SERMON PREACHED BY THE REV'D ALLAN B. WARREN III AT THE CHURCH OF THE ADVENT,
SUNDAY, MAY 11, 2008, THE FEAST OF PENTECOST (WHITSUNDAY)

Yesterday morning, I spent some time here in the church watching and listening as Mark and Ross rehearsed the choir, the soloists, and the orchestra for today’s Mass. All of us know the sound of a group of musicians warming up before a performance. It is a unique, a wonderful and a thrilling sound - almost part of a performance itself. At first it may seem chaotic, but it’s not really. It is a sound full of expectation and promise, for when all the disparate melodies and parts are brought together in their proper time, there is music. And I watched as they came together. Quite literally came together. At one point the choir was rehearsing upstairs and the orchestra here in the church. Then the choir joined them, and they were together, and they played and sang together. And what emerged from all these separate individual persons - voices and instruments - was one thing which had not been there before. The rehearsal was a process and a moment of creation. What it produced was a work of art.

And watching this wonder took me back a number of years to the time when I was a curate in New York City at a church which had a resident theatre company. Five or six times a year plays were produced, rehearsed, and presented on a stage set up in one of the transepts of the building. And since I lived in the building, it was often my experience to watch this take place. Like yesterday’s rehearsal, I found it fascinating - even miraculous.

At the beginning things would seem altogether unpromising, even impossible. A group of nervous, usually self-absorbed, often narcissistic, actors who hardly knew their lines. A director who may well have known the play, but who - it was clear - hadn’t decided what to do with it. A bare stage with perhaps a few folding chairs and a cast-off table or two. What could come of it? It was chaos.

But after weeks of rehearsal, after living for a time with the script and with each other - trying one thing and then trying another, until a decision could be made - after a set had been designed and built and the actors inhabited it - after all that, what a difference! Chaos at the beginning, afterwards a play. There was now a work of art with emotional, intellectual, and expressive power. What a difference! The actors at the outset isolated and out of touch with one another, afterwards together, helping/acting off each other. They had become something more than just a group of individual persons. They had become, in fact, a play, something with a meaning and a power beyond themselves.

What a difference! But what was the difference? Was it simply that weeks of rehearsal had allowed the actors’ craft and technique to master the script? Perhaps. But haven’t we all seen performances that were technically precise, but dead as a doornail? Or was it that the director - after trying any number of things - had finally arrived at the choices that were right for the script? Perhaps again. But haven’t we all been to performances where everything seemed “right,” but the play fell flat?

What then was the difference? I will tell you what I think. And my language here is religious - why not? I’m a priest; we’re in Church. The difference is spirit - that indefinable, elusive, but all important factor - spirit. If a play works, it is because those involved - actors, director, whoever - have managed to capture the spirit of the play. Capture, release, express, reveal - it’s hard to know what verb to use. Every work of art - if it’s worth its salt - must be inspired in some way or another - that is, endowed with spirit. And a work of art comes alive, it works, if - and only if - the artists and performers make that spirit known.

* * * * *

Today we are celebrating the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit of God. And I have begun with a metaphor, for it is very difficult to talk about the Holy Spirit. Difficult, because the Spirit is known not in Himself, but rather in the Spirit’s operation and energy. The Spirit is known more by what the Spirit does than by what He is.

We’ve thought about how “spirit” is a deciding factor in a work of art. At this point let’s think briefly about the human spirit. Perhaps that will lead us to a deeper understanding of the Holy Spirit.

As I’m sure you know, for centuries philosophers and theologians have tried to define the human spirit, or soul, if you will, or even person. (The three terms are often used interchangeably.) Their definitions are abstract, cold, and to me at least, unconvincing. I have a friend, a nurse, who came up with the best definition I can think of. Spirit, she said, is what ismissing in a person who is dead. It’s not just that the life is gone; rather, the spirit that animated the life is gone. That is why we recoil with horror and dread when we encounter a corpse. The semblance of the person is there, and yet the person is not there. A corpse is something not just dead, but empty.

Spirit, then, is what animates a person. Spirit is that which gives a person life. Spirit is what makes a person a unique and unrepeatable individual. It is the depth within us which moves and reaches without us. It is that which makes possible relatedness, friendship, love, intimacy between people. (And yes, also hate.) It is the ground of joy and wonder; also of frustration and despair. Spirit is not something opposed to the physical aspect of life, but is beyond the merely physical and takes us beyond the merely physical. Spirit, it is often said, is ecstatic; it compels human beings to move outside of themselves. And thus, it makes possible, and makes itself known, in art and music, in humor, in language, in custom and civilization and revolution, in intelligence and emotion, in intuition and in loyalty and courage. The spiritual life, as the Doctors of the Church tell us again and again, the spiritual life is the process of becoming fully and grandly human - “mature manhood,” says St Paul (Eph 4:13) - becoming human as we were intended by God to be.

And another wonderful notion taught by Scripture and pondered by the Church is that the spirit within, that ecstatic depth of human-ness, gives us a particular affinity for the Spirit of God. This is why thinking about one can aid our thought about the other. Cor ad cor loquitur, “One deep calleth to another,” as the Psalmist tells us, and this means, according to mystical doctrine, that what is most human within us has a likeness to that which is divine, and that likeness allows us no choice but to yearn, to seek, and ultimately only to be satisfied by, the Spirit of God.

And that yearning, that seeking is met by God. Today, we celebrate this. The Feast of Pentecost calls us to rejoice in the gift of the special and particular presence of the Holy Spirit to the Church. “Special and particular,” I say, because, though the Spirit of God is at work throughout the whole of creation, and though, therefore, the Church can claim nothing exclusive with regard to the Spirit, it can claim something unique. And the claim is this - the reality is this - that that which is present in all things and with all things and through all things is in a special and particular way present in and present to the Church.

The Spirit is given to the Church through the atoning work of Christ, and the working of the Spirit is the completion of that atonement. In Christ, through the Spirit, sin and separation are overcome and humanity is at-oned with God. From the Gospel this morning, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.” (20:22,23) In Christ, through the Spirit, error and the blindness of spiritual ignorance are dispelled. Again from St John: “I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth,” who will “lead you into all Truth.” (14:16) In Christ, God is creating a new humanity, and the Holy Spirit is the breath which animates the body of that new humanity, the Church. The Spirit is the inner fire which quickens the body. Without the Spirit the Church is dead, nothing more than a shameful and empty bureaucracy. The Spirit is the reconciling force which binds together the scattered members of that body. The Spirit is the communion and community of that new humanity with God. Through the Spirit God in Christ re-creates the world.

And so, good people - Christians, members of the new humanity in Christ - let us rejoice in the life and power of the Spirit, and let us remember once again that there is a reason we is we call it the Gospel: because the gift of the Spirit is very good news!

Amen.