Holy Ghost Stories, Part 1

Growing up, I never really enjoyed Halloween.  If you can believe it, I was an even more uptight kid than I am now as an adult!  So Halloween really made me tense.  And think back to when you were a kid…all the sights, the sounds, the atmosphere…constantly looking ahead for the next thing that was going to pop out and go “BOO!”.  Going up to someone’s porch, seeing the figure sitting on the swing, wondering if it was a mannequin or someone dressed up who was going to make you scream in front of your friends.  Then as a teenager (yes, an uptight teenager) trying to look tough while you and your friends went through the Jaycee’s Haunted House; knowing there’s a man with a chainsaw at the end.  And the whole time you try to reason this out:  the chainsaw has no blade.  It can’t!  There’s got to be…safety regulations…or laws…or something here.  So it’s totally safe!  I’m going to show them all and be the only one in the group who calmly and coolly  strolls on past him.  And we all know that’s not what happened; as soon as I heard that chainsaw I think I made it the quarter mile to my car in about 3 seconds without my feet touching the ground.  My friend Laura was right behind me, and when we all regrouped someone said “man…I could hear Laura scream from here!”.  Yeah.  It was totally Laura.  That wasn’t me screaming like a girl at all.

Weird story for church, right?  Well, all that to lead up to my least favorite thing about Halloween:  the ghost stories.    You know, those tall tales that get filed away until you lay down in your bed and close your eyes to go to sleep.  Some of them are wild and far-fetched, and some (typically the local folklore), are just real enough to suck you in.  And usually there’s some type of tangible proof (over in Moore County we’ve got what’s nicknames “Hatchett Hollow”, where some awful things happened with a hatchet, and the proof is the repetitive sound of a well pump). 

And that’s what makes a ghost story really good, right?  That proof…that tangible something you can see, or hear, or smell…a real life experience that brings you into the dimensions of the story.  I think that’s just how we’re all wired as human beings. 

“Ghost” is a word or term used heavily in some faith circles, and not so much in others.  We as Methodist people tend to use the word “Spirit” when talking about the Holy Spirit; growing up, if I had said Holy Spirit, no one would have known what I was talking about.  It was the Holy “Ghost”.  So imagine 5 year old me trying to reconcile a member of the Holy Trinity with The Bell Witch…and then 10 year old me with Patrick Swayze.  It was a mess. 

But since it’s October, I’m going to go totally rogue and to a 4-week sermon series entitled “Holy Ghost Stories”.  Get it?  J

Today we start with the formal introduction to the Spirit of God in Acts.  The Spirit was always there, always with God, always God.  This is evident in the creation story, when human kind was made (let Us make them in Our image).  As these next weeks come we will be looking into different encounters with the Spirit, but today we focus on when the Spirit you and I know became known to us. 

We know on that day Peter and the 10 remaining disciples were gathered together; lost, struggling, trying to figure out what to do now, now that their Jesus had ascended.  They had heard stories of the Holy Spirit (or Ghost) that is to come, but much like the stories of Hatchett Hollow down in Turkey Creek in Moore County, they didn’t have that multi-dimensional perception, that sensory experience, until this day. 

On this day there was the startling sound of wind that filled the house, then flames appeared, and rested on them, and they began to speak in languages they had never heard before. 

I want you to think about that for a minute; if, while you and I are gathered here, right now, there was suddenly the gusting sound of wind and then flames of fire began to fall from the ceiling.  My guess is there’d be a recreation of me not screaming like a girl when I encountered that chainsaw man in Jaycee’s haunted house.  Me, and probably several others, wouldn’t be sticking around to figure out what in the world is going on.  I can’t imagine Peter and the others feeling any different, yet there’s nothing here that tells us they were frightened, or alarmed.  But they had to have been!

What just happened is they had a real supernatural encounter…the Holy Ghost blew through the place where they were and gave to them abilities as it saw fit, and saw need.  It’s hard to imagine having an experience like this today, isn’t?  Things like this just don’t happen. 

Or do they, and we simply refuse to see it, or accept it, or worse…it scares us so bad we run from it. 

I would venture to say that the majority of us gathered here have had this kind of experience with the Spirit of God (or the Holy Ghost, to stick with our theme).  If you have had that moment where you accepted the grace that has always been with you and either through confirmation or conversion have entered into the discipleship journey with Christ, then you have this experience every single day.  You are called, and set aside; you have a “job” to do, to put it plainly.  And just like the skill and talent demands of any vocation, this discipleship makes demands of skills and talents.  And sure we share some of the responsibility here; I can’t procrastinate all week and get up here on Sunday mornings with the attitude of “it’s cool…the Holy Ghost’s got this”, because that’s not how this works.  The skills and talents you and I need to do the work of the Kingdom aren’t gained through anything we do; they’re given, as needed, by the Spirit of God to fulfil the work of God as seen fit by God. 

And that’s maybe the scariest thing I’ve said all morning!  Because there’s one thing we’ve not talked about…and that submission.  The action or fact of accepting or yielding to a superior force.  (Gulp).  Submission isn’t always easy, convenient, and risk-free.  Submitting to the Spirit of God, following the will of God and allowing God to use your life for the work of the Kingdom is possibly the scariest thing you will ever do.  It will take you to places you never wanted to go, you will be asked to do things that you never wanted to do.  You will lose friends.  Your family will not understand.  You will be mocked, questioned, and life will probably get a little harder. 

But there’s one thing I can promise you; when we encounter God, and we receive these gifts and powers to do the things we never thought we could do and we submit to the Spirit, you and the world will be better for it.

Thanks be to God.