Christianity

All Things are Made New (Sermon June 14, 2015)

2 Corinthians 5:6–17 (NRSV)

Tonkin, Mike and Liu, Anna

⁶ So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord— ⁷ for we walk by faith, not by sight. ⁸ Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. ⁹ So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. ¹⁰ For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.

The Ministry of Reconciliation

¹¹ Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others; but we ourselves are well known to God, and I hope that we are also well known to your consciences. ¹² We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast in outward appearance and not in the heart. ¹³ For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. ¹⁴ For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. ¹⁵ And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.

¹⁶ From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. ¹⁷ So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

Why do we do what we do? Have you ever really thought about why we do the things we do? Why do we act a certain way, why do we attend certain events, why do we even bother coming to church? I know that it is a strange question to ask, and I also know that it may make some of us nervous when the pastor asks why we bother coming to church, but the question remains. Why?

We each struggle with this question as we walk along the pathways of live. At times everything we do seems to be in vain, as the writer of Ecclesiastes eloquently states throughout his observations. But then there is something deep within that seems to drive us to continue on down the trail. There is something within us that tells us this is right even though everything else around us seems to say the exact opposite. We walk down the road following Christ, even when it is hard.

Imagine if you will the people of the first century, the people that first heard the gospel that we nearly take for granted today. A people that lived in a world that was filled with religious devotion and to be perfectly honest fear of the world. The culture surrounding this city we know as Corinth was deeply devoted to the pantheon of gods and goddesses that could never really be known, that were tricky and picky with who they would bless and would often curse. People would be driven to make sacrifices often great sacrifices just for the hope that their crops would survive or their spouses would conceive an heir to the estate. Yet they would never know if it was enough. What if the priest or priestess did not do something correctly, or what if we happened to offend one god by honoring another too much, or what if a god was just in a bad mood? There is a reason that people first came to faith in Christ, it was mainly due to confidence that the faithful disciples had in life.

We all know that there is a perpetual fear of the dark, it is almost ingrained in our DNA that bad things happen in the dark. The spirits walk in the night, spirits that have ill intent for the living. When Patrick was ministering to the Celts of Ireland one of the most powerful testimonies he had was his ability to sleep at night without the use of intoxicating beverages to deaden fear. The ancient Celts lived in fear of their gods to such a degree that they could literally be scared to death. Yet Patrick slept without fear, he had confidence, and those that listened to his testimony receive the same confidence. The ancient people that first heard the Gospel throughout the lands of the Mediterranean were not all that different. And Paul reminds them that we are confident not in the things that we see but the things that are unseen.

We have confidence in the unseen, because that unseen force that is at work within us raised Christ from the grave. Not just in some mythological sense but in truth. Over five hundred people bore witness to this and were dispersed around the known world, all across the Roman Empire in the west and to the farthest reaches of the Persian Empire to the east. Down to the sources of the Nile and some say that they went as far north as the British Isles. Each carrying the same message, “Christ has risen!” This is a game changer because if Christ has risen then our faith is not just some superstition but true power.

But do we live as if we believe in the resurrection?

I ask this in all seriousness, because how we answer that question actually leads into the answer of why we are here and why we bother with faith in the first place. Because if there truly is a resurrection then that means that there is hope beyond the things that we see. That there is something happening just beyond what we can sense around us, and if we train ourselves properly we will be able to get a glimpse. This is why Paul says, “[W]e aim to please him.” Because we know somewhere deep within our hearts that there is something more to life.

We aim to please him! What a profound statement that is. So much of religion is wrapped up in appeasing the gods, yet in Paul’s statement there is a slight difference mainly that there is an ability to know Him in the first place, and an ability to know what pleases Him. Our God is not one that is separated from us but is Emanuel, God with us. He can be known and can know. Paul goes as far as to say that he is well known to God. Our God knows the human condition, He has experienced every emotion and struggle that we experience and he walks with us. Jesus came down from heaven to be born as a baby, He lived through the entire spectrum of childhood, He even had to experience a drastic life change like moving from one nation to another. Jesus was an immigrant at one point in time. He experienced adolescence, he experienced the loss of loved ones, he experience career changes, and he experienced pain. He knows what we are going through and he endured it all because He desires a relationship with us. He wants a relationship that is so deep that our every motive and action is aimed at pleasing Him.

