sermon

Empathy is the heart of the Triune God, the heart that your heart beats in time with, and the heart that will save humanity and heal all things.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 13 A
Texts: Matthew 10:40-42; Romans 6:12-23 (ref. to Romans 5 and 7 as well)

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

A cup of cold water is a simple thing. But why it is given is more complicated.

You can see someone thirsty and kindly give them some water. But the guts, the compassion of Christ we’ve been considering lately, goes deeper. Further.

Two weeks ago we heard “compassion” translate Greek derived from the word for guts, innards, bowels. But the Greeks had another word for it, “sympathy,” literally, “suffer with.” The Latin version is “compassion.” We took both without change into English. Now, sympathy is a good thing. To be with someone in their suffering is a blessing.

But in the early 20^th century, an English psychologist took two Greek roots and coined a new word “empathy.” Empathy means to enter into another’s suffering, not simply be with them. To feel what they feel, know what they know, suffer what they suffer.

Sympathy is sharing a cup of cold water because you know someone is thirsty. Empathy is feeling their thirst in your own heart and body.

Empathy best describes the Triune God’s desire in coming as one of us.

We’ve been hearing Paul’s letter to the Romans since the beginning of June and a couple weeks ago we heard, from chapter 5, that God’s love for you and me and all people is known in one thing: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God’s love came to us before we repented, before we confessed, before we stopped doing wrong. God’s love doesn’t look at you and see a bad thing, a broken thing. God looks at you and sees beloved. Beloved enough to die for.

And that’s because God entered into our suffering. Sympathy is the Triune God seeing our suffering and life and feeling sorrow for it. Empathy is the Triune God entering into our suffering, our life. Feeling what we feel, knowing what we know, suffering what we suffer.

This is the depth of God’s love for you, the heart of the Triune God. God knows every joy, every pain, every temptation, every doubt, every bad or good motive, because God became like you, like me.

God’s empathy for humanity is what saves us at the cross. God’s willingness to enter into our pain and change it from the inside, enter into our sin and love us out of it from the inside.

It is empathy that is closest to the heart of God, the guts of Christ.

And it is our only hope for healing here, too. In Steven Spielberg’s latest movie, “Disclosure Day,” the heart of the movie is spoken by one of the lead characters. He says that empathy is the evolutionary advantage that will save humanity.

I would go so far as to say that empathy is the line that divides those in our world who inflict suffering, oppression, pain on the weak and the vulnerable from those who try to make the world better for all. And you and I best know that empathy as the heart of Christ.

It’s why you’re so shocked when people who call themselves Christian act abominably toward others, support policies not just of exclusion but of erasure, not just indifferent to suffering but causing it, even reveling in it. Our disagreements with such Christians are nearly impossible to argue out because it’s not about the policies or decisions. The real problem is we can’t recognize the heart of Christ in such people. We can’t imagine ever treating people the way even some of our nation’s most powerful officials do in the name of Christ because our heart is shaped enough like Christ’s that it’s incomprehensible.

When you share Christ’s heart, the empathy of the Triune God, deciding what to do is easy. Defend your neighbors. Feed them. Welcome them. Support policies that deal with homelessness and poverty and immigration and hunger with compassion and grace, always choosing ways that will heal and help and bless. And, as we remember again on this Pride weekend, just love people for who they are, full stop. Give all equal rights, full stop. The math is simple when you share God’s heart.

And if someone claims Christ’s name but not Christ’s heart, it’s nearly impossible to know what to say or do to them. Because no saying or doing will change their hearts of stone into hearts of Christ.

But remember this: you do share Christ’s heart, even if you doubt that sometimes.

We know that sometimes our hearts are stony and we take the easy path, the unloving path, simply because it’s more convenient. We know that as much as we hope otherwise, we’re not yet beating as one with Christ’s heart all the time.

And today it feels like Paul is saying it’s either or. Either you obey the old ways, the ways of the world, or you obey the new way, the way of God’s righteousness and grace.

But the “either-or” feeling of today’s words is out of context. Next week, from a little later in this letter, we’ll hear Paul’s true experience, one we know all too well. How he knows what the good is, and yet he keeps finding himself taking the wrong path, doing what is not good.

