Learning from the Spirit
Easter VI; May 13, 2007
John 14:23-29
I am grateful to the older children for helping write today’s sermon. That is, we talked together about the Scripture reading: I asked them questions and they responded. I have decided that the best way to present today’s sermon is to share with you the questions I asked them and the responses they gave me and to reflect on them. Their responses show a fine spiritual sensitivity that I hope will be nurtured over the years to come.
The first question I asked is one I love to ask Bible students of all ages: Are there any parts of this reading that you find particularly difficult? The group had two answers, two particular problems. One of them was Jesus’ curious statement, “I am going away, and I am coming to you.” They asked me what that means. It should be some comfort to all of you that the Disciples had a similar reaction; later when Jesus talks again about going away and coming again, they said, “We do not know what he is talking about.” (16:18) At first, I thought Jesus was talking about his death and resurrection; he would go away and he would come again. Perhaps that was it. But since he is also talking about the Holy Spirit, I think it is more likely that Jesus is saying that he will ascend in glory to the Father, and will come again to them in the Holy Spirit. Although he has gone away, he has also come again in the Advocate.
And that was the other difficulty the class had: What does “Advocate” mean? They knew that Jesus was referring to the Holy Spirit, but why call the Spirit the “Advocate”? An advocate, of course, is someone who stands up for you, who speaks on your behalf, and who encourages you. When Dick Davidson1 hauls you into court, charged with a crime, you need an advocate to speak for you and help you. Part of the job of the Holy Spirit is to help the people of God speak up for our faith.
When I read in Jesus’ words about him and the Father making their home with the disciples, I asked the children, “Are there times you feel the presence of God?” There were two different sorts of answers: one sort had to deal with feeling secure. For example, one of them said, “When I’m sleeping, like I’m not going to get hurt.” The other group of answers had to do with feeling insecure and needing the presence of God for encouragement: when nervous, worried or dealing with stage fright, for example. Both types of answers suggest a relationship with God built on trust, on trusting God to help, to care and to provide security and shelter.
It is good to see that and is in keeping with the children’s answers to my next question. I said, “Jesus also says that those who love him ‘keep his word.’ What do you think he is talking about?” More than once came back the answer: “You trust him.” To keep the word of Jesus is to trust him. Absolutely; that is not all it means, of course, but it reminds us that our relationship with God does not grow from our ability to do the right thing but from our desire to trust.
The rest of what the children said in response to this question is also excellent: they reminded me that it is important to attend church faithfully, to pray, not to intentionally commit sins, and never to betray Jesus. Thank you, young people, those are great ideas. And all of them are built on trusting Christ, on keeping Christ’s word by trusting him.
Now, the last two questions were pretty much the same, so I’ll combine them and their answers into one. Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit teaching us more. “What would you like to learn?”
This was my favorite question of them all, for the children have not yet learned to avoid asking difficult or embarrassing questions. And everyone in the group wanted to know the answer to one question, “Where did God come from?” As I think over twenty-five years as a minister and the number of times I have opened the door for children to ask any question about God, I do not think I have ever been disappointed, but have been asked this question in some form: Where did God come from?
Why do adults so rarely ask that question? Do we assume there is no good answer? Perhaps you know the story of the super-computer with the amazing processing power – greater than that of the entire human race – who is asked the question, “Is there a God?” and after a short period of waiting, the technicians receive the reply, “There is now.”
The philosophers have struggled with the question, “Where did God come from?” since before Socrates and have written a great deal about it. The responses boil down to two main themes: either we invented God out of a need for the divine, or God is eternal, infinite and absolute – and so did not come from anywhere, but simply is. The first idea is easy to grasp, but troubling; the other idea is difficult to grasp, and still troubling. Maybe that’s why we rarely ask the question: every possible answer is troubling. Perhaps the reason I love to teach philosophy students is they are adults (or nearly so) and still ask questions like that.
I will not respond to all of the rest of the questions the children asked, but will mention them so you can get a sense of the spiritual inquiry of the rising generation. They asked, “How did God die? How did Jesus rise again? What is heaven like? Is Jesus God? What was Jesus like as a child?” These are questions that Christians over the ages have asked and have developed answers to, but incomplete answers, of course. And answers to questions like those generally lead to new questions.
There was one more question asked that I can answer with confidence, and it is a very good question. One of the students asked, “If Jesus was so smart, when he picked his disciples, why did he not choose any women?” The first thing I’ll say is that he did choose women as disciples, although they were not among the Twelve. The following women are mentioned by name in the Bible as disciples of Jesus: Mary Magdalene, Mary and Martha of Bethany, his mother Mary, Joanna, Susanna, Mary the mother of James and Joses, Salome, Mary the mother of John Mark, and then there are the female disciples whose names are not recorded: the Samaritan woman, the sinner-woman who anointed him, and the many who invested resources in his cause (Luke 8:3). I love what Thomas John Carlisle wrote about one of them, Joanna:
She left her husband
to go on
toadying to Herod
while she
breathed the clean air
of high adventure
and an uncommon cause.
While Nicodemus
only dared to visit
Jesus by night, Joanna
came by day –
and every day.
What headlines her
radical activities provoked
in their edition
of National Enquirer.
It would be like her
to listen at Gethsemane.
She climbed to Calvary.
She verified
the Arimathean tomb.
She tasted
the awe and ecstasy
of Easter morning.2
Still, it is true that the Twelve Apostles were all men. Why is that? In part, it is because of the times. Jesus was already more radically inclusive of women than would be usual for a rabbi of his time, since women went around with his group, women were witnesses of his Resurrection and preachers about him being the Messiah, and he would sit and converse with women. But to organize a credible movement in that era required the leadership of men. In the 21st century, I would like to think that the Twelve would be six men and six women. Then again, look at the leadership of Fortune 500 companies: 2% of them are women. So maybe we’re still not there.
There is another reason, a theological reason, for the Twelve to have been men. Jesus is creating the new Israel. The original Israel had twelve tribes, each named for a son of Jacob.3 Notice: a “son” of Jacob. Jacob had daughters as well, but the tribes were named for his sons. For Jesus to create a new Israel there need to be twelve named male figures as its foundation, to match the twelve named male figures of the original Israel. It does not imply that only men can be apostles – after all, there are women called apostles in the New Testament (Romans 16:7) and in Church history – but to be the foundation of the new Israel, the Twelve had to be men.
Time to draw out a point from all this and wrap it up. To learn from the Spirit – to learn about God, about Jesus and incidentally about ourselves as the people of God – is to learn to trust. The children were right when they said that to keep the word of Jesus is to trust him and the main lesson the Spirit teaches us is to trust Jesus Christ.
Part of the struggle to learn to trust is to discover which questions need to be answered. Some questions can be answered and are answered. Some questions we simply learn to live with. And some questions lead to a process of discovery that uncovers new questions. Never give up asking the questions; keep on learning from the Spirit.
Holy Spirit, teach us to trust our Lord Jesus. Teach us to trust what we learn from him and to trust him when we struggle to learn. Amen.
Robert A. Keefer
Westminster Presbyterian Church
Clarinda, Iowa
[1] Our County Prosecutor and a member of our congregation; his children were among those helping with this service.
2 Thomas John Carlisle, “High Adventure,” in Beginning with Mary: Women of the Gospels in Portrait (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1986), p. 70.
3 Actually, ten sons of Jacob and two sons of Joseph, in the usual listing, but sometimes the names of the twelve sons of Jacob are the patronymics.