It’s taken some time but after thirty-six years of ministry, I do believe I’ve narrowed down what for many members of the church is their greatest fear. In other words, what is the one thing you could be asked to do in church that would totally unnerve you?

Reflect back to elementary school and the teacher says out loud, “Ok Patrick, a train is moving 60 mph going north and leaves Saratoga Station at 12:13. A southbound train left Montreal at 9:47 moving at 48 mph. The track is 346 miles long. At what mile marker will the trains pass each other?” How’d you feel? Well, this is the kind of feeling I’m talking about when you’re asked to serve or do something in church that is scary to you.

There’s the fear the preacher knows how much your pledge is for the year. I’ve always loved that fear; I can hear the most salacious, lurid details of someone’s relationship, but God forbid I know anything about how much you give to the church (and for the record, I don’t).  My former boss, Frank Harrington of Peachtree Presbyterian in Atlanta used to take high-power executives or attorneys to the Peachtree Driving Club for lunch.  People knew that when Frank asked you out for lunch, you better leave your checkbook at home!  You would sit down, and Frank would say, “So Chuck, how is the family?  Are the kids well? Hey, I saw you just bought a new third home up on Lake Lanier. I think that’s great. But, Chuck, I was looking at your pledge for this year and it really doesn’t show the same value you have for all your properties and club memberships.” Bless him, I guess that’s why Peachtree was at that time the largest Presbyterian Church in the United States with 12,000 members with a multimillion-dollar budget.

The second and third fears are tied. One is to serve as chair on the Evangelism Committee and the other is to be one of two adult chaperons for a co-ed camping trip with twenty middle school kids. But I have to say, the one thing that strikes more fear into people’s hearts is when I ask them this simple question: Will you open us with prayer? This simple request causes many people to get clammy hands, squirm, smile nervously, and mutter, “Oh no, I can’t do that I don’t know how.” It seems we have lost touch with prayer and “the how to do it” part. The funny thing is that we actually don’t have anything to do or need to know about “how” to do it.

Today is Pentecost, the birthday of the larger church. We remember it as the day the Holy Spirit of God is sent like fire and anoints members of the church enabling them to speak different languages with just the right dialects of the many visitors flowing into Jerusalem for the Jewish celebration of Pentecost. For our Jewish neighbors, Pentecost is referred to as Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, and is the celebration of the first harvest of the year and a time to remember when God gave the Law to Moses. What we have forgotten is that it’s the Holy Spirit who is the one who teaches us how to pray and in fact prays on our behalf.

Most Pentecost Sunday sermons are read and based on Acts 2 and remind us of the Spirit’s power and glory. Remember the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when the Nazis remove the ark’s lid and exploding out of it were terrifying flames of fire that split and landed on people? We love the drama of the roaring sound of how Spirit came like a rushing wind and tongues of fire rested on those first disciples! But there is more to the Holy Spirit than that. Turn in your Bible to Romans 8:22-27.

Romans 8:22-27

²²We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; ²³and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

²⁶Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. ²⁷And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.^[1]

This Pentecost, I want us to look at “the softer, more gentle side” of the Spirit.  Thus far in Romans, Paul has painted the picture of humankind’s chosen self-exile from God and the consequences of that decision. He reminds his readers that the Law, as wonderful as it is, cannot help us bridge the gap in our broken relationship with God; this is where Jesus comes into play. Yet, it wasn’t enough for Jesus just to come and reconnect a healthy relationship between us and God. God sent God’s very Spirit to us to help us on our way in this life until we are reunited with God and with all those we love at the fulfillment of time. This is why communion is dear to us; we get a foretaste of the fulfilled moment in time when we are in communion with Jesus and all the saints of God. 

All of us are given spiritual gifts for service to the church and to others out in the community. It is the Spirit who gives us the grace we need to love others who are particularly annoying or just hard to love. Spirit is the core generator in each of our hearts that caressingly shapes our souls, gives us wisdom and understanding, and is the spark that keeps our hope burning when all seems hopeless. The Spirit gives us courage and boldness. The Spirit is the conduit of God’s loving grace in Jesus given to us today. Spirit is the very essence of God that was with Jesus when Jesus walked among us. Spirit is the very essence of both the Father and Son walking with and within us at this very moment.

How can I best describe this? In quantum physics, there is that which is known as “spooky science” which says that when two individual molecules touch just once, regardless of the distance between the two molecules, when one moves the other reacts. They have proven this scientifically. Whether the molecules are just inches or feet from one another or are as far apart as New York is to Seattle, when one moves, the other one will react. They are molecularly interconnected.^[2] So it is with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God, I would say, is molecularly, spiritually a part of us.

One of the more important aspects of our faith is we tend to forget the Spirit prays in us and for us.  Listen to verse 26 once more:

Likewise, the Spirit helps us with our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with us with groaning and sighs too deep for words.

For all those who worry they don’t know how to pray, God’s got you covered! The Spirit of God is within you and prays for you in ways you don’t understand or even in ways you didn’t know you needed. In prayer, all we have to do is to show up.

Writer/professor/contemplative, the late Henri Nouwen says, “Prayer is our being empty and useless in the presence of God.”  He says our prayers are proclaiming our basic belief that prayer is all about grace and is not the result of hard work or prayer methods. Nouwen writes, “It is indeed a hard discipline to be useless in God’s presence and to let him speak in the silence of my heart. But whenever I become a little useless,” he says, “I know that God is calling me to a new life beyond the boundaries of my usefulness.”^[3]

The Spirit of God – she is gentle and loving. She whispers wisdom in our hearts if we but just listen. She directs our steps if we would just trust and follow. She emboldens us when we are challenged and reminds us of Whose we are. She convicts us when we stray from the paths of love and grace, of forgiveness and reconciliation. She fills us with the love of Jesus because love is her very essence. And my beloved, she prays for us.

Ok, some of you may never be able to pray “out loud” or publicly and that’s okay. And there will be those times when the tidal waters in your lives will get so rough, scary, and overwhelming that you will look up to heaven with tears streaking down your face because you don’t know what to feel, what to do, or even what to say. And when that happens, you are to take heart because those very tears mean the Holy Spirit is praying for you during times like that – times when death visits your home, when you get a dire diagnosis, when your relationship rips up in divorce – during all these times of crisis when you just don’t have the words.  Your tears, your sighs, your groans are the Spirit praying for you at that moment.

The night Jesus was betrayed, he went to the Garden with his friends and he prayed, and the Spirit was crying and praying with Jesus through his tears that night.  This Pentecost, leave today remembering you are never, ever alone, and the precious Holy Spirit of God is\ within you, a part of you, and is praying on your behalf even if you don’t know what to say or are even aware. This, my friends, is gospel – good, winsome news!  In the Name of the One who is, who was, and is to come. Amen.

© 2024 Patrick H. Wrisley. Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church of Glens Falls, 8 West Notre Dame Street, Glens Falls, NY 12801, and may not be reproduced or repurposed without permission from the author. All rights reserved.

[1] New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org.

[2] Patchen Barss of The Perimeter Institute, The World is Non-Local All the Way Down, June 18, 2021.See https://insidetheperimeter.ca/the-world-is-non-local-all-the-way-down/.

[3] Henri J.M. Nouwen, You Are the Beloved. 365 Daily Readings and Meditations for Spiritual Living. A Devotional, ed. By Gabrielle Earnshaw (New York: Image Books, 20170, 149. Words in parentheses were added by me for rhetorical clarity.