Sermon on First Sunday after Epiphany: What are we to do with the Holy Spirit?
Over a week into the new year and so much is still so wrong. Keeping us from gathering together in person is still the plague, the pandemic of COVID-19. That virus remains undefeated into its second year of existence, still infecting people, still catching people by surprise with so many infected people not reporting symptoms, itself still evolving into newer more contagious strains. We are relying on medical science and good public health policy to ultimately eliminate the worst of this SARS virus. How long? How long?
In the meantime, we who are not medical professionals or public policy experts live in what lives we can. And those lives, in the time before the plague, now during, and eventually after, can be centered around faith.
The scriptures today speak of our profound Christianity which gives meaning to our existence.
The first reading states how this world was created by God. The rest of the story in Genesis describes how the first humans left the perfect Garden of Eden, to be exiled in lands full of danger, pain, hard work, and death. This creation myth teaches us truth of the human condition: things are not always going to go great.
The challenge for people has always been, how we get through this vale of tears.
Our two other readings provide us with one answer: the Holy Spirit.
When Paul came to Ephesus, he wanted them to have better understanding and experience of their faith. His solution was to give them a new baptism, laying on his hands and allowing the Holy Spirit to arrive. The speaking in tongues and prophesying (and even baptism) may have been a surprise to Paul himself, given what he says about those practices elsewhere in his epistles. Yet I think that is always the case with the Holy Spirit. It’s a surprise.
The gospel reading again focuses on baptism—the insufficient kind Paul noted with the Ephesians, and the fulfilling grace when performed with Jesus. The history of the Holy Spirit involves much more than the Feast of Pentecost, toward which our liturgical year moves from Christmas, though Epiphany now, then Lent, and at lastEaster. Moving through these liturgical seasons reminds us of the historical process of the unfolding of revelation.
But because we are baptized, because we believe in Christ as our savior, because we are members of God’s church on earth, the Holy Spirit is with us.
Our challenge is to embrace what the spirit can give. Look around, look inward, look up and down, and try and see the Holy Spirit in action. She is there when you have joy. She is there when you need comfort. She inspires. She relaxes. She gives understanding and removes confusion. She sustains and entertains. She steers us away from sin and binds us with the divine.
All these things are attested by scripture and the history of the faithful through the centuries.
Where do you find the Holy Spirit working? How can you benefit from her presence? How can you help her fulfill her tasks? How long?
Written for the parish of St. James & St. George 2021 January 10
URL: <http://therev.brianpavlac.org/srms/20210110.html