Hold on to the truth that you share enough of the heart of Christ to feel the pain of your neighbors, to have empathy for others, even those you don’t understand, those different from you. You may feel, like Paul, that you’re struggling with this. But Christ’s heart is there. You’re on the way.

And the grace Paul finds in his struggle is that it is God who breaks him free.

It is God who shapes his heart. Today we asked God in the Prayer of the Day to “mold us into a people who welcome your word and serve one another.” Mold us. Like clay in a potter’s hands. You might still be misshapen in places, not quite the jar or vase or bowl God is making for the world. You might need more time on the wheel, more time in the kiln.

But God is making you a new heart, right now. God’s Spirit is teaching your heart to beat as one with God’s. Opening your heart to deeper empathy and love for all God’s creatures, not just the people, but all the people for sure, and the whole creation.

And in that empathy, you will give a cup of cold water when you feel another’s thirst as if it is your own. And you’ll also ask, “why is everyone so thirsty all the time? Is there something wrong with the water supply?” And you will work with your neighbors, this community, this world, to figure that out and fix the water supply. And the food supply. And the wage supply. And the housing supply. And the justice supply.

We also prayed that God’s justice and mercy would reshape the world. That’s what your empathy can do, with mine, and with so many others. So let God keep molding you, give yourself a little grace when you’re not there yet, and watch as God brings healing and life through you and all whom God is molding.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Do not fear, you are God’s beloved, and though there is cost to living with God’s heart, it is the life you always have wanted to know and live, with God’s help.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 12 A
Texts: Matthew 10:24-39; Jeremiah 20:7-13; Psalm 69:7-18; Romans 6:1b-11

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Jeremiah couldn’t keep it inside. It hurt too much.

He shared God’s heart, the guts of God we learned of last week, and he couldn’t keep quiet. He had to to do what Jesus said to the disciples today, proclaim what he heard God whisper into his heart out on the rooftops.

But he really didn’t want to. He never wanted the calling of prophet. Because when he did speak out in the light what was hidden in the dark, as Jesus referenced, he suffered for it. He was beaten and put in stocks, thrown into a cistern, abandoned by friends, accused of treason, and made a public laughingstock.

So he tried to shut up the heart of God inside him. Avoid the call. And God’s Word inside burned in him like a fire in his bones. It hurt worse to keep it in.

He wanted to be a normal person. But he found he couldn’t reject this heart of God within and stay whole. To speak brought spiritual grief, and despair. But there was no other way for him.

Remember this when you consider the new heart we spoke of last week, God’s heart beating in time with yours, you sharing the guts, the the compassion of Christ. There will be a cost for that.

Now, the costs in our readings today seem severe and a little removed from us.

Jeremiah’s do for sure. But the psalmist suffered reproach for the sake of God, estrangement from their family, mockery from neighbors. Jesus says following his way might lead to painful separation in your closest relationships, even parents and children. He says he didn’t come to bring peace. He means that following him, sharing his heart, being his disciple, is going to lead to conflict, suffering, even pain. Not because he wants it. Because it just will.

Maybe not many of us have experienced even part of what these readings suggest could happen. But it’s not too far away in our day, either. Renee Good on that day in January decided to stand in front of neighbors who were threatened with unjust arrest and disappearing. Her last words to the man who killed her were, “It’s OK, I’m not mad at you,” with a smile on her face. She acted on the heart of compassion within her, and it cost her life.

Alex Pretti likewise acted on his heart of compassion and decided, like Renee, to get out and protest what was happening to his neighbors. He saw a woman being manhandled by an agent and decided that had to stop. He intervened, and he was killed.

Neither meant to die that day. But both did decide to forgo convenience and whatever else they could have done that day and go be a presence for good on behalf of someone else. Both paid the ultimate price.

But thousands in those weeks did the same without dying. That’s the thing. Thousands acted on their heart of compassion and said, “not here, not with these loved ones.” Remember that most of all.

See, the costs are high even without being killed for loving as Christ.

Jesus said today not to fear those who can only kill your body. And that’s really just saying, don’t fear what might happen, even if you think it’s the worst thing. Go and do your calling.

And there will be costs. The heart of Christ burning within you shows you the pain and suffering of your neighbors, of this city, this world. You see it, you feel it. And you think, “this isn’t right.”

