THAT'S THE SPIRIT
a sermon based on Romans 8:12-17
by Dr. David Rogne

Several years ago in San Diego, a ship strayed off course and became stuck in a reef at low tide.  Twelve tugboats were brought in.  They attached cables from the tugs to the ship and tried to pull it, but that did not work.  Then the tugs moved to one side and tried to push the ship off the reef.  Black smoke was belching everywhere.  The water around the big vessel had turned to a white foam with the twelve tugs pushing with all their mighty power against the ship, but they could not budge it!  Finally, the captain instructed the tugs to back off.  He sighed, "I'll just be patient and wait."  He waited until high tide.  Eventually, the ocean began to rise, and what human power could not do, the rising tide of the Pacific Ocean did by lifting the ship and putting it back into the channel.  The water was the visible instrument, but the invisible tide provided the power.

It occurs to me that the Holy Spirit is like that tide--not so much seen of itself, but nevertheless a power at work in the world.

For me, the Holy Spirit is not so much a distinct person of the Godhead, but rather a description of the activity of God.  Even before Christ, the Psalmist, referring to God, said, "Where shall I go from your spirit?  Where shall I flee from your presence?"  God and Spirit were interchangeable.  The New Testament repeatedly interchanges such terms as Holy Spirit, Spirit of God, Spirit of Jesus, Christ, and Lord.  Paul says quite plainly, "The Lord is the Spirit."  To be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, therefore, is to be open to the leading of God in our lives.  To the degree that we are receptive to God's Spirit, our lives will give evidence of that presence.  In Paul's letter to the Christians at Rome, from which we read this morning, he points out at least three ways in which the presence of God's Spirit ought to make a difference in the lives of Christians.

For one thing, he says, the presence of God's Spirit reminds us of an affiliation:  Paul says that the Spirit witnesses that we are children of God.  (Romans 816)  When we do not recognize our divine parentage, we lose our sense of family.  Madalyn Murray O'Hair, was once America's most famous atheist. Then, she disappeared from public view.  There was speculation that she had died and been quietly buried in some undesignated place for fear that some zealous Christians would come and perform religious rites at her grave.  In his book, My Life Without God, O'Hair's son, William Murray, indicates that his mother became an atheist after she ran outside during a lightning storm and dared God to strike her dead while she cursed and blasphemed.  When that didn't happen, she was satisfied that her survival proved that God did not exist.  She raised her children in atheism.  She first received public attention in 1960, when she filed a suit in Baltimore to cause schools to stop all forms of religious observance.  Eventually, she established a foundation to promote atheism and combat the influence of religion.  Her aggressive denial of God put her at odds with society, and even with a member of her family.  She chose not to see herself as a child of God.

On the other hand, when we allow God's Spirit into our lives, we come to recognize that we are God's children.  In 1977, William Murray broke with his mother, though he was still an atheist.  The Spirit of God began to work in his life; he began to read the Bible to test some of the anti-God conditioning his mother had inflicted upon him.  He began attending church, and in time was converted.  His calling then became to work to convert atheists to the Christian faith.  He goes into cities, gets a telephone installed, then runs ads in newspapers daring atheists to call him.  When asked what she thought of her son, O'Hair called him "a religious nut, like Billy Graham."  When asked about his mother, William responded, "She is a white-haired lady who is totally devoid of divine spirit."  A spiritless woman, whose mission in life is to spread dismal unbelief, and a spirit-filled son, whose mission in life is to spread the joy of God's presence.  It is the presence of God's Spirit in our lives, says Paul, that enables us to call God Father, and to recognize that we are children of God.  We are affiliated with God and with one another.

A second way in which God's Spirit becomes evident is in changed attitudes.  A few verses before the passage read this morning,  Paul says that “those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.” (Romans 8:5) I think that means that those persons who don't see any spiritual dimension in life, persons who are preoccupied with the physical in life, tend to be concerned only with themselves.  Our  lower natures take over and blind us to the concerns of others.  Jean Paul Sartre, the French existentialist, has a character in one of his plays say, "Hell is other people.  People limit our lives.  People who expose and humiliate us.  Those who nag us with their poverty and pleading just when we have found security and prosperity.  The people with empty mouths and aching hearts.  Oh! that we could be rid of them and forget all about them, “says Sartre.

A mature, well-dressed Wall Street banker had car trouble on his way to work one morning in the Bronx, and he ended up taking the subway.  Naturally, the subway crowd showed no more respect for him than anyone else, so he got pushed and shoved in normal style.  He was annoyed and very irritated.  Finally, he couldn't stand being quiet about it any longer.  He turned to a guy in overalls, carrying a lunch box and hanging on to the strap next to his, and said, "You know, I hate this subway.  I hate being jammed in here with all these people.  As a matter of fact, this is the first time I have been compelled to ride it in over ten years."  At which the guy in overalls replied loudly, "Mister, you couldn't possibly have the slightest idea of just how much we've missed you."  When we are self-absorbed we think that what is happening to us is all that matters.

