“The Advocate”

Sermon delivered May 9^th, 2010 at Belleville Presbyterian Church. Scriptural basis: Acts 16:9-15, John 14:23-29

 When I finally stopped arguing with God and stepped onto the path that ultimately led to my joining you here at the little white chapel on the hill, I went to the Session of my home church and formally announced my intentions and asked for their support in my quest to become a minister of the Word and Sacrament. I was then assigned a liaison, a ruling Elder whose task it was to guide me through the various steps necessary to approach the Presbytery in order to enter the ordination process. If I was successful in entering the ordination process, my Session liaison would ensure that I received whatever support was needed from my home church. When I was accepted by the Presbytery of Detroit as an Inquirer, I was assigned another liaison, a member of the Committee on Preparation for Ministry, to guide me through a process of discernment in concert with my church liaison to determine if my sense of call was genuine and if it was determined to be genuine, to help me navigate the course that would lead to being accepted as a Candidate. All through the Inquirer and Candidate phases of the ordination process, my liaison kept close tabs on my academic work, my involvement in the life of the church, and my theological maturation. My liaison presented me to the Committee on Preparation at my annual reviews, sat by my side during the reviews, waited with me for the decision of the Committee as to whether or not I would be allowed to continue in the ordination process and had I been denied continuation, would have worked with me to discern what service I could render to the church as other than a minister. Because of the rather, how shall I say it, long nature of my candidacy, I was actually blessed to have had three different Presbytery liaisons guide me through the twists and turns that led me to you. These liaisons, from both my home church and from the Presbytery, were advocates for me throughout the ordination process and without them, I highly doubt that I would have made it through. They provided advice and counsel, coaching and correction, and from time to time a swift kick in the butt when I needed it, or when they thought I needed it. My advocates were with me every step of the way, and I know that I remain in their prayers even now. I will be forever grateful to all of them for helping me get to where I am today.

 If you look back over your life, I’m pretty sure each one of you has had someone, or more likely several someones who stood up with you when things got rough. It may have been a teacher, a sibling, a teammate, or a good friend. Given that today is Mother’s Day, I bet your mom had your back on more than one occasion. And probably gave you a swift kick in the butt when you needed it. Or when she thought you needed it. These people were, and are advocates. Just as God send the Advocate to the disciples to teach them and remind them of all that Jesus had said to them, God sends us special people to be our teachers and helpers in life. To be our advocates. Yes, of course we also have access to the same Advocate that Jesus speaks of, the Holy Spirit that is the third part of the Trinity to nudge us in the right direction but sometimes it seems that we have a hard time knowing what the Spirit is up to.

 On the surface, in today’s reading from Acts the Spirit seems to be messing with Paul and his companions. He sees a man in a vision imploring him to come to Macedonia, in what is now Greece to help them. Paul immediately sets off on a lengthy voyage that takes him from Troas across the Aegean Sea to Neapolis and then inland to Philippi where he meets not the man in his vision but a woman. A Gentile woman, not a member of the Jewish community and not in a synagogue where Paul normally started his work in a new area but by the riverside, a place of prayer. History informs us that there was no synagogue in Philippi, so this part of the story makes some sense and it was not uncommon for non-Jews to have a strong belief in the God of Abraham even though they had not gone through the elaborate conversion rituals to become members of the Jewish community, so again this makes some sense but Paul approaching a group of women in a strongly patriarchal society is well outside the bounds of social protocol. This meeting is not by chance, as it is the culmination of a series of spirit-led changes to Paul’s plans earlier in Acts and the result is that the first Christian convert in Europe is not a male Jew but a female Gentile and a most unusual one at that!

 Lydia is described as a dealer in purple cloth and the head of a household that includes an untold number of persons. While the historical record is pretty thin, based on what the Bible tells us we can infer that Lydia was most likely a widow who had taken over her husband’s business and continued, or built upon its success. She would have been wealthy, as only the very rich and well-positioned in society could afford purple cloth – purple is the color of royalty and Lydia would have been known by the movers and shakers in Philippi. She also would have been a member of the Dyers Guild, a trade association that enjoyed some political power. And now it gets really interesting – her conversion was not solely the result of Paul’s persuasive preaching, but by the Lord opening her heart to the Good News of the Gospel. Lydia’s whole household, including servants and likely her children were converted and thus was planted the first church in Europe. Lydia’s house became the mother church for all other house churches in the region, and also became Paul’s regular lodging when he returned to Philippi. One more interesting tidbit: Lydia was a native of Thyatira, someplace Paul badly wanted to visit but had not been able to get to. By converting Lydia, a person of no little prominence, word would have quickly gotten back to Thyatira and helped to legitimize the Christian movement there. Sort of a two-for-one deal courtesy of the Holy Spirit, if you like.

