Movement of the Spirit

A sermon preached earlier in 2013 as part of a sermon series entitled, "Holy Spirit:  Giver or Life."

This sermon focused on the image of the Spirit as one who moves us.

Galatians 5:16-26

On July 8, 1741, Jonathon Edwards preached one of the most famous sermons delivered in American History—Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.  One Mr. Williams who was present the day this sermon was delivered said the following, “We went over to Enfield where we met dear Mr. Edwards of Northampton who preached a most awakening sermon . . . and before the sermon was done there was a great moaning and crying went through ye whole house.  ‘What shall I do to be saved,’ ‘Oh, I am going to Hell,’ ‘Oh what shall I do for Christ.’ And so forth.”  He explained.  The audience becomes virtually hysterical. At one point, his sermon became inaudible. His voice was drowned out by the sounds of the congregation’s response and Edwards had to stop and ask them to quiet down.  Williams continued, "After some time of waiting the Congregation were still, so yet a prayer was made by Mr. W. and after that we descended from the pulpit and discoursed with the people, some in one place and some in another, and amazing and astonishing ye power of God was seen, and several souls were hopefully wrought upon that night, and oh ye cheerfulness and pleasantness of their countenances."  When people think of the movement of the Holy Spirit, doubtless most people think of such a movement.  Surprisingly to most people who have heard about the effect that sinners in the hands of an angry God had on people, the sermon was not apparently delivered with the kind of intensity we would associate with such an effect.  He did not shout.  He did not move about or have exaggerated movements.  The effect of the sermon emerged from Edwards’ images of heaven and hell and God’s wrath.

The people addressed in Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia was far removed from Colonial New England.  Galatia was a region in Asia Minor in the Roman empire comprised of conquered Celtics.  The Galatians—a Celtic people living in Asia Minor.  The Galatian church was dominated by Gentile converts.  As Gentiles, they would not have circumcised their boy children, or maintained kosher eating, or observed Holy Days.  They had to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but they didn’t know what to do with all of the patterns of life that came from the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Some Christian leaders from outside Galatia had come into the churches in this region and tried to persuade the new Christians that they need to observe all of the commandments of observant Jewish Christians.  Paul wrote to these churches seeking to dissuade them from going down the road of trying to please God through works prescribed by the law.  Instead, he insisted that Christ had set them free from the tyranny of a way of life prescribed no one could adequately meet its demands.  The problem that comes with relying too heavily on a system is exactly what the churches in Galatia were experiencing.  They were arguing with one another about how exactly to practice these unaccustomed customs.  They vied for prestige with one another each claiming that they were superior to the others in fulfilling the law.  Having been called together by God’s grace, they were being driven apart by what they thought was God’s law. 

A gracious God, Paul reasoned, has not abandoned us to the control of an ungracious system.  A gracious God has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit and this Spirit guides us in the way we should go.  Paul in no way taught Christians that their behavior didn’t matter.  Instead, he said that “the entire law is summed up in a single command: love your neighbor as yourself.”  People live by the Spirit.  They are led by the Spirit (vs. 18) and they live by the Spirit (vs. 25). They are told they should keep in step with the Spirit.  Moved by the Spirit.  Does this being moved by the Spirit and led by the Spirit resemble the experience the congregation had in 1741 listening to Jonathon Edwards preach?  Perhaps.  Or perhaps the movement looks differently. 

In this familiar passage, Paul offered two lists—one a list of vices and the other a list of virtues.  One he called the works of the flesh and the other the fruit of the Spirit.  To be led by the Spirit is to depart from the works of the Flesh.  Like Jonathon Edwards’ sermon, this part of the letter addresses sins.  He lists fifteen different sins.  The usual suspects are there: fornication, licentiousness, drunkenness, etc.  But eight of the fifteen sins deal with how people function in relation to one another: enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, and envy. Paul stresses this point again in the closing verse of chapter 5, “Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another” (vs. 26).  The movement of the Holy Spirit as envisioned in Paul is a movement that draws people together and gives them the character virtues that enable them to live peaceably, authentically and courageously together. 

