Sermon, June 8, 2003
Pentecost Sunday, Year B
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Rabbi Isaac of Cracow received a message a dream. If he traveled to Prague and looked under the bridge, he would find a great treasure. Like most good, practical people, he ignored the dream. After all, he was an important man. It would appear foolish for him to do something so extravagant and whimsical as traveling to Prague to look under a bridge because of a dream. But then he had the dream again. And again. And again. And so Rabbi Isaac donned his cloak and set off for Prague in search of gold.

After a long and arduous journey, he finally arrived. He found the bridge easily, but it was guarded day and night by soldiers. He waited for his opening. One day; then two. But the changing of the guards was too efficient. Finally he gave up, cursing himself for his credulity. Just as he turned to leave, one of the soldiers said, "Hey, old man! You've been hanging around here for a long time. And now you're leaving? What are you doing?"

Rabbi Isaac sighed. "I had a silly dream. I thought God was talking to me in my sleep. I thought God told me to come here. All the way from Cracow. I shouldn't have listened."

"Silly man," the soldier replied. "I had a dream like that once, a recurring dream. God told me to go to Cracow and look up a Rabbi Isaac. If I did I would find a great treasure buried behind his fireplace. Can you believe such a thing? I certainly didn't. I am sorry for your trouble, but you, sir, are a fool."

Rabbi Isaac tipped his cap to the soldier, returned to Cracow, and found a great treasure buried behind his own hearth."¹ Surprise!

In the fearful darkness of a Sunday evening just days from the horrors of the Friday execution, a band of scared Jews huddled behind locked doors. They didn't know Jesus was already in their midst, when he appeared among them giving them peace. They recognized him because of his wounds, the marks of his suffering. Oh, the wounds were still there; the crucifixion was just as real. But now its meaning had changed. Everything wasn't hopeless anymore. For them it felt like when you are so upset that you feel like you can't breathe; like there's a pressure clutching your chest. But now they could breathe again. And they were free. Free enough to forgive. Free enough to let go of the trauma and burden of their tragedy, and to live lives inspired, "breathed into."

Fifty days later came the rest of the explosion. They were just beginning to deal with the realization that the nearness of Jesus had faded. "He has ascended to where he came from," they said of that now cooling sense of absence. Suddenly the absence became a presence, and they discovered their voice. They had something to say even to strangers and foreigners. Their little room had exploded out into the world, and they had a new spirit of relationship and connection with the whole of humanity.

There's a children's camp song we used to sing. "Surprise! Surprise! God is a surprise. Right before your eyes. A folly to the wise. Surprise! Surprise! God is a surprise. Open up your eyes and see." That's the work of the Holy Spirit.

A rabbi who dreams finds his treasure is at his own hearth. Frightened grieving friends find they can breathe again in peace. A lonely, lost group is energized and it all connects. Surprise! That's the work of God's Spirit. The Spirit that blows where she will; you can't see where she comes from or where she is going. Spirit is as uncontrollable as trying to grasp water or air or fire. Spirit is as life giving as water and air and fire. Spirit is a normal, ordinary and present as water and air and warmth. It is God, the person of God quickening, breathing, roaring us into life.

It is the Holy Spirit that wakes us up. Say you've been with the same person long enough that it's easy to take them for granted. Your patterns are routine, conversations predictable. And in an unguarded moment when you aren't thinking about anything in particular, you look at the other and are overwhelmed with appreciation for being able to share life with this wonderful, beautiful being, the treasure buried behind your hearth. Surprise! That is God's Holy Spirit awakening you to the wonder and love present in the ordinary and routine. A fire warming and enlightening the hearth of your soul.

It's the Holy Spirit who brings new beginnings. Listen to the words of Barbara Brown Taylor:

Say you have been in a bad mood for the last year. It seems as if all you are doing is moving bricks from one pile to another -- at work, at home, in your sleep -- just moving bricks until you do not care whether it is day or night. Then one of those nights while you are lying awake in your bed, you hear one bird sing outside -- just one. Why is that bird singing in the middle of the night? you wonder, and then you realize it is not the middle of the night anymore. It is the edge of morning. The bird chirps again, and something inside you softens. You take a deep breath for the first time in months and your chest opens up. You get a second wind. You can call this anything you want. I call it an act of the Holy Spirit.²

Surprise! A breath that seems to breathe you into being.

It is the Holy Spirit that makes connections, or remakes connections after they've been broken. Say you are nursing a wound. You've been hurt and it feels awkward. You think of things to say. Should I tell them off? What if I write something? No, it's easier just to write them off. You stew and repress, and stew and repress some more. Then out of the blue you look at the phone and for no apparent reason you pick it up and call. It only takes a moment. The words are just there; they come out, and they come out right. You are reconnected. Surprise! God's Spirit refreshes both of you like sharing a cool drink of water when things are hot and dry.

The Holy Spirit is God's elusive invisible presence -- awakening, freeing, inspiring, bonding. She is the "and" in "you and me." The almost invisible conjunction that makes all the difference. The Spirit is as ubiquitous the air we breathe. External and powerful as a hurricane. Internal and as life-giving as a breath. That's what God is like. Breathing you, watering you, burning you with divine life. That is God's life inside you. Yes! God really lives within you. Within your deepest thoughts, your most intimate feelings, your every action, God's Holy Spirit is enlightening, renewing, and uniting you with your authentic self, with your companions and friends, with all humanity, with this living planet, and with the mystery of God's divine universal life. And you don't have to go to Prague or some exotic spiritual place looking for the Spirit. Your treasure is right here. Within you. Among us. As present and ordinary as water, air, and warmth.

_____

1.  A story recalled when reading Forrest Church's sermon "Upside Down" on the web site of All Souls' Church, New York City.

2  Barbara Brown Taylor, Home By Another Way, p. 146

back to sermons