St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Wesley Chapel, FL
Preacher: The Rev. Adrienne R. Hymes, Vicar
Sixth Sunday of Easter/Year B: Acts 10:44-48
May 9, 2021
I love the court television shows. My favorite is Judge Judy. If you watch those shows, you will see stories of very bad behavior amongst neighbors. Without fail, the person behaving badly will say, “Judge Judy, I would never do that; I’m a Christian!” In response, Judge Judy shakes her head, and says something clever like, “Oh, foolishness!” Judge Judy is a Jewish woman who recognizes that there is behavior, perpetrated by individuals who claim to be Christians, which is incongruent with what has become recognizable Christian behavior in society.
While we all fall short, from time to time, our goal is to reflect behavior into this world that is recognizable as congruent with Christianity—a kind of Modus Operandi—familiar to most by the letters, M.O. The Modus Operandi of a person is the expected ways in which the person behaves—their mode of being in the world has a recognizable pattern that undeniably points to that person. People tend to develop, over time, a distinctive M.O. which can serve to draw others into relationship with them or distance others from them.
The third person of the trinity, God the Holy Spirit, I would venture to say, certainly has a recognizable Modus Operandi which crosses from the eternal realm into this temporal realm of human history in order to move around and act upon humankind. We see this throughout scripture.
Jesus’ baptism, for example, in the gospel according to Luke, said that after Jesus was baptized and was praying, “…The heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.” [1] The parallel gospels in Matthew and Mark [2] note, also, those two things taking place: the heavens were opened or torn apart and the Spirit descended into this temporal world in a visible and recognizable form. In Jesus’ baptism, we witness the manifestation of the invisible, eternal Spirit breaking into this temporal world. In the Acts of the Apostles chapter two, which is our reading for Pentecost Sunday in two weeks, the apostles were amongst their own—devout Jews from multiple nations gathered in Jerusalem. While they were together the Holy Spirit came from heaven, and rested on each of them in the visible and recognizable form of the tongue, albeit multiple tongues resembling fire.
In our first lesson today, in the tenth chapter of Acts, Peter had been sharing the good news of God in Christ in the company of Gentiles. While Peter was in the midst of speaking, something supernatural, yet familiar, began to unfold in the midst of this mixed gathering of Jews and Gentiles. In the Holy Spirit’s prodigal, freedom of movement, unhindered by human division between Jews and Gentiles, the Spirit lavishly poured itself upon all hearers of Peter’s message about the Good News of Jesus Christ. There was no human withholding of the Holy Spirit; all in the presence of the spoken word were drenched with the Spirit.
The Jewish believers who had companioned Peter, recognized the Holy Spirit acting upon the Gentiles, because they realized that something familiar was happening, and they were astounded. Recall that the devout Jews on Pentecost had witnessed the Apostles speaking in the tongues of other languages. Now, the Jewish believers were witnessing a familiar manifestation of the Spirit through those whom they deemed undeserving of gift of the Holy Spirit—those who were not privileged as the chosen people of God. How could this be? But who were these mere mortals to be so arrogant as to assume that they could control or hoard the gift of the Holy Spirit for themselves?
Peter, used the divine moment as a teaching moment, and said, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (v. 47). The response was baptism. Through baptism, human division was erased, and replaced with the unification of believers in Christ’s one body in the unity of one Spirit.
The Holy Spirit certainly seems to have a distinctive M.O. Our responsibility as followers of Christ is to develop a particular sensitivity to the movement of the Holy Spirit. The discipline of prayer and an intention commitment to living our lives patterned by Christ, helps us to be more able to recognize the distinctive M.O. of the Holy Spirit actively moving in this world.
As people of faith and corporately as the Church, we are to reject the temptation to be passive spectators in this world. God has created us to be temporal vessels, who both actively participate in, and boldly manifest, the abiding presence of the eternal Holy Spirit, in and through our bodily form. Our responsibility, as the recognizable body of Christ, is to jump into the divine movement, already taking place, in order to draw others into relationship with God, and to be beacons of Christ’s light for all seeking souls.
For those who walk in darkness, or for those who know Christ, but may have lost their way, your compassionate presence with a stranger, your friend or your family member, just might feel, for them, like the heavens have opened up, and the Holy Spirit has descended upon them in the bodily form of a stranger.
The Holy Spirit’s M.O. is unification. In the midst of a world that functions on division, with systems of myriad layers of exclusion, our M.O. must always work to reflect God’s unity in diversity—a diversity that invites inclusion and unification. When we continue in the apostles’ teaching, and proclaim the Good News of God in Christ, as Peter did, amongst those who do not yet know Christ, we serve as instruments of God’s unity. When we seek Christ in all persons and respect the dignity of every human being, we are showing up in this created world as instruments of God’s divine unity. As such, we live the mission of the church—to restore all people to unity with God and with each other through Christ.
In those precious times when God places us in the midst of His people who do not yet know Him or His Son, let us proclaim the good news, as Peter did, with wild abandon, trusting that while we are still speaking, the heavens will open for God’s beloved; and that God’s Spirit may generously fall upon all hearers of the word drawing all people to God’s self.
God the Holy Spirit’s M.O. is unification. The body of Christ—the Church’s M.O. is unification. And, you, child of God, your M.O. can be nothing other than unification. Let us live lives in congruence with the Holy Spirit. One body and one Spirit; one hope in God’s call to us. Amen.
[1]Luke 3:21-22
[2] Matthew 3:16, Mark 1:10
