1. Birth

A couple of months ago your pastor called me and asked if I could be on standby to preach at St. James the Sunday after their baby was born. It worked for my calendar and I said "Yes." Last Sunday was Pentecost and this Sunday is Trinity Sunday - the Scripture lessons for both include the work of God's Holy Spirit.

I didn't realize at the time what a treat I had been given, to have my life become dependent on when a baby would be born! I went to bed a week ago Saturday wondering if I might get a call at 3 AM telling me, "well, Jack, you're preaching at St. James tomorrow!" Talk about sharing the excitement! That's not quite like making me a family member, but it's pretty close! Well, Corydan Lucas Anderson Hoffman arrived on Wednesday and so I'm here with you this morning.

It's appropriate and a nice coincidence that our lectionary reading from Genesis this morning talks about beginnings. In the Genesis picture of how everything began, before there was light, before earth had a shape, there was a presence. In the Genesis account, it is "a wind from God" that "swept over the face of the waters."⁽¹⁾ In that wind, in some translations it is "a mighty wind" or "the spirit of God", we know that God was present and about to begin God's work of creation. Wind can be a fearsome symbol of power -- as we experienced last month in seeing the tornado destruction to the church in La Plata where St. James' former pastor Ed Voorhaar is now serving. I saw this power myself one stormy afternoon in Washington a couple of weeks ago, looking out my window toward the Capitol, seeing powerful winds shake the trees, and blow raindrops past horizontally, the wind so strong it seemed none of the rain was actually hitting the ground.

In the next chapter of Genesis that image of God present in the wind takes another form. "Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being."⁽²⁾ This past week, Corydan Lucas took his first breath, and in the words of Genesis, "became a living being." In light of the creation story in Genesis, every birth of a baby is a re-enactment of the creation of Adam, and in the moment of that first breath, wind enters the baby, life enters the baby, God's Holy Spirit enters the baby. For those who lived in the time of Genesis, every breathing thing had something of God in it, because God alone gave life.

Have you ever come upon someone sleeping who is lying so still that for a moment you wonder if they are all right? In a moment of panic you wonder if they are alive. And then you see them take a breath and you experience relief. In their breathing, you have confirmed that they are a living person, they are more than just a body, they are a spiritual presence.

In that moment of the first breath, God gives a spiritual connection in substitution for the physical connection that has been taken away. For nine months, the baby has been surrounded by the fluid of the womb. Now for the rest of his life, he will be sustained by the breath of God. He will have, as we all have, a lifelong reminder of those nine months of physical connection - his belly button. But the physical connection is no more. From here on out his most important nurture will be a spiritual connection, first with his parents, then with other humans -- but always with God. In the nine months of physical connection, his life has had the safety of secure boundaries and his mother's protection. Now as he grows into spiritual connection, he will increasingly be linked to God who is like the wind, blowing where it chooses.⁽³⁾

I wonder if everyone would take a moment and just take a deep breath right now. Drink in the air, and hold it, and then let it out. You have just had an experience of your connection with God. Oh, that's not the only way to experience the presence of God. But it is a way to experience the presence of God in your life, and if you aren't at least sometimes aware of the presence of God in your life when you breathe in and breathe out, you are missing one of the ways that God gives us to make a spiritual connection.

2. Growth

From the beginning of the Bible to the end, its message is that God wants this spiritual connection with humans -- and God has stacked the deck in favor of that spiritual connection taking place. As St. Augustine once said, "Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

I really think God wants to make spiritual growth - the development of our spiritual connection with God - as easy as possible. So God would want all the things that make up the spiritual connection to be easy. Identity - who we are -- should be easy. Values - what's important to us -- should be easy. Purpose and commitments - where we're going - should be easy. Relationships - who we care about and love and relate to -- should be easy.

Spirituality includes our identity - our names. At the beginning of our life, we receive a surname or family name from our parents and also a given name - it used to be called a Christian name. Today they want the baby named in the hospital, and the baptism service no longer emphasizes the giving of a name. That's too bad. Our name is not just who we are, but who we are in the hands of God. When our parents name us, the name means something to them. It represents something of value. Giving that name to us is a way of saying how valuable we are, to our parents and to God.

Spirituality includes our relationships. As we grow, all that we get from relationships with our parents, with our parents' friends, with the people who interact with us in church, all of these things are part of our spiritual growth. As children grow around us, and we who are adults nurture them in so many ways, our nurturing is helping their spiritual growth in all these areas.

Spirituality includes our values - what's important to us. We learn from our parents and those around us and our values become part of our spiritual connection. Young Muslim women in our community affirm their values, their faith, their modesty as young women, when they decide to wear the hijab, the Muslim hair covering for women. Though in this room we don't share that faith, we must admire their courage in a culture that often misunderstands and is unsympathetic to their values.

Finally, spirituality includes our purpose, what we stand for. There comes a time for each of us when we begin to make declarations of "this is what I'm about. We take a stand for something, we make a commitment to something A key stand that affects our purpose is taking a stand for Christ. In some parts of the church it's called accepting Christ, or "getting saved." In others, it's called making a decision for Christ, or it may be called being born again.

When we look at the passage in John's Gospel that talks about being born again, we run once more into the picture of God as wind, or breath. The writer of John's Gospel was a theologian who thought deeply about how things are put together and how things work and how things are related to God. Two themes very important to him are the theme of the working of God's Holy Spirit and the possibility of our having new lives. And so John emphasizes how Jesus talked about that new life in terms of a new birth. In a conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus, Nicodemus demonstrates how dense it is possible for a human being to be. "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answerd, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.' Nicodemus said to him, 'How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?" ⁽⁴⁾

To be born again is to have that spiritual connection with God. It's a moment in which we recognize our lives are no longer our own, but we are part of something bigger than us.

