The Breath of God

Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130

Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45

Fifteen months after my family moved from Cleveland to Melbourne, Florida, we experienced our first hurricane. Hurricane David hit Florida’s east coast in September, 1979. A devastating hurricane in the Caribbean, David was just a minor blow when it arrived in Melbourne but for us Clevelanders the high winds were quite the experience. I remember going out to play in mid-morning when the winds had died down. None of the other neighborhood kids had come out. "It was a day off school, let's have some fun!" I wanted to shout. But then the winds began again! We were in the eye!

Recently, I was watching a BBC Nature program about the South Pacific. The narrator was talking about Hawaii, noting that they are inhabited island farther from any continental landmass than any other. They are – and not just metaphorically – in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. “So, how,” inquired the narrator, “did all of the flora and fauna get there.” One theory that was put forth was that the spores and seeds, and the spiders and bees were borne there on the winds of tropical cyclones. Mighty winds picked up the ancestors of the many trees, plants, insects, and spiders from South America or Asia and transported them, planting them on the fertile but as yet barren volcanic soil of Hawaii.

Have you ever seen the flower of a Dandelion as the plant gets older? Its prototypical yellow flower, like the mane of a lion, turns into a white puff-ball, with a daintiness that belies its name. We call them summer snowflakes and as kids we would pick them and, if the wind was right, throw them into the air. Each “snowflake” would dance on the air, taking no straight lines, to land just where the wind meant to place it.

In the Episcopal Church, we talk a lot about God and Jesus, but we rarely spend much time talking about the Holy Spirit. Perhaps we are too afraid of becoming Charismatics. But an entire industry has been built up marketing something called “Spirituality,” as if it were a commodity to be purchase or something that could be learned and appropriated from the pages of a text. A colleague once commented to me, “You cannot fit the Spirit into a flow chart!”

As I recall the “Summer Snowflakes” being borne on the wind, I remember the words that Jesus spoke about the Spirit when he was talking with Nicodemus.

“The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” (John 3:8a)

The spirit is like the wind. We cannot see it, only the effect it has on things like trees and leaves and hats and umbrellas. We know not where it comes from, says Jesus, and we know not where it is going.

“So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8b)

This makes us uncomfortable – the notion that life in the Spirit is somewhat unpredictable. We tend to want to know where we are going before we agree to go anywhere.

Both the Hebrew (ruach) and the Greek and (pneuma) word used for Spirit have root meaning of “breath” or “wind”. It was this ruach, or “wind from God that swept over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2) at the very beginning of creation. It was this ruach that was “the breath of life” that was “breathed into his [Adam’s] nostrils” which made Adam into “a living being” (Genesis 2:7).

Nothing has life apart from this breath, this Holy Wind. Indeed, it is this same ruach that we hear rustling around a pile of dry bones, bringing a people who were out of energy back to life. It was, quite literally, an inspiration (literally “to breath in”) while the people were in exile that slowly but deliberately stirred them back to life.

The pneuma came like the sound of a violent wind upon the Apostles in the upper room, giving life to the early church (Acts 2). They became a people borne on the wind, blown to where they were needed to give life on as yet barren soil. And its always new and surprising and maybe even unpredictable.

So it is with Lazarus. Dead four days, Lazarus was in the tomb and wrapped up. He was dead and gone. Now, while he was sick, Martha and Mary had called for Jesus to come. It is surprising that Jesus, who we are told loves Lazarus and his sisters, does not hurry right over there. He wasn’t that far away but the Spirit of God had other plans, unlikely plans, plans that seemed to make no sense.

We desperately want things to make sense. We want to understand the Spirit but Spirit is not so concerned with making sense – at least not in human terms. No, the Spirit is concerned with making new life – and making life new.

Surely no one expected Jesus to arrive after Lazarus had died. Surely no one expected Jesus to stand outside the tomb and weep. Surely no one expected Jesus to ask God for help. Surely no one expected Jesus to call into the tomb, “Lazarus, come out!” And surely no one expected the dead man to walk out. Just as no one expected the man blind from birth to see. Just as no one expected Jesus to talk with a Samaritan woman and to know her life. And just as no one expected that same Samaritan woman to be the bearer of the news of a coming of God’s anointed one.

And we don’t expect Martha, the practical sister who sets and clears tables while Mary sits at the master’s feet, to be the first one in John’s gospel to proclaim, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” I want that to be Mary’s line.

And we are surprised that it is Thomas, the one who throughout the history of the church is called “doubting,” who was the one disciple that, after they all acknowledge that to return anywhere near Jerusalem was to risk being stoned to death, suddenly proclaimed, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” How surprising that the doubting one turns out to be the courageous one. I want that to be Peter.

None of it seems to hold together. You cannot fit the Spirit into a flow chart.

Jesus says Spirit, God’s breath, God’s wind, God’s life-giving spirit, is necessary to go with him that we might die with him. That we might die to our preconceived notions of the Spirit-filled life. That we might die to predictability and be open to newness and surprise. That we might even die to our preconceived notions of Jesus and be open to the surprising new things he says and does.

On the one hand, we are like Lazarus – in the tomb and already wrapped. We have entombed ourselves in our own prejudice, our own racism, sexism, and homophobia. We have entombed ourselves in our own sin. But Jesus has called to us, “Come out.” Jesus has breathed new life into us, given us the Spirit that surprising, new, and unpredictable.

On the other hand (or maybe it’s the same hand) we have a tendency to want to entomb Jesus, or at least our ideas about Jesus as if somehow they will last forever. But when we do this, the life of the church and the life of the Spirit wither and die. The Spirit calls us to roll away the stones from our tombs, unbind Jesus, and let Jesus go. Only when we roll away the stones, unbind him, and let him go, can we be free to follow where he leads.

We come here week after week to take…breathing lessons. But we also resist change and newness and surprise. We know deep down inside that we need this breath, this wind, this spirit of God to breathe on us and to breathe through us. That is why it is so important that we come back here week after week: so that we can inspire – “breathe in” – the Holy Spirit.

And then we can be borne away by that same Spirit to be settled somewhere new and surprising so that we can share the Spirit – so that we can share the love of God, the breath of God, and the Spirit of God with one another and then with the whole world.

Spirit is an invitation to a life of surprise, a life of new things, a life of new ways of doing things, a life of new ways of knowing God, a life of new ways of seeing others, a life of new ways of being with others and ourselves. Be inspired and be inspiring. Amen.