Groaning for Deliverance

A Homily for Pentecost

Texts: Acts 2:1-21; Romans 8:22-27

Grace to you and peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, who sends us the Spirit as an advocate. Amen.

“The whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now.”

It has certainly felt that way for the past fourteen months – groaning under the weight of our eager expectation for things to return to something that might resemble what we used to call normal. Groaning for relief, for community, for financial relief, for a vaccine. Groaning for family and friends and coworkers and neighbors who have been separated from us, for loved ones who have been on ventilators in the ICU, groaning for relief and healing and hope of life after death. Groaning for three and a half million fellow humans killed by this wretched pandemic. Groaning for deliverance.

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Not Alone

A Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter

Texts: 1 Peter 3:13-22; St. John 14:15-21

Grace to you and Peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Risen Lord, who will not leave us abandoned. Amen.

Last week, we read Christ’s words to the disciples: Do not let your hearts be troubled.

Spoken on the night before his crucifixion, his words stand in stark contrast to the situation at hand: everything was about to get much worse.

When Philip asked how we might know the way, just hours before Pilate would sneer, “What is truth?” on the eve of his death, Christ boldly asserts, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

Today, we pick up on the very heels of that narrative. Continue reading “Not Alone” →

The Spirit is on the Move

A Homily for the Feast of Pentecost

Texts: Acts 2:1-21; St. John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Grace to you and Peace from God our Heavenly Father and Christ Jesus our Risen Lord, who sends us the Holy Spirit, another advocate, to lead the Church. Amen.

Last Sunday, we read Saint Luke’s twin accounts of the Ascension, those scenes in which Christ led his disciples out away from the city and was taken up from the face of the earth. “Well now what?” they must have asked.

What comes next for the Church, now that Christ is seated at the Father’s right hand? Continue reading “The Spirit is on the Move” →

The Triune God, the Holy Spirit, and Gender

Question: The pastor called the Holy Spirit “she.” What’s up with that?

Language is tricky, translation trickier still, and translating language about God is trickiest of all. Relational terms like Father and Son, describing the First and Second Persons of the Trinity respectively, describe the intimate relationship between parent and child but in ways that can, at times, limit our understanding of the Triune God. Trickier still is how we understand the Third Person, the Holy Spirit, and what pronouns to use.

Short Answer: While human language is limited and translations complicate the matter, there are linguistic reasons to refer to the Holy Spirit using feminine pronouns, and the practice was common in parts of the early Church. Continue reading “The Triune God, the Holy Spirit, and Gender” →