It’s always
puzzled me why we pray, “Come, Holy Spirit.” Because no matter how we try to
cover it up, most of us aren’t sure we really want what the Holy Spirit offers.
Now seriously, think about what the Holy Spirit does. Life gets turned upside
down and inside out when the Holy Spirit comes. People speak with tongues as of
fire. Faith gets lit with fire and once lit is impossible to put out. Life gets
risky; just look at the disciples and what happened to most of them. So do we really want to pray for the Holy Spirit
to come?
Maybe…just
maybe… we pray for the Holy Spirit to come because we’re think we should? So we think if the Holy Spirit
would come, just once, and maybe just for a little while, say for a couple of
minutes when we’re not too busy, then life would be different. Is that really what we want?
Life
would be different. No two ways about
it: the Holy Spirit means blessing. Blessing can be exciting, but most of us,
if we’ll admit it, would rather not get too
excited. It takes too much energy and
besides, it’s too unpredictable. When
most of us pray, “Come, Holy Spirit,” what we really mean is this. Please don’t
throw your Hymnals at me, but what we really mean is “Come, Holy Spirit and let
us stay exactly the way we are but feel better about it.”
I
know it may not seem like good news, but both the Lesson from Acts and the
Gospel today point to the presence of the Holy Spirit being disorderly,
disruptive, and difficult. That is indeed good news because the Gospel tells us
that although the Spirit does not rescue us, the Spirit comes with us and
alongside us and accompanies us as we are sent out. That disorderly,
disruptive, and difficult Spirit of God gives us the strength to be sent out by
our Lord, just as the disciples were sent out. And being sent out to do God’s
work in the world can be scary and thrilling. No wonder if we were being
truthful with ourselves our prayer would most likely be some version of, “Come,
Holy Spirit and let us stay exactly the way we are but feel better about it.”
The
blessing of the Spirit is hard. It makes most of us nervous. It means we have
to give up our easy complacent ways. We can no longer say, “I’ve never done
that before,” or “I don’t know that person,” or, “We’ve never done that
before.” There are ways to make it easier, but at some point we have to say,
“Come, Holy Spirit,” and mean it. We have to say it and mean it if we want to
see it, hear it, and experience it.
And
yes, there really is good news. The Holy Spirit we celebrate on the Feast of
Pentecost, the same Holy Spirit who came to the disciples gathered on the first
Christian Pentecost, can be disorderly, disruptive, and difficult. But this is
the same Holy Spirit who gives us companionship, courage, confidence, and
comfort. This is the same Holy Spirit who guides and guards, who shines light
in dark places and breathes new life into dead bones. This is the same Holy
Spirit who prays for us when we are too tired, too sad, and too bewildered to
pray ourselves. This is the same Holy Spirit who will encourage us to be
disorderly, difficult, and disruptive in the name of Christ. And, it is the
same Holy Spirit who will shake us up from time to time if we get complacent.
The
same Holy Spirit who comes to us and stirs us up by being disorderly,
disruptive, and difficult holds out to us the promise of companionship, of courage,
of confidence, and comfort. So what do we really want to pray? Let’s be honest.
Do we really want to pray, “Come, Holy Spirit and let us stay exactly the way
we are but feel better about it.” Or are we brave enough to pray, “Come, Holy
Spirit, Come,” and mean it? AMEN.
The Rev Nicolette Papanek
©2017
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