And if you decide that the person you want to be is someone whose heart beats as one with God’s, you will do something. You will forgo convenience and what you might have done in a day and do something. Whether it’s packing groceries or helping our neighborhood ministry here or in your own neighborhood, or calling political leaders or walking across the street to be Christ to someone, that’s a cost. You could just live your life for you instead.

But the costs, Jesus says, can be higher. If you decide to speak when someone is being cruel or hurtful, or saying hateful things, and say “not here, not to this beloved one,” you risk problems. If it’s at a family gathering and the heart of God within you says, “no more, you can’t be quiet,” the divisions Jesus promises today are very possible. You might be mocked, you might cause a rift. Speaking out for the heart of God within you is not the popular thing. Even if you’re not beaten or thrown in a pit or killed, you can make things really uncomfortable by speaking when you could stay silent. By acting when you could easily do nothing.

So Jesus’ words today are for you: don’t be afraid. Secrets are meant to be uncovered, words God whispers in your heart are meant to be said, things done in the dark need to be brought to the light. It might feel like you’re losing part of your life, but you are acting the only way you can, according to the heart of Christ beating inside you.

And make no mistake: there is no cost-free option for any of us.

If you stay silent when you could speak, if you do nothing when you see some way you could act, there is a great cost.

First, as Jeremiah learned, that heart of God is still going to be beating inside you and it will be very painful to ignore. But even more, you will become diminished. You will be less than you are. Your life will get smaller and smaller, your heart will get colder and colder, and at some point you won’t even feel the heart of God anymore. You will lose your life, Jesus says, in the very act of trying to keep it for yourself.

And you know this, because you’ve seen it happen to others. Maybe you even have sensed moments of it when it happens in you.

There is always a cost. The question is, what kind of person do you want to be? And when you ask that, ask this: can you ignore the fire of God burning inside you?

But keep hearing Jesus’ good news in all this: don’t be afraid – you are beloved.

You are more precious to God than the tiniest sparrow, Jesus says. And God loves every sparrow dearly, knows when each one dies. A God who tracks the smallest of creatures with love and care can be trusted to hold you and love you, Jesus says. God even knows how many hairs you have on your head, you’re that precious.

And the life of following Christ’s heart is the true abundant life Jesus wants you to know. Paul says that being baptized into Christ is like dying with Jesus – we lose things, there is a cost, as we’ve heard. But he says it’s also being born into “newness of life.” That the life in Christ, heart beating in time with God’s, speaking when God’s voice urges you to speak, acting as God’s heart calls you to act, is the only life worth living.

You know what life you truly want. You know it in your bones, where God’s fire burns. In your heart, where God’s heart beats. So beloved, precious sparrow of God, trust that you have God’s strength and love, choose the costs that will lead to a life worth living, and find that life in Christ that will be part of God’s healing of all things.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Christ’s gut-wrenching love for the world embraces us and sends us out with the same kind of visceral love and a call to be Christ.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 11 A
Texts: Matthew 9:35 – 10:8

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Jesus was torn up inside.

We heard, “he had compassion on them.” That’s an OK translation. But this word for the Greeks is rooted in the word for innards, guts, bowels. That’s where you feel compassion. Viscerally, in your guts. And Jesus looked at these people longing for his help, following him everywhere, with needs more than he could count, and he felt their pain in his bowels.

This pain inside Jesus, birthed by love for people with nowhere to turn, no guidance, people who were “harassed and helpless,” ultimately took Jesus to the cross.

And this visceral love of God for you, for us, for the world, is our only hope.

You are loved by God to the depths of God’s guts, when you are lost, frightened, even when you are sinful, complicit.

And the Triune God looks at this whole world, harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd, and is torn up inside. God sees the injustice of our society that if you are a person of color, you can be killed by the police and some of your fellow citizens will say it wasn’t wrong. And if you protest oppression, you can also be killed by federal agents who will not be held accountable.

The Triune God sees the injustice of our society that if you make the laws you get full health care coverage but if you don’t have a job that pays fairly, or you’ve had medical crises before, you could lose your health care. God sees the injustice of our society that believes that as long as the stock market is doing well everything must be fine. The Triune God sees all this and feels it in God’s very guts. Love for George, and Renee, and Alex, and their families and friends. Love for those falling through so many cracks. Love for all crushed by injustice and violence. Love for those who struggle every day for food and shelter. For dignity and safety.

