A Sermon for VI Easter All Saints’ Church,
Southern Shores, N.C. May 5, 2013 Thomas
E. Wilson, Rector
All the lessons for today speak of allowing God’s
spirit to guide us. The writer of the Book of Revelation has a dream which
allows the spirit of be heard in the symbols of the vision. In the Gospel Jesus
tells his disciples “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send
in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said
to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as
the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be
afraid.” The Psalm has the Psalmist sing, “Let the nations be glad and sing for
joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide all the nations upon
earth.”
In the verses just before the reading from the Book
of Acts for today, the writer notes that Paul and Timothy had tried to go to
two different places in modern day Turkey in Asia Minor but were unable to do
so. Paul assumes that the Holy Spirit did not open those doors because she had
another plan, but what it was he did not know. So Paul listens, looking for a
sign of his next step. He enters into prayer. We tend to think that prayer
means talking but, for Paul, prayer is about active listening for what God’s
Holy Spirit might be saying. In his listening he has a vision, a dream, in
which a young man pleads with him to cross over to Europe and come to Macedonia
in Greece. There are four three steps that must be taken:
1) to admit that help is needed from a power greater
than oneself,
2) to make oneself open to hear what the spirit
might say,
3) to gather with others to pray, listen, and
discern together, for not all spiritual messages come from the Holy Spirit,
they may come from the dark side of one’s own pride and ego, and
4) to accept the closed door and walk through
the open one.
He finds that the doors open for him, and he meets a
woman from Thyatira, which is in Asia Minor, who was doing business in Macedonia.
If Paul and Timothy had stayed in Asia Minor they would have missed her. Paul
was able to pay attention and allow the Holy Spirit to open and close doors for
him. Some people might call it coincidence, but people of faith believe that
God wishes what is best for us, and we need to be freed from our own arrogance
in order to hear what loving path is available. We hear with all of our senses and with entering
into preconscious material as well and checking it out with scripture,
tradition, reason and a community of faith. I remember one time a woman was on
her way out of the house to take a brave step in one direction in life and it
started to rain. She called me and asked if God was telling her not to take
that direction. We told her that God was telling her to take a raincoat.
I am on a committee of the diocese charged with
searching for a new Bishop. What we have
asked the churches of the diocese to do is pray and to listen about what the
Holy Spirit might be saying about the kind of Bishop she has in mind for us and
to open those doors. We will have a listening time for the committee to meet
with interested people from the 17 churches in the Albemarle Deanery, which
stretches from the Outer Banks to the Virginia border, over to Ahoskie, down to
Williamston and back again, this Thursday evening at a central place, Christ
Church, Elizabeth City. What we hope to hear is what you have heard the Holy
Spirit say to you about what kind of Bishop would be best for God’s mission in
this time and place. I will warn you that we are not looking for an agenda that
fits our plans but for the results of your prayers as you listened to God.
There will be other listening days around the diocese and then the committee
will put together a profile and questions which we will ask applicants so we
may listen to hear the congruence or dissonance, as doors open and close.
The committee has tried to spend a lot of time
listening to what the Spirit may be saying to us and I have found that the time
of discernment to be Holy Space when we gather. Our hope is that, although we
are a diverse group of people from all over the diocese, we will not allow our
own agendas to get in the way of listening.
We have a chaplain, a retired priest from Connecticut who now lives in
Edenton, who has been very helpful and our chair, a lay person from
Fayetteville, has been striking all the right notes. We take the four steps:
1) To admit that we need help from a power
greater than ourselves,
2) to make ourselves open to hear what the
spirit might say,
3) to gather to pray, listen and discern
together, for not all spiritual messages come from the Holy Spirit, they may
come from the dark side of our own pride and egos, and
4) to accept the closed door and walk through
the open one.
In two weeks we will have a memorial service for
Jack Mann. I first met Jack this month ten years ago as he was the chair of the
search committee which called me to this church. Jack spent a lot of time
listening to the Holy Spirit, urging all of us to take a journey inward to
discover the spirit of God dwelling inside each of us in order to take the
journey outward to help the poor and marginalized. Without the journey inward we
become busy strangers to ourselves and will tend to be burned out by the
demands of the journey outward, and without the journey outward we become
precious little dilettantes playing at religion. Jack took prayer seriously and
listened for the doors opening and closing, setting the tone for the committee
to do its work.
12 years ago I had promised the church I was at that
I would stay at least 5 years and then I started looking. I was working full
time and so had lots of things to do, but I answered inquiries, visited and
interviewed. After 2 years, and more than a few closed doors, I was wondering
if I was wasting my time looking for another position. My problem was that I
had my own agenda. I knew what I wanted and figured God had given me a brain to
figure out problems and make decisions, so I wasn’t “wasting” much time
listening to the Holy Spirit. And all I could hear was the sound of closing
doors. Therefore, I withdrew my name and started to listen to see if the Spirit
was asking me to stay there and if so, to open the doors for a renewed
ministry. I figured that it was only when I have the freedom to say “No” that I
have the freedom to say “Yes”.
As I made that decision to listen to the Spirit about staying, this church,, All Saints’, contacted me and I decided not care about giving the safe answers and fired off a response to the first round of the written questions - to which Pat wondered if I was trying not get hired. Listening to the Holy Spirit freed me to explore without being tied to my ego or to a check list of my agenda. At the top of my agenda was that I would never be involved in another building project. But the fact that Jack and your committee listened to the Holy Spirit allowed me to continue to listen as well.
As I made that decision to listen to the Spirit about staying, this church,, All Saints’, contacted me and I decided not care about giving the safe answers and fired off a response to the first round of the written questions - to which Pat wondered if I was trying not get hired. Listening to the Holy Spirit freed me to explore without being tied to my ego or to a check list of my agenda. At the top of my agenda was that I would never be involved in another building project. But the fact that Jack and your committee listened to the Holy Spirit allowed me to continue to listen as well.
Our visit down here with the search committee and
then the return to talk with the vestry went well, and Pat was charmed and
excited, but I was hesitant still. That night the vestry offered me the
position and told me we would be meeting with the finance people the next
morning. I had studied this church and had awareness about what the package
would look like. I knew they could not afford to match the package I had. The
way it is supposed to work is to meet with the finance people in the morning and
thank them and say something like, “We thank you for your hospitality and we
have much to consider. We will pray about the decision as we return home and will
get back to you in a few days.”
That morning I woke up in the predawn hours and went
to walk on the beach to pray and to listen. As I walked and stopped and walked,
the red sun started peeking on the horizon and I saw dolphins jumping in water.
I felt the breeze of the spirit enter into my soul at this sight and I realized
that I was hearing the opening of a door. The Spirit was using the sun to tell
me this was a new day and it was time to leave the past, and the dolphins were
inviting me to join them in a place of joy and freedom. I ran to the place
where we were staying and pulled Pat out of bed to return with me to the beach.
When she saw the dolphins, she shrieked with joy. She told me it was a sign that
I was to tell the vestry and finance committee that we would have no need for
further prayers and would accept whatever they offered and we would adjust. Together
we took the four steps:
1) To admit that we need help from a power
greater than oneself,
2) to make ourselves open to hear what the
spirit might say,
3) to gather to pray, listen and discern
together, for not all spiritual messages come from the Holy Spirit, they may
come from the dark side of one’s own pride and ego and
4) to accept the closed door or walk through the
open one together.
The Spirit is speaking all the time; the problem is
that we keep not listening. Hear again the words from the Gospel: “the
Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you
everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with
you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not
let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
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