{"id":529,"date":"2012-05-27T11:00:44","date_gmt":"2012-05-27T16:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=529"},"modified":"2019-12-03T12:07:34","modified_gmt":"2019-12-03T17:07:34","slug":"the-same-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2012\/05\/27\/the-same-spirit\/","title":{"rendered":"The Same Spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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

Paul on Spirit<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the passage of 1 Corinthians read earlier, the apostle Paul has exhorted his energetic Corinthians to sense the Spirit.<\/p>\n

We could use a measure of Spirit, too.\u00a0 In this religious mudslide across the country that has deposited determinism, quietism, pessimism into our common life, we especially hunger for what Paul writes.\u00a0 We truly hunger to pick up what he is putting down here.\u00a0 Are picking up what he is putting down?\u00a0 It\u2019s not heavy.<\/p>\n

The future?\u00a0 The future is open, and at least in good part the future of our planet will be forged by the freedom of individuals and groups to make choices for health and life.\u00a0 The present? The present is a good time.\u00a0 The best time to plant an oak tree is a hundred years ago.\u00a0 The second best time is today.\u00a0 The present is second best, and that is pretty good.\u00a0\u00a0 The past? The past is not in charge.\u00a0 The past is not dead, and therefore not past, but the past is not ruling the roost.\u00a0 You are.\u00a0 What you choose not to do matters.\u00a0 That is why we continue happily to harp on the crucial centrality of tithing, and of inviting.\u00a0 Give away 10% of what you earn, and invite some person every week to church, and you will be like the child born on the Sabbath day:\u00a0 happy, witty, bright and gay.<\/p>\n

It is the one Spirit, the same spirit, from which we drink this morning.\u00a0 You know this well, but a few reminders for those who may have been absent on Pentecosts past, or asleep like Elijah\u2019s Baal, on Sunday\u2019s past, or just not really interested in Spirit.\u00a0 First, for Paul there is absolutely no separation between spiritual life and life.\u00a0 Spirit is in life and the much prized division between material and spiritual, prized in ancient Greece and prized today here, Paul humiliates.\u00a0 The same spirit roves and ravages in what is said, what is predicted, what is healed, what is remembered, what is done, what is given.\u00a0 For him, there is no distinction between religious and secular.\u00a0 The same Spirit inhabits all.\u00a0 Second, the Spirit is the Lord.\u00a0 And the Lord is the Church.\u00a0 It is like a body.\u00a0 Many parts, one body.\u00a0 Did you notice just where you expect Paul to say \u201cchurch\u201d\u2014so it is with…—he says Christ<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 For him the church is the body of Christ, in some mystical, magical, mysterious, miraculous way.\u00a0 Christ has actual feet.\u00a0 Yours.\u00a0 Actual hands.\u00a0 Yours.\u00a0 Actual muscles.\u00a0 His.\u00a0 Actual voice.\u00a0 Hers.\u00a0 Actual presence.\u00a0 Third,\u00a0 Paul distinguishes gifts from fruit.\u00a0\u00a0 Fruit if general, lavished upon all\u2014love, joy, peace\u2026.Gifts are individual, to one this, to one that.\u00a0 Fourth, the reason for the gifts.\u00a0 You have particular gifts.\u00a0 What are they?\u00a0 Name one.\u00a0 You have at least one, and Paul in know way means his glory hole collection list here to be exhaustive.\u00a0 I do find it compellingly interesting that his list is almost all related to hearing and speaking.\u00a0 It is curious, and not explicable, that he names faith as a gift that some have, and others, apparently, share by extension.\u00a0 You may go to church for many in your family and neighborhood, too.\u00a0\u00a0 Fifth, the Spirit brings freedom the Spirit evokes grace, the Spirit spreads love.\u00a0 Sixth, and most significant, in the opening of the gifts of the Spirit, for Paul, all of these manifold gifts have one central purpose:\u00a0 the common good.\u00a0 The common good<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

