May 14, 2023 - Family Sunday

Recorded Worship on YouTube

John 14:15-21

Deborah Laforet

Evidence of the Spirit

Let us pray.  May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by your Spirit and be words of wisdom for this day.  Amen.

I want to share with you some words I read from Katherine E. Amos about the Holy Spirit.  She wrote: “Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will never leave us.  This living Spirit of God knows us with great intimacy, will advocate for us in times of trouble and need, guide, educate, nurture, and counsel us, and listen intently to us and respond to our joys and sorrows.  Nothing could give us more hope.”  This is my question for you today.  Do you believe it?  Do you believe the Spirit of God knows us, with great intimacy?  Do you believe that this Spirit responds to our needs, advocates for us, guides us, gives us advice and offers us wisdom, in real and tangible ways?

Katherine Amos offered two examples.  She shared a story of Lutheran pastor Laura Wind on a mission trip in a hot and humid location in the Caribbean.  The only source of relief from the heat was a fan that had quit on the second day of the trip.  Wind says the Spirit came in the form of a handyman who always accompanied them on mission trips.  This handyman fixed the fan and suggested a cold shower at bedtime and a wet washcloth at night.  It made the trip much more tolerable.  To Pastor Wind, the Spirit was present in the handyman.

The second story she shares is of Rev. Dr. Karen Hudson, a Methodist minister.  She was shopping with the child of an immigrant family her congregation had sponsored.  This child had been badly burned and was unable to get immediate medical attention because they didn’t have the financial resources.  When they finally did find medical care, the doctor said there was nothing they could do about the scarring.  At the store, Rev. Hudson noticed a woman staring at the two of them.  The woman finally came up and said that the child needed to be healed.  The woman prayed for the child and then touched the child’s face, saying that the child would be healed in the morning.  The woman then disappeared.  In shock, the two went home, and in the morning, the burnt area on the child’s face was completely healed and burnt skin remained on the pillow.

These kinds of stories are often dismissed as coincidence or some don’t think they actually happen.  Nowadays, people use the word, “Woowoo,” to describe these kinds of incidents, meaning they are superstition, old wives’ tales, fairy tales, and the stories of those who can’t be taken seriously.  Why is it so difficult for us to believe in the fantastic, the unexplainable, signs from the universe of its power of which we know so little?

Woodpeckers have been my most recent sign of the universe speaking to me.  I’ve been hearing them hammer away at the trees since late March.  On a beautiful day, early in the spring, laying in my hammock, I heard a bunch of chattering in the trees, a sound I hadn’t heard before.   I looked around and I saw these beautiful birds with spotted chests and red on the back of their necks.  I looked it up on my phone and found that they are called Northern Flickers or Common Flickers and that they are a kind of woodpecker.  I saw them a few more times and then one day, I was walking in the yard and saw a bunch of spotted feathers on the ground near a tree.  Unfortunately, I think one of these woodpeckers was nabbed by a predator, but I saved some of those spotted feathers, some of them with a tint of yellow.

So here’s the thing.  Last week, as I was getting into the car to go out for dinner on my birthday, I heard a woodpecker hammering away.  I said, “Thank you, woodpecker.”  My two sons looked at me with astonishment and said, “What are you doing?”  I told them the woodpecker had wished me a happy birthday.  One said, “What are you, Snow White now, talking to animals?”  I let the comment go, but it stuck with me.  I think this response is common.  For someone to say that they talk to animals or plants or the earth or the sky, they might be seen as a bit ‘out there,’

Why wouldn’t the universe talk to us?  Are we so arrogant as to believe we are the only ones who communicate, that we are the only ones with whom God communicates, that we have solved all the mysteries of the world and that there is a logical and scientific explanation for all that occurs?  Jesus healed with his hands and his words.  Do we think he could do this only because he was the Son of God?  In our Bible, God talks to several people.  Do we believe this only happened in biblical times and only to extraordinary people and that regular people don't get to hear God’s voice?  To what have we closed ourselves with our skepticism?  If we can talk to God, if God can talk through us, why wouldn’t God also speak to and speak through the rest of creation, God’s creation, teaming with energy, life, and spirit?  I sometimes wonder if over the past few hundred years, our western world has become so suspicious of anything unexplainable, that we have closed ourselves off to what God might be trying to share with us.

Jesus told the disciples that a Helper would be sent.  This advocate would be “the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept since the world neither sees her or recognizes her; but you can recognize the Spirit because she remains with you and will be within you.”  How do you think the Spirit makes herself, hisself, itself, seen and heard?  I’ve had these signs of Spirit throughout my life, coincidences, answers to prayer, events or people that come into my life that lead me to unexpected places.  When I share these stories some acknowledge the mysteries of this universe while others either look at me incredulously or with wariness, like I’m not who they thought I was.

As people of faith, who come to church, pray to God, sing about resurrection, how do we experience the Spirit at work?  Some see God as an entity, a separate being, one who can intervene in the world, one who will makes changes in our lives.  Others fall on the other end of the spectrum, not seeing God as an entity, but more as an energy.  They believe God does not intervene in our lives and that God is love and the way we experience the holy is through the love we share with one another.

I fall somewhere in between.  I don’t believe in a god that heals some and ignores others, that lets some people die and others live, that gives some a million dollars and lets others remain houseless and hungry, but I also think God, the sacred, the universe is more than the love we share.  I believe in mystery.  I believe that creation is communicating with me and with those willing to be open to its messages.  I believe that God, the sacred universe, loves and cares for us, supports us, cheers us on, and embraces all of who we are, just as a loving family would do for one another, not interfering, but also not leaving us to fend for ourselves.

No matter what we believe, being open to mystery and to possibility can bring unexpected gifts, from God, from life around us, or maybe just from within ourselves.  My invitation to you this morning is to be open, to pause.  Take a moment to appreciate your surroundings, the love that surrounds you, from family, community, creation, and from the Holy.

As Katherine Amos wrote: “This living Spirit of God knows us with great intimacy, will advocate for us in times of trouble and need, guide, educate, nurture, and counsel us, and listen intently to us and respond to our joys and sorrows.  Nothing could give us more hope.”

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Deborah Laforet