First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: I John 4:13-16, Romans 8:26-27, Galatians 5:22-26
Several years ago, I preached a sermon from this pulpit entitled “Confessions of a Reluctant Hugger.” In it, I identified a pair of competing needs that most of us have, naming them (for purposes of recall) “skin hunger” and “space hunger.” Simply put, there are times when we have a very strong need to be touched. And there are times when we need everyone to remain at arm’s length. Now comes anthropologist Edward T. Hall, with the results of his pioneering study on “The Effects of Distance in Relationships.” He suggests each of us operates in four zones, but may differ as to how comfortable we are in each.
The first is the “Public Zone.” This is the distance at which preachers, teachers and other lecturers stand in relation to their audience. The public zone is in effect when there is a distance of 12 feet (or more) between speaker and listener. Which explains why the front row (directly in front of the pulpit) is the hardest pew for ushers to fill….even when the sanctuary is crowded to the point of overflowing.
Next is the “Social Zone.” This is the distance we want to stand apart from each other in normal, small group conversation. Meetings and interviews occur in the social zone, where the comfortable distance ranges from 4 to 12 feet.
The “Personal Zone” is the distance we define when we come within normal touching range of another individual. This zone ranges from 18 inches (on the narrow side) to 4 feet (on the wide side). People often protect their personal zones by placing handbags, coats or other barriers between themselves and others. One problem with going to a college football game….especially at the University of Michigan….is that one’s personal zone is breached by total strangers, given the miniscule number of inches allocated to each $35 seat. And it also explains why some of you feel uncomfortable on Easter Sunday, when the ushers try to pile the maximum number of bodies into each and every pew. I am convinced that one reason some of you will do anything possible to maintain your seat on the aisle has nothing to do with your desire to make a quick exit, so much as your desire to keep at least one side free from “space invaders.”
Finally, we have the “Intimate Zone” which is the distance we use for embracing. Most of us allow no one but family members and very close friends into this zone. For most North Americans and Western Europeans, any invasion by strangers into the intimate zone causes irritation, anxiety or fear. We don’t like being crowded. And all of us know at least one individual who, quite uninvited, regularly violates our space.
In a similar vein, there are as many different degrees of “knowing” as there are of “touching.” We know someone by reputation. We know someone else by report. We know people through mutual acquaintances. Or by formal introduction. Sometimes we presume too much knowledge, saying, “Oh, I know you” or “Of course we know each other,” when what we mean is: “I think we were introduced at a wedding reception back in September (or was it October) of ’94.”
We know faces. We know names. And, if we’re lucky, we know which goes with which. We know family members, who we address with tender titles like “Mom,” “Dad,” “Sis” or “Grandpop.” And we know friends, who we feel comfortable calling by their first names, like “Ricky,” “Lucy,” “Fred” and “Ethel.” Yet there is often one who we know with an intimacy that exceeds all others, for it is a “knowing” that involves body as well as mind.
I think I was a fifth grade Sunday school student at old Westlawn Church in Detroit when the teacher read (from the book of Genesis): “And Adam knew Eve, his wife….” At which point Tommy Teeter elbowed me in the ribs and said (in a stage whisper, loud enough for all but the teacher to hear): “You know what that means, don’t you, Ritter?” Which I did. Except I didn’t want the teacher to know I did. And for years after that, any time a girl’s name would come up in conversation (and some guy would say that he knew her), someone else would be sure to add: “You mean in the biblical sense?” I suppose it was a good thing our Sunday school teachers never knew of our ability to twist and abuse God’s holy word in such spurious ways.
But, as you will note from our fall campaign literature (which is hanging from banners, printed on decals, and replicated in free-flowing script that will be increasingly hard to avoid before November 14), we are encouraged to “know the Spirit,” with the implication being that one is encouraged to “know” the Spirit in the biblical sense….as an intimate insider (rather than as an intellectual observer).
Whatever else this sermon is, it is not a theological treatment of the work of the Holy Spirit. I’ve done that. Neither is it an answer to the institutional question: “How do you measure a Spirit filled church?” I’ve done that, too. Instead, this is about the Spirit of God, alive in you…. living….breathing….supporting….sustaining….sighing….wrestling….goading….directing.