In my own spiritual journey, I have sensed the Holy Spirit less as the tremble within my Spirit causing me to stir and shake, moan and wail and much more often in the nudges that when I have followed them have either deepened or repaired relationships. 

One nudge is the nudge to confront.  Several years ago, I was dealing with a person who had asked for help multiple times.  The help had been given multiple times but an attitude of dependence, and an unwillingness to help himself persisted.  Despite my best efforts in the other direction, it seemed that the aid that I was giving him merely enabled his own self-destructive choices.  It finally came time to confront him and say that he needed to care for himself and that I would no longer be able to cooperate with him as he seemed determine to languish and stagnate.  It was a difficult decision for me.  But a friend said something to me as I was making that decision.  She said, “You’re not doing him any favors by letting him believe other people can be used the way he has used you.  You’re not doing him any favors.”  Confronting often feels to us to be mean-spirited and, in fact, if we confront with aggression, belittling or naming-calling, it is not godly.  The first verse past the text we read today says, “My friends, if anyone is detected in transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.”   We rely on the Holy Spirit’s leadership.  We all know people willing to anyone what’s wrong with them at any time.  They appoint themselves as morality police or self-appointed life coaches.  Chronic confronters generally get ignored or worse leave a trail of guilt and shame in their wake.  We need a nudge from the Holy Spirit to know when it’s time to confront and when it is best to be patience.  But friends sometimes the Holy Spirit nudges us to confront people who are caught in self-destructive patterns and when the nudge comes—move with the Spirit.

Another nudge comes in the nudge to be vulnerable.  The people of Galatia had created a situation where people felt they had to protect themselves and compete with one another to receive God’s grace.  Paul’s wisdom to them called them to drop the defensiveness, bitterness and quarreling and move toward trust.  Vulnerability is the willingness to reveal to another person one’s weaknesses, fears, needs and anxiety.  It is also to affirm before another person what you most hope for and most desire and what you believe would bring you the most joy.  Being vulnerable is not an easy things because most of our experiences tell us to keep that to ourselves.  C.S. Lewis wrote in The Four Loves, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”  Here again is a place where the Holy Spirit is necessary.  Two things are dangerous—to never be vulnerable and to always be vulnerable.  People who live completely transparent emotional lives invite abuse, ridicule and manipulation.  Vulnerability is like salt—people who want to be in relation to one another need vulnerability but too much can be dangerous.  Sometimes the Holy Spirit nudges us to be vulnerable or to reign in our vunerability--when the nudge comes—move with the Spirit.

The nudge comes to listen.  Psychologists John Cacioppo and William Patrick report that around 20% of people surveyed in a major study on loneliness say that they feel so isolated that it significantly contributes to their unhappiness.  As well, prolonged loneliness as opposed to the occasional loneliness we all feel at times can generate clinical depression and health problems.  Relational listening is not the complete solution for loneliness.  However, it is a step in the right direction.  It helps to contribute to healthy self-perception and development. Brenda Ueland once wrote, “Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force.  Think of how the friends that really listen to us are the ones we move toward, and we want to sit in their radius as though it did us good.  When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.”  Relational listening is one of the things we do to give and receive the connections we need to avoid loneliness.  One of the other very common ways of referring to our interactions with the Spirit is that of listening to the Spirit.  Listening to the Spirit of God often means learning to listen to those right in front of us.  To hear their stories and give them the freedom to speak.  And that sort of listening really does need the Holy Spirit’s empowering.  It’s difficult for those of us who are enamoured with the sound of our own voices to shut up long enough to truly listen.  But listening is more than just being quiet while another person speaks.  It’s an active engagement with another person that conveys receptivity.  The sort of attention, concentration, and discipline it takes to truly listen is something that most people cannot generate from within themselves.  It relies on the nudge from the Holy Spirit.  But when the Holy Spirit nudges you to listen—move with the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit, as the Giver of Life, moves us and enables our movement.  While the Holy Spirit may cause a person to move ecstatically and charismatically at times, the witness born in Galatians is a witness that the Spirit moves us toward one another—nudging us toward gentle confrontation, wise vulnerability, and intentional listening.  May we move the Holy Spirit:  the giver of life.