Day
of Pentecost A June 4, 2017
Lectionary Link
In the account about the Day of Pentecost found in the Acts of the Apostles, there was great ecstasy and euphoria early in the morning and Peter felt he needed to give a disclaimer about the ecstatic behaviors. He said, "Indeed, these people are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning."
So here we are at church, having looked at our watches and waited until Mass started at 10:15 a.m., because "we don't do ecstasy and euphoria" before 10:15 a.m.
It is interesting that drunkenness, a negative behavior is used metaphorically for the appearance of the joyful behaviors of people who have come to know themselves as possessed enthusiastically by God's Holy Spirit.
Have we ever been accused of looking like happy drunks in our worship here at St. John's? In our Anglican tradition we've inherited a long tradition of the "stiff upper lip" in face of everything and so our Prayer Book liturgies involve locking all signs of enthusiasm and ecstasy out of our worship. We save our enthusiasm for our sporting events and rock concerts as if we feared having too much excitement about God.
On this Day of Pentecost, let us be invited to contemplate coming into apparent experiences of the sublime. The experience of the Sublime is to come into the sense of being touched or altered through the influence of someone or something that is beyond our control. The experience seems to stop time, it seems to melt our ego, it seems to give a sense of euphoria or harmony or a merging with other people or with Nature.
Perhaps the greatest epidemic in our world today is all of the attempts at simulations of the Sublime that end in some sort of addiction. Perhaps the best known form of universal religion today is one of the many different 12 step programs. 12 step programs are found across religions and borders because people have become addicted to simulate the Sublime in ways do not allow them to integrate the addictive behaviors with holistic living.
Alcohol, mushrooms, peyote, drugs have all been used in ways to simulate the experience of the Sublime. Scientist who have wanted to simulate the Sublime have come to see this experience as but the chemical state of one's brain. The chemical state of one's brain can be altered in various ways to simulate the euphoric sense of the Sublime.
One might say that since the late 1960's pharmacology has become the main way that people simulate the Sublime. Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert and John Lilly were some of the early proponents of simulating peak minds states through the use of various drugs. In our world today, we regard freedom from pain and anxiety to be crucial to the experience of the Sublime, but we've come to have an incredible opioid addiction crisis. When a TV commercial for a pill uses 5 seconds to tell about a possible benefit and then the rest of the commercial to explain possible dangerous side effects, we know that we are a world that has been tricked to elevate counterfeit simulations of the Sublime to be the surrogates for religious experience.
On this feast day of Pentecost, we are here to proclaim our belief in the validity of the human quest to know and experience the Sublime. You and I were made for ecstasy. We were made for the release of profound desire. We were made to experience profound joy. What did C.S. Lewis call his autobiographical spiritual journey? Surprised by Joy. You and I were made for the Sublime. Why do I say this?
We have a built in natural high that has been given to us by virtue of our being created in God's Image. When the Spirit of God moved and breathed life into creation and into us, the Spirit of God never left the created order. But the Spirit of God has had to live incognito and anonymous for so much of human history. The Spirit of God has lived ignored by you and me for long periods in our lives, especially when we thought that other simulations of the Sublime were easier or more accessible.
The Day of Pentecost is when the church gives the Holy Spirit a "coming out" Party. And the Holy Spirit says to us, "Thanks for the recognition party, but I never left; it is just that sometimes you have forgotten about how close I am to you all of the time."
The proof that you and I were made for the experience of the Sublime is the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The experience of the Holy Spirit is the highest of the natural highs. Sometimes we experience the Sublime effects of the Holy Spirit in random and intermittent events. We also adapt rules of life and spiritual practices to help us access the always already Sublime presence of the Holy Spirit. It is so easy to get distracted from obviousness of the Holy Spirit that we can seek Sublime replacements in sports, work, the erotic, in pharmacology and many other kinds of escapist entertainments.
How and why can the Holy Spirit be known as the highest of all natural highs? I would call the Holy Spirit the ultimate regulator of the Sublime. And what do I mean? The experience of the Holy Spirit is the appropriate integration of the experiences of the Sublime into a holistic experience of life. How does this happen? It happens because of the Sublime effects of the Holy Spirit, called fruits of the Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Hope, Patience, Gentleness, Humility, Goodness, Self-Control and Faith. All of these effects contribute to the appropriate integration of all our experiences in life. So the Holy Spirit is the ability to let God take control of our lives and steer us to the appropriate integration of all of our life experiences, and to allow us the freedom to enjoy, experience pleasure, survive pain and loss and minister to each other without falling into addictive or harmful behaviors.
