The Holy Spirit
“The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything.” (Jn 14.16)
It’s a great pleasure to be here among friends tonight at St Matthew’s for Ian’s first mass. We’ve known each other for some years now and have both been on a long and unexpected journey.
I was very nervous before presiding at my first mass. I was 15, and it wasn’t so much a mass, as holy communion in a tiny Baptist tin tabernacle nestling in the South Downs. I remember it, because as I gave out the little tray of wine glasses to the ageing Baptist deacon to distribute to the half a dozen old ladies and a sheep dog that were present – he looked very puzzled.
It was only after we had drunk the wine and I was thinking ‘what comes next’, (no liturgy to follow) that I spotted the loaf of bread on the table. I had forgotten the bread! We had it after the wine, and people were too polite to mention anything. They usually are Ian!
Ten years after that, I was Commodore of the Fleet. It was a very small fleet. In fact it was the Lancing College Sailing Club - but the Master in Charge of our battered fibre glass dinghies was known as the Commodore.
Those were happy afternoons on the River Adur; or occasionally, if I misjudged the tides very badly, in the English Channel.
You learned early on in small boats that the wind is both exhilarating and exasperating. It is unpredictable, and so you are constantly on your toes, changing the position of the boat; the position of yourself and the crew; adjusting the sails.
On the one hand you might capsize; and on the other you might hit a lull and become becalmed and directionless. You can only steer a boat when it is in motion.
In Holy Scripture, the Spirit is often referred to as the wind or breath of God. Those are both possible translations of the Hebrew and Greek words.
For the Jewish people, living by lakes and the sea, the wind was full of wonder. It was intangible yet powerful. The very air we breath; invisible yet giving life.
This is why Jesus likens the Spirit to the wind, blowing where it listeth. (Jn 3.8) And in this respect the Spirit is like the Father and the Son.
The incarnate Jesus was unpredictable with a mind of his own. As our first lesson from the book of Wisdom reminds us: “Who can learn the counsel of God? Or who can discern what the Lord wills?” (Wisdom 9.13)
Well of course, some of our fellow Christians will tell us very clearly what the Lord wills! But most of us know that discerning his will is a hard task.
This is why Jesus says earlier in this passage (v 16) “I will send you another comforter” - another, because it will, as it were, replace him. It is (in Luther’s word’s) an alter Christus - another Christ. Our Lord enfleshed could only be in one place at one time, with one group of people. The Holy Spirit would be poured out on all people. He was to be the paraclete (called alongside), the counsellor who leads us into the Truth that is Jesus.
The theme of this mass is the Holy Spirit, because any new priest or deacon, must always recognise that they are utterly dependent on God’s Holy Spirit, and that God’s Holy Spirit is unpredictable.
He is given so many roles in Scripture that we cannot possibly list them all.
We’ll consider just this one word: comforter, or counsellor as it is usually translated.
John emphasises a typically Trinitarian construction in the words of our Lord: “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter.” The Son prays to the Father and the Spirit proceeds. Or in our text: the Father sends the Spirit in the name of the Son.
The Comforter (counsellor, advocate) - he mysteriously works within us saying things will be alright. And all priests need to sense somewhere deep in their spirits, that things will be alright. As Jesus promises, the Spirit will give that peace which the world cannot give. As Paul puts it – the Spirit enables us to cry ‘Abba’, Father – and to know that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Or as Lady Julian of Norwich put it:
“All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.”It is hardly surprising that the last half Century has often been called the age of the Spirit.
Not just because of the rise of Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement - certainly the fastest growing section of the church today.
But because in an age of uncertainty and doubt, when propositional truth becomes more slippery by the moment, then we all need the wise counsel of the Spirit to our inner beings,
that all will be well.
That the absurd paradoxes which as Christians we say make sense of life, are true.
That God did become Man in Christ, died for us and rose again. This is the mystery of our faith.
It is only the transcendent Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son who can provide this inner calling and witness to our faith.
But there is another aspect of the ministry of the Comforter. He is not just the encourager who leads us into all truth.
In the Bayeux Tapestry, that 230’ picture which tells of everything leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066 – there’s a section with the caption “Harold comforteth his troops” - the picture shows him jabbing a spear into a soldier’s backside.
The Spirit doesn’t just comfort us with an inner witness of well-being. He disturbs us. He encourages us to get on with the work of the kingdom. At Pentecost he not only came alongside the Apostles, he forced them out like drunken men and women into the Jerusalem crowds, and to every nation on earth.
It’s part of that disturbing work of the Spirit that led to the formation of Epicentre, and then to Moot, here at St Matthew’s. It’s that ‘spear up the backside’ that can sometimes lead us to uncomfortable places. In the memorable words of Dad’s Army – “they don’t like it up em!” As an Anglican communion, we’re in an uncomfortable place at present, a place we’d rather not be. But that is a sure sign of the working of God’s Spirit.
Let me go back to sailing boats. A friend of mine had a good boat - but I never went sailing with him. I often went out in the boat, but never sailed. He only ever rowed it, you see. He found sails and rigging, cleats and halyards all a bit of a nuisance. If the wind became gusty, you got water in the boat and it was all a bit messy and strenuous.
For each of us both the encouraging and disturbing work of the Comforter will take different forms. And this is true at a corporate level as well. The Spirit will lead Holy Trinity Brompton in another way than that of St Matthew’s Westminster. He has led the Orthodox along a different path from the Catholics.
This diversity, says Paul in our epistle this evening, makes up the whole Body of Christ. We need each other, even if we think we are the only real bits of the body.
There will always be the temptation to avoid anything too strenuous or messy - to quench the spirit. But that path leads to boredom and death. We should be excited by the variety and tensions within the church. It shows we are on the move, and like a sailing boat, we can only be steered when we are moving.
The Holy Spirit, whom we celebrate in our Eucharist this evening, is to encourage Ian in his ministry; to encourage all of us to dare to believe; and to provoke us to be more adventurous in our life of faith.
“The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything.” (Jn 14.16)
