Creekside Church Sermon of June 15, 2003 "Melt, Mold, Fill, Use" John 3:1-17	Rev. David Bibbee
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For those who keep track of such things, this is a special day. Yes, it is Father's Day, but do you know what else today is? For those of us who do keep track of such things, today is Trinity Sunday. On this day, sermons typically deal with some aspect of the doctrine of the Trinity - a doctrine that makes for weird math: God is one, yet God is three in one. There is one God, who consists of a "community of persons," - God The Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, co-existing in unity from before the worlds were formed until time ends.

When you stop to think about it though, doesn't it seem rather odd that something as deep and mysterious as the Trinity is given one Sunday out of fifty-two? It is like living with someone - day by day you are in each other's presence, yet the only time you acknowledge one another is on your birthdays. The Trinity should absorb more attention than one Sunday out of fifty-two. And yet, I understand why we don't delve into the Trinity. Dorothy Sayers put her finger on why, in a piece she wrote decades ago. She said that to the average person in the pew:
"The Father is incomprehensible, the Son is incomprehensible, and the whole thing is incomprehensible. Something put in by theologians to make it more difficult and that has nothing to do with daily life."

But it is not just the folks in the pew who are confounded by the Trinity. A distinguished British preacher said that if a preacher has any sense at all, he or she will call in sick on Trinity Sunday.

I am not adequate to today's topic. I have no sermon titled: "Taming the Trinity: How to Comprehend the Incomprehensible." But we can suggest what it means for us, and the implications the Trinity has for our individual and corporate Christian lives.

Go back with me long ago to a narrow, dark, and quiet street. In a dwelling, you see a lamp extinguished for the night. Then, the door opens, and out comes the silhouette of a man or woman. You don't know which. It's too dark to tell. You follow the person, staying far enough back not to be noticed. He or she is wary, peering around the corner of buildings and being careful to stay in the shadows.

Though it is late, the stranger knocks softly at the door of a home where lamps still burn. The door opens, the stranger enters. Inside, Jesus greet the visitor who pulls back the hood of his cloak. Now you know why he came under the cover of night. It is Nicodemus, a Pharisee and prominent leader among the Jews. He came to talk "teacher to teacher." "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher sent from God. No one could do what you do if God weren't in on it."

Let's stop a moment and ask a question. What kind of person is Nicodemus? How do you see him? A Sanhedrin spy? A villan looking for something to use against Jesus? Or is he an honest inquirer…one of Jesus' secret followers? I think Nicodemus was a seeker whose view of God was being knocked over like a statue of Saddam Hussein. He wasn't ready to come out into the light. But he knew the power of Jesus, and he knew something was in the lives of Jesus' followers that was not in his own.

The word, "Trinity," doesn't appear in this story. In fact, the word doesn't appear anywhere in the Bible. It comes from the experience of people in the early church who were touched and transformed in tangible ways by God's spirit.

In our story, Nicodemus is about to have his "fixed" view of God deconstructed. His conversation with Jesus about being "born from above" was baffling. In the course of the conversation, he confronts the limits of the literal. Jesus said, "No, no, Nicodemus. Being born from above has nothing to do with returning to Mama's womb. It has nothing in common with your orderly, logical, 'everything is under control' view of the world."

There was a lot at stake for Nicodemus - his power, position, everything he "thought" he knew about God and the flimsy foundation that supported it. To know what Jesus was saying, he would first have to die from wind exposure. Jesus said, "You have to be born from above - out of this world. You know how the wind blows. It comes from this way, then that way. You can hear it, you can feel it, but you cannot see it or know where it is from or where it is headed."

Marlin Brightbill taught me that hymns can be dangerous. If you are not careful, the music and lyrics might carry you away, spark a fire, convict you, heal you, or mess you up for good. "Spirit of the Living God" is such a hymn. In 1926, the Presbyterian pastor Daniel Iverson was visiting friends in Florida. There, he attended a revival service and was so moved by a sermon on the Holy Spirit that he grabbed a pen and paper and composed the hymn on the spot. It is such a simple piece, but what we ask as we sing it should be done with caution:
Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me,
Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me.
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.

The next time you sing it, ask yourself, "Do I want to be melted? Do I want my life, the way I've lived it till now, and all I've done to be the person I am, all the work I've invested to get what I've got…do I really want it all melted down and molded into something else? Do I want to be filled with something other than thoughts of myself and securing a comfortable future? Do I really want to be used as a tool in the hands of the spirit to help God's Kingdom come and will be done?"

Occasionally a movie comes along that gets us thinking. "Bruce Almighty" is such a film. Bruce is a self-centered, success-oriented TV reporter whose singular desire is to be the networks news anchor, but one bad thing after another happens to him. All his plans go up in smoke. He is angry at God for allowing it to happen, and what's worse, God shows no sign that he cares. Like Job, Bruce rails at God for all he has had to endure. At the end of his rope, he cries out to God, "If you really exist please help me."

