A Sermon by Rev. Marcus Felde, Ph.D., pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Indianapolis, Indiana
THE SECRET LIFE OF PENTECOSTAL MITTY
A Sermon for Pentecost, May 19, 2013
Text: John 14: 8-17, 25-27
Humanity has always had this itch to see God, to know by seeing: “That is God. There is God.”
Today we scratch that itch.
We are bothered by the fact that God is not invisible. God is invisible. It is so annoying! So
many things are visible, why is God not? It would seem that being visible would be the
preferred mode of being.
We talk today about the fact that God is invisible. God is spirit. Geist. We used to talk about
the “Holy Ghost.” Doesn’t that capture something that “Spirit” doesn’t? We’re talking today
about the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit.
“Show us God, and we will be satisfied.”
But God is not visible.
Well, God is sort of visible in a way, to people of any religion. In the glory and splendor of
creation, we “see” the creator. We sense there something that speaks of God.
But there is a desire to know something more than that. Because there is something unsound
about the knowledge of God which we glean solely from our observation of the natural world,
or our environment—natural or cultural. The world can be beautiful and exciting, but it can
also be very confusing and dangerous. It speaks with forked tongue.
Hence the question of Philip, who wishes God would come out in the open and declare in favor
of this Jesus who is their friend, the one who is unambiguously gracious and merciful toward
sinful people. “Just show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”
Jesus says two very interesting things in the paragraphs that follow.
First, he says, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” We look at Jesus, at his words and
deeds, and it is not unclear what he stands for, who he is. If that is the Father, then we can be
satisfied. This is the distinctively Christian perspective about God. If you want to know God,
look at Jesus Christ. There, you have it.
But then he goes on and says another remarkable and distinct thing about seeing the Father.
He ties us in. For us, living in the twenty-first century, that is great. Because we see Jesus
Christ through the Scriptures, and we realize how old those documents are and how long ago
he lived, and how he has returned to his Father, and we wish again that we could see. We wish
we could really see Jesus himself, because then we could see the Father.
So Jesus goes on and says, “If you want to see God, look at my children—at yourselves.”
I see God in all of you. I see God in Jerry Harbin. I see God in Kathryn Roberts. I see God in
you, in all of you. Jesus says that here. Those who believe in me will have the Spirit of God in
you, with you, and you will know the Spirit, because the Spirit of God will be right there, hidden
in plain sight. In you all.
Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 526 E 52nd St, Indianapolis IN 46205
A Sermon by Rev. Marcus Felde, Ph.D., pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Indianapolis, Indiana
Paul talks about this in Colossians 3:2. How this hidden, invisible God is present in creation
through us. “[Y]ou have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Remarkable! You,
alive now, have a life in you that is hidden with God in Christ.
What I see, when I look at you and say that I see God, is your “inChristness.” I am not talking
about seeing remarkably virtuous or generous people of great spiritual achievement. I am not
talking at all about what you have done. I am talking about what God has done in you, to make
it so that you would have this hidden life in you. That is what I am looking for. “In-Christ-ness.”
The having died with him when we were baptized, and having become children of God.
People look at the children of God, and see God.
Our second reading said this.
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of
slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry “Abba!
Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if
children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so
that we may also be glorified with him.
See the wonderful confusion! A confusion of us with God, thanks to the Spirit getting in there
and working and talking with our spirit.
And the key, in the last line, is not that we suffer as much as he did (on the cross, for example).
The key is that we suffer with him. When do we suffer “with” Jesus? When we adopt his
sufferings and death as our own. That is, when we become his in baptism, and when we assert
that claim against all the other things that happen in life. We are “Christ-sympathizers,”
sympathetic to Christ—the Greek word “suffer with” is our word “sympathize.” He suffered—
ergo, we have suffered. Therefore we have the hope of being glorified with him.
This is our secret life, our hidden participation in Christ’s life and death and resurrection.
Which makes me think of James Thurber’s short story, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.”
"We're going through!" The Commander's voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his fulldress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye.
