Sermon preached at St Margaret’s Newlands
Wisdom 9.13-17
Romans 8.22-27
John 16.13-15
Twenty-five years: that’s quite a landmark. I’m touched that you are here today and by the messages I’ve received from those who wanted to be here and couldn’t be (many of whom are at the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly). I’m grateful to be able to mark this anniversary with you on the Tuesday after Pentecost, which liturgically was the day when Adele Kelham and I were ordained priest in Heidelberg in 1999. My then bishop John Hind did not ordain women priest, although he had ordained me deacon the previous Pentecost. So Adele and I were ordained by Richard Llewellin in his capacity as Archbishop’s Commissary. It was quite funny afterwards when Church of England colleagues who were opposed to the ordination of women would tell me: “I was ordained by a flying bishop,” to which I would answer, “And so was I.” So that’s a bit of Church of England history, related to the fact that I was a Church of England ordinand and ordained to serve in the Diocese in Europe. But I had trained in Scotland – Bishop Gregor was our chaplain at Coates Hall – and one of the real boons of coming to work in Glasgow was returning ot the Scottish Episcopal Church. I’ve been back in Scotland now for over thirteen years, and attached to St Margaret’s for over twelve. So that’s half my priestly ministry that I have spent with you here, albeit in a somewhat peripatetic style as I split my time between Glasgow and Germany and try to balance my academic work with my various church commitments.
We’re marking today as what the lectionary describes as a service dedicated to “The Guidance of the Holy Spirit.” I’ve always loved the fact that I ended up being ordained at Pentecost: the ordination service itself is focused on the Holy Spirit and Pentecost is the time that we think about what it means to be people who are touched and guided by God’s Spirit. When I was working at Ripon College Cuddesdon before I came to Glasgow, I very much enjoyed the fact that the chapel was decorated with the words of Isaiah’s exhortation about the Spirit:
“The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him (or her), the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” (Isaiah 11: 2)[1]
Our readings today in a sense offer an interpretation of what that might look like. Each of them in its own way encourages all of us to reflect on our own vocation and the way that the Spirit is calling us.
John’s gospel promises that when the Spirit of the truth – the Holy Spirt – comes, we will be guided into all truth. The book of Wisdom gives us another take on the coming of the Spirit: “Who has learned your counsel, unless you have given wisdom and sent your holy spirit?” asks its author. Being guided into all truth, given God’s counsel, is not about intellectual knowledge, factual information, but about something much deeper.
In his recent book Passions of the Soul, Rowan Williams warns that “the qualities that get you Oxbridge scholarships have little to do with what gets you into heaven.” Rather, what is important is “the capacity at the very centre of your being for turning Godwards. … for seeing, loving, absorbing, being transformed by what is supremely real – the life of God the Holy Trinity.”[2] I think this capacity to turn Godwards reflects something very important about what it means to be given wisdom and to receive the Holy Spirit.
Isaiah offers some further insights into what it might mean to receive God’s counsel and be guided into all truth:
He [that is, the one filled with the spirit] shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. (Isaiah 11:3-4)
Truth, Isaiah reminds us, is related to justice and to equity. That means that what Rowan Williams calls “being transformed by what is supremely real – the life of God the Holy Trinity” is not only transformative for ourselves, but for how we see the world. It’s not another thing that we do, but fundamental to how we orient our lives. As Rowan Williams puts it, “the life of the spirit cannot … ever be an area of concern, merely aa dimension of a wider life; it is the life of the believer, material and imaginative and desirous.”[3]
That’s quite a vision, and quite an aspiration. It may seem very daunting. I think it’s important to acknowledge that living a life inspired by the Spirit and oriented towards God doesn’t always come easily. I find myself deeply encouraged by Paul’s words to the Romans: “the Spirit come to us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought.” Surely that’s a familiar feeling for many – even most – of us, but Paul encourages us to hope and to believe that that the Spirit intercedes and God searches our heart anyway. Fortunately we don’t need to be some kind of spiritual super-performer to receive the Spirit. God comes to us as we are, where we are.
To each of us. In our vocation and ministry. I am grateful to you for being here to celebrate with me today, and I hope and pray that you too will feel the presence of the Spirit in your life.
Amen
[1] In Latin: spiritus sapientiæ et intellectus, spiritus consilii et fortitudinis, spiritus scientiæ et pietatis.
[2] Rowan Williams, Passions of the Soul (London: Bloomsbury Continuum 2024), pp. xx, xi.
[3] Ibid., 82.
Wings of the Morning 