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Pentecost Homily Year C, May 15 2016. By Stephen MillerHearing Leads to Faith, Believing Leads to SeeingIn the last few months, one of the themes we’ve discussed with Dean Back is, hearing leads to faith and seeing leads to believing. But God’s ways are often the opposite of earthly ways. With earthly things, seeing is believing, but to know the workings of God, believing leads to seeing.Today’s Gospel reading begins with Phillip saying; “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Phillip has been with Jesus almost from the beginning of His ministry, but his request shows he doesn’t fully realize the significance of Jesus.Jesus rebukes Phillip; “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say,”Show us the Father.”? He goes on to say, “The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does His works. Believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.”Jesus tells Phillip he has seen the Father.. Jesus tells Phillip that he has heard the words of God, so Phillip should have faith that he has seen the Father in Jesus. If Phillip still doesn’t believe because of Jesus’ teaching, Phillip should believe because he has seen his miraculous work. In Jewish tradition the Messiah was thought to be a human leader, physically descended from the line of David. Phillip thought he was following the Messiah. He thought he was following a charismatic man, who had great powers to heal, teach, and challenge authority. Phillip, and probably the other disciples, had built walls that confined Jesus and God to where they thought He should be. So they fail to see the breadth and depth of God.Jesus tells the disciples he is going leave them and go to the Father, but he isn’t going to orphan the disciples when he leaves, he will send them an advocate. This advocate will help and inspire them to carry on His work. All they need to do to access the Holy Spirit is to believe in Him and ask for what they need in His name. If they do this the Advocate will help them align human society with God’s will.Today's Gospel reading invites us to breakdown the old walls of belief we’ve constructed, beliefs that confine where we hear and see God. The Holy Spirit invites us to not confine God to what our ears can hear and our eyes can see, but invites us to open our hearts in prayer to find God where He truly is, everywhere and in everyone.John Polkinghorn, a physicist and Anglican priest, says some people are “nothing Butters”. They are reductionists who see nothing but what they can touch, see, taste, hear, or smell. They explain everything by reducing it into it’s most elemental form.To these “nothing Butters”, great paintings are nothing but splashes of color on canvas. Great music is nothing more than vibrations that interact with our eardrums and we experience as sound. Baptism is nothing more than putting water on someone's head in a ritual. Pentecost is nothing but religious hysteria.But reducing music to vibrations can’t explain the deep emotions we can experience when listening to Beethoven. Reducing paintings to splashes of color on canvas can’t explain the beauty we see when we look at one of Rembrandt’s masterpieces. “Nothing Butters” only have faith in what they can observe and measure. “Nothing butters” fail to see much of the beauty that surrounds them. Cosmologists have constructed a mathematical model to explain how the universe works. In that model, the luminous matter and energy we can directly observe makes up up less than 5% of the mass of the universe! The rest they call dark matter and dark energy.It amazes me to think all the matter and energy in the universe we experience with our senses, every blade of grass and every star in the sky, makes up less than 5% of the universe. Over 95% of the universe is outside of direct human experience.Cosmologists have faith in their observations of the universe, they also have faith in their mathematical models, so they believe the universe is composed mostly of things they can’t observe.Not long ago, those of us who are postulants, met with the commission on ministry. They were evaluating lots of things about us, but I would hope one of the subjective things they were evaluating was if we truly believed God was working in our lives and if we saw the Holy Spirit calling us to ordained ministry. They wanted to know if we had been changed by the Holy Spirit and if we were open to be changed even further. They wanted to know if we believed, so we can see where the Holy Spirit will lead us in the future. They wanted to see we were in touch with the Holy Spirit that resides within us all. They wanted to know if we believed in the truths conveyed to us by the Holy Spirit, or just the truths we see and hear in this world. We need to remember to humbly keep our ears open for the rush of God’s wind, keep our eyes open to see the fire of the Holy Spirit’s divided tongues, but mostly to keep our hearts open to receive the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And to follow it wherever it calls us, without fear. God calls us to be changed by the Holy Spirit, to hear and see God in new places, so we can be His instruments of change in the world.As ordained leaders we should be careful and not build walls around where we think God is and where God should be, to not build walls around our church, ourselves, or those we serve.If we wait, watch, and pray in the spirit of love, with God’s will in our minds, we will access the Holy Spirit that resides within us all. Then we will be inspired by God’s love and truth to go into the world transforming it into God’s vision. We need to have faith that the Holy Spirit resides in us, so we can see where God wants us to go and believe he will be our advocate and helper in all we do in His name. Then we can Speak the language that will bring others to faith and show them the love of God, so they can believe. But first we need to believe so we can see the way. ................
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