 And what a deal for the disciples, eh? Jesus has told them that he’s going away but God is sending them the Advocate to help them so that they won’t be alone, and to keep them on track. This isn’t the first time the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Gospels; as a matter of fact the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus at his baptism in the River Jordan at the beginning of John’s Gospel and remained with him from that point forward. Jesus is both the keeper and dispenser of the Spirit as received from the Father, which forms part of the foundation for the doctrine of the trinity Importantly, Jesus leaves the disciples his peace and offers them comfort. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” Peace in this context does not mean an absence of conflict, although that is certainly an element of peace. Here, peace is meant to be a freedom from anxiety or fear, a sense of calm. Hence the declaration that Jesus does not give as the world gives. Peace for Jesus, and for us, is the enduring presence of God in our lives. If God is present, then all should be calm for all will be well. This gift of peace as Jesus gives it is wrapped up in what is right and good about relationships: love, forgiveness, reconciliation and thanksgiving. When we’re in right relation to God, when we put our whole trust in his grace and love, we’re freed from anxiety. This not only helps us as individuals, but helps calm those around us as well. If you’ve ever been in a crisis situation, whether in the military or during a Code Blue in a hospital or a tense family setting, often all it takes to keep things from spinning completely out of control is for one person to exude a sense of calm, a sense of peace. Everyone seems to instinctively turn to the source of calmness and then go about their business. I’ve long admired folks like that, and try to be one of the calm ones when stuff starts hitting the fan. I try to draw on the Holy Spirit within me.

 I’ve long been intrigued by good, faithful people who pray every day to God, who proclaim Jesus as their Lord and Savior and their closest, truest friend, who will be glad to tell you that they live by Philippians 4:13 – “I can do all things through him who strengthens me,” yet can’t seem to see the Holy Spirit at work in their lives, as if the third person of the Trinity is only there for the sake of stability like the third leg of a three-legged stool instead of as the Advocate Jesus tells us is coming. They call it coincidence, or serendipity or the luck of the Irish, or the result of clean living. True enough, it’s the result of right living but it’s got a name. When you feel the need to pick up the phone and call an old friend or your sister on the other side of the state for the first time in months, and you don’t know why and it turns out that your friend is a grandparent for the first time or that your oldest niece was accepted to college, I believe that‘s the Spirit at work. When you have a “gut feel” to slow down when you’re approaching a curve you’ve taken a hundred times before and you find a guy changing a flat tire partially in the road, that’s the Spirit at work. When you turn left instead of right at an intersection on the way home from work and are greeted with a glorious sunset that reminds you of the glory of God at the end of a lousy day, that’s the Holy Spirit guiding you to something you needed even if you didn’t know you needed it. The pages of a book fall open to an inspirational phrase, you find your grandmother’s brooch that has been missing for years just in time for the family reunion, the weather breaks so your child’s plane can safely touch down. Whether you call it “spider sense” or “gut feel” or “intuition,” it’s all the Holy Spirit fulfilling the task God has given to teach us everything and remind us of all that Jesus said. In our Presbyterian tradition, we often talk of waiting on the Spirit, of the leadings of the Spirit, of the Spirit’s guiding hand. Ours is a faith inextricably linked to the Spirit as the tangible presence of the Triune God in our lives. Certainly pray to God Almighty every day, walk with Jesus Christ but please don’t cut yourself off from the Holy Spirit. Think about it – if a three-legged stool didn’t have all three legs of equal length, you’d fall over.

 And on this Mother’s Day, I would be remiss if I didn’t invite you to consider that one of the clearest manifestations of the Holy Spirit in your life may well have been, or still is, your mom.  While I made light of the way mom’s sometimes “advocate” for us by kicking us in the slats a few minutes ago, there are few relationships as Spirit-led as that between a mother and her children. There is something about the way a mother loves her children that is holy. There’s a line from a children’s book titled “Love You Forever” that, in addition to choking me up every time I think about it also pretty neatly summarizes the love of a mother: I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living my baby you’ll be. It also pretty neatly summarizes how God loves each one of us, and since God is immortal I find it rather comforting to know that I’m loved for all eternity.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.