Acts 2:1-21; John 7:37-39a
Day of Pentecost
Of course I want to talk about the Holy Spirit today, but I want to begin in a place that might not seem obvious, namely the University of Virginia, with a particular focus on the work of Dr. Bruce Greyson, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and former director of the Division of Perceptual Studies in the medical school. Much of Dr. Greyson’s work over the years has explored a deep mystery: What is consciousness? And is consciousness produced by the brain? In an interview he did several years ago, Dr. Greyson said:
All the evidence suggests that the brain is indeed involved in thinking, perception and memory, but it doesn’t necessarily suggest the brain causes those thoughts or memories. As you listen to me speak, there’s electric activity in the temporal lobe of your brain, but does that mean your brain or your temporal lobe is producing the sound of my voice? Not at all — all the studies showing brain areas associated with different mental functions only show correlation, not causation.
He then goes on to say this:
The materialist view of the world fails to deal with how the brain can produce a thought or feeling or indeed anything that the mind does. And yet despite having no idea how it could work, most neuroscientists continue to maintain this 19th century materialist view that the brain, in some miraculous way we don’t understand, produces consciousness. And they discount or ignore the evidence that consciousness in extreme circumstances can function very well without our brain.
That’s fascinating stuff, but while Dr. Greyson’s methods and studies are modern, the idea that there is a consciousness greater than our brains, a consciousness we somehow tap into, is not new at all. We can look back a hundred years to Carl Jung and his work on the collective unconscious. Or we can go further back to the 19th century and the work of William James, the founder of modern psychology, who believed the brain served as a filter or conduit to a greater consciousness. Or we can jump back thousands of years to Plato, or go back centuries before that to the Upanishads in India. Down through the ages and around the world, there has been a strong sense of a greater reality that we somehow touch or participate in. Call it consciousness, call it mind, call it soul, call it spirit, call it God, call it what you will. The evidence keeps pointing us towards it.
And studies of stroke survivors, head trauma victims, and those who have had near death experiences indicate that when people do touch this greater consciousness, the results are remarkable, and include profound feelings of bliss, peace, and unconditional love. But we don’t need scientific studies to tell us this. We can just read the New Testament. Today’s lesson from Acts describes a wondrous event, when a group of Jesus’ friends and followers experience something so powerful that onlookers think they’re drunk. But they’re not drunk. Whatever this greater consciousness is, they have tapped right into it, even to the point of speaking in languages not their own. As Luke puts it, they are filled with the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the presence, the consciousness, of God that pervades all of creation, the entire universe. It is obviously far greater than anything our brains are capable of understanding or encompassing. But here’s the amazing witness of the early Church, and of believers down through the ages: when we see in Jesus Christ the face of God, when we grasp, when we really get it, that his life, death, and resurrection truly reveal the nature of God to us, then we directly experience the Spirit. That can happen in dramatic ways or it can unfold slowly. But the Bible is clear: believing in Jesus unlocks our brains, opens our hearts, and expands our souls so that we are actually connecting to the Spirit of God and realizing our oneness with that Spirit.
And when that Spirit flows through us, something infinitely greater than we are is moving. As Jesus says in the Gospel today, Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water. Rivers of living water! That infinite and unending stream of water is the Holy Spirit. And to follow Jesus means to live in her power and feel the flow of her love and goodness in our lives. I cannot emphasize this enough: Jesus did not come to replace one dry moralistic code with another: he came so that we could actually experience God and live in deep communion with God’s Spirit. Everything pales in comparison to that. So great, so monumental, is the contrast between just following religious rules and having the Holy Spirit, the very consciousness of God, flowing like rivers of living water through us, that the early church had one word for it: salvation. And the metaphors used to describe that salvation are awesome: It’s like waking up; it’s like being born again; it’s like finding out who we really are; it’s like being dead and coming back to life.
There is nothing magical about any of this: the Spirit is utterly real, which is why so many spiritual traditions and so many scientific studies point us towards this greater consciousness, whether they use religious language to describe it or not. What matters for me as a priest in this parish is that we allow ourselves to experience the Spirit. In the coming weeks I am going to explore what that means in my midweek messages, but here’s what I want to leave you with today: there is far more to us than we even begin to imagine. Our spirits are deeply connected to God’s Spirit. Jesus wants us to know that like he knew that in his earthly life. And he wants us to feel the love, joy, and power of that Spirit as we live our lives in this world. All the hoopla of Pentecost Sunday points us to what is true every Sunday, indeed what is true every day: to follow Christ is to live in the Spirit. In the coming days, do this: imagine that Spirit flowing through you like rivers of living water. In the coming days, pray this: flow through me Spirit, and fill me with your love, your joy, your power. Let yourself receive the gift that God gives to us every moment.
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