Life in the Spirit

Today Christian people celebrate the feast of Pentecost.  In a way, it is a birthday: the beginning of God’s mission through the Church.  Power through the Holy Spirit is given to Jesus’ followers to go out and tell the rest of the world of the wonderful love of God.  Though they come from different human parents, each finds kinship in God as Father through Jesus the Son.  Each is adopted into a greater family, and Pentecost is the gathering for this ceremonial moment.  From here on in water, wind, and fire signify the Holy Spirit’s adoptive activity.  We are marked for life in the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t suddenly appear in the New Testament’s Book of Acts, chapter 2.  From the very beginning, when a divine wind breathed the cosmos into primordial shape, God has been actively engaging with creation.  Through all the brokenness and mistakes of human history, the Creator has reached out again and again with visions and messengers to draw us back into right relationship.  In Jesus, God comes among humanity to show us the face of love.  And when Jesus overcomes death on the cross and rises and ascends in glory to heaven, a way opens to heal the rifts caused by sin. Good has overcome evil.   Those who believe in Jesus as the Son of God find the possibility of forgiveness and acceptance.  Not just for themselves, but for others.  The Spirit of Christ is power from on high loosed among the disciples to come together into one family. 

When tongues of fire land on the heads of those first followers of Jesus Christ, it was a showy confirmation of their adoption into the household of God. But it is not the end of the story, or the Church would have died out right there in that generation.  God’s mission is for believers to extend to others the invitation to become children of God.  The disciples were given the gift of speaking in tongues so that other races and cultures could understand the good news of God’s acceptance.  Different people come to the realization of truth by different paths.  It all starts with a heart seeking identity, meaning, and belonging for life.  We are led by the Spirit of God into relationship as children of the Most High.  The job of the Church is to proclaim that just as we were once adopted into God’s family, so we are open to adopting others in God’s name. 

Adoption is not the same as fostering.  Someone can offer you shelter, comfort, protection, and guidance for a time through an arrangement to foster.  But even with bonds of affection, this nurturing doesn’t change your relationship to the other.  You are still two different people, each with your own lineage and name and legal status.  Adoption, on the other hand, is a formal statement of ties.  You are adopted into a family or tribe.  There are obligations and rights.  The line between children who are blood relatives or not is erased.  When the apostle Paul, in his Letter to the Roman church community, uses the language of adoption, he is making a strong statement about relationships.  It doesn’t matter if you are Jewish or Gentile, he says.  It doesn’t matter who your mother or father may be, or your status in society, even if you are slave or free, male or female.  Once you cry “Abba! Father” to God, you are brother and sister to one another. 

In this new, holy family, we each have rights and responsibilities.  The commitment of the whole Christian community is to nurture, teach, and support each person.  And the commitment of each believer is to live out the promises made at baptism.  Belonging to God and each other sets up a pattern for a new life.  The values and  principles guide our  behaviour and choices from this time forward.  We want to do this out of love.  If we were under what St. Paul calls a spirit of slavery, we would be confined by rules and fear of punishment or criticism.  We would hold to the old social divisions that keep us apart.  And we would continue to be afraid of what can happen to us both in this world and hell to follow.  However, followers of Christ receive a spirit of adoption.  Since we know ourselves as welcome and accepted through God’s love, we can serve and minister humbly and joyfully.  Our place in the household now and the future is through God’s grace.  Rights and responsibilities bind us in love. Surely we want this for both ourselves and others!

This is why, on this feast of Pentecost, we proclaim God’s love in adopting Mary and Kyle into the household of faith.  Naming them as sister and brother in no way negates their earthly families, who love them very much.  But the power of God’s Holy Spirit draws them together with all of us witnesses as joint heirs.  What is happening here is more than genetics or biology, or genealogy.  It is a sacrament.  Maybe there won’t be any tongues of fire, but by water and the Spirit there are outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual grace of God.  We call upon the Creator as Abba, “Daddy”- a term that is so intimate it conveys our trust in a loving parent who brings us together as children. 

Loving is hard work.  And it is sometimes painful, as we suffer for and with one another in our trials and pains.  Maybe that’s why it is good to remember the way we are bound to each other in holy love.  With the Spirit’s help, we have courage.  May God give us the strength to be patient, to be kind, to be unselfish, to be generous, to be understanding and forgiving.  As we have been adopted, let us open our hearts to welcome all who seek the life of the Spirit.  Amen.