Trinity Sunday – Rev'd Paul Taylor, LL.M.


The lessons for today are Revelation iv:1 and St. John iii:1. Usually passages like these are ignored like the plague within the Anglican Communion. Yet the
Book of Common Prayer appoints these lessons to be read. Read but not usually preached on. These passages deal with important issues and the spirit has moved me to preach upon these texts. I speak to you not as a baptist or a pentecostal but as a but as a born again Episcopalian. To do this I must tall about the
spirit. Talk of the spirit surprises every one. The bible however, talks about the spirit of God from Genesis to Revelation.

Let me first discuss the "Epistle". This is not one of the Pauline letters but a quote from Revelation. Revelation cannot be dismissed as a hallucination it is one of the 66 books of the bible and the only one that says woe to him that
adds or subtracts from these words. If someone said he saw God and there were 24 guys bowing down. What would you say? Man someone put some bad dust in your smoke. Revelation is different from a drug induced dream. With drugs or booze - these are first consumed and then the dream. Here the spirit lifts John up and then he sees.

To digress a bit i will tell you a story. Bill Wilson was a successful stockbroker who drank his way into the gutter. In desperation he went to see Dr. Carl Jung in
Switzerland. The doctor said he had no cure. Medicine had no cure. Psychiatry has no cure. The alcoholic may be looking for God in the bottle he does not find him. The only people who are cured are those who have a religious experience.
Bill left Switzerland in despair. He continued to drink and one night while drying out at Townes Hospital in New York City he prayed and heard the rushing of the wind. Dr. Townes told him to hold onto the experience. A while later he was visited by a man named Ebby who looked like a model of prosperity. Ebby was a drunk who got sober in the Oxford Movement. Public testimonials and all that God Stuff. Bill liked what he saw and if Ebby could do it so could he. So Bill got involved in the Oxford Movement. He tried but it wasn't enough to keep him on the wagon. One day he was visiting Akron, Ohio,on a business trip and the urge to drink was overpowering. Somehow he knew what he needed was to talk to another drunk. Bill was in a strange city. He was all alone. He placed a phone call to a woman he hardly knew and explained to her his problem. She didn't laugh.
She told Bill to call Dr. Bob Smith. Dr. Bob was a doctor who drank his was to the bottom. Bill called and Mrs. Smith said that the Doctor was too ill to come to the phone, but she understood:! The next day two hopeless, helpless drunks met and Alcoholics Anonymous was born. Today millions are sober allover the world. There are also 138 other self help groups using the same principles. This is an example of the spirit moving. Had these two men had something to drink they would have
had visions but we would not have said that they
were spiritual.

Turning again to Revelation what do you see?
In chapters 1-3 St. John receives a revelation and is
commanded to write to the seven churches. After that in chapter 4
(todays text), he hears the voice again and he is transported
in the spirit. No booze. No drugs, but the spirit of God. He
is transported into the spirit and then he sees God on his
throne. A stirring image! We should not be surprised but we
are. The spirit of the Lord is mentioned throughout the entire
bible and yet we are surprised. To help prevent surprise the
church also has us look at John 3:1.

Nicodemus is a ruler of the Jews. He knows Jesus is a great
man and calls him Rabbi. Now the term denoted denoted a man who held

a special status. In those days a man could become a rabbi in two ways. One by years of study and two by a divine commission. Since Jesus never went to the yeshiva we know Nicodemus recognized the divine commission.
So a prophet he is! Perhaps the messiah. But how does Nicodemus go to the anointed one. He goes at night so no one will see him. Nicodemus tells Jesus he knows he is sent from God .He is sent from from God because no one else can do such miracles. great miracles. To this Jesus answers that to see the kingdom of God a man must
be born again. The Pentecostals have seized on this phrase.
The non believer ridicule this message and tell off color stories about re entering a mothers womb and perhaps apply or misapply Freud to this passage.

Baffling? Perhaps. At least we have heard the scripture and have the church to guide us and we can still be confused.

But Nicodemus is a doctor of the law and Jesus chides him for not recalling that God had told Ezekiel that He (God ) would put a new spirit in men. I might forget what Ezekiel said and you might forget, but Nicodemus a doctor of the law should not forget.

