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"Spirit Experience"
The Rev. Dr. D. Scott Stoner
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I have two items of business to take care of before I start my sermon. The first is, last week I preached about character and we honored Jim Ansley, one of our own who had just been made and Eagle Scout the day before and I said I wanted to honor any other Eagle Scouts that were here amongst us and there is one I forgot to honor. It happens to be my father. So dad, I just forgot, I’m sorry. So I’m glad I remembered. I also want to give a shout out to a girl named Amanda. Amanda is one of the most faithful, she’s not a member of this congregation, but she’s a dear friend of my daughter’s Mary and Lindsay, and we were out to visit them two weeks ago in Sault Lake City and she listens to St. Christopher’s sermons every week online and she was quoting parts of my sermon to me. And my daughters of course were rolling their eyes saying you think this guy has something intelligent or has something relevant to say? I want to thank Amanda for trying to enlighten my daughters if nothing else. You know it’s a great thing Loraine’s idea to put these on iTunes is a great thing.
Now we will get into the sermon, I am going to talk about Mother’s Day, I am going to talk about Pentecost and I want you to be thinking, because I’m going to ask you in a little bit, what’s a value? What’s something that your mother, aunt or some other woman in your life, might be a sister, a godmother, a grandmother a value a truth that was imprinted on you by your mother or some other woman in your life? I am going to ask you about that.
First, I’m going to start with some Mother’s Day humor. A Sunday School teacher who teaches second grade asked some children recently some questions regarding mothers. First of all why did God make mothers? Here are some of the answers:– She’s the only one who knows where the scotch tape is, mostly to clean the house, to help us get out of there when we were getting born. How did God make mothers? Magic, plus superpowers and a lot of stirring, God made my Mom just the same as he made me except he used bigger parts, God makes Mothers out of angel hair and clouds and everything nice in the world plus one dab of mean. Why did God give you your mother and not some other Mom? Well, of course because we’re related! Makes sense. Why did your Mom marry your Dad? My Dad makes the best spaghetti in the world and my Mom loves to eat. She got too old to do anything else with him. Who’s the boss of your house? Mom, you can tell by the room inspection, she sees the stuff under the bed. I guess Mom is because she has a lot more to do than Dad. What’s the difference between Moms and Dads? Moms work at work and work at home and Dads just go to work. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them. Moms have magic, they make you feel better without medicine. If there is one thing you could change about her what would it be? She has this weird thing about my keeping my room clean. I would get rid of that. I’d make my Mom smarter because then she would know it was my sister that did it and not me.
First I am going to talk a little about Pentecost and I actually have newsprint here that I am going to write on. I am going to be doing a lot of teaching in my next job at St. Christopher’s so that’s why I am practicing on you all. I hope you all let me do that. We talk about the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is obviously one part of the Trinity. But I was thinking about the word Spirit and the word spirituality and there is a mantra that I have heard from almost everybody under the age of thirty that I have talked to about religion. And I hear it from many people from between the age of thirty to age fifty, perhaps most people and it is this. I am a spiritual person but I’m not religious. Every young couple that Jan and I meet with around a wedding or baptism will almost always use this phrase to describe themselves. “I am a spiritual person but I’m not religious.” Or at least they will say, “I am a spiritual person but I’m not sure where I stand on organized religion.” The idea is that spirituality is different than religion and I would agree that it is. Spirituality is a much bigger circle that religion can be a part of. They are not one in the same. Spirituality I think is something on an experiential level and certainly Pentecost which is the story that we hear today where the Holy Spirit comes down and the disciples are gathered and they begin each to speak in a language that they think they don’t know and people can hear them and they are trying to figure out what is going on – that is an incredible experience. Probably all of us have had experiences in our lives that we would call God moments that we would call something that is bigger than ourselves, I would guess for Ryan and Becky that Carter’s birth was one of those experiences certainly. We have experiences that open us up to some deeper dimension of life and then we and spirituality is more at that level of experience. It’s experiential and that’s what people are looking for today, they are looking for authentic spiritual experiences. This is important to know this because this is at the heart of St. Christopher’s because this is what I will say more on that you will continue to carry forward. So when we have an experience, any of us, this happens our whole life. If we have an experience that is totally new for us, being human beings we move to the next level which is we want to understand the experience. We want to interpret it.
