Creekside Church Sermon of June 6, 2004 "The Language of the Spirit" Romans 5:1-5	Ginny Haney
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By this time, I was beyond tired. We were in a different culture with a different language. I immediately had to scrounge through my poor brain to remember the phrases of French that I had so diligently worked on prior to the trip. Actually, I probably knew just enough to get myself arrested. I managed Pardon, Merci, and S'il Vous Plais at the proper moments, but I was rather disoriented the remainder of that day. The next day was a day long excursion and I was beginning to respond more and use more of my French. We had some free time on Sunday morning before we left for Taizé. I decided to try to send an email to folks back home. I bought a little card that gave me 15 minutes use of the Internet Kiosk, as they called it, and headed toward the door the desk clerk directed me. I was feeling pretty good, thinking, "Now I am in my element - this is one way I can communicate for sure!"

I opened the door and found myself in a dark, crowded and very hot little closet. But - the computer terminal was there and I began my 15 minutes. The next fifteen minutes quickly became the most frustrating experience of the trip - and that was saying a lot. After the first sign-on screen, everything was in French and I soon discovered that the European keyboard is different. Much of it is similar, but a few key letters are in different places. The A and the Q are switched. The W is where the M is and the M is where the L is. There are 3 characters on all the number keys and punctuation keys. You have to shift for the period and the numbers. I quickly became extremely frustrated, hot and claustrophobic. I had thought 15 minutes was plenty of time to send an email, but it got eaten up in no time. I couldn't access my address book, so I sent the email to my husband and told him to forward it to others. I didn't even have time to proof it. He saved it for me because it was so hilarious. Most of the words with the letter A in it had a Q instead. It certainly will live as part of the adventures of this trip.

We arrived at Taizé later that same day. The staff that welcomed us all spoke English and we were all directed to our accommodations for the week. It was soon supper time and we were again mixed with others that spoke different languages. Alas - I was just beginning to get into the routine of using my French phrases when I discovered that most of the other people that were here for the week were from Germany!! So much for my French lessons! Fortunately, I had taken German in high school and remembered enough to get by. Many of the Germans actually spoke English. But I sure couldn't tell which ones by just looking at them.

My small group was given the task of serving breakfast each morning. So I would respond with polite phrases according to how they greeted me when they went through the line. Later in the week, some Spanish speaking people arrived and again, I could respond accordingly because I actually know more Spanish than German and French put together. By the end of the week, a lot more people came and I was feeling pretty confident as I spoke to different people in their own language. Saturday morning, someone went through the line and to thank me, they said "Gracie." The smile on my face froze. The memory banks in my brain had absolutely no Italian in them - so I tried to unfreeze my smile and just nodded.

Last week was Pentecost - the commemoration of the birth of the church. The story tells us that people from different places, speaking different languages came together in one place. Although the presentation of the word was only done in one language, EVERYONE could understand it. The Holy Spirit came upon each one in the way they needed it. The early church was the coming together of different nationalities to join in one faith in Jesus Christ. I'm quite sure it was difficult to communicate at the beginning. But the language of The Spirit caused the language of the people to become one in their faith. By the time we get to the book of Romans, Paul is speaking to the church in Rome to prepare for his missionary visit there. The church at this point is primarily gentile, but also contains a large number of Jews. Paul is determined to speak of the salvation and grace of God that is justified through our faith through Jesus Christ. "And God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." This is also the primary goal of the Taizé community - to bring persons together of all backgrounds and nationalities in a setting which allows the Holy Spirit to come upon each one as they need.

One of the men in my small group, a man from Tennessee who had been there twice before, said that he felt that Taizé was the crèche of the church. We are accustomed at Christmas time to seeing live nativities - a live diorama of what the original nativity must have looked like. That is what Taizé is - a live display of what the church should look like. All peoples together worshiping the same God in the same place, faithfully and peacefully. And having the same Holy Breath blown through them at the same time.

Once we were at Taizé, I looked forward to the prayer time that comes three times a day. Once again, I was expecting a familiar experience - after all I'm a pretty spiritual person, plus I've been to Taizé services before. AAHH - wrong again. The first several services seemed so unfamiliar. You pick up a song book and a few supplemental song sheets when you go in. But, again, I felt lost in a place that didn't speak my language. The song numbers are lit up on a number of small digital displays throughout the church at the appropriate time, but the rest is not published like we are used to in a bulletin. The brothers all sit in the center, on the floor, facing the front of the church. Shortly after the service started, all of a sudden, everyone got up and turned around and faced the other way. I figured out that they were facing toward where the brother who read the scripture was. It took quite a few services to get the hang of things.

The songs we sang were not the Taizé songs I am familiar with. I felt frustrated on the one hand because we sang the same songs over and over again. But that became a good thing, because by the end of the week, I knew them well enough to not have to look in the book to sing. Some songs we sang in German, some in English, some French and some Spanish. But, we sang quite a few in Latin. Those were the ones that seemed to speak to me the most. At that point, everyone in the church was on equal footing because no one actually speaks Latin. Just as the first Christians were given the word in their own language, each of us had that opportunity as well.

