{"id":1131,"date":"2015-05-31T11:00:03","date_gmt":"2015-05-31T15:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=1131"},"modified":"2019-10-22T11:57:05","modified_gmt":"2019-10-22T15:57:05","slug":"sweet-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2015\/05\/31\/sweet-spirit\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweet Spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to listen to the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

John 3:1-17<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to listen to the sermon only<\/a><\/p>\n

Strange Spirit<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes. \u00a0So it is with every one who is born of the spirit.<\/i><\/p>\n

Scripture and tradition depend on reason and experience. \u00a0Spirit involves reason and experience. \u00a0A question for you, day by day as mortality approaches, is whether you can find the courage to trust your own experience and whether you can find the capacity to rely on your own reason. \u00a0Opportunities to subcontract both are amply available. \u00a0But in order to live a life that is yours not almost yours, Spirit is needed.<\/p>\n

We feel a measure of this spirit every year at Commencement. \u00a0Especially in one of the latest and very smallest of graduation exercises each year. \u00a0\u00a0Monday last week, May 18, was a gracious sun kissed beautiful Boston day. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The morning was cool and bright, gracious and breezy, with more than a hint of salt in the sea air. \u00a0Gracious and salty, as the Bible says our speaking ought to be: \u00a0\u2018let your speech be gracious, yet seasoned with salt\u2019.<\/p>\n

19 young women and men stood up, in Faneuil Hall here in Boston, the cradle of liberty. \u00a0They stood to take a vow, to make an oath. \u00a0And though their numbers and their simple ceremony were not as large as the great winds of pageantry on Nickerson field, or traditional liturgy in Marsh Chapel, or hooding and hand shaking in the 17 schools and colleges in the days preceding, there is something in this spirited moment, small and modest, that takes the measure of all the others. \u00a0As if, with these 19, the question is posed for all the rest, whether what we are doing is worthy, and worthy of these few.<\/p>\n

With their loved ones all around, they promise to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States\u2014if need be, with their lives. \u00a0\u00a0In the quiet, among families and friends, there are waves of tears, waves like those lapping at the shoreline a few hundred feet away. \u00a0\u00a0With reason, and in their experience, they are bearing witness to a hard decision. \u00a0So tears flow. \u2018Different are the languages of prayer, but the tears are all the same\u2019 (A Heschel). \u00a0\u00a0Every year this is the smallest but the finest moment in all the graduation ceremonies at BU. \u00a0Stumbling in tears and emotion, loved ones place shoulder boards upon the newly minted Army second lieutenants. \u00a0It is awkward to figure out how to button these shoulder boards–but the fumbling is more about water and eyes and a spirit moment. \u00a0Water and spirit. And then the photos of the 19\u2014male and female, black and white, short and tall, gay and straight. \u00a0It is an induction utterly and fully inclusive. \u00a0And a prayer and song and a salute. \u00a0And it is beautiful, and powerful.<\/p>\n

Nicodemus finds himself, at night, in such a spirited moment.<\/p>\n

The Jesus of John counsels Nicodemus to be born of spirit and water, to be born from above, to be like the wind.<\/p>\n

Wind at midnight. \u00a0Wind from the sea. \u00a0Summer wind came blowing in. \u00a0The wind blows where it wills. \u00a0Wind of God.<\/p>\n

Nicodemus appears two other times in the Fourth Gospel, two tantalizing entries into the flow of the Gospel. \u00a0\u00a0He is there to remind us of our growth in spirit. \u00a0\u00a0Our understanding of Jesus\u2019 teaching with Nicodemus, his later appearances remind us, requires the whole gospel. \u00a0Especially when it comes to spirit, strange spirit, John Spirit, Night Spirit, Sweet Spirit.<\/p>\n

The strangest of strange outcroppings of Spirit in all of Scripture is located on the windswept steppe of John 14, the ice covered snow peak of the Bible, the haunted moonscape of planet Gospel. \u00a0Once you have ascended John to the last discourse, John 14ff, you are clearly in a strange, strange land and landscape. \u00a0\u00a0The venerable preacher who originally spoke to the late first century community in Ephesus (say) if nothing else had absolute confidence in his own experience. \u00a0It lead him, and thus his church, to establish a different religion, what became later emerging Christianity. \u00a0He did not let the door hit him as he swung out. Here, Nicodemus. \u00a0Here, a Samaritan Woman. \u00a0Here, blind man healed. \u00a0Here, Lazarus\u2014raised. \u00a0Here, Beloved Disciple. \u00a0Here, Thomas. \u00a0Here, Logos. Here, especially, Spirit, by another name.<\/p>\n