Which is something, I believe, that can be known and named. Some years ago, the United Methodist Church attempted to rally the troops around a campaign entitled “Catch the Spirit.” It had a nice ring to it. And it had a million dollar ad campaign underneath it. But it never really caught on. And I think I know why. It had nothing to do with the word “Spirit.” But it had everything to do with the word “catch.” For it implied that the Spirit was….in reference to the self….both elsewhere and external. The Spirit was either somewhere you weren’t, or something you weren’t. Meaning that you had to find it….snatch it….grab it….capture it. And failing to do any of the above, we had to drum it into you.
I have been to a lot of football games in my life where I felt downright sorry for the cheerleaders. I mean, there they were, dancing on their feet, windmilling their arms and screaming out their lungs. And there we were, sitting like “bleacher potatoes,” with our arms folded, tongues stilled and posteriors parked….glaring at them (as if to say): “Just try and make me feel it, or shout it.” To be sure, I’ve been in the bleachers when it all came together and we all came to our feet. But, more often than not, I’ve been there when it didn’t. And we didn’t.
As a kid, there were things I would have given my eye teeth to catch….like screaming line drives hit directly over my head. And there were things I would have given my eye teeth to avoid catching…. like the measles that were going around my school or the intestinal flu that was running through my family.
Is God’s Holy Spirit like that….something that I’ve got to run from when I don’t want it, or run toward when I do? If so, what would it take to catch it? Would a better glove help? A deeper net? A bigger basket? An antenna in my yard? A “dish” on my rooftop? My problem, you see, is with the word “catch.” It puts the Spirit in a dodging and elusive light….like a firefly, and me with a mason jar.
I know that scripture contributes to this perception….especially when Jesus says to Nicodemus (concerning the Spirit): “It’s hard to pin down, Nick. It blows where it will.” Which I take as a warning against locking in too early….with too much rigidity….on too much certainty. What Jesus was trying to do for Nicodemus was light a fire under an old man who was saying (in effect) that he’d seen it all, done it all, and knew it all. Where such is the case….as with many churches I know….the blowing of the Spirit can sometimes lead to “a whole lot of shakin’ goin’ on.”
But the more I read about the Holy Spirit, it would seem that the Spirit is not something to catch, so much as someone to know….intimately (as I said earlier), as “in the biblical sense.” Notice that I did not say “ecstatically” (although Pentecostals tend to read it that way). I said “intimately.” And don’t be afraid of that word. Let me remind you of what you just sang, mere moments ago.
Teach me to love thee as thine angels love,
One Holy passion filling all my frame,
The kindling of the heaven-descended Dove,
My heart an altar, and thy love the flame.
I don’t want to push this too far. Neither do I wish to precipitate a discussion of the Holy Spirit’s gender. But, throughout the history of the church, there have been those who have viewed the Holy Spirit as feminine….the softer “yin” to the Creator’s “yang.” I really don’t know about that. But, as a guy, it is sometimes tantalizing to think of the Holy Spirit as a female who has been a part of your life for a long time….seemingly forever….whose presence is always assumed, but seldom courted. The one who loved us, long before we ever thought to love her.
Now there’s a lot wrong with that metaphor, given that it won’t solve every puzzle or fit every life. But before you discard it outright, notice how many times the word “indwelling” appears with the word “Spirit”….as in “been there all along, doing whatever it takes, for as long as it takes.” To accomplish what? To create passion….and to establish a connection between creator and created (or between God and his own). As I John says: “By this, we know that we abide in God, and He in us, because he has given us of his own Spirit.” Which merely builds on what Paul said to the church in Rome (3:24) when he wrote: “When we cry Abba Father (“Abba” literally meaning “Daddy”), it is the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”
If there is any reason for God to be confident that He will one day have his way with us….and looking at it from my perspective, I can’t figure out why God didn’t go to be treated for depression years ago….God’s confidence (I think) rests solely in this. God has an agent working undercover….on the inside….who regards no case as hopeless, and no mission as impossible.
People sometimes say to me: “So you think there’s hope for me yet?” To which sheer honesty would lead me to answer: “By my reckoning, no.” But I never say that. Not simply because I am polite. But because things don’t rest on my reckoning. My evaluation is not the last word on your prospects. The elevator of my hope does not always go all the way to your basement. But God’s does. And when the doors open on the bottom floor, I think it is the Holy Spirit who gets on….not off. In fact, it is probably the Holy Spirit who called for the elevator in the first place. For the Spirit has been down there all along….doing subterranean work.
