Sermons

The 6th Sunday of Easter, The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

Listen to audio version of this sermon.

The 6th Sunday of Easter April 27, 2008
The Spirit of truth
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor
Acts 17:22-31, John 14:15-21

We’re coming down the home stretch of Easter season. The risen Christ has been appearing to his disciples. Soon he will ascend into heaven – in fact, we celebrate that feast this Thursday. 10 days after that he will send the Holy Spirit, which we celebrate in 2 weeks, on Pentecost.

Today’s gospel puts us temporarily back in the Last Supper, because on that evening, Jesus previewed to his disciples both the Ascension and Pentecost. He told them that soon the world would see him no longer, that he would go back to his Father. But he would not leave them as orphans. He said I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth.

This morning I’d like to talk about this Spirit of truth, because our faith tells us that Jesus sends it to us, too. Who or what is this Spirit of truth? What are its characteristics? How do we know we’re being guided by it? 9:00 You young people, you Rite 13 candidates, at this point in your life you question what truth is, and so you should, for you must find your own way through life. All of us ask, along with Pontius Pilate, what is truth?

One place to start is with Paul, in our first lesson from Acts today. Paul was on one of his missionary journeys, spreading the Christian message among Gentiles all over the Mediterranean. At this point in the story, Paul had arrived in Athens, the very center of Greek culture and philosophy, where they searched for truth like Americans watch football. Paul hiked up the Areopagus, the hill where the governing councilors of Athens assembled, and where philosophical debates took place.

In this place of ancient import, Paul addressed the Greek citizens, first expressing his appreciation for how “extremely religious” the Athenians were; why, there were temples everywhere to various gods, even one dedicated to an unknown god. He then quoted one of their favorite poets.

What Paul was doing was remarkable. We often think of Paul as a kind of arrogant, narrow-minded person who had a firm grip on the truth, demanding that others agree with him. But in today’s story, Paul comes across very differently. He is humble, appreciative of Greek religion, pointing out its strengths. He begins his speech by finding common ground.

This is, I think, one of the first qualities of the Spirit of truth. Some think that God’s truth has to be protected, that it is somehow fragile, and if we don’t defend it, it will shatter into a thousand pieces. But God is more powerful and more fluid than that. Truth is large, and it encompasses many expressions.

I learned from years of practicing Zen Buddhist meditation, from regular exposure to psychology, from a little understanding of modern physics and the arts, that the Christian truth is greatly enriched and enlivened when it is influenced by other paths. The insights and practices of others give me a fresh feeling about my faith, which otherwise can get stale with exclusive use.

After all, we are dealing with a God who is ultimately unknowable, who is beyond our complete comprehension. Therefore none of us has the whole picture, and we need one another to fill out a richer picture of God. As Paul told the Athenians, this unknown god they worshiped is the mysterious, transcendent Creator who made the world and everything in it, and who therefore can never be confined to anyone’s shrine or altar.

If God is so vast as to be the source of all life, so free to be even beyond our religious scriptures and doctrines, then the Spirit of truth is characterized by humility and with openness, a readiness to be surprised. If it is truly the Spirit of God that is guiding us, we will not be so convinced that we have it all figured out; we will always be peeking around the corners of our beliefs and habits to see how else God might be revealed.

Secondly and paradoxically, the Spirit of truth is also characterized by its nearness, its accessibility. But how can this be? How can the Creator of heaven and earth, only glimpsed by myriad religions around the world, also be something close at hand, something we can know and feel?

At the Last Supper, Jesus promised this very thing. He told his friends that the Spirit he would be sending would abide with them, that it would be in them. Jesus went on: “On that day you will know that you are in me, and I in you.” Paul told the Athenians the same thing: “In him we live and move and have our being.” Searching for God is sort of like a fish searching for water. We live in God; the divine is the atmosphere in which we live and move and have our being.

And yet we must search. Paul said that the Creator of all people made us in such a way that we would “search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him – though indeed he is not far from each one of us.”

I think this has to do with searching not so much for God, who is always near, but for our own authentic way of accessing God, which can be somewhat obscured. Each one of us must struggle to sift through practices and teachings, through our own resistance and bad habits, in order to find our own way to connect with God. You Rite 13 kids need to do the same as you mature. This doesn’t come automatically to us, it doesn’t stay the same once we’ve found it, and it certainly isn’t the same for everyone. It takes years of searching within, and as we evolve, we must keep searching for how today, we might find God.

Over time I’ve utilized various means to do this: backpacking, music, meditation, the Daily Office and the weekly Eucharist, study and writing, community and ministry, the intimacy of close relationships and the ongoing struggle with my own demons and limitations. But within each of these different means there is one common thread - the search for the kinds of experience that God promises: peace, truth, confidence, creativity, vitality and unconditional love for others. This is always the same. How I access it at any given time is different.

Finally, the Spirit of truth is characterized by love. If what we think is the truth is not loving and kind, merciful and understanding, concerned about caring for the least among us, it is not the Spirit of God. Jesus said over and over again that love is the defining reality of God, and therefore the defining reality of our humanity. This is the first and greatest commandment, he said, “love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” The letter of John boldly says “God is love.” During the Last Supper in our gospel today, Jesus said that in the Spirit that he would send, they would love God and be loved by him, living in the unity of love.

This is the greatest truth that the Spirit reveals to us. We are all one. Every breath you take is shared by the breath of others, by the breath of all living things. Plants and animals; rivers, oceans, sky, mountains and deserts; all races and tribes, rich and poor: we are all one living, breathing, interdependent being. The whole creation is God’s body.

Animated and unified by the Spirit, we are a vastly complex and beautiful body, evolving through space and time. For those who have eyes to see it, we reveal our divine source in every detail, and this source is love. Divine love is the inner force that insistently brings life out of death, that keeps searching for ways to recreate harmony and justice when parts of our body rebel against our innate divine nature and hurt other parts of the body. Divine love then binds us up, resurrects us, and moves us forward again.

And so we are given the gift of God’s Spirit of truth. This Spirit is always beyond our comprehension, and so it asks us to be humble and open to its surprising expressions through other people, other pathways. This Spirit is already and completely abiding within us, closer than we are to ourselves, and yet in order for us to experience it, we must search diligently for our own authentic pathway into it. And this Spirit is love: unifying, harmonizing, resurrecting love. This is the Spirit of truth that God sends to us.