Proper 5B. June 6, 2021
1 Samuel 8:4-20; 11:14-15. We are determined to have a king over us.
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1. So we do not lose heart.
Mark 3:20-35. Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin.
O God of glory, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
I hope you heard our Deacon Bob’s sermon last week for Trinity Sunday. If not, I encourage you to go to the YouTube recording of our service on May 30. Bob had my rapt attention as soon as he mentioned three-tab file folders! I’ve been thinking all week about how much my sense of well-being has to do with my documents, paper and electronic, being neatly filed and easily retrievable. And the Church has a long history of trying to label and contain and define the mystery of the Divine. Bob reminded us that the Holy One doesn’t fit in file folders or books or whole libraries, or bricks and mortar or wood frames or even bread and wine. The Holy One cannot be reduced to words or equations, and certainly not things.
Christians may define a spirit of holiness as “The Holy Spirit” or “The Holy Ghost” or “the third person of the Trinity,” by adding definite articles as a way of setting limits. Maybe the spirit of holiness is all of those things, but that’s not all that it is. Biblically speaking, the idea of a spirit of holiness is the same idea as the wind, the gale, or the breeze, the breath, and especially the power or energy in and behind it. It’s invisible but, like love, its effects can be seen and felt. In the First Testament in Hebrew it is Ha Ruach Ha Kodesh (the Spirit of the Holy – also with definite articles). In the Second Testament the spirit of holiness is the giver of all good gifts, according to Paul; and Jesus was conceived in and by a spirit of holiness. (This Gospel claim is theological not biological, by the way.) Early Jesus followers were immersed or “baptized” in a spirit of holiness; it was in them and all around them. They were soaking in it. Episcopalians teach that we recognize the Holy Spirit when we trust that Jesus is Sovereign (and not the military, not wealth, not political leaders). Episcopalians teach that we recognize the Holy Spirit when we are brought into love and harmony with the Holy One, “with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with all creation,” our catechism says.[1]
Some of you know that Emmanuel Church’s buildings, cobbled together, were designed to maximize the ruach – the wind, the breath, the spirit of holiness. Today right after our service, Mike Scanlon and Julian Bullitt will give a tour of our magnificent ventilation system. I hope you’ll stay for that if you’re able. One of the dramatic shifts at Emmanuel in the last 15 years or so, has been a shift from viewing our physical plant as an albatross – a heavy burden, to an asset for mission. That shift took many years and a lot of work, building relationships and sharing the joys and challenges, attending to our building’s envelope, and to lights and cushions and carpets, floors and walls and windows.
Mike and Julian will testify that one of the seemingly impossible problems to solve was our ventilation system. Energy conservation in buildings is all about holding breath. It reminds me of a conversation in the movie “Date Night”, with Tina Fey and Steve Carrell. They play a married couple stranded in New York City without any money or transportation. Carrell’s character asks his wife, “Are you breathing?” “Yes,” she replies, “but only in!” Our buildings, however, pull in fresh air from outside, heat it (when it’s cold), and blow it or exhale it out the roof. This seemed to everyone to be a wasteful extravagance of bygone days, so we worked to minimize the airflow with minimal amounts of money, and minimal success. If we’d had more money, we might have sealed up our building long ago. Thank God we didn’t. Emmanuel Church breathes as we do when we’re not holding our breath! Ha Ruach Ha Kodesh. If you whisper those words, inhale on Ha Ruach, and exhale on Ha Kodesh. Try it!
Then came the pandemic of a deadly airborne virus, and suddenly our ventilation system made Emmanuel Church one of the safest buildings in Boston, a sanctuary from the spread of disease. This is not a coincidence. It turns out that the ventilation system was designed to mitigate airborne transmission of tuberculosis and influenza in the early 20th century. It wasn’t extravagant or wasteful; it was a life-giving and life-saving sanctuary filled with Ha Ruach, Ha Kodesh – filled with the spirit, the breeze of holiness, ready and able to offer a haven for people without adequate, stable, and dignified shelter during the day and at night, a refuge for people who didn’t have the resources or safe space to attend 12-step meetings online, a safe house for musicians and other artists to practice and perform in, and an asylum for people desperate to worship in person. Ha Ruach, Ha Kodesh.