And Jesus, who loves viscerally, commands this: Love as I have loved you.

Feel what I feel in your guts, and act on it, like I did.

Jesus changes his followers from disciples to apostles right here, in just two verses. So far, they were in it for themselves. They were drawn to Jesus, to the love of God he bore. They’d been healed, graced, changed. They found a shepherd to follow. Now they are suddenly sent to others.

Jesus sent them to be Christ like him, because of his deep love for the harassed crowds. He gave them the authority over unclean spirits, to cure every disease, and raise the dead. Like he did. He commanded them to go to as many villages as they could and proclaim by their presence, like he did, that God’s love was with these people.

This is the place we can get stuck: realizing faith is not all about us. It’s knowing you are loved deeply by God, forgiven, transformed, and accepting being sent to others with the same good news of love.

Don’t be distracted by the specifics of this story, either. Look at the greater call.

For example, here Jesus only sends twelve men. There were lots more disciples, women and men. So, we might think, maybe we’re not apostles, “sent ones,” just those original twelve. But Luke says Jesus later sent 70 out. And we just celebrated Pentecost, where over 120 women and men were filled with the Spirit and sent. So, there’s no escaping this, it’s our new role, too: apostle.

But they did things we can’t, we say. We can’t raise the dead, heal the sick. Maybe we don’t have the same call.

But look at what their call actually was: you received my love freely, without payment, Jesus says. Now give it freely without payment. Miracles can and do happen. But even if we aren’t given that particular authority, it doesn’t matter. The overarching command, love as I love, is for all, and can be done by all.

Share my guts, feel what I feel, Jesus says. And then, do what I do. Go and be love.

That’s Christ’s word to you today.

So, pay attention to your guts: what things make you feel like Jesus feels? What tears you up inside, makes you want to do loving actions, and make a difference? What activates your compassion, your guts of love? That’s a good place to start your serving.

It would be easier if we could just come here and hold God’s love for ourselves. But God’s guts won’t let that happen. And, honestly, neither will ours. You’ve already been changed. You know you can’t look away, you know you’re needed.

And hear this: if Christ is sending you and me out of such visceral love, to bear Christ’s visceral love in the world, we’re not going to be left without guidance. Trust that. We are sheep with a Shepherd, and Christ will constantly guide and lead and strengthen. This world, these harassed and helpless ones, matter to God more than we can imagine. God won’t abandon you when you’re sent to be Christ’s love. God’s got too much invested.

So let Christ create a new heart in you that beats as one with Christ’s in love for your neighbor, for this world.

You share Christ’s guts. There’s nothing to do but go and be love.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

In the midst of a suffering world, Jesus comes to us with healing and grace. In spite of our pride and pretense, Jesus offers us new life, springing up from his endless love for us.

Erik C. Nelson
7 June 2026
Texts: Hosea 5:15-6:6; Psalm 50:7-15; Romans 4:13-25; Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

—
Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
—

“God didn’t make us to hate us.”

That’s a line from the Rev. Lizzie McManus Dail, an Episcopal priest down in Texas.

God didn’t make us to hate us.

This is good news. We live in a society, in a culture, in a religion that too often tells us that there’s nothing delightful in us. That there’s nothing good we can do or anything beautiful that comes from us.

This line reminds us that God, who created the beautiful universe, with planets that rain diamonds and nebulae that glow with every color imaginable, this God who made it all and said it was good, made you, and says you were good.

God didn’t make you to hate you. You bear the unshakeable image of God, and that can never change.

When we remember that this is how God sees us, as beautiful and loveable, we can start to understand what Jesus means when he says, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

We can start to understand what God meant when speaking through Hosea, when God said, “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

What God wants most is a relationship with us. God wants us to know how much we are loved, and God wants that knowledge to then flow out of us in love.

In today’s Gospel reading, we have three stories of Jesus’ love encountering people in ways that challenge the status quo, that challenge us.

The first people Jesus spends time with are the tax collectors and sinners. Matthew, the namesake of this book and the disciple called in this story, was a tax collector.

They were hated because on top of the imperial tax they took in, they were known to take extra off the top for themselves. So people avoided them, shunned them, hated them.

And the others Jesus was with are identified only as sinners.