"We can't make it, sir. It's spoiling for a hurricane, if you ask me." "I'm not asking you,
Lieutenant Berg," said the Commander. "Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8,500! We're
going through!" The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketapocketa. The Commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and
twisted a row of complicated dials. "Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!" he shouted. "Switch on No. 8
auxiliary!" repeated Lieutenant Berg. "Full strength in No. 3 turret!" shouted the Commander.
"Full strength in No. 3 turret!" The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling
eight-engined Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. "The old man will get us
through" they said to one another. "The Old Man ain't afraid of Hell!" . . .
"Not so fast! You're driving too fast!" said Mrs. Mitty. "What are you driving so fast for?"
"Hmm?" said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked
astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a
crowd. "You were up to fifty-five," she said. "You know I don't like to go more than forty. You
Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 526 E 52nd St, Indianapolis IN 46205
A Sermon by Rev. Marcus Felde, Ph.D., pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Indianapolis, Indiana
were up to fifty-five." Walter Mitty drove on toward Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the
SN202 through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying fading in the remote, intimate
airways of his mind.
"You're tensed up again," said Mrs. Mitty. "It's one of your days. I wish you'd let Dr. Renshaw
look you over."
Walter Mitty stopped the car in front of the building where his wife went to have her hair
done. "Remember to get those overshoes while I'm having my hair done," she said. "I don't
need overshoes," said Mitty. She put her mirror back into her bag. "We've been all through
that," she said, getting out of the car. "You're not a young man any longer." He raced the
engine a little. "Why don't you wear your gloves? Have you lost your gloves?" Walter Mitty
reached in a pocket and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but after she had turned and
gone into the building and he had driven on to a red light, he took them off again. "Pick it up,
brother!" snapped a cop as the light changed, and Mitty hastily pulled on his gloves and lurched
ahead. He drove around the streets aimlessly for a time, and then he drove past the hospital on
his way to the parking lot.
You can read the rest of the story for yourself. But you have the idea. Walter Mitty has two
lives—the external one is quite ordinary. He has to be reminded to get overshoes. And wear
his gloves. But inside, Walter is an extraordinary person who meets tremendous challenges and
is quite the hero.
Walter Mitty, of course, deludes himself. We do not. Our internal life, in which we are
“children of God” and “co-heirs with Christ,” is not mere escapism. People with Walter Mitty
complexes are poorly equipped for this world’s difficulties.
But our internal life is not a vain glory-seeking, as his was. We have an entirely different notion
of glory, don’t we? When we are “glorified with [Jesus],” we are not being vain. For our picture
of glory is derived from our Lord, whose glory it was to humble himself and become a servant
to the lowliest. He did not show off, like Walter Mitty, in his vain imagination. He lifted others
up instead—and thus became our Lord.
What a pathetic figure Walter Mitty cuts, when we get to know him. But the Holy Spirit does
very real work on us, as it communicates with our spirit. God works through the Spirit to let us
know that we belong to the Father. And that we do not have to be afraid. And that we are
forgiven. And to give us peace.
At the beginning of the service we pray: “give us the power of your Holy Spirit, so that we may
confess our sin, receive your forgiveness, and grow into the fullness of Jesus Christ, our Savior
and Lord.” That is the heavy work the Holy Spirit performs on our spirits.
God, the invisible, the creator of the universe, is at work right here, in us. We have received
from God a spirit of adoption, so that when we call God our Father we are not just kidding. Our
life is now hidden with Christ in God.
I do not send you out to duplicate the sufferings of Jesus, or to deserve his Spirit. I am
reminding you what good news it is that God has already given you the Spirit of his Son, to be in
you and work in you to his glory.
Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 526 E 52nd St, Indianapolis IN 46205
A Sermon by Rev. Marcus Felde, Ph.D., pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Indianapolis, Indiana
We are people with a secret driver inside us, by the grace of God. We have heard a good word
in the Gospel which gives us this great hope, and we celebrate it with thanksgiving.
The invisibility of God on our terms? Forget about it. We know better where to look—where
God has worked in Christ, and through Christ in us, by his Spirit. Amen.
Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 526 E 52nd St, Indianapolis IN 46205