The early Friends understood this and when they began their ministry across England, Ireland, and into the colonies of the Americas. They taught that all of life is a sacrament. That every aspect of our life should be lived and devoted to God, aimed to please him. This is present throughout all of our testimonies, from our testimony of peace to simplicity, each is devoted to this idea that every aspect of our life should be lived honoring God. So in honoring God in all that we do, we might encourage others to walk in the light as well.

We aim to honor and please Him, we aim to make every aspect of our lives holy and devoted to Christ within us and within those around us. We strive to know the spirit so fully and deeply that we begin to reflect Christ in all that we do. We do all of this because, as Paul states, “the love of Christ urges us on.” Have you experience that urge? Every so often I am asked why I do what I do. What drove me to leave the path if was on to become a pastor? Most recently I was asked this by a man I know absolutely nothing about who just happened to find out I was a pastor. The only answer I could give him was that I could not see myself doing anything else. In under a minute I told this man that I went to Ukraine saw people’s lives changed, came home and found that everything in my life was also changed. I no longer had a desire to pursue the things I once pursued and that strangely I had a desire instead to encourage people to walk in faith. I have no idea if this encouraged him, but it is a testimony of the love of Christ urging me on. It makes no sense rationally, financially, or even spiritually because the struggles I have face are not anything I would have chosen, yet I cannot see myself doing anything else.

We are urged in love to live every aspect of our lives devoted to Christ. Known intimately by God, and knowing Him as well, but we do this for the benefit of others. This is where many may begin to squirm, our lives with Christ are not lived so we can get to heaven but so that through us God can lead others to him. In the somewhat awkward language that Paul speaks in verse 12, “We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast in outward appearance and not in the heart.” He is telling us that our lives are not lived for ourselves, we are not living to bring honor to ourselves or to have bragging rights. If you are in Christ and if Christ is in you, if you are living a life urged on by the love of Christ everything you do should be to encourage others to pursue Christ. Just think about that for a moment? Your business is not your business but it is Christ’s in which God gave you stewardship over so that you could participate in the ongoing ministry of Jesus to the world. All that we have is given for the ministry of Christ to the world around us. It is not about our preferences, it is not about our lifestyle, but it is about encouraging other to sense and discern the urging of Christ within them to be moved down the paths of faith that are not sensed by worldly methods.

It sounds crazy I know. It sounds ridiculous and pretty much insane. Paul was considered by many to be crazy. The disciples were accused of being drunk in the early morning on the day of Pentecost. Yet these men gave all they had many gave their very lives so that others could know the love of God. And people responded to the craziness. The numbers of faithful grew daily because they were faithful in living totally sold out to Christ. The testimony that Luke gives is that there was no one in need among them. They had a reputation of being just, of being loving and gracious, of having a confidence that was supernatural to the world among them. And that spoke volumes.

But do we live like that? Does our love proceed us? Are we known to be out of our mind in generosity or are we living a life bound to worldly wisdom? “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view…if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new.” That is the power of the resurrected Christ. That is where our confidence lies. It is a different perspective, a point of view that is not based on human understanding.

Early Friends stated that there is a light of Christ in all people and that is the view that Christ urges us to take. Looking not at what the world sees but looking deeper within, taking hold of that which Christ has taken hold of in us. Encouraging them to look beyond. God is with us. He is all around us. He is within and without, above and below. He is urging us to be led by love and saturated in His spirit. So let us be a people that live lives loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit, and living the love of Christ with others, so that we might experience and see the power of the resurrection that makes all things new!

He isn’t finished yet! (Sermon June 7, 2015)

2 Corinthians 4:13–5:1 (NRSV)

Randy Scott Slavin
Photo
http://www.dezeen.com/2014/03/15/randy-scott-slavin-extends-alternative-perspectives-panoramic-photo-series/

¹³ But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture—“I believed, and so I spoke”—we also believe, and so we speak, ¹⁴ because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. ¹⁵ Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

Living by Faith

¹⁶ So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, ¹⁸ because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

5 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Have you noticed how a change of perspective can change your entire view? Perspective is the way that we look at the world around us, it’s what we see. Many times because we are rushing from one thing to the next we do not have time to examine things more deeply, but there is more going on than what we see.

