Charismatic Creation

A sermon for Pentecost Sunday 2024 — St. Stephen Anglican Church, Summerland BC

“So Ken, are you a charismatic Christian?

“Not sure how to answer that question. Why do you ask?”

“I used to hear about charismatic churches, especially twenty or so years ago. Don’t hear much about them now.”

“What stuff?”

“Speaking in tongues; public prophecy; people being slain in the spirit. That sort of thing.”

“Back in the day I visited some charismatic communities. Lots and lots of music, lots of emotion, tears, prayers, laughter, applause. I enjoyed them, as an alternative to some pretty dry, formal Anglican churches.”

“Yes, that’s what I mean. Kinda wild when you think about it.”

“All I can say is that I worked closely with charismatics especially when I lived up north. They tried to teach me how to ‘let go and let God” but it didn’t really take. In those days could take courses—‘life in the spirit’ seminars—a sort of how to be ‘in the spirit.’ I chose not to attend.

I remember one Friday night in a Dawson Creek MacDonalds restaurant. Two evangelists and I were having dinner together prior to a youth outreach event. We had Bill Bright’s ‘Four Spiritual Laws’ in our front pockets. One of us, Gary, said grace for the food. He quietly erupted into tongues, over a Big Mac. All I could come up with was “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun.” They weren’t impressed.”

“Very funny; you’re kidding, right.”

“Actually not; out of the goodness of their heart, seriously, they wanted me to share a particular experience; it didn’t work, though I wanted it to. I was looking for some sort of faith validation.”

“Well that’s the thing. Classical Pentecostalism has suggested that overt gifts are essential for what some call ‘true faith.’”

“You sound suspicious of the whole charismatic movement.”

“Here’s one story. During my first ordained charge in Sooke I had a charismatic family join the congregation. They seemed to connect well with folks. Then, suddenly, they disappeared. So I went to see them, only to discover that they found me ‘too rational”—possibly a fair assessment at that time as I was pastorally inexperienced—but their reaction seemed over the top.”

“Have you had that happen at other times?”

“Another story. In the 1980s, as a lay leader in Sidney we set up weekly home groups. There were initially three groups. Two of the groups were influenced by the charismatic Anglican Terry Fullham whose book Miracle in Darien was in vogue; I heard him live in London, Ontario during my final years of university. These two groups tried to reproduce such a miracle in the small groups. It never happened.

“The third group however grew, and due to size it split into two smaller groups. One of the new groups split again as it also grew. What was so interesting was that the members of these groups came, almost without exception, from the traditional early morning congregation. They were devout, faithful, and traditional Anglicans, who had never been asked or given the opportunity to reflect with others on their faith. Their conversation was deeply Spirit-filled. They subsequently found outreach ministries in the community.”

“So the Spirit moved among them.

“Absolutely.”

“So if you are not the charismatic Christian described in Acts 2, where everyone believed, where everyone could be understood despite language barriers, where signs and wonders appeared—if not overnight, but at ‘nine o’clock in the morning’ (it’s a book title)— what sort of Pentecost Christian are you now?”

“Glad you asked; it’s a good question. Truthfully, I am on spiritual fire presently, and here’s why.”

“OK.”

“Also in the 1980s (it was a formative period for me) a Roman Catholic nun, Sr. Elizabeth Anne Johnson, a brilliant scholar and a person of deep faith helped many of us see God through the eyes of women. God . . .  was more than male! Patriarchy still ruled the academy in those days. In her context she made a few friends and many enemies. As a theological student in Saskatoon, her work and that of other women Scholars such as Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza opened my eyes to the reality of God as never before. Now she is doing the same thing, this time opening our eyes to God’s real presence in and through creation.

“And this happens how?”

“I used to think of creation as just the place, the garden, the vegetable patch, the environment that feeds and nurtures us humans. We’re highest on the gradated list in Genesis chapter one. On the sixth (and more-important-than-the-others day) God created us humans. Days one to five made day six possible. Well given the complexity of life referenced in days one through five such a notion seems arrogant, and I now see, false.”

“We are the most complex creatures aren’t we?”

“Johnson, and a growing chorus of others disagree. Lister to her description of life on earth:”

The great living God of heaven and Earth who made the sea and all that swim in the waters, the skies and their flying birds, the solid land and all the creatures that grow, slither, burrow, lumber, or walk upon it on two or four or more legs, this great Love brought forth the beauty and bounty of the evolving world out of sheer unfathomable goodness . . . [O God] You save humans and animals alike, O good Lord” (Ps 36:6).

“OK, but I don’t see the Pentecost ‘spirit’ connection yet.”

“Stay with me, and with Johnson; listen to this:

The Creator Spirit is with creatures in their finitude, death and incompletion, holding each in redemptive love, and is in some way already drawing each into an unforeseeable eschatological future . . . The Spirit is with each creature now, with every wild predator and prey and with every dying creature, as midwife to the unimaginable birth in which all things will be made new.

“So the spirit is like the Wizard of Oz, moving levers on his fiery control panel.”

“Don’t be an ass. Keep listening:”

There is only one living God, gracious and merciful, who creates and redeems the world and calls it into the future. Present and active always and everywhere, the Creator Spirit accompanies all creatures through the course of their time . . .

The Creator Spirit dwells within the world like a good warming fire. Wherever this divine fire glows, creation is sparked into luminous being.

“Fire is certainly an apt image for Pentecost. ‘Tongues of fire’ landed on the disciples, soon to become apostles. And hey, have you been to Fort Nelson lately?”

“No, but I lived there also in the 1980s.”

“Why?

“That’s a story for another time. But fire is a great Pentecost image. Fire sparks, it dwindles to embers; it re-ignites, it travels; it consumes, unpredictably; it opens the path to new growth, even given its destructive power. Thinking about it, Johnson likes to play with fire:”

It becomes impossible to say the word “God” without appreciating how the Creator Spirit moves throughout the Earth with compassionate love that grants nature its own creative integrity and humans their own freedom, all the while companioning them through the terror of history toward a future, promised but unknown.

“So if I understand you the Holy Spirit, once thought proximate to humans alone is no longer present with us?”

“As usual, you over-react. Don Binder, pastor to the English speaking congregation of St. George’s Cathedral, Jerusalem wrote this a few days ago prior to their diocesan synod:”

As we meet these next three days during such incredibly difficult times, we ask prayers for the guidance of the Holy Spirit so that we can make wise decisions to better help those in such dire need throughout the very region where Christ himself served during his earthly ministry.

“So let me summarize. We Anglicans have paid less attention to Pentecost and to the third person of the Holy Trinity than we ought. Many preachers simply run out of ideas come Pentecost Sunday. We find it easy to think how the Spirit enriches our human lives which is good; another approach considers how the Spirit animates all of life including ourselves. Our Indigenous friends and teachers have much to teach us in this regard. All of life is infused with Holy Spirit. Am I getting this right?”

“You certainly are. God the Holy Spirit is, with other things, ‘more than we can ask or imagine.” Creation is our teacher and another lens through which we meet and experience God.”

“To whom be thanks and praise.”

“Amen.”

Photo credit: “Northern Lights” viewed from the Holy Island of Lindesfarne — Image by Aub Goodwin