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. \u00a0And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him or knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you\u2026These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. \u00a0But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.<\/i><\/p>\n

Spirit in John<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

John had the courage to face the awful disappointment behind the New Testament: \u00a0Jesus did not return, not on schedule, not as expected, not soon and very soon, not maranatha, not yet. \u00a0But John looked at his own experience, and in biblical measure, with traditional tools, reasoned. \u00a0\u00a0In place of apocalypse, he celebrated the artistry of the everyday, and in place of the speculation about the end, he celebrated the Spirit of truth, and in place of parousia, the coming of the Lord, he nominated Paraclete, the presence of the Lord. \u00a0He sang: You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. \u00a0\u00a0One way to solve problems is to face them, to name them, to admit them. \u00a0No parousia. \u00a0Paraclete.<\/p>\n

The stark strangeness, the utter difference of John from the rest of the Bible we have yet to admit. \u00a0My beloved advisor, perhaps the greatest John scholar of our era, Fr. Raymond Brown, got only as far as saying that John is best understood as \u2018an embraceable variant\u2019 emphasis on embraceable less emphasis on variant. \u00a0But when we get to the summit, John 14 and following, we see chiseled there in ice and covered fully with wind snow, an enigmatic, mysterious riddle: \u00a0Spirit, sweet Spirit, Paraclete. \u00a0The endless enemy of conformity. \u00a0The lasting foe of the nearly lived life. \u00a0The champion of the quixotic. \u00a0The standard bearer of liberty. \u00a0The one true spirit of spirited truth. \u00a0Yet we cannot even give the history of the term, nor fully define its meaning, nor aptly place it in context, nor finally determine its translation. \u00a0Paraclete eludes us. \u00a0Paraclete evades us. \u00a0Paraclete outpaces us. \u00a0Paraclete escapes us.<\/p>\n

Notice that the Spirit is given to all, not just to a few or to the twelve, definitely not. \u00a0Notice that it is Spirit not structure on which John relies. \u00a0Notice it is Spirit not memory which we shall trust (good news for those whose memory may slip a little). \u00a0Notice that Spirit stands over against \u00a0what \u00a0John calls \u2018world\u2019 here\u2014another dark mystery in meaning. \u00a0Notice that the community around John\u2019s Jesus is amply conveyed a powerful trust in Spirit.<\/p>\n

Other parts of the New Testament take another trail. \u00a0The Book of Acts offers confidence by way of hagiographical memories of Peter and Paul, and of false but loving assertions of the utter agreement of Peter and Paul. \u00a0Trust your memory and when you cannot create a new memory. \u00a0The Pastoral Epistles\u2014and to some degree 1 John in opposition to his gospel namesake\u2014rely not on memory or memories and not on Spirit, but on structure: \u00a0presbyters, faith once delivered to saints, deacons, codes of conduct, stylized memories of orderly transmission of tradition. \u00a0\u00a0We need memory. \u00a0We need structure. \u00a0Neither can hold a candle to Spirit. \u00a0That is, for John, what Moses, the Law, the historical Jesus, the Sacraments or anything else can not ever fully offer, Paraclete provides. \u00a0By Spirit we hear the word God. \u00a0God reveals by Spirit. \u00a0God self-reveals by Spirit. \u00a0Here the stakes are very high.<\/p>\n

Again, Raymond Brown: \u00a0This is the ultimate self-revelation of how the word of God gets translated as God. \u00a0To a community living in time and space, the Spirit of Jesus is proving the world wrong. \u00a0People who live by the spirit is the only way others will be convinced of the victory of Jesus (<\/i>Hill, Courageous, 82).<\/p>\n

Night Spirit<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

When we come to Nicodemus, we come with our own reason and experience, like that of the great poet Henry Vaughn.<\/p>\n

Henry Vaughn lived from 1622 to 1695. \u00a0He fought on the Royalist side during the great war. \u00a0(Vaughn is known as one of the best followers and imitators of \u00a0George Herbert.) \u00a0In 1649, Charles I executed Oliver Cromwell. \u00a0The Church of England was disestablished and the Book of Common Prayer was outlawed. \u00a0Vaughn lived during a dark time, and his poetry evokes his time. \u00a0He recalls the great Pseudo-Dionysus and the Cloud of Unknowing. \u00a0He celebrates night and the darkness of God, in a way that connects truly to our time as well. \u00a0\u00a0It is no accident that he bases this poem on Nicodemus at night.<\/p>\n

The Night<\/i><\/p>\n

Through that pure Virgin Shrine<\/i><\/p>\n

That sacred veil drawn o\u2019er thy glorious noon<\/i><\/p>\n

That men might look and live as glow-worms shine<\/i><\/p>\n

And face the moon:<\/i><\/p>\n

Wise Nicodemus saw such light<\/i><\/p>\n

As made him know his God by night.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Most blest believer he!<\/i><\/p>\n

Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes<\/i><\/p>\n

Thy long expected healing wings could see,<\/i><\/p>\n

When thou didst rise,<\/i><\/p>\n

And what can nevermore be done,<\/i><\/p>\n

Did at mid-night speak with the Sun!<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

O who will tell me, where<\/i><\/p>\n

He found thee at that dead and silent hour!<\/i><\/p>\n

What hallowed solitary ground did bear<\/i><\/p>\n

So rare a flower,<\/i><\/p>\n

Within whose sacred leaves did live<\/i><\/p>\n

The fullness of the Deity<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

No mercy seat of gold,<\/i><\/p>\n

No dead and dusty Cherub, nor carved stone,<\/i><\/p>\n

But his own living works did my Lord hold<\/i><\/p>\n

And lodge alone;<\/i><\/p>\n

Where trees and herbs did watch and peep<\/i><\/p>\n

And wonder, while the Jews did sleep.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear night! This world\u2019s defeat;<\/i><\/p>\n

The stop to busy fools; care\u2019s check and curb;<\/i><\/p>\n

The day of Spirits; my soul\u2019s calm retreat<\/i><\/p>\n

Which none disturb!<\/i><\/p>\n

Christ\u2019s progress and his prayer time;<\/i><\/p>\n

The hours to which high Heaven doth chime.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

God\u2019s silent, searching flight:<\/i><\/p>\n

When my Lord\u2019s head is filled with dew, and all<\/i><\/p>\n

His locks are wet with the clear drops of night;<\/i><\/p>\n

His still, soft call;<\/i><\/p>\n

His knocking time; the soul\u2019s dumb watch,<\/i><\/p>\n

When Spirits their fair kindred catch.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Were all my loud evil days<\/i><\/p>\n

Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark Tent,<\/i><\/p>\n

Whose peace but by some Angel\u2019s wing or voice<\/i><\/p>\n

Is seldom rent;<\/i><\/p>\n

Then I in Heaven all the long year<\/i><\/p>\n

Would keep, and never wander here.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

But living where the sun<\/i><\/p>\n

Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire<\/i><\/p>\n

Themselves and others, I consent and run<\/i><\/p>\n

To every mire,<\/i><\/p>\n

And by this world\u2019s guiding light,<\/i><\/p>\n

Err more than I can do by night.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

There is in God (some say)<\/i><\/p>\n

A deep but dazzling darkness; as men here<\/i><\/p>\n

Say it is late and dusky, because they<\/i><\/p>\n

See not all clear;<\/i><\/p>\n

O for that night! Where I in him<\/i><\/p>\n

Might live invisible and dim.<\/i><\/p>\n

The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes. \u00a0So it is with every one who is born of the spirit.<\/i><\/p>\n

-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel<\/a><\/p>\n

For more information about Marsh Chapel at Boston University,\u00a0click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For information about donating to the Chapel,\u00a0click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to listen to the full service John 3:1-17 Click here to listen to the sermon only Strange Spirit The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes. \u00a0So it is with every one who is born of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1131"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1133,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131\/revisions\/1133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}