In most ways, the conditions in Corinth could not be more globally different from our own.\u00a0 They in tatters, we in Sunday best.\u00a0 They in a borrowed upper room, we in a fine Gothic nave.\u00a0 They in untutored simplicity, we in educated elevations.\u00a0 They in uproarious shouting, we in decency and order.\u00a0 They at the salt water edge of the Mediterranean, we fresh water fish all, along the Genesee.\u00a0 They expecting that the form of this world is passing away, we not expecting that, unless by nuclear incident.\u00a0 And what could we possibly have in common with such a community so torn by Gnostic speculations, incestuous relationships, lawsuits filed member against member, questions about the morality of marriage, selfish inhospitality at table, and a boundless enthusiasm that like earlier Methodism must have seemed \u201cnoise and nonsense\u201d to those all around?<\/p>\n

One thing we share.\u00a0 As a global village, and as a church, we are perennially threatened by the various shadows and filters that can muffle the sense of full, same Spirit of which Paul speaks here in Corinthians.<\/p>\n

Our particularities, in church and nation, can become the sideshows that eat up the circus, the varieties that threaten to obscure the same Spirit at work in all.<\/p>\n

The Sound of Spirit<\/strong><\/p>\n

Notice the vocabulary of the gifts Paul names.\u00a0 They all have voice.\u00a0 Our age has become one of email communication: visual communication.\u00a0 Email is a wonderful tool, as long as its visual features are kept in mind.\u00a0 It is immediate, indelible, irretrievable, international, infinitely transferable.\u00a0 And it carries no voice, no body, no sound.\u00a0 Paul has tuned his ear to the speaking of the Spirit, in many voices.<\/p>\n

The Spirit speaks in any utterance of wisdom.\u00a0 Note, this is not any religious as opposed to unreligious wisdom, but simply whatsoever things are true.\u00a0 Truth finally needs no defense, even as falsehood finally has none.\u00a0 It is an utterance which Paul connects first with Spirit.<\/p>\n

The Spirit also speaks in the utterance of knowledge.\u00a0 Paul does not equate wisdom with knowledge, a lesson for the knowledgeable to bear in mind.\u00a0 He may have in mind the knowledge so prized by his spirited opponents, the Gnostics, who like most predominant religious expressions in most ages, including our own today in America, gain adherence through certainty, whether knowledge of the stars, or the planets, or the spheres, as in Paul\u2019s time, or whether knowledge of eternity, or calling, or determination, as in ours.\u00a0 There is a reason that determinist, certainty promising religions, Gnostic or sacramentalist or fundamentalist, generally do well.\u00a0 To certainty Paul opposes confidence, as in the next gift.<\/p>\n

The Spirit also speaks in faith.\u00a0 Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God.<\/p>\n

The Spirit also speaks in healing, that is in words of healing:\u00a0 \u2018Rise, take up your pallet and walk\u2019;\u00a0 or, \u2018your faith has made you well\u2019; or \u2018Lazarus, come out\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Spirit speaks in the dynamite of change, of miracle that is the unexpected, whether understood naturally or supernaturally.\u00a0 All nature sings\u2026<\/p>\n

The Spirit speaks in prophecy for the common good.\u00a0 The Spirit speaks in conversation about other speaking, discernment.\u00a0 The Spirit speaks, even, Paul allows here, in ecstatic utterance, glossallalia,, as long as other speech is able to hear some meaning.<\/p>\n

The sound of Spirit has reverberated in every rebirth of the church, from the noise of Pentecost day, to Paul and his noisy Corinthians, to Augustine and his noisy sermons, to the noisy whispering in the medieval monasteries, to Luther\u2019s noisy shout, \u201cI can do no other\u201d, to Wesley\u2019s noise and nonsense, as his detractors said, in band, class, meeting, conference, worship, sermon and music, all the way to Azusa Street and the birth of post-Methodism, the Pentecostals. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is noise, sound, freedom, speech.\u00a0 And this in great variety.<\/p>\n