And yet these are the ones who Jesus chooses to spend time with. He doesn’t see them as outcasts or pariahs, and instead calls them to follow him. He leads Matthew out of the tax collection booth, and invites him to the table.

Matthew walks away from his life of taking advantage of people and is welcomed into the love of God.

And in response to this grace, the people who should know better, the ones who spend their days in worship, claiming to be close to God, come to Jesus and scold him for spending time with them.

And Jesus responds by saying that he has come to heal the sick. He has come for mercy, not sacrifice. In this, we are reminded that we are in that group that Jesus chooses to spend time with.

We are sinners. We are sick. We all have ways that the things we do and don’t do hurt others, separate us from God, and alienate us from ourselves.

And in Jesus’ loving example, he reminds us that that is not all we are. We are deeply loved. And all that God wants for us is to know that love and to share it with others, that we will be healed, and the world will be healed as well.

In the middle of this conversation with the religious leaders, he’s called out by one of them, who asks him to go raise up his daughter, who just died.

And on the way, he encounters this woman who had been suffering for 12 years, and in her desperation, in a moment of faith, she reaches out to him, hoping that he might help her.

And in this moment, the pharisee and the bleeding woman discover how alike they really are. The unfortunate reality is that the woman’s condition would have kept her away from the temple all those years. The religious and social structures put her and the pharisee in very different positions.

And yet, when they both face moments of great desperation, everything is leveled. The truth is laid bare, that they’re both human.

Whatever structures we set up to elevate some of us over others, the only thing that’s true at the end of the day, is that we’re all only human. And that means we all need healing. And we all are desperately loved by God.

When we’re at our lowest, when there’s nothing else we can do, God invites us to turn our eyes to heaven. God invites us to interrupt and beg for help. God invites us to reach out in faith, hoping against hope, trusting that God will care for us.

God wants mercy and steadfast love from us because God first extends mercy and steadfast love to us. God made us to love us. God didn’t make us to hate us.

After the woman has been healed, Jesus continues on his way to the pharisee’s house. When he gets there, he says that she is not dead but sleeping, and the crowd laughs at him.

Jesus responds to the pharisee’s desperation with mercy, and in return, he’s met with mockery. Nevertheless, he goes in, takes the girl by the hand, and she gets up.

She receives this most miraculous form of healing, resurrection from the dead. And this is the healing that we are promised.

We ourselves will be raised from the dead. Because again, at the end of the day, we are human, we will die, we can’t avoid that. But we know that like the tax collectors, like the bleeding woman, like the pharisee and his daughter, we’re not alone in any of it.

We have God with us who carries us in love now, who will be with us when we die, and promises that the pain and loss that comes in death isn’t the end for us. When we reach the end, all that will be left is God’s love, and God’s promise to us.

God’s grace will meet us there, and will carry us into new life.

God’s grace is already meeting us here, carrying us to new life.

And because we know this grace, because we know that God didn’t make us to hate us, because we have experienced the mercy of God, because God’s love lives deep inside us, God invites us to let that all flow out of us.

Share God’s kindness to a world that is unkind. Extend God’s healing and forgiveness to all people, even when you’re cast out or met with mockery. Bear the fruits of God’s mercy and steadfast love.

And when you reach the end of your rope, when your candle has burnt out, when there’s nowhere else to turn, hope against hope, trust that God’s promises cannot be broken.

God gives life to the dead.

God calls into existence the things that do not exist.

May it be so.

—

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

God’s essence is a relationship of grace, love, and communion, which then is the essence of the whole universe, and our promise and joy is that we also live in this relationship.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Holy Trinity, year A
Texts: 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Genesis 1:1 – 2:4

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Grace. Love. Communion. That’s it.

That’s all you need to know about the Triune God. Not Greek philosophical terms or centuries of systematic theology attempting to define the boundaries of who and what God is, no driving out those people whose definitions don’t fit.

Just grace. Love. And communion.

Only twenty years after the resurrection, Paul blessed his friends in the Corinthian church with these words that say everything: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”

Are with all of you.

And that’s enough. It’s all you and I and the world need to know about God.

Grace starts it all.

In Jesus we meet the grace of God in person, in our own humanity. And, as Jesus himself taught us, if we know Jesus, we know God.

