"Spirit Power" - Romans 5:1-5 - June 6, 2004

Baseball legend George Herman "Babe" Ruth was playing one of his last full major league games. The Boston Braves were playing the Reds in Cincinnati. The old veteran wasn't the player he once had been. The ball looked awkward in his aging hands. He wasn't throwing well. In one inning, his misplays made most of the runs scored by Cincinnati possible. As Babe Ruth walked off the field after making a third out, head bent in embarrassment, a crescendo of "boo's" followed him to the dugout.

A little boy in the stands couldn't tolerate it. He loved Babe Ruth, no matter what. With tears streaming down his face, the boy jumped over the railing and threw his arms around the knees of his hero. Babe Ruth picked up the boy, hugged him, set him back on the ground and gently patted his head. The rude booing ceased. A hush fell over the park. The crowd was touched by the child's demonstration of love and concern for the feelings of another human being. Caring is a gift of God that can melt the hardest of hearts. (by Vance B. Mathis, Wesleyan Christian Advocate, 18 September 1992)

I believe that the hardest thing we humans can do is accept the gift of love. We hear over and over again, that God loves us, that God is gracious and that God forgives us. It sounds wonderful. But accepting God’s love is a difficult task. When we witness love, like the little boy who showed his love for Babe Ruth, we understand. Human kindness in any form is easy for us to connect to. But here, Paul, is speaking of Christ’s love for us in an abstract way. He says, "God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."

The Holy Spirit is an abstract concept. We can’t see the Spirit, nor can we understand the Spirit. Perhaps it can only be felt. The little boy who loved Babe Ruth threw his arms around him and in turn Babe Ruth hugged him. No words had to be said. It was an event where two human beings exchanged feelings for one another.

Throughout the whole letter to the Romans, Paul is making a case for the love of God in Christ Jesus. He discusses concepts like "justification," "grace," "life in the spirit," etc. His words are eloquent and he makes his case. For me, however love that is intellectualized falls short of connecting. The problem still remains. How can I receive God’s love and how will I know if what I receive is truly God’s love?

Like all of you, I carry thoughts and feelings of guilt, failure, regret, and fear. I believe God forgives me and I fully understand that Jesus has died for my sins. But, they never seem to be totally erased. Therefore, I wonder if I have truly experienced the grace of God. How can I be sure? How can any of us be sure?

Unlike Paul, I’ve never had a dramatic conversion experience. Many of you have also expressed to me that you haven’t either. One wonders if we are missing something. Or, perhaps we truly understand that God loves us unconditionally but maybe we just don’t really believe it.

When I first read the story of the little boy hugging Babe Ruth it reminded me of one of our children in the church who hugs me every Sunday. For me, it is a genuine feeling of acceptance and unconditional love. Perhaps we think that unless the spirit of God works in some grandiose way it isn’t working. Maybe we have been conditioned to believe that spirit power has to be measured in explosive terms.

At Pentecost the spirit moved powerfully, yet it inspired the gathering to do little acts of kindness toward one another. "All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts." (Acts 2:44-46) Perhaps we miss the power of the spirit because we fail to recognize that the spirit of God moves in small but very tangible ways.

I believe that we think too much in quantitative terms. The spirit of God is not about numbers, achievements, awards, successes or even blessings. True spirit power is about being at peace with God, with our neighbors and with oneself.

When I think of peace I think of harmony, reconciliation, contentment, wholeness and oneness. To be at peace is to permit God’s spirit to be in control of our lives. To be at peace is to let God be God. What we all seek is inner peace; a peace that makes us patient, a peace that enables us to be authentic, a peace where we are hopeful in all things.

There once was a king who offered a prize to the artist who would paint the best picture of peace. Many artists tried. The king looked at all the pictures. But, there were only two he really liked, and he had to choose between them. One picture was of a calm lake. The lake was a perfect mirror for peaceful towering mountains all around it. The other picture had mountains, too. But they were rugged and bare. Above was an angry, raining, thundering sky. This did not look peaceful at all.

But when the king looked closely, he saw behind the waterfall a tiny bush growing in a crack in the rock. In the bush a mother bird had built her nest. There, in the mist of the rush of angry water, sat the mother bird on her nest, in perfect peace. The king chose the second picture as the best picture of peace, because peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. Peace means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart.

All of us are in the midst of something. The burdens and problems we face cause us to be full of stress and anxiety. Many are driven and we live our lives in the fast lane. We are impatient and we don’t want to slow down and giving things up is not our nature.

When Paul said that "suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope," he meant we are to live with patience. Peace is possible when we can be like that mother bird in the midst of troubled waters.

A parishioner once told me that prior to surgery her doctor came in the room to see how she was doing. She was anxious and worried. The doctor said one word, "relax," and left the room. The spiritual power to accept God’s gift of peace was contained in that one word. We don't need a disertation to understand, we only need to listen and accept.

As Paul said, "God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us." We don’t have to earn it. We don’t have to buy it. It is a gift. The potential for inner peace lies within each and everyone of us. It is realized in genuine human acts of caring. We see and feel it everyday but fail to accept it as genuine spirit power. Relax and receive God’s gift of peace.

Dr. Keith Wagner, St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Sidney, Ohio