“Paraclete NOT Parakeet”

John 14:15-17

Way back in 1976, during my intern year, I had the delightful privilege of working with a faithful and dedicated older Christian woman. I say older because she was much older than I was at the time. Today I’m probably about the age she was back then. Whatever, one day she shared a humorous episode from her childhood. It seems that when she first heard the phrase “Here I raise my Ebenezer,” she thought that an Ebenezer was an umbrella. She was obviously wrong but even in her error she displayed quite a bit of practical imagination. You raise umbrellas, therefore if an Ebenezer is something you raise, could it not be an umbrella?

That brought back memories from my own childhood, as in the first time I ever heard the word “paraclete” used in church. I had no idea what a “paraclete” was, but I did know what a parakeet was. In my mind I sort of imagined a “paraclete” to be a bird similar to a “parakeet.” In my young mind I had put two and two together and arrived at five. Thus the somewhat strange title of this sermon.

Of course a paraclete is not a parakeet, or more appropriately the Paraclete is not a parakeet. A parakeet is a cute little bird. The Paraclete is the Holy Spirit. Various words have been used to translate paraclete: Counselor, Advocate, Comforter, and Helper, which is derived from the literal meaning of the Greek, which means someone who stands with another in a time of trouble.

Today’s text is a small part of Jesus’ final discourse with his disciples in the Upper Room. Jesus is promising that he will not leave then without a helper after he ascends into heaven. They will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit will continue the work begun by Jesus. The Spirit will move within and among the followers of Jesus giving them guidance, comfort, and power. And serving as Jesus served as an advocate before the Father.

No, the Paraclete is most definitely not a parakeet. Most parakeets we encounter are in small cages. They are not free to come and go as they will. They are tamed and domesticated. They are helpless, unable to help themselves much less help us.

The Paraclete – the Holy Spirit – cannot be caged. Like the wind the Spirit comes and goes where and as he wills. We cannot tame the Holy Spirit. The Spirit can never be domesticated. Repeating the words of this morning’s Affirmation of Faith: “[We cannot] coerce or restrict the Spirit… The Holy Spirit works in the church but not on our terms or under our control. The Holy Spirit works beyond the church even among those we suspect or scorn.”

The Spirit is neither powerless nor passive. The wind and fire of Pentecost gave evidence of that. The Spirit is the active, moving, and empowering agent of the Lord. His is a power we can neither contain nor limit. It is by way of the Spirit that God gave birth to the church and enabled it to grow and spread over the earth. Way before that the Spirit was the very breath that God blew into creation, bringing it to life. Within the history of Israel the Spirit gave God’s voice to the prophets. And let us never forget the powerful imagery of Ezekiel 37 in which the Spirit comes and breathes life into the dead, dry bones that symbolized Israel.

Back to the text: Jesus promises the gift of the Spirit, the Paraclete. But we are not passive recipients of the Spirit. There are certain behavioral strings attached to our receiving the Spirit. As Jesus said in verse 15, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Verse 15 is linked to verse 16 by the word “and.” “If you love me, you will keep my commandments; and then I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate.”

That sounds a lot more like works righteousness than it really is. It’s really more of a cause and effect kind of thing. As we give our ultimate love exclusively to Jesus we live more and more in a way that opens our hearts to the Spirit. Although we cannot direct the work of the Spirit, we can make ourselves available to him by way of loving obedience. It is this loving obedience that opens us to the discernment of the truth of God that the Spirit reveals. The gift of the Spirit is free but we can only receive it after we have made ourselves ready to receive it.

Part of the readiness involves placing Jesus at the very center of our being. He and no other is our Lord. We do not bow to the gods of this world. We do not surrender ourselves to the powers and principalities that would rule and destroy us. We are not addicted to the things of this world: sex, drugs, or alcohol; money, pleasure, or personal power; nationalism, pet theologies, or political ideologies. In short we don’t buy the various cultural myths that shape so much of our society. We are in this world – it’s the only one we presently have – but we should never be of this world. It is our task to convert the world not be converted by it.

The world and all its powers and principalities are not often kind to those who steadfastly refuse to bow to their gods. The world and all its powers and principalities do not want us to be lovingly obedient to the commandments of our Savior. Those who are of the world, live as if there is no God, refusing to acknowledge his very existence. Their hostility toward God blinds them to his reality and closes them off to his Spirit. God’s truth as conveyed by the Spirit is inconvenient. The Devil’s lies are much easier to believe because the Devil knows how to tell just what we want to hear.

The Spirit never limits his expression of God’s truth to those things we want to hear. He gives us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He will never bear false witness. If we are in Christ – if we love him and obey his commandments – we are equipped to hear and trust God’s truth. Ironically the very Spirit who brings that truth to us is the One who enables us to accept it.

More than that the Spirit is the One who enables us to endure the world’s hostility and rejection. The Spirit is the One who enables us to cope with the difficulties that result when we refuse to bow to the gods of this world. William Barclay condensed Jesus’ final counsel to his disciples with the following paraphrase, “I am setting you a hard task, and I am sending you out on a very difficult engagement. But I am going to send you some one, the [Paraclete], who will guide you as what to do and enable you to do it.”

This is Pentecost Sunday; the day when we celebrate the church’s being birthed into being by the wind and fire of the Spirit. That day and the days that immediately followed brought some wild and wooly times into the world. The church grew like wildfire. People’s lives were irrevocably changed for the better. There was in the words of the old spiritual a sweet, sweet spirit in that place.

But it wasn’t long before the religious and political leaders of Jerusalem came down hard on those earliest Christians. They were threatened by the church’s amazing growth. They were uncomfortable with the changes occurring in the lives of those who chose to follow Jesus. They were hostile toward the work of the Holy Spirit. So persecution began. Did it destroy the church? No it helped disperse the church farther out into the world. By seeking to suppress the Gospel its opponents helped it spread. The truth of God would not be denied.

But it wasn’t all seashells and balloons. People suffered in the name of Jesus. Believers of God’s truth were battered and badgered by those who did not want to hear it. Still that truth persisted. The church grew. The world was changed. Why?

The more appropriate question is “how?” What happened? Those who accepted the hard task and difficult engagement offered by Jesus had help – very powerful help. They had an Advocate, a Helper, Comforter, and Guide – they had a Paraclete – the very Spirit of God. On their own they were helpless and powerless. On their own they would have been crushed by the world, destroyed by the mighty Roman Empire. But they weren’t on their own. They did not have to stand by themselves. They had the unlimited, unrestrained power of the Holy Spirit working in their hearts, their congregations, and the world.

We need to remember and celebrate the events of Pentecost. We need to open ourselves to the Spirit’s wild and wooly possibilities for our lives and our churches. Above all we must never forget that we are not alone. We too have the unlimited, unrestrained power of the Holy Spirit working with and for us. We have the dream-come-true, promised-by-Jesus gift of the Paraclete: our Advocate, Helper, Comforter, and Guide. We have God’s truth on our side.

All we have to do is open ourselves to it by taking seriously the words of Jesus: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.” Forever. Amen.