In Jesus, God-with-us, is endless grace, constant forgiveness, welcome for all who stray. Jesus, God-with-us, entered our life, our suffering and death, loving us even when we rejected God’s love. Everything Jesus taught, commanded, called us into, is wrapped in this grace.

We couldn’t have imagined such grace. Only the Triune God could show it in person, embodied in the Son of God.

And this grace brings you to the love of God.

The cross of Christ as the Scriptures actually show it leads to the certainty that the center of the heart of the Triune God is love.

The idea that God needed a substitute for punishment, needed appeasement, had a wrath that couldn’t be quenched except by death, just doesn’t hold up in Scripture. It’s not the grace Jesus revealed, nor the truth Paul proclaimed so powerfully.

The grace of Christ Jesus fully reveals the undying, self-sacrificing love of the Triune God for you, for me, for the creation. This is how much I love you, God says at the cross. I will die to show the universe my love. To draw all things back into my heart.

The grace of Christ Jesus leads you to the love of the Creator for you. You are beloved of God. All creation is.

And in God’s Spirit we share this grace and love in a communion with God.

The grace of the Son, which led you to the heart of the one Jesus called Father, now joins you into God’s life with the communion of the Holy Spirit.

In the Holy Spirit, God’s new life that gives birth in you and in the world is a life of relationship, communion with and in God, shaped by this grace and this love the Triune God has poured out on the world.

Because grace, love, and communion can only exist in relationship.

You can’t have grace by yourself. Grace can only be received and given in relationship. You can’t know love by yourself. Love can only be received and given in relationship. And communion, by definition, is relationship. You don’t have communion by yourself.

So God exists as relationship: the Creator, the Word, the Spirit, all present before the dawn of time, as we prayed today, all at creation, all still living and moving in the world. Grace. Love. Communion. In an ancient dance between the Three, a relationship that makes God one.

And into that relationship, Paul blesses you and me. “The God of grace and love and communion is with you,” Paul says. Paul claims you and I are blessed to be in God’s divine dance, in the relationship that is grace, love, and communion.

But relationships are challenging, even though they give life.

Relationship means risk and vulnerability. At the cross, the heart of God’s self-revelation, the Triune God is chiefly known to us not as Almighty but as All-vulnerable. To be in relationship with God and each other is to be open to being wounded, to risk for the other. The cross is not only where we find life, it is, as always, the path we walk to live the joy of abundant life in relationship with God and each other and the creation.

Relationship also always involves responsibility for the other. The Scriptures tell us that God’s love for us and the creation is so great God cannot walk away. Will not walk away. No matter how angry, frustrated, disappointed God might be, God’s love means God stays with us. God is responsible for us.

If God, or the other person, or part of creation isn’t related to me, I don’t have to be responsible for it. But once you matter to me, and I to you, once we belong to God and each other and the creation, all things matter. All creation matters and belongs. All our suffering neighbors matter and belong. That’s why we’re responsible for each other, for our neighbors, for this creation.

Grace. Love. Communion. That’s all you need to know.

The deeper mysteries of God’s nature, how the Trinity exists within Godself, we can never know.

But that this Triune God is with you and me and all creation in astonishing grace and infinite love, calling you and me to communion with God, with each other, with the creation, that’s everything this world needs to come to God’s healing and life.

And it’s enough. It’s more than enough.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen

This is a day we remember that the Holy Spirit is alive and active in all the world, in all God’s creatures, and bringing life to all, outside our control (thank goodness) and renewing the creation.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Day of Pentecost, year A
Texts: Numbers 11:24-30; Psalm 104:24-34, 35b; Acts 2:1-21; John 7:37-39

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

There’s a worrying glitch in today’s Pentecost-like moment from the book of Numbers.

Moses is exhausted from leading the people and God, who called Moses to this leadership, offers a solution. Moses will choose seventy trusted elders and gather them, and then, God says, “I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them.” (11:17).

Great, but a problem emerges. Two of the seventy either missed the memo about gathering at the tent of meeting, or were having a leisurely breakfast, and stayed in the camp. But the Holy Spirit followed the list, and breathed into Eldad and Medad just as into the other sixty-eight, and they also prophesied. But . . . in the camp. A breathless runner told Moses, and Joshua indignantly said Moses should shut them down.

