The Holy Spirit isn’t a fixer – like we’re gangsters who need someone to clean up our mess. She’s our advocate, compelling us to be in this together.
The radical advocacy of the Holy Spirit
Pentecost | John 14:8-17 (25-27)
This week, when I read through our readings for Pentecost, a thought occurred to me. On Pentecost, I’m always preaching Pentecost. But have I ever focused on the gospel reading for the day? I don’t actually know. So I went looking to see if that could possibly be true.
And each time: It’s Acts 2.
The why should be obvious: tongues of fire, rushing wind, speaking in all the languages. How can you not focus on that amazing reading?
Besides, it completely defines the spirit of the Feast Day of Pentecost. That’s where we have the coming of the Holy Spirit and the empowering of the people to share the gospel. That is literally the story!
So, once I realized I’ve never preached on this gospel, well…challenge accepted.
But don’t worry. We still have Pentecost in here.
Back to John 14
So once again we’re in John 14. Right before our reading last week. And again, this is in the middle of Jesus’s Farewell Discourse: the teachings he’s leaving his disciples at the Last Supper.
So, on the surface, this remains a really strange gospel context for the season we’re in.
But at the heart of this teaching is the reminder that Jesus is going away. And the disciples have what they need to live without him. This is the kind of teaching our brains comprehend better than our hearts. So Jesus is preparing people who don’t really want to face what’s coming. None of us could relate to that, I’m sure!
We all love the idea of moving until we start to pack. Or we think it’ll be easy to say goodbye to a loved one before they’re gone. But soon after we’re crying in the car.
Pain and Fear
So the obvious pain in the story is Jesus’s going away. He’s taking off and the disciples don’t know what they’re going to do.
And that’s the second pain point: fear. They’re afraid of their future. They’re afraid of the not knowing and of the up-in-the-airness of life! Not to mention the very real fear of physical harm because this revolution isn’t quite going the way they thought it would.
So I think we need to up the scale for ourselves. This isn’t just moving or sending a kid off to college. This is fear of impending doom. So let’s crank up the threat level.
It’s like catastrophic climate change.
In an interview, David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth said that we had more than doubled the volume of carbon in the atmosphere by the 1980s. And that during that time, scientists sounded the alarm about the dangers of carbon. Telling us that we need to seriously curtail the volume of carbon entering the atmosphere.
And we have since surpassed a level of carbon in our atmosphere humans have never experienced. Ever. So humans have never experienced this level of carbon at any previous point in 65,000 years of history. We’re in uncharted territory.
Then Wallace-Wells said something really clarifying for me. He said that judging our ancestors for acting in ignorance isn’t all that helpful. Because we didn’t know better. But now that we do, knowingly ignoring the crisis is deeply irresponsible.
So now we’ve allowed 30 years to pass, paralyzed by political cowardice and immoral gridlock. And this is very much an existential crisis imperiling our lives, our farms with predictable flooding and drought, and our communities with ever-increasing new records of tornados and violent storms. This is a threat we can’t run away from.
We have a lot of reason to fear. But God told us to be stewards of creation anyway.
So how do we respond in light of fear?
Well, in our story Philip, totally represents us. He jumps in with a “hold the phone, Jesus” kind of moment. Like Peter does after the passion prediction and Thomas in response to the resurrection appearance, the student confronts the teacher.
“Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”
Like this is the priority. In the midst of existential crisis. This is his play. Despite the fact that this is what Jesus keeps saying he is doing.
You look at me and see the Father. I’ve come to reveal the Father.
This is Jesus’s work, after all: revealing God to people. That is very much the whole point. Philip is clearly more focused on the emotional relief of clarity than the trust necessary to see the truth.
A Word
Showing the Father. This talk of Father, however, is important. But we’re often far too dogmatic about it. Osvaldo Vena writes:
“When Jesus uses the word Father, he is pointing at a very special and intimate relationship with God, and not necessarily, as later orthodoxy will declare, to an ontological oneness.”
In other words, the point Jesus makes over and over is about his relationship with God and not at all the later theological obsession with Jesus AS God.
I know a lot of people who really love my Dad and project onto me a sameness with him. That he and I are “one and the same.” So that if they called on me, I could give them what he gives them.
However, we all know that this thinking is wrong. I am not literally my father, even though every day that passes, I am more like him.
But, as each of these same days that passes, we are also more as one than ever.
When we talk on the phone, hours fly. We listen to some of the same podcasts and read some of the same blogs. We talk about church and politics and the world around us.
When Jesus talks about being “one” with “the Father” he’s saying he’s really close to God. So close, that he calls God, Papa. So close that he resembles his him; that you can see God in him. He’s talking about relationship. Proximity. Closeness. Presence.
The Spirit
Then he says he’s going to talk to his Papa and ask for more help in living through this stuff. And he knows Papa is good for it. And what we’ll get out of the deal is the Paraclete, the Counselor, the one called alongside us.
Jesus can’t stick around, but we’ll still get companionship, relationship, advocacy. In other words, the Holy Spirit is our communal life doula. She is there to be for us and with us; to make the very doable thing, the very natural thing of living in this world, which can often seem impossible; she can reveal the true possibility of it all.
This work of the Advocate, the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit is about revealing the very possibility of vibrant living when such a thought seems impossible. She doesn’t come to fix things for us like we’re helpless robots with corrupted source code.
Neither does she come to fix the world for us. God isn’t bailing out the power-and-control-addicted masses from the mess we’ve created. Following Jesus is our 12-step program.
The Spirit advocates for us to us! She helps us get that we are the authors of our own stories. She helps us see who we really are in the midst of our fear.
Living
This whole living in the world thing isn’t about what you do or who you are. But Jesus gives us a blueprint for love: through relationship. So that we are never alone with a promise that we can never truly be alone.
But on the flip side is that we’re empowered to speak in every language with all the people to see that relationship and presence is at the heart of God and creation.
This is what we have in the midst of existential fear: love and trust. Our life doula is with us. We have each other. And we really can do anything we put our minds to.
Our life doula helps us see what we are truly capable of. Sometimes that’s love in the midst of hurt, hope in the midst of frustration, patience in the midst of pain. And sometimes its revelation. She reminds us that we aren’t alone and that we are responsible for this creation.
Siblings, we’re merely preparing for new birth: dreaming of what it will be, gathering what we need, and praying God will be there howsoever God will be there. Always. Wrapped up in love.