If we were to take an art class one of the first lessons would be a perspective drawing. I remember doing this in the seventh grade. The teacher would have each of us sit in the hall way and draw what we saw. Then he would have us move to a different location and draw everything again. Some of us would have to draw as best as we could laying on the ground, other would have a seat in a high chair, others of us would stand close to a wall, and some right in the center of the hallway. The one thing that took from these lessons was that I am not an artist. But I also learned that from where we are standing the view changes, certain things seem to become more of a focal point while others fade into the background. The teacher was trying to give us the techniques to draw but he also taught us that there can always be a different way to look at things. I think that is the whole purpose of the creative arts. God has gifted certain people with an ability to assist everyone else to step back and look at something from a different vantage point, and just possibly see something more clearly.

In today’s scripture we find Paul speaking to the church in Corinth. It is important to remember who this letter was written to because it helps us put things into perspective. Corinth was a very important trade city during this time frame. Not only was it a center for trade but it was one of the host cities for athletic events that were associated with the origins of the Olympics. This gives us clues as to the reasons Paul speaks in a certain way to this particular church. Words like, “You know that in a race all the runners run, but only one runner gets the prize. So run like that. Run to win!” (1 Corinthians 9:24) or “No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” (1 Corinthians 9:27). These are terms that speak volumes to a population that lives for the games. Paul spoke and wrote to them using language that they would understand, preaching the Gospel from a perspective that was unique to them.

There is another bit of information about ancient Corinth that sheds light into the words that Paul uses in his letter. Corinth as a culture was deeply devoted to the goddess Aphrodite. As many of us are aware the worship of this goddess usually revolved around sensual rites with the temple slaves. This one city was home to over a thousand sacred prostitutes. This city locate on a busy trade route connecting two seas, was the home of one of the largest sporting events in the empire and was deeply devoted to the goddess of love (or lust). Everything about this city revolved around entertainment and commerce, with a specialty of entertainment commerce. But even within this city devoted to pleasures of the flesh there was a large Jewish population, so they were not totally unaware of the history and religion that brought our Lord to us.

This city would make places like Las Vegas seem pretty mild. Yet this is the city in which Paul spent the most time in his missionary journeys, and it was the recipient of two of the most widely read epistles in scripture. Not only do Christian athletes find comfort and encouragement from these letters, but quotes from the letters penned to Corinth are the most widely read passages from scripture in weddings. I even used a passage from 1 Corinthians in a wedding on Saturday. We find them encouraging and comforting because the people of Corinth and the people of America are not that different. Many of the issues we struggle with today are issues causing stress to the people who first heard the words written by Paul.

If we were to look at the city of Corinth and visualize an ancient version of Las Vegas we might get an idea of just how big the task set before Paul might have been like. He had to start with the basics and then work his way up to the deeper things of Christ. In his first letter, the most widely read, he explains to us what Love is, what discipline looks like, and how important a life with God really is. The second letter is a bit more depressing, mainly because this is one of the few major first century church centers and they required a second letter from the apostle.

Yet even though Paul felt the need to remind them of all the ways they were falling short of the glory of Christ, he tells them do not give up, and to look at things from a different perspective. Not necessarily a new perspective but to slow down enough to look around. He reminds them of the faith that they had heard him and others speak about. Reminding them that very spirit that prompted the apostles to go out and boldly speak and live for Christ was available to them in the very real way.

That spirit was given so that each of us could relate to the living God personally. God sent the Spirit to us so that the one who and through whom all things were created could know us deeply and so that we could know him deeply. When he says “I believe, and so I spoke,” refers to a belief that goes beyond knowledge, goes further than trust it is a belief that entrusts every aspect of his life to the hands of God. Entrusting to such a degree that Paul would leave the comforts and security of his position as a Pharisee to speak the words the Spirit of God laid on his heart to a city consumed with the worship of pleasure.