In our Gospel reading, we are back to the Gospel of Mark – still very early in the story. Jesus has been baptized, driven into the wilderness to be tempted by the Accuser or Prosecutor (also called Satan), and has called for help – first from four friends, and then some more. The text says that “he made them twelve.” His work has consisted solely of healing various diseases and casting out many demons, and he has been drawing very large crowds. He has retreated to get some time alone, but his companions have hunted him down. He’s gone around the Galilee and twice come home to Capernaum. Our passage today really should start with the words: “Then he went home, and the crowd came together again, so that Jesus and his disciples couldn’t even get something to eat.” Then Mark says that “the ones alongside him” came to take him. Maybe that was his family, maybe his people, but it doesn’t say that. That’s an interpretive translation move. It says, the ones along side him came to take him, because they thought he was “beside himself.” The lawyers from the big city were saying, “He’s possessed by the ruler of all demons.” Jesus’ enigmatic response is a kind of incredulous: “Well if the demons are getting cast out, why does it matter who is accomplishing it? We should all be rejoicing” at the healing and restoration taking place.
Then Jesus said something chilling. He said, “You know what? Everyone will be forgiven – all the sins, all the blasphemies, except one: actions indicating contempt for the spirit of holiness,” Ha Ruach, Ha Kodesh, the breath of the Holy that moves in and through us all. Mark says that Jesus said that because people had accused him of being possessed by an unclean spirit. That’s when his mother and his siblings said: “Oh boy. We’ve got to get him out of there!” But they couldn’t get inside because of the crowd. When people told Jesus that his mother and siblings were there, he looked around and said: “Here is my family. Whoever does the will of God is my family.”
Notice that Jesus doesn’t say that his mother and brothers and sisters weren’t his family. He says that his family is larger than biological. For Jesus, family was about theology, not biology. His family is larger than tribal. His kin are those who do the will of God. What is the will of God? The will of God is healing. The will of God is freedom from oppression. The will of God is reconciliation and restoration to community. The will of God is for all creation to be able to breathe – Ha Ruach, Ha Kodesh. In other words, the will of God is Love. That’s worth remembering when we hear anyone declaring that something is the will of God; if it has to do with well-being, with freedom from cruelty or harassment, with repair and renewal – if it has to do with Love, that’s right. “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God”, as our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry says.
This past week I heard someone remark that the pandemic has been a truth-teller, a truth revealer. When I thought about that, I thought no; the pandemic has been an opponent, an accuser, prosecutor, a slanderer, a mean, mean teacher – what the Second Testament personifies and names “Satan.” The pandemic has caused illness, trauma, and death. It has taken breath away, knocked the wind out of so many. It has stirred up fear and greed and other soul-crushing sins. It has widened cracks and broken relationships within families and institutions. No, the pandemic has not been a truth-teller.
Ha Ruach, Ha Kodesh – the Holy Spirit has been the truth-teller and truth revealer (and not very gently): sharp winds, painful, scandalous revelations of the devastating effects of white supremacy and poverty, of our systems of injustice and oppression, our mistreatment of our planet. The spirit of holiness has advocated for us and clarified our principles and strengthened our loyalties. The Holy Spirit has comforted us in our grief and helped us get clear about our need for one another and for Love (aka God). The spirit of holiness has reminded us of our core values at Emmanuel: radical welcome for those on the spiritual margins, advocacy and compassion for those on the economic margins, integration of spirituality and the arts, and faithful stewardship of our resources. The Holy Spirit has taught us about expanding our ideas about church, about being together. The spirit of holiness has taught us that plans are interesting, even useful, but not always reliable, and that we can always backtrack, and we can always begin again if we need to, as long as we have breath. And when we no longer have breath, we become the breath of Love. The will of God is for every creature that has breath to breathe in and out until we become the very breath of God to inspire and animate others: Ha Ruach, Ha Kodesh.
- Book of Common Prayer, p. 852.