Well, God answers Bruce, but not in a way he imagined. God, played by Morgan Freeman, calls him on a cell phone and tells Bruce where to meet him. When they meet, God says, "All you've done is complain about your life and blame me for everything that's gone wrong. If you think you can do better, be my guest." God gives Bruce his power for one week, and it doesn't take Bruce long to realize he's not up to the task. Answering prayers was overwhelming. With a backlog in the millions, he says, "Yes" to everyone's requests. As a result, thousands of people win the New York State Lottery. When the checks were distributed to the winners each got a check for just seventeen dollars, which led to street riots.

When the week was up, God asked Bruce, "How did you use your power? What did you do for other people?" Bruce had used God's power for his own benefit. It was all about him. Even with God's power, you cannot force someone to love you, as Bruce discovered when he tried to win back the woman who left him. God tells Bruce that she had prayed for him every day, and even though she left, she continued praying for him. I won't tell you how the story ends. But I will tell you that Bruce discovers what prayer is, and in the process, he melts; he is molded and filled with the desire to help others. He learned to be fulfilled doing the work he had done before. Instead of feeling "abused," he discovers the joy of being used for something greater than himself.

There is something a sailboat cannot do. When the wind fills its sails, the boat cannot stay stationary. And we cannot stay put when the Trinity goes to work on us. When the spirit fills our sails, there is no staying put. There is no "business as usual." There is no being satisfied with where we are and how we are. If we unfurl our sails to the spirit, we will seek ways to grow in our faith. We will not talk about witness, we will actually do it. We will place expanding of faith above getting all our needs met.

It can happen. The wind that Jesus says "blows where it will," sweeps over us, but like Nicodemus, we aren't sure. We're more comfortable talking privately in the dark about rebirth. We make sure our sails are lashed to the mast. "Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me…later." We are afraid of what might become of us. We might lose our personal identity! We might start acting like Pentecostals!

The Holy Spirit does not destroy your personality or identity. It doesn't turn us into Pentecostals, but it does make us pentecostal - people who are prepared to receive the gifts of God, who aren't afraid of change, who allow themselves to be led by the spirit to places and the people that need the gifts we have been given.

Father John Powell is a well-known Jesuit priest and psychologist. He was asked by his superior to speak to a gathering of Jesuits at Loyola University in Chicago. When he arrived for his presentation, he was extremely nervous. Powell is a Jesuit, but this was the first time the brothers had heard him speak in public, and he wanted to make an impression. His hands were cold, his mouth was dry, and, his stomach filled with butterflies, and he knew why. He wanted them to know he was a good speaker.

He began to pray, "Jesus, those hands you extended over the Sea of Galilee when it was turbulent - would you put them over me?" Nothing. He prayed, "You once said you that would provide whatever we asked in your name…" Still, nothing. He then remembered someone saying, "If you keep asking the same question and don't get an answer, try asking another question." So he did. He asked Jesus "Are you trying to tell me something?"

What he heard was this: "You are getting ready to give another performance." When he heard the word "performance," he thought to himself, "My life has been cluttered with performances." Then Jesus said, "From now on I want no more performances. I want only acts of love. You want to perform for your brothers so they will know how good you are. They don't need that. They need you to love them so they will know how good they are." He looked over the gathering and saw brothers who had retired from teaching because they reached a certain age. He saw others who were physically sick and others who seemed to fail at almost everything they undertook. Suddenly the nervousness was gone, and he realized he would only be sharing himself with those he loved.

"What kind of father is it whose children ask for bread and he gives them a snake?" Jesus asked. And what kind of God the Father, God the Son, and Holy Sprit do we have? One who will give us what is best. By the guidance of his spirit, God wants us to do what is best for others and for building up his church.

Nicodemus was sharp enough to know that Jesus was from God. He knew the question to ask - "How can I be born again? How do I reorient my life?" Jesus told him it wasn't anything he could pull off. It was the work of the spirit, blowing unpredictably like the wind, which, when we are brave enough to open our sails, can lead us to something better.

I want you to hear Barbara Taylor's response as she assumes the identity of Peter on the day of Pentecost: "You can't second-guess Jesus. All you can do is love him and let him love you back, anyway he sees fit. What should you do? Repent, return, revise, and get reinvented…walk into the river of death with him, and while you are down there, let the current carry away everything that stands between you and him. When all your own breath is gone, let him give you some of his. You died down there in that river. You are borrowing his life now."

Then, receive the Holy Spirit. That is, breathe. Deeply. Receive your life as a gift as invisible as air, and prepare to be astonished by all the forms that breath can take. Under the power of the Holy Spirit, shy people have been known to step up on platforms and say audacious things. Cautious people have become daredevils, frugal people have become philanthropists, and people who used to be as sour as dill pickles have become rich with friends.

There is no limit to what the Holy Spirit can do. You just cannot hold your breath, that's all. You have to keep breathing, keep paying attention, keep responding to whatever crazy idea you come up with next. Some people call it intuition. Others call it inspiration. Forever and ever, the church has called it Holy Spirit.

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