“’I believe, and so I spoke.’ – We also believe, and so we speak.” This statement gives us a glimpse into the heart of God. Yes He desires a close and intimate relationship with us individually, one in which we are loving Him with all of our heart, with all of our mind, and with all of our strength but that relationship is not to be lived out alone. It is to be shared with the world around us, invested in the lives of others. But the church of Corinth was struggling. They lived in a culture that was about as far from God honoring as a culture could get. For every new person added to their ranks others would be drawn back into the clutches of the idolatry of the flesh. It was as if all of the work they were doing was for nothing, and many believed that they should withdraw, isolate and fortify themselves from the influences of the outside world.

Just looking at our world today we can understand how and why they might come to that conclusion. It is extremely difficult to believe and speak to a world that seems to have little interest in knowing Christ. We can look back in our history and believe that the best days are behind us, that the end is near and pray Lord Come! But Paul tells us do not give up. We know that the one that raised Christ from the grave is with us even to this day. We know that he will not forsake us even when we cannot see him working. We know that He is here and wants us to be in His presence. We know this…but do we believe?

Corinth was distracted. They could not get a handle of what it means to be in the world but not of the world, because so often when they would try the assembly would be flooded with people trying to move them away from God. They would reach out becoming vulnerable to people only to be burned, and as a result they took steps back to protect their own. They may have even pushed people away from their Meeting that had a different perspective because the very idea of looking at things differently scared them. But Paul says all this grace is for you, so that you can extend it to others. God gave us grace so we can extend that very same grace to those around us.

Paul is graciously telling them that they are wrong in their thinking. They have taken a perspective that is so limited in view that they cannot see beyond themselves, and that is an unhealthy church. It is a church that is not living out the holy rhythm of Christ. It is a church that has stopped listening and stopped believing. They may worship God, they may have all the right answers and the best systematic theologies but they are stuck.

Do not lose heart Paul tells these broken people. Though you may be weak in your body, the very same Spirit that raised Christ from the grave can renew within you the right spirit. Do not lose faith, but get back to what you know. Go back to that lifestyle of loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit, and living the love of Christ with others. Enter again into that holy rhythm of life that Christ himself taught us, a life of prayer, worship, and service to others. Listen again, believe again, believe so deeply that you are willing to give all that you are and all that you have for the glory of God, and love those lost people of the world that are wondering in the darkness without the light.

It is very easy to get bound in one perspective, unable to step back and examine life from a different point of view. It is easy to believe that the way that I think is the only way that things should be done, because the others options require that we put faith in someone else. It is easy to step back and isolate ourselves, because there are risks when we step forward into the unknown. God took a risk by coming to live among mankind, He took a risk by allowing His son to die on our behalf, and He took a risk by ascending into heaven and leaving what He started in the hands of man. He took a risk in us. He invested life in us. Are we willing to risk what he has given us for our world? Are we willing to believe and speak? Are we willing to entrust and act? Are we willing to allow God to use us in His ministry of restoration? As we enter into a time of holy expectancy and communion as Friends, I challenge each of us to ask those questions and to be still before God to listen to what He will say.

The Advocate (Sermon May 24, 2015)

John 15:26–27 (NRSV)

Cappella Palatina di Palermo
Palermo, Italy

²⁶ “When the Advocate 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. ²⁷ You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

John 16:4–15 (NRSV)

⁴ But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them.

The Work of the Spirit

“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. ⁵ But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ ⁶ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. ⁷ Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. ⁸ And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: ⁹ about sin, because they do not believe in me; ¹⁰ about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; ¹¹ about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.

¹² “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. ¹³ 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. ¹⁴ He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. ¹⁵ All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

For the past hundred years there has been a great deal of focus on the Spirit of God. At times there has been so much focus on the Spirit that we often lose sight of who the Spirit of God truly is. The Spirit is very important but if we do not keep the Spirit in context we can find ourselves chasing after something that has already left us far behind. Who is the Spirit of God and what is her purpose? I as this because there are probably as many definitions as there are denominations, and one of the very first schisms in the church largely dealt with the Spirit.