Moses wisely knows two things. First, God’s Spirit is above his pay grade. If the Holy Spirit has breathed on these two, Moses can’t control that. And Moses also realizes he’s not threatened by this. This sending of the Spirit was meant to help Moses, and he expansively says, “would that all God’s people were prophets, and that God’s spirit would be put on them!”

But there is something strange in this episode.

It almost sounds like the Holy Spirit is a limited commodity. Moses has a full share of the Spirit. Now some of that Spirit will be taken from him and given to others. So there’s only so much Spirit of God to go around?

There’s other evidence of this in Scripture. Elisha, the successor of Elijah, strangely asks for a “double portion” of the Spirit of God Elijah had, so he can inherit Elijah’s role. (2 Kings 2) And the Hebrews did see some people as clearly having God’s Spirit, but not everyone. Kings, prophets, are regularly described as having the Spirit of God, or, as in Saul’s case, even having the Spirit taken from them.

And then our Gospel seems to imply a limited presence of the Spirit, too: Jesus has the Spirit, but here John says the others don’t yet. Luke is similar. In his Gospel, Jesus is filled with the Spirit to do all he does. In Acts the parallel is now it’s the believers who’ve received the Spirit and do amazing things.

So, on this Day of Pentecost, are we to believe that either the Spirit is in limited supply, or that until somehow a person is given the Spirit, they are Spirit-free?

Not in the least. Since we read the whole of Scripture, we know better.

We know that in Genesis 1 God’s Spirit is already there, filling the creation, blowing over the face of the water. In the Pentecost story, Peter quotes the prophet Joel that God will pour out the Spirit on all people of all kinds. Other prophets say similar things.

Jesus himself, in John 3, speaks to Nicodemus of the Holy Spirit as a present reality. Like the wind, Jesus says, you can’t see the Spirit directly but you can see where she’s been. And Jesus invites Nicodemus to be born of water and the Spirit. There’s no limited commodity here for Jesus. Air and wind are everywhere, and so is the Holy Spirit. And if the Spirit is everywhere, you’re never not in the Spirit’s presence.

So today we celebrate the “coming” of the Spirit.

But, given the witness of Scripture, Pentecost is not the first arrival of the Holy Spirit among the believers. It is a critical moment when they saw evidence of her (and Luke says they literally heard wind!) In this moment they had undeniable evidence of the Spirit in their lives, through language, fire, sound of wind. But the Spirit was always with them, even before.

So, when I lay hands on someone’s head at their baptism and pray that they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, I’m not arrogantly claiming that until this moment this child of God wasn’t filled with the Spirit. I’m simply naming the promise, calling on the Triune God to keep that promise, and asking directly that the Holy Spirit fill and sustain this beloved one. Even though the Spirit already and always has been filling and sustaining them. Even though there was never a time they weren’t God’s child.

But there’s one more thing about the Spirit the Scriptures are clear about.

Not only is God’s Spirit moving in all everywhere, we have no control over the Spirit in any way.

Moses taught us this. The Holy Spirit is way above our pay grade. And sorry, Joshua, but no amount of indignation is going to help. The Spirit will and does move among all God’s children wherever and whenever she wants. Jesus has invited us to look for the evidence, and says we’ll be able to see it. And Pentecost reminds us that we can ask for the Spirit to come as a way of claiming the same promise and filling that happened in those first believers on this amazing day.

What we do today, and all days, is name the Spirit when we see her working, and rejoice.

We rejoice in this spectacular moment in the early Church.

We rejoice for this day when we do see the Spirit at work among us, in Elena and Lucy, and in our midst, reminding us that the world is not abandoned. That even as we see the Spirit here today, feel her breath, the joy of God in this service, we know she is moving throughout the world for healing and hope.

We rejoice in the psalmist’s promise, joining Joel, Moses, and Jesus, that, as we sang, all creatures look to God for life and sustenance and God sends forth the Spirit, and all are created anew, and the face of the earth is renewed.

And we rejoice, you rejoice, that you are never alone in this world. No one is. God’s Spirit is as near to you as your heart, as near to the world as the hearts of all God’s beloved children.

So let us pray.

Come, Holy Spirit. Even though we know you are always here, still we say, Come, Holy Spirit. Fill our hearts and lives with your strength, your courage, your joy, and give us faith, that we might be your flame of hope in the shadows of this world, until all is made new. In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen