ADVOCATE & SPIRIT OF TRUTH
In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth … the spirit of God swept over the face of the waters (Genesis 1:1-2).
The Holy Spirit will come upon you … therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35).
When the day of Pentecost had come they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like a rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-4).
Holy Spirit has been present at the beginning of creation, empowering the Word to become flesh in the person of Jesus, birthing the church in wind and fire. Holy Spirit makes things happen. In the words of one ancient writer, “...she pervades and penetrates all things. For she is a breath of the power of God ... a reflection of eternal light ... in every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God and prophets ... (Wisdom of Solomon, 7:24-27).
Yes, you heard correctly. Scripture refers to Holy Spirit as she. A quick sidebar about gendered nouns: in Hebrew, Spirit is ruah, a feminine noun that takes the pronouns she and her. In Greek, Spirit is pneuma, a neuter noun that uses the pronouns it and they. In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus gives Holy Spirit a new name, Parakletos a masculine noun which takes the pronouns he and his. In the Bible, Holy Spirit is gender-fluid.
The point of today’s gospel lesson, however, is the work of Holy Spirit. As Parakletos, he comes alongside us to help, to comfort, to offer counsel, and to advocate for us, kind of like a defense attorney. As Spirit of Truth she proves the world wrong about sin, righteousness, and judgment.
When Jesus talks about “the world” in this passage, he is not thinking of the planet Earth, but of the structures and systems that organize our lives. The worlds of politics, science, work, school, church, family, sports, art, and more. Everyone one of us lives in overlapping worlds. We are made from earth, but we are molded and shaped by these human worlds.
Our world teaches that sin is a violation of God’s will as expressed in God’s laws and commandments. Curiously, God gave Moses ten commandments. Somehow those 10 multiplied into 613 laws in the first five books of the Bible. When Jesus came along, he narrowed it down to two: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Just before his death Jesus replaced love your neighbor with love one another as I have loved you. So it seems that neither God nor Jesus are really into laws and commandments. Holy Spirit helps us understand that sin is really a failure to love. It happens: (1) when others do not love us as Christ loves us; (2) when we don’t love ourselves as Christ loves us; and (3) when we don’t love others as Christ loves them. Usually all three of these things are tangled up in our lives in ways that can make it difficult for us to be the good people God created us to be. Holy Spirit reminds us that we are worthy of love and helps us learn to love.
Righteousness is one of those churchy words that doesn’t mean what you think it means. Biblical righteousness, is not about pursuing a virtuous, sinless holier-than-you kind of life. The Greek word is dikaiosyne — justice. Biblical justice is not about law and order, or endlessly punishing people for breaking rules. Biblical justice is living in loving relationships with God, creation, ourselves, and the people around us. Right relationships are all about respect and dignity, fairness and equity. Righteousness shows up when we love one another as Christ loves us. Holy Spirit helps us see Christ not only in the face of our neighbor who is like us, but in the face of people who are different from us, who are strangers or foreigners, and yes, even enemies.
Last, but not least, there’s the issue of judgment. Jesus warned his disciples, “Do not judge … for with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get” (Matthew 17:1-2). Today, we hear that Parakletos reveals that God has already judged and condemned the ruler of this world (John 16:11). Who is the ruler of this world? The traditional answer is Satan, the great deceiver who lies in order to create structures of death through sickness, poverty, brutality, violence, destruction, hunger, greed, consumerism, and so on. Professor Claudio Carvalhaes names patriarchy and capitalism as structures through which Satan lives and enacts death. To these I would add racism, white supremacy, homophobia and other prejudices that promote fear and hatred of the other. Holy Spirit gives us the insight and the courage to speak out, to resist these death-dealing structures, and work toward more loving, gracious and merciful social systems and structures.
Holy Spirit’s work is to guide and lead us into the truth about God and ourselves. The truth about God is that God loves the world so much that God sent the Christ, not to condemn the world but to save/heal/reconcile the whole world. The truth about ourselves is that each of us is created in God’s image, publicly claimed in the waters of baptism as a beloved child of God, worthy of love and respect, capable of making a positive difference in the world today. The Holy Spirit reminds us of this truth, helps us to do God’s work with the gifts and strengths we have been given.
As Ella and Ollie affirm their baptismal covenants this morning, we will pray for God to stir up in them the gift of the Holy Spirit. We do this because it is impossible to overstate her importance in the lives of believers. Recall Luther’s explanation of the third article of the creed “...by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy, and kept me in the true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one common, true faith….”
We will pray for God to stir up the gift of the Holy Spirit in Ella and Ollie at a transition point in their lives: no longer children, teenagers moving from middle school to high school. One of you already has a driver’s permit. In a couple years you will both have driver’s licenses, have part-time jobs, and a few years later you will be able to vote in local, state and federal elections. In other words you are ready to begin trying on some adult roles, adult responsibilities, adult freedoms, adult choices. We ask God to stir up the gift of the Holy Spirit to help you make wise choices, exercise your freedoms responsibly, and especially to grow in faith and trust in Christ.
We pray for ourselves too, that we will be open to the working of the Holy Spirit in our own hearts as we continue to parent, grandparent and mentor you in your life of faith. May the Holy Spirit help us show you the love of Jesus. Amen.