On the other hand, the person whose nature is being moderated by the Holy Spirit, is moving from concern for self to consideration of others.  A higher nature begins to show.  In his book, On Being a Real Person, Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote:  "A great day comes when a man begins to get himself off his hands.  He has lived, let us say, in a mind like a room surrounded by mirrors.  Every way he turned he saw himself.  Now, however, some of the mirrors change to windows.  He begins to get out of himself--no longer the prisoner of self-reflections but a free man in a world where persons, causes, truths, and values exist, worthful for their own sakes.  Thus to pass from a mirror-mind to a mind with windows is an essential element in the development of real personality.  Without that experience no one ever achieves a meaningful life."  God's Spirit moves us beyond ourselves.

In her book, The Healing Light, Agnes Sanford talks about how we may see other people in the light of God's love.  She suggests that we try to connect in spirit with the love of God, send that love to the other person, and see that person re-created in goodness and joy and peace.  Mrs. Sanford writes about a girl who tried it:  "'Gee, I never saw anything work like that in my life!' cried a little girl, to whom I taught this method.  “Before I got up this morning, I lay there and thought of my Mom like she is when she's all happy, and I said, "Thank you, God, because you love her and you're making her like that now."  And then I thought that way about my Dad, too.  And Gee!  My Mom she came up and kissed me and she smiled so nice I just stood there and looked at her!  And my Dad, he pulled out a dollar and said, "Here, go and have a good time, Kid."  Gee!  I never saw anything like that in my life!'"

Those who are responding to the Spirit of God are discovering that their attitudes are changing from self-absorption to concern for others.

A third way that God's Spirit becomes evident is in changed actions.  People who are not open to God's Spirit are afraid to open themselves to love because love can be costly.  After reading Ernest Hemingway's first book of stories, D. H. Lawrence said that the moral of the stories could be characterized like this:  "Avoid one thing only:  getting connected up (to anyone)."  Scott Donaldson, in a study of Hemingway, says that that really was his philosophy.  Hemingway once fired a babysitter because his sons were starting to care for her too much.  Hemingway said that you could only love a person so much, but then you had to stop or you'd get hurt.

Doestoevsky, in his novel, The Brothers Karamazov, counters that idea when he writes:  "Love all of God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it.  Love every leaf, every ray of God's light.  Love the animals, love the plants, love everything.  If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery of things.  Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day.  And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love."  Love is evidence of the presence of God's Spirit.

Those who are being led by the Spirit of God, are learning to act in the interest of others.  It is that kind of action that makes us useful.  I heard a basketball coach give a speech a few years ago in which he was describing the characteristics of his players. Of one of them, he said, "This person is not a great player, but he is a good player.  He is the kind of person who can give other people the ball.  He makes others look good.  Such people are necessary for team spirit.  They make us a good team."  As the Spirit gains ascendancy in our lives, we can give up being hotshots who need all the glory and put our efforts forth for the common good.

Not only do we become useful when we act in behalf of others, our own lives are enriched.  How cramped our lives are when all we can rejoice in are our own achievements or good fortune.  How numerous, on the other hand, are our opportunities for rejoicing, if we will allow ourselves to enter into the good fortune of others.  Those of us who are parents know how enlarged our lives become when we enter into the victories of our children and grandchildren.  If we could also learn to identify with the good fortune of our neighbors, or with the hometown boy who made good, or with the Californian who has made a discovery, or with the American who has landed on the moon, or with the human being who has won the Nobel Peace Prize--how filled with good will our world would be and how much happier our own lives.

Of course, our natural attitudes and actions do not change quickly.  Indeed, they only change at all because God's Spirit fills our lives with something beside ourselves.

In the movie "Rain Man," a selfish, hustling salesman discovers that his wealthy father has died and left him only a 1948 Buick.  He discovers further that he has an institutionalized, autistic, older brother who has been left three million dollars.  He takes his brother away from the place where he is cared for in an effort to make himself guardian, and thereby gain control over his brother's inheritance.  Daily he learns how much care his brother needs and how ill-prepared he is to provide it.  Little by little he becomes more concerned for his brother's well-being and less concerned with himself.  The self-concern which has dominated his life is replaced by genuine love and affection for another.  And he becomes a decent human being in the process.

In such a way God's Holy Spirit fills our lives, changes our attitudes, changes our actions, and helps us to discover a new affiliation--that we are children of God. As Paul says, “...all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.”  (Romans 8:14) The Holy Spirit may not be something we can see, but like the rising tide, we can tell where it is active.  All we have to do is to look for the rising tide of love in our midst. Amen.