“When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf.”
(John 15:26)
“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”
(John 16:13)
Today is the day of Pentecost. This is the day that the church began – the birthday of the whole movement of church across the world.
And it began with the Holy Spirit coming to where the disciples were and giving them the sense that God was with them, and beginning something new and exciting.
The most famous reading for this Sunday is Acts Chapter 2, which describes the event itself, but today I want to look at the set Gospel readings that Stewart read where Jesus predicts the coming of the Holy Spirit and explains how important the Spirit will be for his friends.
Before Jesus left these friends of his for good, he had the chance to prepare them for the future that lay ahead. It was gonna be different.
They would not have him physically with them any more. They would miss him.
But something else was to happen that would be God’s gift to them. They would receive the Spirit of God, and that Spirit would guide them into the truth.
Jesus wanted his friends to be reassured that God would be with them in this new way - that God would be able to help guide them in their thinking, deciding and acting. Jesus also made it clear that there would be new things for the disciples to learn as time went on.
The Holy Spirit would guide them into the truth.
I wonder why Jesus said that.
I wonder why Jesus didn’t reach into the folds of his cloak and bring out a Bible and say “Okay guys, its all in there.”
I wonder why Jesus didn’t say, “When I am gone you will have the Bible, and the Bible will tell you everything. If you are puzzled about something, hey, you just need to look it up”.
You might say, the Bible as we have it now was not yet written and compiled. You might say Jesus couldn’t look into the future.
Fair enough.
But let me tell you this. The reason why Jesus told his friends that God would send the Spirit to teach them what they needed to know is simply this. Because it is true.
It is the Holy Spirit that gives us the truth. The Holy Spirit is our sense (our experience) of God with us in the world.
And without the Holy Spirit we are wasting our time, and without the Holy Spirit we can make all kinds of mistakes. And without the Holy Spirit we will not have the power to make a difference for good - despite all our huffing and puffing and best actions.
The Bible is wonderful. The Bible is vital. The Bible is our source book, our scriptures. And yet, on it’s own, the Bible is not enough.
We need the Spirit of God to understand what God is saying to us through these pages.
Just as working flat out in our churches will make little difference if we do not have the Spirit behind us, so the words of the Bible may fail to offer up their true meaning without the Spirit’s help.
The message of Pentecost is that the church’s lifeblood is the Holy Spirit. For the church to be effective it needs to be in tune with the Spirit.
There are two ways we miss out on this vital connection.
One way is very obvious. It’s that we fail to look out for God. We immerse ourselves in hard work and busyness and never stop to question to ask to seek Gods will. God’s Spirit does not force itself into our lives or into our churches. We must seek the Spirit. And when we move in automatic pilot, when we stop reflecting and reviewing our actions and activities, we run the risk of becoming out of step with God.
Stands to reason really.
The other way we can miss out on what God is saying is less obvious.
It is by putting something else in the place of the Spirit. And that something else (for a whole lot of Christians) is the Bible!
There are some Christians who (in reality) are guilty of what might be described as the worship of scripture.
And by picking out certain verses and highlighting these at the expense of others they think that what God has to say equals them choosing what they want God to say.
There is so much we can learn about God from the Bible. Yet the Bible isn’t God. The Bible is only there to point us to God. The reality we worship cannot be any book – not even the Bible - the reality is the living God.
Great as the Bible is, it can be a dangerous book if it is read without the Spirit’s help and guidance.
When I was still at school my dad bought me a book. He was worried about how I would fare in my exams. It was called The Exam Secret, and it was all about how to pass exams, and my dad would have been horrified if he had looked at it properly because it was full of ideas as to how to cheat!
One point I remember was this. If you are writing an essay and you have got a famous quote to back you up you will get extra marks. But suppose you don’t know any famous quotes? The book said – just make anything up at all that fits what you want to say and then say that Winston Churchill said this!
The point is that nobody ever spoke more than Winston Churchill and it would be impossible for anyone to prove he didn’t say whatever you have said he did!…
There are so many words and opinions and points of view in the Bible that you can probably find a Bible verse somewhere to justify almost anything at all!
The Bible can be read in so many ways. There are so many different viewpoints. We need the Holy Spirit to help us understand.
The Spirit is still teaching us. We are still learning more and more.
At the end of the day the Bible isn’t always God’s last word on a subject. The Spirit is God’s latest word on a subject.
On a recent Thought For the Day I said that one of the surprising things about Jesus is that he never fully identified with the religious leaders in his tradition. One main reason was that they were always judging people as to who were “in” and who were “out” – who were “acceptable” and who were to be “rejected” and they used words still found in the Bible to back up their claims.
Jesus refused to go along with this, and Jesus himself updated scripture when he felt it was being used in a way that was not loving.
For Jesus the spirit of the law was always far more important than the letter of the law.
There have always been people who have tried to use the Bible as a weapon – to shut people out and to hurt them.
Jesus’ view was that this was a misuse of scripture.
