Sermon for 8th Sunday after Trinity – “The Holy Spirit” preached at the Eucharist, Sherborne Abbey on Sunday, 21 July 2024 by The Reverend Christopher Huitson. (Ephesians Ch 2: v 11 – end; Mark Ch 6: v 30 – 34, 53 – end)
Stately homes are full of paintings of the great and the good. Have you heard the story, I wonder, about the master of the house (or maybe it was the mistress!) who said to a portrait painter “Now I want you to do me justice.” “Unfortunately,” replied the artist, “It is not justice you need but mercy.”
There is a slight legal tinge to this story and that is because the today’s epistle mentions the Holy Spirit, often described as being an advocate. St. Paul in many places in his epistles tries to aid our understanding about the Holy Spirit which is just as well because of the 3 members of the Holy Trinity the Spirit is the most difficult to grasp. Human beings tend to find the concept of the Trinity itself difficult and often pick out two out of three and give them greater emphasis. So it is God and Jesus who might be stressed; or God and the Spirit; or Jesus and the Spirit. St. Paul himself writes both of the Spirit of God and also the Spirit of Jesus Christ. So we wrestle with an understanding of the Spirit for we also declare our belief in the Holy Spirit in the creed and are instructed that the Holy Spirit is a member of the Holy Trinity. We also find that the Spirit is the expression of the relationship between God and Jesus and is not an attribute restricted to one or the other.
In other places the Spirit is described as being an advocate. The Greek word is Parakletos, rendered in some of our hymns as Paraclete – not a word in common parlance. The Greek word is connected with a verb which means to call upon someone – that is to say to call upon them for help especially within a legal context. So the word is often translated as Advocate – someone who pleads the cause of anyone before a judge or someone who, as a witness, speaks up for a person and supports their version of events.
Parakletos also has a secondary derivation, (because of its basic meaning of calling on someone for help), as Comforter or Consoler – someone bestowing aid and consolation and so you will sometimes find, in our English translation of the Bible, the Spirit described as “The Comforter”.
In St. John’s gospel Jesus speaks of the Spirit as being his “witness” but the gospels do seem a little vague about who the Spirit is supporting. Sometimes it looks as though the Spirit is acting as a witness for Jesus, supporting him, showing the people the truth of his words, revealing to the people how Jesus was the Son of God. In other passages the Spirit seems to be supporting us, presenting our case, interceding for us when we find our prayers difficult and feel it is impossible for us to speak for ourselves.
But perhaps, after all, each does not exclude the other, for the truth is that our case is indeed hopeless without Jesus. It is as the truth of the sonship of Christ is made clear that our own case is established – not by our claim upon God but by being united with Christ who was justified before God. Jesus, as a member of the human race (special though he was) was raised to new life by God, and because of that we too are given the same hope. So the Spirit as Advocate pleads our cause just as he gives us life – for we are united in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Well, we have considered how the Spirit was the witness and supporter of Christ and also how we are specially united with Christ so that the Spirit acts as an Advocate for us through Jesus Christ. But in other places we are told that the Spirit gives us guidance. Those first followers of Christ certainly needed guidance. Today’s gospel tells us that Jesus “taught them many things.” The disciples of Jesus had indeed learned much from him though the time was all too short in which to study his words and ways. And then, like the good master he was, he saw that he could teach them no more by word and presence, so he turned to other matters and went and died for them, having told them of an inward teacher who would give them a different sort of instruction – by truth springing from the heart, not entering through the ear.
The spirit gave them spontaneity and new life and gave them the tools they needed to proclaim the Good News about Jesus. It must have seemed a daunting task. They had to recall accurately his words and parables. They had to speak about his life and the various events which made it so exceptional. They had to convince others who worshipped many gods and were steeped in paganism, of the reality of the resurrection and also to argue with the Jews about the relationship of Jesus with God when they had such a strong monotheistic belief that the concept of the Holy Trinity must have seemed almost blasphemous. Yet they needed a way of understanding and presenting the idea of the fatherhood of God, the sonship of Jesus and the place of the Holy Spirit in the divine order. They desperately needed the guidance of the Holy Spirit to help them.
We have a similar charge today to show the reality and point of Christian belief. The tag line of the Diocese of Salisbury is: “Making Jesus known”. It might seem that we would be in a stronger position than those first followers of Jesus for Christianity has been practised and taught over 2 millennia. You would expect most people to know about Jesus and that children would be taught about his life and learn about his parables and sayings. In reality there is great ignorance. People know very little and where quiz shows give people a choice of subjects, they normally avoid religion or the Bible like the plague. To many, the Christian message is an irrelevance. They cannot see that belief makes much difference and they reduce religion to leading a reasonably good life and being nice to others. They can easily jettison going to church or having a belief. Prayer is for emergency use only. An old and wise former churchwarden of mine used to say that there were no atheists in lifeboats! When you are desperate asking for God’s help is treated as a last resort. But our prayers are poor indeed if we only have recourse to them in desperation. We wouldn’t only talk to our fellow human beings when we needed something and our prayers should lead us in conversation with God, not just calling for help.
The New Testament binds together belief and the practice of that belief with the way we behave so that the one influences the other. St. Paul several times in his letters talks about the gifts of the Spirit. These can be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness, and self-control. So our behaviour should be a witness to our belief and faith. And we should try to behave in such ways not out of fear, not to secure a place in heaven, not to bump up our heavenly credit but out of love and gratitude to our loving heavenly father whose command it is that we should love one another. Then our picture will indeed do us justice.