establish.

Here is the great musical theme, the Holy Spirit.  And like in a fugue, there may be many variations on the one theme, but it always is about presenting God, as revealed in the crucified risen Jesus.

Pentecost marks, as good as any date or place, when it amazingly all began. For the convenience of the historian Luke, he had it begin on a certain day; John’s gospel has it on the night of the resurrection itself.  But dates and times aside, as Christians we believe that Jesus and his ministry and mission continue, through the power of the Holy Spirit, even today.  And they continue in us through the power of the Holy Spirit.

For the spirit it is the worst of times; but for the Holy Spirit today, it is the best of times.