And so Jesus updated the words of the Bible, with the authority of the Spirit.
So did the early church with the inspiration of that same Spirit.
And the Spirit continues to help us advance and see better ways of being human, clearer ways of being compassionate.The Spirit helped us see that slavery was wrong, that women are equal, that disabled people deserve support, that those of colour are not inferior, yet there were some who tried to use Bible verses to resist all these changes.
But when we moved on, we weren’t abandoning scripture – we were seeing to the heart of it, we were understanding the real message of love that lies behind the words in the book.
These things turned out to be, in Jesus’ words, a fulfilment of scripture.
Over the last couple of weeks the Church’s General Assembly has been big news with one story dominating.
At the end of last year Rev Scott Rennie of Brechin Cathedral was called to be minister at Queens Cross church in Aberdeen. Should he be allowed to go?
Why shouldn’t he? Well he is gay. So here was the issue of homosexuality coming up again for the church.
And for those who missed the news, the Assembly decided eventually that he should go ahead, but there is to be a two-year consultation on the subject of gay ministers, before such a situation can be considered again.
The church is split right down the middle on this one.
Given what appears to be the Bible’s view, and the traditional church view down through the years, why should any group of ministers (including me!) want to be arguing for a different stance?
Because we believe the Spirit is speaking. And the Spirit is waking us up to recognise a small section of our society who have been looked down on and made to feel unwelcome in most places for most of history.
And the Spirit is saying that Jesus’ inclusive welcome for all does not stop because of someone’s sexual orientation.
We live in an age where we have a lot more knowledge and understanding of homosexuality. We realise now that our sexual orientation is given to us by God.
What anyone thinks is determined by their time.
What the ancients thought (who wrote in the Bible) was determined by the age they lived in. What we think today is determined by ours.
When people in the Bible said that same sex acts were unnatural they were looking at the words natural and unnatural in a different way. For them, sexual gender was determined by two factors – by biology and organs. Nowadays we know that sexual gender is actually determined by chemistry and hormones.
But here is the funny thing. I think in many ways that the Bible does not talk about homosexuality at all.
I don’t think that what we read in the Bible is referring to what we mean today. The word “homosexual” is only about 200 years old, so even if you can see it in your version of the Bible, it is a translation – and certainly not what was originally written.
When the Bible talks about same-sex acts it is assumed that the perpetrators of such acts are themselves heterosexual people - going against the nature that God has given them.
What the church (and society) is struggling with these days, is the issue of two homosexual people entering into a mutual, loving, faithful partnership with one another, and that is a situation that isn’t even remotely considered in the Bible.
If, in the wonderful variety of this world, God gives to a minority of people a homosexual orientation why should they be denied a full life?
I believe the compassionate inclusive message of Jesus demands that we take a new look at their situation.
So what am I saying here?
That we can forget about moral standards?
That in the realm of sexual behaviour anything goes?
Not at all.
All forms of sexual expression are not right, or appropriate, or healthy for ourselves or for others.
Our sexuality is a powerful part of our lives and it can be lived out in good ways and bad ways. Whether we are gay or straight we have to use our sexuality as a gift from God.
We need to make sure that our relationships are ones that are marked by honour, trust, seriousness, faithfulness and love and we must not use our sexuality selfishly, simply for our own gain, to hurt, exploit, dominate, damage or betray others.
Our sexuality must be lived out in a way that honours ourselves, our partners, and, ultimately, God.
But our orientation is a given.
Our orientation is neutral.
Our orientation is given to us by God.
The church is for everyone.
Yet when my sisters best friend Ian, an elder in the church, admitted he was gay, he was shown the door.
Affiliated to the Church of Scotland is a group called Affirmation Scotland – they exist to promote inclusion in the church for all and especially those who are gay and lesbian.
Our church at Langside has received a letter from them asking us if we will sign up and declare that we are an open church that want to welcome all Christians – whoever they are - regardless of sexual orientation.
And I hope that this is what we will all want to do.
The Holy Spirit reminds us all of the inclusive welcome of Jesus.
There are many things churches need to consider to be inclusive.
Why do we have a wheelchair slope?
Because if ever someone comes to this church who is in a wheelchair they will feel welcome.
Someone might say “Well if no one comes to the church in a wheelchair then why do we need a ramp?”
Because we need to make it crystal clear that someone in a wheel chair is welcome from the very beginning.
Why do we have a PA system if most people can hear fine without it?
Because if someone has difficulty with hearing we want them to feel welcome.
Why do we need to actually say we are open to gay and lesbian people?
Why spell it out?
So that if anyone ever comes to our church and tells us that is what they are, we will turn and say to them with confidence: “You are welcome here!”
To Scott Rennie and all gay people everywhere I say you are welcome in the church.
You are different from me for sure. I am not gay. But you are just as special to God.
In Gods church we open our arms to invite everyone.
All are welcome. We open our arms wide so we can be like God.
God opens God’s arms to include us all - whoever we may be.
All are welcome. All are welcome in this place.