The Holy Spirit is the great regulator of the experiences of the Sublime. If we submit to the Holy Spirit, we can discover and affirm the multi-faceted appearances of the Sublime in our lives: In art, cinema, theater, comedy, in beautiful things, in environmental arrangements, in our home and in special places, in a quiet church, in music, in the company of friends, in love's embrace, in the discovery of something creative occurring within us, in being a beneficial presence to others, in Nature, with our pets, on the mountain, at the ocean, in a good meal, a good nights' sleep, in a fantastic dream, in shouting joyful alleluias, in meditative silence, in the liturgical event, in the Eucharistic event, in eye to eye gaze. The Sublime effects of any human experience can be blessed events and not addictive events, if we achieve the experience of the Holy Spirit as the great regulator of the Sublime.
Today, we need to submit to the creative control of the Holy Spirit. You and I like to limit where we think the sublime effects of the Holy Spirit can occur. We can lock the Holy Spirit in our own limitations of our own religious groups, our own national and ethnic habits or own socio-economic educational groups. The Holy Spirit is truly universal. Each person's body has the limitation of physical location. We have blood types and different DNA. We have different color skin. We have different inward and outward orientations. And as we look far below the layer of our skin, we can arrive at the true universal of the world, the universe and of all life: we arrive at the universal and all inclusive Holy Spirit, who is the One regulator of all human differences.
As we celebrate this feast of Pentecost, this feast of the Holy Spirit of God, let us invite the Holy Spirit to be the creative regulator of our experiences of the Sublime.
Today, I wish for each of us many of the most delicious experiences of the Sublime, not of the addictive kind, but the ones that come because our lives have been to be regulated by the Holy Spirit who gives us in all experience, the experience of love, joy, peace, hope, gentleness, humility, patience, self control and faith. With the Holy Spirit as our creative regulator, we can experience a wide variety of the Sublime to keep us surprisingly joyful and always with the ecstatic alleluia in our mouths. Alleluia. Alleluia. Amen.
Gen. 11:1-9Ps.
104: 25-32
Acts
2:1-11 John 14:8-17, 25-17 Lectionary Link
In the account about the Day of Pentecost found in the Acts of the Apostles, there was great ecstasy and euphoria early in the morning and Peter felt he needed to give a disclaimer about the ecstatic behaviors. He said, "Indeed, these people are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning."
So here we are at church, having looked at our watches and waited until Mass started at 10:15 a.m., because "we don't do ecstasy and euphoria" before 10:15 a.m.
It is interesting that drunkenness, a negative behavior is used metaphorically for the appearance of the joyful behaviors of people who have come to know themselves as possessed enthusiastically by God's Holy Spirit.
Have we ever been accused of looking like happy drunks in our worship here at St. John's? In our Anglican tradition we've inherited a long tradition of the "stiff upper lip" in face of everything and so our Prayer Book liturgies involve locking all signs of enthusiasm and ecstasy out of our worship. We save our enthusiasm for our sporting events and rock concerts as if we feared having too much excitement about God.
On this Day of Pentecost, let us be invited to contemplate coming into apparent experiences of the sublime. The experience of the Sublime is to come into the sense of being touched or altered through the influence of someone or something that is beyond our control. The experience seems to stop time, it seems to melt our ego, it seems to give a sense of euphoria or harmony or a merging with other people or with Nature.
Perhaps the greatest epidemic in our world today is all of the attempts at simulations of the Sublime that end in some sort of addiction. Perhaps the best known form of universal religion today is one of the many different 12 step programs. 12 step programs are found across religions and borders because people have become addicted to simulate the Sublime in ways do not allow them to integrate the addictive behaviors with holistic living.
Alcohol, mushrooms, peyote, drugs have all been used in ways to simulate the experience of the Sublime. Scientist who have wanted to simulate the Sublime have come to see this experience as but the chemical state of one's brain. The chemical state of one's brain can be altered in various ways to simulate the euphoric sense of the Sublime.