This week the purpose of the Spirit became clearer to me than it has ever before, mainly because of the term Advocate. Most of us have been taught that the term advocate was a legal term and for the most part it is, but probably not exactly how we would imagine. When we begin to imagine legal terms and positions most of us quickly visualize the courtroom scenes of a judge sitting in a high seat facing attorneys for the prosecution and the defense. When we look at this scene we often imagine ourselves sitting on the side of the defense with the accuser or Satan sitting on the prosecution side. So when we read terms like advocate we often begin to think that the advocate is sitting next to us defending our case before the judge. That is often the image that I saw, but that began to change this week. This week I was called as a witness to court, which happens often in my line of work, but something happened while there that has never happened before. I had an advocate appointed to me. The role of the advocate was to assist me with any question that I might have in preparation for the trial. He introduced me to the attorney, and assisted the attorney in helping me become as good of a witness as I could be. This opened my eyes to the role and responsibility of the Spirit of God.

The Spirit is the advocate, not the attorney. The Spirit is the liaison between, speaking for me if I am confused, translating things to me if I do not understand, and helping prepare me to face the trial set before me. The advocate works with us but we do not control the advocate. The advocate’s primary responsibility is to bring the people they are appointed to assist to the attorney and to assist the attorney to equip those involved to perform what is necessary. The Spirit is the advocate.

This opens my eyes in so many ways. Knowing this has changed my thinking and heightened my understanding. It has lifted the fog surrounding areas of confusion, because the spirit is the advocate. Who is the spirit and what is her role? Her role is to connect, interpret, help, advise, and to assist humanity to align with the needs of God.

How many of us have had skewed images of the Spirit? How often do we misunderstand the role the Spirit of God plays in relation to our faith? How often do we misalign our faith to where we end up walking in a direction contrary to the desires of God? This can all be a result of misunderstanding the role and responsibility of the Spirit.

The image of the advocate something unique to the writings of John. I think this is important to note because so much of theology or our understanding of God gains the most support by the writings of John. John, the disciple Jesus loved, writes from a perspective that differs from the other gospel writers because he focuses primarily on the relational aspects of our faith. The various roles that the personalities of God play are largely derived from the writings of John, and that is why the term advocate is so important.

From the beginning of the Friends movement we have been very aware of the role of the Spirit in our faith. Our meetings for worship are centered on listening to the Spirit and following where the Spirit leads us. In many ways the Friends movement paved the way for much of the Pentecostal movement that followed over a century after, because we were very aware that there was an active divine interaction between mankind and God. But there is a danger in focusing too closely to the Spirit.

This almost seems like a heretical thing to say but I believe it is true, and this is why the term advocate is so important. If all we do is focus on the Spirit where is our faith grounded? Jesus describes the Spirit as wind blowing, we know it is there but we do not know where it comes from or where it is going. The Irish monks would describe the spirit as the wild goose, something that could be chased but very hard if not impossible to catch. The Spirit is fluid, formless, and something that cannot be defined. Just when we think we have caught it, the Spirit flies just out of our reach. But the Spirit is important, because the Spirit is the advocate.

Let us go back to the image of the courtroom. For most of us we are on the defense side, we are accused and stand before the judge hoping for grace. We have an image that is engrained in our minds, we are sinners in the hands of an angry God, we are worms, and a host of other ideas. Consider for a moment that image you have in your mind. Jesus said, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.  And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment…” Jesus goes away, it is Jesus that stands before the judge in this image, and the advocate is with us in the world. The advocate is working with us directing us away from the world’s understandings and pointing us to the truth. But this is the part that flips things on end, “[Prove the world wrong] about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.” Who is condemned? Who is the one on defense? It is not us on trial, but the ruler of the world.

This really changes everything that we thought we knew for so many years, in our individualistic world view we believe that it is us on trial, that we are front and center, but we are not the ones on trial. The ruler of the world is, the accuser, or Satan. It is the job of the defense to shift blame off of the accused and place that accusation onto another, the accused become the accuser. The condemned tries to distract those around them from the truth, convincing those around them that it is not them that are guilty but someone else. They wish to confuse us about sin, righteousness, and judgment. But the advocate will guide us in truth.

