The Holy Spirit - Gifts Or Emotionalism?
Sermon
This year, we've been running Alpha courses for the first time in our group of parishes. Alpha is a course designed for non-churchgoers and teaches the basics of Christianity in about ten sessions. It's very much a "people-driven" course, for although a teaching video is shown at each session, this is followed by discussion. The video is just a starting point, and the discussion often wanders way off topic, onto those questions which particularly interest people. So the discussion always follows the direction decided by the people in the group. Both for the group members and for those who are leading the group, it's very stimulating and exciting to hear completely differing points of view.
Alpha usually goes down well, and people enjoy it. It starts with a meal and it's relaxed and friendly and fun, and most people keep coming once they've started. In fact, a lot of people can't wait for the next week!
But there's one part of Alpha which can be tricky, and which can lead to all sorts of problems, unless it's handled very carefully. It's the Holy Spirit weekend. It starts with videos which teach about the Holy Spirit, then during a time of worship, the Holy Spirit is invited to come into the hearts and lives of those who wish to receive the God within.
People can easily be frightened of this, and Church people are sometimes horrified by it, perhaps because the gifts of the Spirit as listed in today's epistle reading from St Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, are known as charismata, from whence the charismatic movement gets its name. Charismatic Christians are those who claim to have at least some of the gifts of the Spirit, and those gifts may be somewhat outside usual Christian experience. And anything outside ordinary experience can be scary.
There's another problem too. In the past, some charismatic Christians have sometimes been guilty of a certain arrogance. Because they have received and practise the gifts of the Spirit, they're sometimes inclined to believe that these gifts somehow make them into better Christians than those who haven't received or don't practise any of the gifts. But this is complete nonsense, and one of the reasons why Paul writes to the Corinthians about the gifts is because that's exactly what happened in the Corinthian church. Those who had the gifts despised those who didn't, and tried to claim that to be a "proper" Christian, you must have certain supernatural gifts.
Paul was at pains to point out how wrong they were, and goes on to explain that the Spirit gives many different gifts, only some of which might be termed supernatural gifts. Later in this same chapter (v. 28) he talks about the gift of helping others, and the gift of administration and the gift of teaching. All of these, he says, are gifts of the Holy Spirit, and all gifts whatever they may be are given for the purpose of building up the Church, the people of God.
The Christian Church began two thousand years ago, after the death of Jesus. And it began when a number of friends and followers of Jesus suddenly and unexpectedly received certain amazing charismatic gifts. We heard the story today of how a number of them were gathered together when suddenly there was such a terrific wind that the noise brought people out of their houses into the street to see what was going on. But this particular wind wasn't doing any damage, because it was a manifestation of God's presence.
Wind or breeze has always been associated with God's Holy Spirit. Right at the beginning of Creation, God's breath hovered over the blackness, the void that was the universe, and when God spoke, different things were created. When the prophet Elijah was hiding from God in a cave, there was a mighty wind denoting God's presence, and the wind was followed by fire, another clear indication of the presence of God.
Moses discovered God through the fire of the burning bush, and God led his people in the wilderness at night by fire which they followed. And here again in the New Testament at Pentecost, the wind is followed by fire, this time hovering over the head of every person in the room and so indicating that each one of them was being touched by God.
The most obvious result of that touch was that they all received the gift of speaking in tongues. That is, they were able to speak in some language other than their own, and were heard and understood by those who happened to be listening. We tend to assume that they spoke in the language of some different country, and a list is given of all those foreigners who heard and understood what was being said. But I wonder whether they actually spoke in some kind of spiritual language, but that the listeners too received something of the Holy Spirit, and were able to interpret what was said so easily that it was just as if the disciples were speaking in their own language. My reason for thinking that this might have been the case is because some people accused the disciples of being drunk, so clearly those people were unable to understand a single word, and it all sounded like gobbledegook to them. There's a very clear difference between hearing a foreign language and hearing gobbledegook, even if you don't know the foreign language.
Speaking in tongues continues to be a gift of the Spirit today, and continues to rouse similar emotions in the listeners. Some immediately dismiss it as gobbledegook, others are deeply impressed and quite awed by it, and just a few are able to interpret it and to tell others what is being said. St Paul suggested quite forcibly that speaking in tongues should be limited to private use, as a kind of private language with which to pour out praises to God. If it was used within the Church, he said, it should only ever be used to build up the people and therefore was only appropriate if there was someone around who could interpret what was being said. It should never be used as a platform for arrogance or boasting.
The other most well-attested gift of the Spirit is the gift of healing. This was an incredibly important gift. So much so, that over the ages civilisations have gradually separated out those who have the gift of healing, and trained them specially to use their gift in the best possible way, so that we now have all kinds of health professionals and all sorts of training for them. Over the past twenty or thirty years there's also been a resurgence of interest in the medicine of our ancestors, such as acupuncture, herbalism, massage and so on, and spiritual healing as a healing process in its own right. Most churches, including our own, now offer healing services which seem to fill a great need. But there are still Church people who feel uneasy about healing.
