This week's sermon in advance...

Pentecost Sunday 2007

Not far from here just north of Westby is a coulee once owned by Ervin Lotz. In its past the soil had yielded tobacco and the remnants of an old tobacco shed stood in a kind of dilapidated grandeur, a reminder of what had once been where the road met the valley floor.

My father and I came to the Lotz farm many times in the summers of my childhood. Long abandoned for agricultural use the coulee had become a wild vista as prairie plants began to reclaim the land. We came to build a bible camp and in the early years we lived in tents with rotating work crews as the buildings slowly arose and the valley wild was claimed as sacred space, our Plymouth brethren equivalent of monastic seclusion if only for a week or two.

Yet however the valley was transformed the hills remained untamed. Only a few trails penetrated their mystery and only young boys with time on their hands and the will to take on the slope routinely explored the terrain. The hills were pocketed with crevices and caves and from their side flowed small trickles of water, decades and even centuries, old purified by the journey from the sky through the rock and into the sunlight.

When the work was done but the sun still warm I clearly recall dipping my hands into some small rivulet and drinking water as clear as glass and refrigerator cold. And from those springs in the hills came the camp’s eventual name, Living Waters.

Jesus choice of the image of living water, flowing freely and without reserve as a picture of the Holy Spirit in the life of his disciples was deliberate. In a land that would be considered perpetually in drought by our standards water was a precious thing, wells were fought over in pitched battles, and life itself was tied to whatever water was to be had.

What could be more precious in a dry land then ever flowing water? And what is more precious to a thirsty soul than the life giving presence of the Holy Spirit flowing in and through and out of it? Its the primal hunger of humanity and nothing with which we can fill our lives, no matter how good, can ever satisfy in the same way because we were designed to live with God and will always be parched of soul in His absence.

And yet its probably true that many, perhaps most of us who hear these words of jesus would not describe our life, our faith, our Christian path, as being like a bubbling fountain of cool water flowing from the depths of our soul. Some of us may have had moments where this was the case but most will sadly live our lives with only drops of the life giving water that’s all around us if only we had the eyes to see.

The Christian life can sometimes be very difficult, nothing good always comes easy, and yet there is so much truth, so much glory, so much peace, so much power, and so much joy to be had as well. Those who catch even a glimpse of the great grace given us cannot help but be transformed and for those who walk in it the difference between heaven and earth is often small.

But where, and how do we find this water, this life of the Holy Spirit so that it may flow in, through, and from us and quench the deepest thirsts of our soul?

Some would point to movements and revivals and there is some substance to that. God does move in and through his people as he providentially directs and people’s hearts, grown cold and dry, are refreshed again and renewed. Too often, though, what is identified as revival is simply emotion. While emotion does have a place in our faith (we Orthodox celebrate the cleansing tears of repentance and shout for joy at Pascha) when it becomes the substance of our vision it becomes shallow and because it is shallow, addictive.

Too often we value the Liturgy, or the sermon, or whatever we do in the church solely on the basis of how it satisfies an immediate emotional need. When it feels right to us it must be God, or at least good, but the effect is often short lived and we are quickly hungry for more. There are millions of Christians who’s whole life is a pilgrimage from one experience to another. When the high wears off they scrounge, like addicts do, for more of the same and without it they go into withdrawl. Only a very deep and unsatisfied hunger for good things could drive a normal person from place to place measuring their faith by the depth of the catharasis at the altar call or whether they dropped to the floor under the spell of the man in the spotlight.

But there is something better for us than a moment in the emotional sun. Something greater than throwing a gallon of gasoline, as it were, in our spiritual fireplace once a Sunday and hoping the fire will stay lit for the whole week. There is water for us, cool, steady, and always flowing, the presence of the Holy Spirit inside us and satisfying every true need.

We were given this Holy Spirit in our baptism and chrismation. We continue the original practice of the Christian faith in baptizing and then by anointing giving, in a mystical way, the living presence of the Holy spirit to the one who receives it, even as a child. Despite our humbleness and the sinfulness of every Priest, myself the first, God in mercy really does, motivated by a transcending love, come and dwell in us.

But the gift, like any gift, must be cared for and used for the full value of it to be experienced and understood. One may purchase an amazing automobile but the fullness of it is missing if it never leaves the garage and a garden untended soon becomes weeds. A great Orthodox saint described the Christian life as the acquisition of the Holy Spirit and that implies a certain responsibility on the part of those who receive Him to take positive action to release the presence and work and glory of His place in our lives.

We, being good Americans, would like this all to happen in a big bang, a quick fix, a moment when we are transformed. We’d like something great to happen, something that shakes us to the core and leaves us without doubt, without struggle, and without having to change. But the truth is often less immediately exciting.

Some people really do have profound moments when they encounter God and their whole life is transformed in ways we would describe as miraculous. But like Christ who came to us humbly as a child in a non descript village and used mundane things like bread and wine and fish and simple stories to transform the world so it is with us. The life giving water of the Holy Spirit within us most often bubbles through us in the day to day things, the prayers we say, the worship we offer, the acts of righteousness we do, and the generosity we show. While we are always open to God moving in and among us in ways that take our breath away the truth is that the less spectacular things, the everyday faithfulness of our lives, is what most often releases the living water of the Holy Spirit within us and our church. Pentecost was the birthday of the Church but the everyday surrender of the lives of the faithful to God was the spring of water, cool, and refrigerator cold, that still touches our lives today and bids the thirsty come and be refreshed.

And that is the invitation of this day, not the hunt for some great moment but rather the quiet opening our hearts, our lives, our parish, and this community to the cleansing, refreshing water of the Holy Spirit. This is life for us, and for the world, without it we can do nothing and with it all things are possible.