This is where theology comes into play. Jesus is in the center of theology and must be. Sin is anything that distracts us from the truth of Christ. The truth of Christ is that He is fully man and fully God. He is the fulfillment of humanity, the perfect example and expression of what humanity should be. Anything that keeps us from living the life that Christ showed us is sin. And the life that Jesus showed us was a life that had a rhythm of prayer, worship, and service to others. A life dedicated to building, maintaining, and repairing relationships between God and humankind. The accused accuser wishes to distract us from that, he wishes to divide us and separate us from the truth getting us look away from Christ. He wants us to withdraw from the big picture and focus on the little things. This is sin or that is sin, when in reality sin is the broken relationship.

The accused accuser then proceeds to redefine righteousness. But what is righteousness? This is a bit foggy in the passage but Jesus says, “I am going to the Father.” That one statement does give us some direction in defining righteousness. Righteousness is heading in the right direction, toward the Father. So often we want to define righteousness as being right or living right, but this does not necessarily mean we are heading in the correct direction. Jesus gave many examples in his ministry where the religious were doing everything right according to the law and were far from righteousness. The rich young ruler was a prime example. He came to Jesus asking what he must do to gain the kingdom. Jesus listed off all the legal obligations for righteousness and the young man said I have done all of this. Then Jesus said you lack one thing, sell all your possessions, give it to the poor and follow me. There is something about that that just does not sit well with us, he did everything right yet he was not on the right path. He lacked one thing and it was that his life was not directed toward the things of the Father. He was not following in the footsteps of Jesus. He could not give up his image of righteousness for the truth of righteousness. The accused accuser wants to cause us to focus on the images of righteousness instead of the path of righteousness. He will do whatever he can to get us to step off the path, following Jesus to the Father.

This brings us to judgement. Who is being judged and why? The ability to place blame somewhere else has plagued humanity since the fall, but even that was an action of redirected blame. We judge others to redirect the attention off of our own short comings. Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent, and the serpent blamed God. And we are each caught in the middle of the blame game. This is the method of ruler of the world, casting blame on others, providing to the masses a scape goat to direct our anger and hate. Claiming that our problems are not our own but caused by someone or something else, and all would be perfect if we just abolished the one that is blamed. The world is full of this, just scroll through Facebook for a minute and you will see a number of postings casting blame and demanding action to rid the world of the scapegoat. Big oil is the problem, Wal-Mart is the problem, ISIS is the problem, the Church is the problem, environmentalists are the problem, Obama is the problem, homosexuals are the problem, police are the problem, unions are the problem, or government is the problem. Each and every one of those issues are a problem but they are the problem because they distract us from the underlying reality that we want to refocus blame because we have been influenced by the ruler of the world, we have join in the accusations of the accused accuser.

But the Spirit is the advocate. The advocate works as the liaison guiding us in the direction we need to go to fulfill the task set before us. The Spirit is like the wind, we know it is there but we do not know where it comes from or where it is going. But we can lift our sail and let it carry us the direction we should go. The Spirit leads us down the right path, it teaches us the holy rhythms of life, and directs us to Christ who is going to the Father.  The spirit gives gifts that assist us in doing the work set before us, and that work is to guide everyone around us into truth, the truth about sin, righteousness, and judgment. And that truth is revealed to us through the life, ministry, death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

Who is the Spirit, what is the Spirit’s role? The Spirit is the advocate, the one that brings us to the one that stands before the judge. The Spirit is the one that guides us to the path of the teacher and encourages us to continue down that path toward the Father. The Spirit is the force that connects us to Christ who stands for us. The Spirit is the one that helps us become witnesses for the truth, in a world that is ruled by deception.

As we enter this time of open worship and communion as Friends, let us celebrate that we are connected to God through this powerful force he provided for us. And let us embrace the Spirit as our ever present advocate directing us down the pathway with Christ to the Father who loves us so much that he sent his only son not to condemn the world but to give us life.