Perhaps at this Pentecost celebration the great thing to remember is that God only ever gives good gifts to human beings. When we ask for an egg, he doesn't give us a scorpion, he gives us the biggest and richest egg we could ever imagine. If you would like to receive a special gift from God, you have only to ask him and he will overwhelm you with his goodness. That's what people discover at the Alpha Holy Spirit day. And it's the most exciting experience you'll ever have in your life.
Alpha usually goes down well, and people enjoy it. It starts with a meal and it's relaxed and friendly and fun, and most people keep coming once they've started. In fact, a lot of people can't wait for the next week!
But there's one part of Alpha which can be tricky, and which can lead to all sorts of problems, unless it's handled very carefully. It's the Holy Spirit weekend. It starts with videos which teach about the Holy Spirit, then during a time of worship, the Holy Spirit is invited to come into the hearts and lives of those who wish to receive the God within.
People can easily be frightened of this, and Church people are sometimes horrified by it, perhaps because the gifts of the Spirit as listed in today's epistle reading from St Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, are known as charismata, from whence the charismatic movement gets its name. Charismatic Christians are those who claim to have at least some of the gifts of the Spirit, and those gifts may be somewhat outside usual Christian experience. And anything outside ordinary experience can be scary.
There's another problem too. In the past, some charismatic Christians have sometimes been guilty of a certain arrogance. Because they have received and practise the gifts of the Spirit, they're sometimes inclined to believe that these gifts somehow make them into better Christians than those who haven't received or don't practise any of the gifts. But this is complete nonsense, and one of the reasons why Paul writes to the Corinthians about the gifts is because that's exactly what happened in the Corinthian church. Those who had the gifts despised those who didn't, and tried to claim that to be a "proper" Christian, you must have certain supernatural gifts.
Paul was at pains to point out how wrong they were, and goes on to explain that the Spirit gives many different gifts, only some of which might be termed supernatural gifts. Later in this same chapter (v. 28) he talks about the gift of helping others, and the gift of administration and the gift of teaching. All of these, he says, are gifts of the Holy Spirit, and all gifts whatever they may be are given for the purpose of building up the Church, the people of God.
The Christian Church began two thousand years ago, after the death of Jesus. And it began when a number of friends and followers of Jesus suddenly and unexpectedly received certain amazing charismatic gifts. We heard the story today of how a number of them were gathered together when suddenly there was such a terrific wind that the noise brought people out of their houses into the street to see what was going on. But this particular wind wasn't doing any damage, because it was a manifestation of God's presence.
Wind or breeze has always been associated with God's Holy Spirit. Right at the beginning of Creation, God's breath hovered over the blackness, the void that was the universe, and when God spoke, different things were created. When the prophet Elijah was hiding from God in a cave, there was a mighty wind denoting God's presence, and the wind was followed by fire, another clear indication of the presence of God.
Moses discovered God through the fire of the burning bush, and God led his people in the wilderness at night by fire which they followed. And here again in the New Testament at Pentecost, the wind is followed by fire, this time hovering over the head of every person in the room and so indicating that each one of them was being touched by God.
The most obvious result of that touch was that they all received the gift of speaking in tongues. That is, they were able to speak in some language other than their own, and were heard and understood by those who happened to be listening. We tend to assume that they spoke in the language of some different country, and a list is given of all those foreigners who heard and understood what was being said. But I wonder whether they actually spoke in some kind of spiritual language, but that the listeners too received something of the Holy Spirit, and were able to interpret what was said so easily that it was just as if the disciples were speaking in their own language. My reason for thinking that this might have been the case is because some people accused the disciples of being drunk, so clearly those people were unable to understand a single word, and it all sounded like gobbledegook to them. There's a very clear difference between hearing a foreign language and hearing gobbledegook, even if you don't know the foreign language.
Speaking in tongues continues to be a gift of the Spirit today, and continues to rouse similar emotions in the listeners. Some immediately dismiss it as gobbledegook, others are deeply impressed and quite awed by it, and just a few are able to interpret it and to tell others what is being said. St Paul suggested quite forcibly that speaking in tongues should be limited to private use, as a kind of private language with which to pour out praises to God. If it was used within the Church, he said, it should only ever be used to build up the people and therefore was only appropriate if there was someone around who could interpret what was being said. It should never be used as a platform for arrogance or boasting.
The other most well-attested gift of the Spirit is the gift of healing. This was an incredibly important gift. So much so, that over the ages civilisations have gradually separated out those who have the gift of healing, and trained them specially to use their gift in the best possible way, so that we now have all kinds of health professionals and all sorts of training for them. Over the past twenty or thirty years there's also been a resurgence of interest in the medicine of our ancestors, such as acupuncture, herbalism, massage and so on, and spiritual healing as a healing process in its own right. Most churches, including our own, now offer healing services which seem to fill a great need. But there are still Church people who feel uneasy about healing.
Perhaps at this Pentecost celebration the great thing to remember is that God only ever gives good gifts to human beings. When we ask for an egg, he doesn't give us a scorpion, he gives us the biggest and richest egg we could ever imagine. If you would like to receive a special gift from God, you have only to ask him and he will overwhelm you with his goodness. That's what people discover at the Alpha Holy Spirit day. And it's the most exciting experience you'll ever have in your life.
