No one in this world is an orphan: the Triune God’s love includes the whole world, all people, all things, and the Spirit of God is moving and breathing in all, for life and wholeness.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Sixth Sunday of Easter, year A
Texts: Acts 17:22-31; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21 (also John 3, John 12, and Romans 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
You are not alone in this world, no matter how frightening or lonely it feels.
That’s Jesus’ promise. The women and men who followed Jesus experienced God’s presence, God’s love, God’s teaching, God’s touch, God’s blessing with Jesus constantly.
And now, as he prepares them for his leaving, he says, “I won’t leave you orphaned. I will ask the Father, who will give you another Advocate, the Spirit of truth, to be with you forever.”
That’s your promise, too. And as Paul told his Romans, your Advocate the Spirit lives in your heart and joins your heart to God’s heart. Even praying for you when you can’t.
God’s Spirit abides with you, Jesus says, and will be in you. Forever.
But is Jesus excluding some from this gift?
He says something troubling amidst this promise of a divine Advocate, that “the world” can’t receive the Spirit of God, because “the world” neither sees her nor knows her.
But this is the same “world,” “cosmos,” that Jesus declared in John 3 was so profoundly loved by God that God came in the person of the Son, not to judge but to save, to heal. To bring all back to God.
Is Jesus changing that promise now? Does he not envision the gift of God’s Spirit to all God’s children in this “world” God loves so much? Are some to be left out?
And if the presence of the Spirit depends on whether you know or see the Spirit, can even you and I trust the promise?
See, that’s the problem, isn’t it?
On any given day you, or I, might not experience the Spirit, know or see the Spirit. Moments, times, even, when we aren’t sure God’s Spirit is with us. When we don’t feel the fire of God’s love and grace within. If Jesus is saying you only get God’s Spirit when you can see and know the Spirit, it’s not a promise of forever presence. It’s limited by your own challenges of faith. If having God’s Spirit depends on my perception of God with me, on the strength of my faith in any particular moment, then I have no chance. I don’t have that constancy.
But given everything else Jesus teaches and lives in the Gospels, the idea that some are just not given God’s Spirit makes no sense. “God so loved the ‘world,’ ” Jesus said. “When I am lifted up on the cross I will draw all people, all things to myself,” Jesus said.
And thank goodness Paul was listening.
Luke’s story of Paul in Athens is a ray of grace to every child of God on earth.
Paul’s doing the tourist thing, wandering through this cosmopolitan, pan-religious city and admiring what he sees. Including all the temples and altars to all the various divinities the Athenians worshipped. Including an altar to “an unknown god.”
So when he speaks to them he mentions their many altars and praises them for being so religious. Then he talks of this unknown god, who is the God of the universe Paul knows and proclaims, who came in Christ Jesus, taught, lived, loved, died, and rose from the dead.
But then Paul quotes from two of their Greek philosophers, one of whom said, “in God we live and move and have our being,” and another who said, “we are the offspring of God.”
And Paul says, exactly. This God whose love is known in Christ is the same God at the beginning of all time, who made the ancestors of everyone on this world. Who is the God of all. There are no orphans, anywhere. All are children of this unknown God, who is now made known in Christ Jesus.
And, Paul says, this God hopes that everyone finds God somehow, even if they have to “fumble about” to do it. But whether or not they find God, everyone belongs in God’s love.
So basically Paul says that Jesus was right in John 3 and John 12, and Jesus means it: the Triune God’s love is for the whole “world,” all God’s children.
Full stop. No exclusions.
And Jesus also is clear, by the way, that just because on any given day you can’t know or see the Spirit, it doesn’t mean the Spirit isn’t there. In John 3 he told Nicodemus that the Spirit is like the wind. You can’t see wind but you can see where it’s been. So you can see the Spirit by signs of where she’s been. But think of wind: it’s just air. And sometimes you can’t feel a single breeze. But you are still breathing that air.
So for you, and for all, this is the promise: no one is left orphaned by God. God’s love and God’s Spirit are for all and in all, forever.
And Christ would love for you and me to imitate Paul.
It’s what Peter’s talking about today, too. He says, “Always be ready to make a defense of your trust in God when someone asks you about your faith, but do it with gentleness and respect.” Paul couldn’t have been more respectful and gentle with the Athenians. He didn’t harangue them as pagans who didn’t know anything. He praised their faith, their religiousness, and he noticed something in their faith that gave him a way into a conversation about his trust in Christ for life.
That’s your call. To live in such a way, in the first place, that some other person might actually notice your love and grace and your trust in God and ask you “what’s that all about?”
And then to gently, respectfully, listen to them. Notice them. And find a way to share what you know about God’s love for them and for the world.
You are not alone in this world, no matter how frightening or lonely it feels.
No one is. There are no orphans in God’s love. No people you can safely put outside God’s care. No enemies you can confidently trust are not in God’s embracing, loving arms.
So go from here confident that God’s Spirit is yours and is always with you. Even when, especially when, you can’t see or know her. When the air doesn’t seem to be moving.
And then find a way to let others know they’re not alone, either. Then you’ll be the blessing God has always known you could be for the healing of this world.
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