We too have varieties of gifts, right here.\u00a0 We are gifted with various passions in our speech to one another at Asbury First.\u00a0 There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit, varieties of service, but the same Lord, varieties of activities, but the same God.\u00a0 To one is given the gift of\u2026 music, mission, management, money, Methodism\u2026all for the common good.\u00a0 Let each one match his passion for a particular gift, with the shared commitment to the common good, known in our faith by tithing and invitation.<\/p>\n

Gifts Activated for the Common Good<\/strong><\/p>\n

When conviction is quickened by imagination there is action that makes a difference.<\/p>\n

Jesus of Nazareth spoke by imagination when he said, \u2018blessed are you poor, for God\u2019s reign is for you\u2019.\u00a0 John Wesley spoke with imagination when he said, \u2018there is no holiness save social holiness\u2019.\u00a0 Vaclev Havel spoke with imagination when he said, \u2018Hope is not prognosis, but a willingness to work for what is right\u2019.<\/p>\n

We may differ in our choices of tactics.\u00a0 On supports governmental programs.\u00a0 Another advocates work by private companies and charities. \u00a0A third prefers a blend.\u00a0 But all are supported by the same Spirit, at work for the common good.\u00a0 God is at work in the world to make and keep human life human.\u00a0 The world can work.\u00a0 It can.\u00a0 We need not discount environmental decay, nor nuclear accident, nor global warming, nor fundamentalist terror, nor rampant disease.\u00a0 All these and other horsefolk of the apocalypse have long been spied.\u00a0 Still, the word can work.\u00a0 The future is open.\u00a0 The present is a really good moment.\u00a0 The past is not in charge.<\/p>\n

When imagination is quickened by conviction there is action that makes a difference.\u00a0 Imagine for a moment, a spirited moment directed toward the common good\u2026<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if the prisons in this country were half-empty and the streets free of homeless vagrants?<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if every generation received a better education than the one that preceded it?<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if every man and woman who wanted a job could get one, and so we did not waste a single person or view any person as \u2018redundant\u2019?<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if schools and hospitals and churches and charities had more money than they knew what to do with?<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if men and women were getting along so well that abuse and abortion were virtually unheard of?<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if budgets, public and private, were set with a clear, frugal eye to the future, and without being based on borrowing from the next generation?<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if the measure of success in this great country were formed not against the question of individual achievement, but against the desire for the common good?<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if we really took seriously, really believed in a final judgment, the day of the Lord, in which hearts are sifted and measurements made\u2014against the prospect of the common good?<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if warfare ceased, and if what remained only occurred within the bounds of Christian just war doctrine?<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if democracy, not only of voice and vote, but also of education and endowment and employment and environment were our song?<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if we could go to bed at night, not as those who all day have been rivals for position and power and privilege, but as those who have worn an easier yoke and a lighter burden, that of the broken Master, that of real community, that of the common good\u2014I mean as those who have helped each other?<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if the criterion for medical care were simply, \u201chow sick are you\u201d?<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if the communal virtues, the gifts of Spirit that work for the common good, the very signposts of salvation\u2014responsibility, industry, frugality, respect for authority, a sense of limits\u2014replaced those of mere success?<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if every kid in this country had enough to eat tonight?<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if the love of Jesus Christ, and the fear of disappointing him, and the hope of meeting him in glory, and the joy of working in his fellowship were all that we really wanted and needed?<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

Too idealistic?\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 Jesus, John Wesley, Vaclev Havel, did not think so.\u00a0 Where has our early love gone?\u00a0 Where is the love revival of our first kiss of faith?\u00a0 Have we begun with the Spirit to end with the flesh?\u00a0 Where is our imagination?<\/p>\n

George Bernard Shaw, as usual, had it right:\u00a0 \u201cYou see things as they are and say \u2018Why\u2019?\u00a0 But I dream things that never were and I say \u2018Why not\u2019?<\/p>\n

-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear full service Click hear to hear the sermon only Paul on Spirit In the passage of 1 Corinthians read earlier, the apostle Paul has exhorted his energetic Corinthians to sense the Spirit. We could use a measure of Spirit, too.\u00a0 In this religious mudslide across the country that has deposited determinism, […]<\/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\/529"}],"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=529"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2548,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions\/2548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}