In the ancient Presbyterian catechisms from Scotland, children learn that the purpose of life is to glorify God and to enjoy God forever. But I believe our purpose is deeper than those words would seem. Our purpose is not just about telling God how great God is - it's about figuring out what God is doing in this world and pitching in to help.

3. Overcoming Fear

If spiritual connection is supposed to be easy, what makes it so hard?

If we don't feel the connection, it's not because the connection isn't there or because God doesn't care, or because we're doing something wrong, but because something has gotten in the way. John the Baptist quoted Isaiah at the beginning of his ministry, "prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."⁽⁵⁾ If our spiritual connections are weak, then, what we need to do is figure out what's in the way - and clear the path. Get the rocks and brush and potholes and obstacles out of the way.

I thought of all the things that could get in the way between us and God. Greed could. Lust could. Selfishness could. Abandonment to passions like anger or revenge could. But of all the obstacles to spiritual connection, I think the most basic and the most powerful is fear.

Fear challenges the spiritual development even of babies and small children. Isn't that what a lot of the tears are about? Will I ever be fed again? Will Mommy ever come back? Can Daddy protect me from the monsters under the bed?

Fear affects grown-ups too, even in churches. One of my predecessors at the General Board of Church and Society instituted a program called Caring Communities. Church congregations can designate themselves a caring community if they make a commitment to be welcoming and supportive of persons with mental illness and their families. The 1996 United Methodist General Conference thought this was a great idea and passed a resolution making Caring Communities an official program of the United Methodist Church. In the last 6 years, 3 churches in the United States that I know of have becoming official Caring Communities. In the United States there are 35,609 local United Methodist Churches -- and three have taken the step of calling themselves a Caring Community. You have to conduct an education program about mental illness, the Church Council has to approve a covenant statement, and the church has to publicize what it's doing. I've heard of churches which have no problem conducting the education program. Their church council has no problem passing a covenant statement. But publicizing to the community? Like the rich young ruler,⁽⁶⁾ they turn sadly away. They are afraid. What would happen to the congregation if the word got out that they welcome that sort of people?⁽⁷⁾

Is something not getting in the way of that congregation's spiritual connection? Would their spiritual life improve if they found a way to get the obstacle of fear out of the way?

Since September 11, 2001, fear has strained the spiritual connection of our whole nation. We all have experienced some degree of trauma from the terrorist bombings. Healing of the trauma has been complicated by the atmosphere of fear that has thrived since then. Polls tell us that a majority of Americans are still fearful after September 11. Airplane travel is still down. Some people won't come to meetings in New York or Washington. In the wake of September 11 and the anthrax scare, Congress has passed legislation restricting our freedoms for the stated purpose of helping the fight on terror. Around Washington, barricades have gone up around public buildings, especially the Capitol. Recently we have been warned that another attack is coming, it may involve scuba divers, it may involve a small plane, it may involve New York or Washington, it may be nuclear. None of these warnings is specific enough to permit any preventive action, but all have in common the message that we should be afraid, we should be fearful.

These messages of fear put stress on our spiritual connection with God, and will weaken it if we are not intentional about countering fear and nurturing our spiritual connection.

About 15 years ago, I learned an important lesson about the difference between fear and danger. I was participating in an outward bound type of program and doing a "ropes course. It was my turn to put on a harness and rappel down a cliff. I was scared to death. Yet objectively I knew that the staff had taken every precaution. They would have no accidents. This was one of the safest places on the globe. Yet going down that cliff took every bit of courage I could muster.

Meanwhile, I think nothing of speeding around the Washington or Baltimore Beltways, which must be among the most dangerous places on the planet.

That taught me that what I'm afraid of and what's really dangerous may be two different things. Danger calls for careful thought and appropriate caution; fear muddles our thinking and makes us do things inconsistent with our values and commitments.

Fear gets in the way of our spiritual connection with God. Fear is a roadblock to the spiritual connection. What does the Bible say about fear? The angel tells Joseph not to fear the social stigma of taking pregnant Mary as his wife. Jesus tells us not to fear those who can kill the body but not the soul.⁽⁸⁾ Jesus tells us not to fear hunger or homelessness because God takes care even of the birds and the lilies, and we are of more value than them.⁽⁹⁾ When the disciples' boat is rocked by a sudden storm, Jesus tells them not to fear, for he is present. St. Paul contrasts the spirit of slavery, which leads us to fear, with the spirit of adoption as children of God, which leads away from fear.⁽¹⁰⁾

Removing the roadblock to spirituality called fear requires reaching. Reaching deep within ourselves until we find that core of strength and courage God has placed there - that which has us breathe. And reaching out to others. People literally need someone to hold their hand. "Take my hand, you needn't be afraid, I'm here." Even to say, "Take my hand, let's face this together, I'm as afraid as you are" reduces fear because it expresses both honesty and togetherness. In the first letter of John we hear the words "perfect love casts out fear."⁽¹¹⁾ Actually, even imperfect love goes a lot of the distance. In reaching in to ourselves and out to others, we not only conquer fear, we strengthen our spiritual connection with God.

God wants to nurture and grow the spiritual connection God has with us. God has surrounded us from birth with the breath of life, the wind of God's spirit. God has done everything possible to make spiritual connection easy. It's up to us to spot the things that get in the way, beginning with fear, and hold each other's hand to cast fear out. When we help remove the obstacles to spiritual connection, we are preparing the way of the Lord.

End Notes

1. Genesis 1:2

2. Genesis 2:7

3. John 3:8

4. John 3:4-10

5. Mark 1:3

6. Matthew 19:16-26

7. Matthew 1:20

8. Matthew 10:28

9. Matthew 10:31

10. Romans 8:15.

11. I John 4:18



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