Sermons

Spirituality and the Wild Goose

John Wilkinson                                 Third Presbyterian Church  October 24, 2004                           Acts 2:1-4; John 14:15-17

It is no secret that arts are an important component of faith, and that, despite Protestant efforts over the centuries to divorce faith and the arts, the conversation continues and is, in fact, enhanced. Music, painting, sculpture, poetry, literature, drama, film—all somehow demonstrating humanity’s creative potential and therefore somehow bringing us closer to who God is.

We seek to remember that from time to time at Third Church. Every once in a while, we cluster some things and we call it ArtReach. We will conclude this year’s ArtReach this afternoon with a fabulous pipe band Faedan Or, Scottish musician Jim Malcolm and our very own Chancel Choir.

The focus this year is on Scotland, land of kilts and haggis, for a variety of reasons. It is the land of our spiritual and theological heritage, but it is more than that. There are foundations of faith that have been present in Scotland, in Ireland and Wales, for many centuries, that we are re-discovering after a long season of rejection. The broad rubric is a term I am not always comfortable with, “SPIRITUALITY,” and the more focused rubric is “CELTIC SPIRITUALITY.” We will experience a bit of it this morning through the music and liturgy of the Iona Community. But it is more than that.

Spirituality. Things of the Spirit – ours and presumably God’s. We decent and in order Presbyterians don’t quite know what to do with the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity.

Belief and trust in the Spirit is a core conviction of our theological identity. Every theological affirmation the church has ever made has been hung on a Trinitarian framework with vital energy devoted to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. And yet we are not so sure. We don’t know much what to do with this. Everything the Spirit suggests—chaos, disorder, spontaneity—we don’t much care for.

I don’t have many ecclesiastical jokes, but I am reminded of one this morning, with apologies if you’ve already heard it. There is an old story that goes something like this. A woman wandered into a Presbyterian church on a Sunday morning. She sat down in a pew and joined in the service. Everything was going along according to the order prescribed in the bulletin: hymns, prayer, readings. When the minister stood up in the pulpit and began to preach, however, the woman suddenly became very animated and vocally responsive. “Yes,” she said out loud, when she heard a point she appreciated. “That’s true.” “Preach it.” A little more animation, a little more volume. People began to squirm uneasily; some turned in their pews to see who was doing this extraordinary thing. “Amen,” she shouted. “Amen.” Finally, an usher very discreetly approached her and whispered “Ma’am, is there something wrong? Can I help you? Is everything all right?” “Oh, I’m fine,“ the woman replied. “I’ve got the spirit.” The usher thought about it for a moment, and then replied, “Well, ma’am, that may be true, but you didn’t get it here.”

And yet. Despite the perplexing nature of the conversation, we know that something is happening. It is cultural and social, and it is certainly religious. Scan the shelves at Borders and Barnes and Noble and you will discover that spirituality is a growth market. Things of the spirit—from bad syndicated TV to books to websites—are consuming our focus and energy and dollars.

Something is happening. Augustine once said that “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee,” so we are not experiencing restless hearts, hungry hearts, searching hearts. Something called “spirituality” is busting out all over the place, with categories and subsets—Eastern mysticism, new age, Native American, asceticism, and, as we have suggested, something called Celtic spirituality.

Like many things, a definition of spirituality is elusive and difficult, and a precise definition may not be all that helpful. Allow me to give one definition, however, in the context of the Christian life, in the context of the life of faith, about what spirituality is not. It is not about the self. And Christian spirituality is not about the self in two distinct ways. It is not about the self in that it is about God. And it is not about the self in that it is about community.

Much of what resides on the shelves at popularwould drive people inward, to themselves, away from God, away from others, away from community formed and shaped by the Spirit of God. Spirituality is about a journey, certainly, about a quest and call. But the destination is never about ourselves, but to God, and to others.

Whole new sets of behaviors—spiritual exercises, spiritual disciplines—are emerging, or rather re-emerging. Silent meditation. Certain ways of reading scripture. A new awareness of nature and the created order. New forms of music. Silence. All have been important contributions in the last several decades, and we are called to be attentive to the voice of the spirit moving in these new ways. Yet like any practice, these very things can drive us deeper into ourselves, away from our true self, away from others, away from God. It is such an important conversation, and we have so much to learn and experience. It is not a new journey.

At the most recent meeting of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church, we spent an extensive amount of time exploring the Spirit. Perhaps the Spirit is saying something to the church, we wondered, if we would have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. We discovered that as much as the New Testament is about Jesus, it is about the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, doing all sorts of things in the life of the church and the world.

We heard again the story of Pentecost, as we have done this morning, and were reminded that at times the Spirit brings chaos when we would seek order. We encountered the Spirit through the Apostle Paul, and were reminded that the Spirit gives gifts when we would only see limitations.