The spirit moves like the wind. It blows where it pleases. You hear the sound but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. Bill Wilson heard the wind rushing from his bed at Townes Hospital. He didn't know it was blowing towards Akron. No one heard it in that hotel lobby where Bill paced in front of a bar praying for deliverance. Somehow 2 sane women knew that this desperate man on the phone saying he needed to talk to another drunk needed their help and of course another drunk and Doctor Bob was offered to Bill. You don't know where the spirit is going to lead you. You might not even hear it blowing.

Men like to have mastery over their world including the wind. In the days of wooden sailing ships men harnessed the wind and built empires. They sailed into battle they watched the wind. He who could keep the windage advantage had an edge
over his adversary. He could get off a few more shots and perhaps broadsides. Everyone cheers and marvels at Horatio Hornblower when his ship of 32 guns out maneuvers the 54 gun Natividad. Americans thrill to hear of the Constitution- old ironsides as she pounds a British frigate into submission by clever use of the wind. These brave deeds are not works of the spirit. They are the works of men. In each case there is the acrid smell of gunpowder. Men choking below decks on the ill ventilated men of war. And of course the scuppers ran red with blood.
This can be called many things but never works of the spirit. Man is now trying to harness the wind to make electricity. Interesting and promising technology but it is not the work of the spirit. We watch weathermen at night as they tell us
where the wind has been what it has done and where they think it will be tomorrow. Interesting but it is not the work of the spirit. What is more, as much as we have progressed in a technological sense we are still guessing at the wind. When it
comes to the spirit we know even less. We are usually too busy to listen to the small still voice.

We know that God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (In 3:16). We know this is so because the bible says so. To see the kingdom of God
you must be born again. This is not a question of tongues and tithes. After all most Episcopalians are tongue tied and hardly give at all. But if they are born again they shall see the kingdom of God because the bible says so. All Christians
are baptized with water and the holy spirit can come gently to that person. Speaking in tongues is not a requirement to salvation. What is required that you be born again. Flesh gives birth to flesh. Spirit gives birth to spirit and the
prophet Ezekiel says that God will send a new spirit to man (Ezek 11:19~ God even sends his spirit to those who do not seek Him. Saul of Tarsus went to Damascus to kill Christians. He saw Jesus in the spirit face to face. Saul wasn't listening
for the wind so to get his attention he was knocked off his horse and blinded by a light. This is much like the old army mule stories. The mule's attention had to obtained before you could talk to him. How many of you are in church today because you were knocked off your horse. I know that I am. And what's more being a bit stubborn I have tried to get back on the horse. Jesus spoke to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. Water and the spirit followed. Born again Paul was born again. Charles Colon, a hot shot young lawyer for president Nixon. Then came Watergate and jail. He could have gone back to practicing law with all his connections, but he was born again and now ministers to those who are in prison.
A British ; constable who used to spend too much time at the ale house had the spirit descend on him and now he is a bishop. Born again - yes but with Stately Anglican dignity.
None of these men were looking at the wind. None of them were looking for the spirit. The spirit came to them. They could not predict the workings of the spirit. Only in the revealing light of hindsight could they see the path of
the spirit. God said he would send men a new spirit and Jesus said that with the new spirit a man would be born again.

I once heard a very eminent doctor lecture or should I say pontificate
that any fool can charge a cannon. Real courage he concluded comes in day to day living. It is here that the holy spirit is most helpful. The Greek word given for the holy spirit in the New Testament was Paraclete, which literally means the one who stands along side. Jesus went back to the father so the Paraclete was sent to help us on a day to day basis. The great visions of the future kingdom of God mean very little if you cannot cope the pressures of today. The doctor who talked of courage on a day to day basis thought in terms of the secular world. The same would be true of humanists, secularists and of course social workers. Look at all the books on self improvemel1t, assertiveness, and oneupmanship. These people look at the self centered man and not at the soul or the whole man. The bible does not look at things that way.
You shall receive a new spirit from God and with that spirit you shall be born again. That spirit shall be with you always. The spirit shall be there to help you in your day to day living.

The Christian has to have the courage to stand by his faith in the midst of life. So God has sent the spirit to be with us today. Yes today! God has sent the spirit to stand by us.

The spirit is here to help and guide us today. This is what it means to be born again. God will send you a new spirit and you shall be born again with water and the spirit -

revised 2005

Reconstructed from Crash 2009