One might say that since the late 1960's pharmacology has become the main way that people simulate the Sublime. Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert and John Lilly were some of the early proponents of simulating peak minds states through the use of various drugs. In our world today, we regard freedom from pain and anxiety to be crucial to the experience of the Sublime, but we've come to have an incredible opioid addiction crisis. When a TV commercial for a pill uses 5 seconds to tell about a possible benefit and then the rest of the commercial to explain possible dangerous side effects, we know that we are a world that has been tricked to elevate counterfeit simulations of the Sublime to be the surrogates for religious experience.
On this feast day of Pentecost, we are here to proclaim our belief in the validity of the human quest to know and experience the Sublime. You and I were made for ecstasy. We were made for the release of profound desire. We were made to experience profound joy. What did C.S. Lewis call his autobiographical spiritual journey? Surprised by Joy. You and I were made for the Sublime. Why do I say this?
We have a built in natural high that has been given to us by virtue of our being created in God's Image. When the Spirit of God moved and breathed life into creation and into us, the Spirit of God never left the created order. But the Spirit of God has had to live incognito and anonymous for so much of human history. The Spirit of God has lived ignored by you and me for long periods in our lives, especially when we thought that other simulations of the Sublime were easier or more accessible.
The Day of Pentecost is when the church gives the Holy Spirit a "coming out" Party. And the Holy Spirit says to us, "Thanks for the recognition party, but I never left; it is just that sometimes you have forgotten about how close I am to you all of the time."
The proof that you and I were made for the experience of the Sublime is the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The experience of the Holy Spirit is the highest of the natural highs. Sometimes we experience the Sublime effects of the Holy Spirit in random and intermittent events. We also adapt rules of life and spiritual practices to help us access the always already Sublime presence of the Holy Spirit. It is so easy to get distracted from obviousness of the Holy Spirit that we can seek Sublime replacements in sports, work, the erotic, in pharmacology and many other kinds of escapist entertainments.
How and why can the Holy Spirit be known as the highest of all natural highs? I would call the Holy Spirit the ultimate regulator of the Sublime. And what do I mean? The experience of the Holy Spirit is the appropriate integration of the experiences of the Sublime into a holistic experience of life. How does this happen? It happens because of the Sublime effects of the Holy Spirit, called fruits of the Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Hope, Patience, Gentleness, Humility, Goodness, Self-Control and Faith. All of these effects contribute to the appropriate integration of all our experiences in life. So the Holy Spirit is the ability to let God take control of our lives and steer us to the appropriate integration of all of our life experiences, and to allow us the freedom to enjoy, experience pleasure, survive pain and loss and minister to each other without falling into addictive or harmful behaviors.
The Holy Spirit is the great regulator of the experiences of the Sublime. If we submit to the Holy Spirit, we can discover and affirm the multi-faceted appearances of the Sublime in our lives: In art, cinema, theater, comedy, in beautiful things, in environmental arrangements, in our home and in special places, in a quiet church, in music, in the company of friends, in love's embrace, in the discovery of something creative occurring within us, in being a beneficial presence to others, in Nature, with our pets, on the mountain, at the ocean, in a good meal, a good nights' sleep, in a fantastic dream, in shouting joyful alleluias, in meditative silence, in the liturgical event, in the Eucharistic event, in eye to eye gaze. The Sublime effects of any human experience can be blessed events and not addictive events, if we achieve the experience of the Holy Spirit as the great regulator of the Sublime.
Today, we need to submit to the creative control of the Holy Spirit. You and I like to limit where we think the sublime effects of the Holy Spirit can occur. We can lock the Holy Spirit in our own limitations of our own religious groups, our own national and ethnic habits or own socio-economic educational groups. The Holy Spirit is truly universal. Each person's body has the limitation of physical location. We have blood types and different DNA. We have different color skin. We have different inward and outward orientations. And as we look far below the layer of our skin, we can arrive at the true universal of the world, the universe and of all life: we arrive at the universal and all inclusive Holy Spirit, who is the One regulator of all human differences.
As we celebrate this feast of Pentecost, this feast of the Holy Spirit of God, let us invite the Holy Spirit to be the creative regulator of our experiences of the Sublime.
Today, I wish for each of us many of the most delicious experiences of the Sublime, not of the addictive kind, but the ones that come because our lives have been to be regulated by the Holy Spirit who gives us in all experience, the experience of love, joy, peace, hope, gentleness, humility, patience, self control and faith. With the Holy Spirit as our creative regulator, we can experience a wide variety of the Sublime to keep us surprisingly joyful and always with the ecstatic alleluia in our mouths. Alleluia. Alleluia. Amen.
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