And we heard Jesus speaking to his followers in the Gospel of John. We were reminded that in John’s Gospel, the disciples are anxious for their future. They are, according to Raymond Brown, not unlike little children whose parents are going out for the evening, and who have secured the services of a babysitter. Do these questions sound familiar, asked by children to parents and by disciples to Jesus?

“Where are you going?”
“Can I go with you?”
“Who will watch us when you are gone?”
“When are you coming back?”

And Jesus says I am going to God and you cannot yet go. I will come back at some point. But in the meantime, I will send my Spirit to be with you. My spirit, who will care for you. The Greek word is paraclete, and in some ways it is a word better left un-translated. Paraclete. Advocate. Counselor.

All aspects of that portion of God’s mystery that brings order to chaos and chaos when there is too much order, that brings comfort when there is affliction and a touch of affliction when there is too much comfort, that brings wisdom, guidance, inspiration, encouragement. Part of the great quest, the right quest, is the quest for this Spirit, who is with us always, as Jesus promised, and never away from us, but whose presence is hidden from us in some way or the other because we refuse to look or are unable to look in some way.

Spirituality then for us might be this: the search for the Spirit, the openness to the Spirit’s search for us, the re-discovery of the spirit, that we might know more deeply who God is in Jesus Christ, and who God calls us to be, desires us to be, intends us to be.

That journey is happening in many new and exciting ways, in many places. One such way is through something called “Celtic spirituality” and one such place is the Iona Community in Scotland.

Scottish theologian Philip Newell writes of distinguishing characters of Celtic spirituality. The first is the “Celtic belief that what is deepest in us is the image of God.” Newell writes that “the belief that what is deepest in us in the image of God has a number of radically important implications for our spirituality. It is to say that the wisdom of God is deeper in our souls than the ignorance of what we have become. It is to say that the beauty of God is truer to our depths than the ugliness of what we have done. It is to say that the creativity of God and the passion of God for what is just and right is deeper than any barrenness of apathy in our life. And above all else, it is to say that love, the desire to love and the desire to be loved, is at the very centre of the mystery of our being, deeper than any fear of hatred that may hold us hostage.” (“Listening to the Heartbeat of God”) And then Newell adds that Celtic spirituality insists that creation is essentially good. That rather than looking for God away from creation, we look for God “deep within all that has been created.”

One of the places that that search for God, within the self and within creation, has been nurtured, has been on the island of Iona and through the Iona Community. Iona is a small island off the west coast of Scotland. In 563 a man named Columba founded a Celtic monastery there. In the middles ages it was the site of a Benedictine monastery. In 1938, a Church of Scotland minister from Glasgow named George MacLeod founded the Iona Community, that rebuilt the monastic quarters on the island and began a mission and ministry throughout Scotland and beyond.

Today the community’s goals resonate with us: to rebuild the common life, through working for social and political change, striving for the renewal of the church with an ecumenical emphasis, and exploring new, more inclusive approaches to worship, all based on an integrated understanding of spirituality.

Members of the community, about 250, and associates and friends worldwide, pray daily and read the Bible, are mutually accountable for the use of their time and money, and reflect and act on issues of justice, peace, and the integrity of creation.

It is this notion of an integrated spirituality, of work and worship, prayers and politics, sacred and secular, that has captured my imagination and many imaginations. Former Iona leader Norman Shanks writes that “People are looking for God, or, perhaps more accurately, responding to God’s reaching out to them… God’s prompting within them… a hunger and thirst for substance and a sense of significance.” Celtic spirituality, Shanks writes, is not about escape, but about engagement, engagement with God, engagement with community, integrating and connecting all of the aspects of life.

The Iona Community, in what perhaps might be a model for the community called Third Presbyterian Church, seeks to demonstrate a consistency of purpose in living out the faith, an integration of prayer and politics, of work and worship, a refusal to compartmentalize life into… separate ”spiritual” and “secular” aspects, because, as George MacLeod once said, God’s spirit permeates “every blessed thing.”(See Norman Sharks, Iona: God’s Energy).

Philip Newell writes that one of the favorite images in the Celtic tradition comes from the Last Supper account in the Gospel of John. The beloved disciple leans against Jesus, and thus, it is said in the tradition, hears the heartbeat of God.

Perhaps that can become even an image for us—“listening within life for the beat of God’s presence, listening within every moment and listening within ourselves and all things for the beat without which there would be no life.” Listening for the one who calls our name, you me, that we would never be the same. Amen.

P.S. About that Wild Goose! It’s the Celtic symbol for the Holy Spirit, adopted by the Iona community. Sometimes you chase it. Sometimes it chases you. Either way, it’s a divinely inspired experience, infused with the chaos and presence of the Spirit.