That’s what’s happening in this lesson today too. What do the crowds say at first? They say, these disciples are drunk, they are drinking new wine, this isn’t the Holy Spirit, they’re trying to understand what is happening. This has happened to all of us, if you have a physical symptom you never had before the first thing you want to do is to understand it. A spiritual experience, an emotional experience. If you travel somewhere for the first time you have an experience and it helps you to understand better.
And after we have had an experience then we begin to develop values or beliefs about that. Understandings get codified in beliefs, which then get, in terms of faith; they give rise to faith or religion. I know some of you can’t see that behind the font but. Experience leads to understanding, understanding when it gets in a community forms beliefs and values and then faith or religion gets formed out of that.
The problem with the church and the reason it is becoming increasingly irrelevant to the younger generation is that we keep offering them religion and they want experience. They want spirituality. They come to church too often and they find themselves bored. Where is this spirit you are talking about? They don’t find it and so they don’t have this spiritual experience.
Tell me about some values or beliefs (taking it out of a faith context now) that you learned from an important woman in your life, whether it was your mother or another woman. A value or belief that was internalized on you and you just know that it is in your character it is who you are. Anybody got one? Honesty. Integrity. Loyalty. Love others. Kindness. Hard work. Acceptance. We’ve almost got the Boy Scout oath here again. Is that what you were saying? That’s what we had last week.
Those are awesome. Those are wonderful values or beliefs that we want to pass on and that have been passed on to you by important people in your life. And how was that done? Through hundreds if not thousands of experiences. It’s not that people in your life gave you a book and said, “Here, read this. This is what we want you to believe.” It was by the living out, by a congruent living out of faith with the experience. What do the younger generation say today too about organized religion? I don’t see churches; I don’t see organized religion practicing what it preaches. I don’t see an integration between what they say and what they do. There is nothing that is more confusing to people whether it is in a church or whether it is in a family where the adults are not practicing what they say they are, their beliefs. There is nothing more confusing child to say we are a close and loving family when there is nothing but fighting, drinking and problems in the home. And they grow up and say we are a close and loving family and there is nothing but conflict and fighting. Their experience doesn’t go with the values and beliefs or the faith in this case. Authenticity is a hallmark of what younger people in the young church are looking for. This is so important to know because this is the future of St. Christopher’s. This is an authentic spiritual community and that is what drew me to this church 6 ½ years ago. That is why I wanted to come and be your rector because I knew this place already. And that is what it will be after I leave next week. You are a big reason for that. That is what we do in our children’s programs downstairs, we don’t just teach them that God loves them, we act it out. We are crazy about our kids here at St. Christopher’s. The people that teach downstairs are so excited to see the kids each week and love them and are full of joy and energy. We pass that value on to those kids. You pass it on when you welcome any new person into this church. Everyone is welcome at St. Christopher’s wherever they are on their spiritual journey. They don’t have to have all the right beliefs and the right religion yet. They come here for an authentic spiritual experience and then they will begin to try and understand that ant that will begin to form their spiritual beliefs and their faith.
See in the Pentecost story today there is no religion. There is no faith yet, there is the Holy Spirit trying to change peoples lives, Christianity doesn’t even exist yet. But they have an experience and that’s what we have to keep offering to people is an authentic spiritual experiences.
So now I am going to talk about Becky and Brian, you didn’t even know I was going to do this but I am, and Carter. They have had an experience and now they have become parents and it has changed their life just a little bit and they have a whole new understanding about what it means to be a parent and certainly what it means to be part of this miracle called the creation of life that has only strengthened your beliefs and your values and your faith. As you raise Carter now and choose to have him baptized you are saying that your faith and beliefs are very important. You are pledging that when we go through the baptismal vows in a second, it is saying that you will strive to live these things out to make this a reality in his experience in the upbringing of his life all of your family and extended family will do the same. You are saying you are going to raise him in this and are going to integrate our faith and our values into his daily experience. That’s more of a philosophical way of thinking about that but every child growing up needs many communities to help form it’s character. Obviously family is an essential one. But in this case it also means the church and it takes a village to raise a Christian and pass these values on and your extended family here today. Again, the experience is passed on. When I think of the gown you have on, it was made in 1944, that’s a material thing but what is passed down in that dress is love, the experience of love. It is the same with the church, all our rituals and all our prayers they are just things, just words, if they aren’t inhabited with the spirit of God’s love. And same with our families, if we just pass down things but they aren’t infused with love they are just things. And so, that’s what we’re doing here and I’m not sure how to end this so I’ll just end it here. I have an ending but I forgot what it was, so I’ll give it to you next week.
Now we’ll continue with the baptism...