About the middle of the week, I started to feel somewhat down. I though maybe I was just tired. But I also didn't seem to look forward to prayer times like I did at the beginning of the week. Had the novelty worn off so quickly? I finally came to the conclusion that I was trying to decide what was going to happen in this place. I apparently had come with high expectations which were not being met and I was telling God what I wanted to happen. I was looking for a profound experience that I could take with me from this place and it wasn't happening. I prayed on Friday morning and told God that I was going to be silent. When you enter the church, there are youth holding signs in different languages that say "Silence." I had kept my mouth quiet, but not my mind and my heart. From that point on, I just allowed myself to BE and let The Spirit come to me. It made an amazing difference.

I was touched by The Spirit through all the people I met, regardless of their language. I was touched by The Spirit in the beauty of the French countryside. I was touched by The Spirit in the warm breeze and beautiful sunshine; through singing, through laughter and in silence. When I allowed myself to be open and aware and keep MY agenda out of it, The Spirit had room to enter. Or maybe more to the point, when I became still, I became aware of The Spirit.

I didn't have the grandiose, mountaintop experience that I thought would zap me right into a new realm. I did have a mountaintop experience literally, because we were atop a mountain. And that's what I brought home with me. A peace in my heart that tells me I am in the right place - a peace in my heart that goes with me throughout every day. And the songs I learned so repetitively are emblazoned in my soul forever as a reminder of the fact that God loves me, Jesus died for me and the Holy Spirit breathes that truth through my very being. I did not come away from Taizé with a visible or tangible change, but I feel the change in my heart where I allowed The Spirit in so totally and completely.

And that is the way it can be in our everyday lives. If we let go of OUR expectations and allow The Spirit to live in us - as it already does - we can become more aware of it and will find it in the places we least expect it. The Spirit is always there, even when we are not aware. And it comes to us in many ways. At Taizé, the deliberate stopping of everything else and spending time in prayer three times a day brings The Spirit to us.

I am a contemplative sort of person, but I also enjoy more uplifting experiences of worship as well. As much as I enjoyed the prayer times daily, I was missing something a little more demonstrative. I said to someone toward the end of the week last week that I could do with a rousing rendition of "Great is Thy Faithfulness." Little did I know that the next time I would sing that song would be at a funeral. Yesterday, I attended the funeral of Marcile Cripe from Goshen City. She was a wonderful, generous, Godly woman and I will miss her greatly. We sang "Great is Thy Faithfulness" and I felt not only Marcile's spirit as we sang, but as a direct result, The Holy Spirit as well washing through me. Marcile's 13 year old grandson spoke very eloquently about his grandmother, and I felt both spirits again. Her spirit as she ministered to her grandson lives on in him and as a result, the Holy Spirit will very obviously work through him as well. The last time I saw Marcile was Mother's Day. I knew I would not be at church for 4 Sundays in a row and I just had a feeling that I better get one last hug. I was right - somehow her spirit, or The Spirit spoke to me as we hugged that day. I kept my daily prayer vigil for her while I was gone. My husband reported to me while I was in France that Marcile had spoken in church that Sunday and thanked everyone for their love and support in her time of need. She knew she wouldn't be back at church again because she was just too weak. I felt that I should go see her as soon as I returned home. I didn't make it in time. But I know her spirit was mingled with the Holy Spirit as we joined in memory of her yesterday. I smiled through my tears as the warm breath of both spirits blew through me.

Jesus said to his disciples before his death in John 16: "I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own: he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you." So - once The Spirit is known to you, how do you make it known to those you meet? Will YOUR spirit show The Holy Spirit?

The language of The Spirit can be English or French or German. The language of the Spirit can come in noise or silence. The language of the Spirit can come in airports and train stations and on buses. The language of The Spirit can be a smile or a rainbow or bells ringing. The language of The Spirit is translated to us in many ways and the interpretation is given freely. And the language of The Spirit repeats like a broken record telling us how much we are loved and filling us with peace and truth.

I didn't really need to learn French to hear The Holy Spirit. In fact, I didn't even need to go to France. But this purposeful pilgrimage showed me that The Spirit comes to me wherever I am. Maybe I couldn't really understand all of this in the midst of the busyness of my life here at home. Maybe I wasn't ready to hear what The spirit was telling before this venture. Maybe it was the right place for The Spirit to guide me into all truth. What I do know now is that The Holy Spirit is ready to speak the truth to us - we only need to be willing to be still long enough to hear it.

As I said before, the songs I learned last week will stick with me forever. They repeat themselves over and over in my head constantly. And as a result, they translate the language of the Spirit directly to my heart. We are going to sing one of those songs to end this time - it is on your song sheet - Laudate omnes gentes. I would like for us to sing it with the Latin words. Translated, they mean "Sing praises, all you people, sing praises to the Lord." The Latin in pronounced: Laudate omes gentes, laudate Dominum, Laudate omnes gentes, laudate Dominum. Marilee will play it through once, we will hum it through the next time as we get the hang of the words and melody together. We will then sing it through 3 times - the last time a'capella as we fade quietly to a moment of silence. Allow this simple praise to invite The Spirit to come into your heart to bring you the truth and peace that only The Spirit can give.

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