Don’t ask me to describe the work. Only you can do that. Sometimes the Holy Spirit works nights, moonlighting as a world class wrestler….Hulk Hogan in heavenly haberdashery. I have known people who the Holy Spirit has taken to the mat. And pinned….till they cried, “Uncle.” Or till they cried, “Bless me.” Or till they just plain cried. When you find yourself moved to tears about the plight of your life, the people of your life, or the pure unadulterated pleasure of your life, look for the Spirit.
I resonate to the image of the Holy Spirit as a world class wrestler. I was recently talking with a fellow who is trying to come to terms with the faith intellectually. He wants it to make sense in his head. But when he talks about religious ideas, his arms move. He looks like somebody who is sparring and circling….making and breaking wrestling holds. What’s that all about? Could it be the Spirit?
Sometimes the Spirit works days as a translator. A couple weeks back, an 83-year-old man called me up and asked me to come see him. He said he had something important to discuss with me. When I got to his room, he dismissed his caregiver. Then, without even a moment’s worth of small talk, he said: “Bill, I can’t pray. It’s all blocked up. I try, but nothing comes.” I didn’t comment on his imagery. I knew what he was saying. I asked him if he didn’t think God would look upon his sending for me as an act of prayerful longing. But that idea didn’t compute. So I reminded him of Paul’s word (again, to the Romans): “That the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For when we cannot pray as we want or ought, the Spirit steps in and sighs on our behalf, too deep for words.” Meaning that when you can’t even voice a prayer, the Spirit says: “I’ll take over and make some sounds that God will be able to understand.”
And sometimes the Spirit is like a cat burglar, casing the basement of your soul, having gained entry through the only window you forgot to lock before nightfall. Then the Spirit goes to work, nudging you toward something you need to do….someone you need to see….or some door you need to walk through.
One of the reasons I am in this line of work is because a bunch of elderly ladies (in my boyhood church) kept saying to me: “I bet you’re going to be a minister someday.” And the reason they kept saying that is because every time they were at the church, I was at the church. And they figured the only reason some kid would behave in such a delightful….albeit abnormal….way, is because God had fingered him. Early on. Eventually, I figured they knew something I didn’t.
But the first time I told this to the Board of Ministry examiners (that a bunch of little old ladies had called me to preach), fifty percent of the clergy at the table said: “That can’t be a call to ministry.” While the other fifty percent said: “Oh, yes it can.” So for the next several minutes, I simply sat back and let them go at each other. The bottom line is, I’m here. In part, because that old cat burglar of a Spirit found a weak point in my adolescent resistance….little old ladies.
I don’t know how it is for you. But if I get you alone in my office….and get you talking about what’s really going on in your life….we’ll find the Spirit’s disguise. And we’ll uncover the Spirit’s work. I just know we will. Then I’ll tell you to go with it….move with it….dance and swing with it….ebb and flow with it….anything but deny it….or sit on it. For, as our other campaign text says: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”
I suppose it is possible that, to some folks, at some times….especially when they are frenzied, frazzled and flying about with no focus, no anchor and no strength….the Spirit may indeed say: “There, there now. Calm down. Cool off. Take your ease. Make some tea. Settle and sit. Let go. Let somebody else. Let God.” Yes, the Spirit may say that. But I would be one surprised preacher if that were the last word the Spirit had to say. Really surprised if that would be the last word the Spirit had to say.
I remember reading about the Rolls Royce Company at the time they were said to make, without equivocation, the world’s best motor car. In that article, someone actually asked the president if any of his cars ever broke down. To which he replied: “My dear man, a Rolls Royce never breaks down….although it may temporarily fail to proceed.”
My friends, I think I know you well enough to know that few of you are broken down. But I also know you well enough to know that many of you are failing to proceed. About which there is relatively little I can do. Except to help you discern the Spirit in your life….by asking questions, issuing challenges, opening windows, opening wounds, and then giving you avenues by which to express whatever God is laying on your heart to do. For God’s work at Birmingham First is taking place in you. I’m just here to steer the ship. But I can’t begin to tell you where all the power is coming from.
A guy stopped by my office this Friday afternoon. He told me he had a joke for me. It concerned the pastor who stood before his congregation and said: “Concerning the fall campaign, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that this church has more money than it knows what to do with. The bad news is, it’s in your pockets.” To which I said: “So, what’s the joke?”
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Know the Spirit. Keep the Promise.
