John 3 | The Spirit Blows Where It Will

Preached by John R. Mabry at St. George's Episcopal Church on his confirmation day, 5/29/88.

If you had told me two years ago that I would become an Episcopalian I would have laughed and responded with a pleasant "Not very likely". And it's true, it wasn't very likely. I was born into a family that has been Southern Baptist since the Flood. I was raised in the church and until my rebellion in my late teens I was as good a Southern Baptist boy as you could ever hope to meet: steeped in the Word and licensed to preach at the age of sixteen.

But fundamentalism is a dangerous thing and always has been. The Judgmental attitudes of the first century fundamentalists, the Pharisees, forced Nicodemus in our Gospel reading (John 3) to sneak about under cover of night to seek out a renegade young rabbi.

The fundamentalist Baptist church we belonged to when I was in high school had, as I could see later, but certainly not then, brainwashed me by means of twisted scripture, guilt trips and peer pressure. As a result I had no friends outside the church, lived and preached their oppressive moral code and worshipped at the feet of the pastor. I was one of the leaders of the youth group, until I was commanded to quit my radio show at the high school radio station, because we played "devil music" as they called it. I agreed, like the robot I was, but my father finally put his foot down and forbade me. So our church finally decided that since we did not obey, we could not really be Christians and our family was excommunicated.

There exists now a support group called "Fundamentalists Anonymous" which ministers to those who have been emotionally and spiritually damaged by fundamentalism. I wish it had been around then, because my entire world., the church, had rejected me and it left me in ruins.

It wasn't long after that I quit the practice of Christianity altogether and decided that I could not worship the God of my parents. I could not bear to be around the hypocrites that peopled their churches and couldn't stand the mind-games and guilt trips that Christians inflict on one another.

And so, like the Prodigal Son I went out into the wild world to try my hand at riotous living. And I was amazed to find that the world was full of beautiful people. I found lifetime friends whom I love and who loved me in return. It was there in fact that I met my wife. This did not jive with the view of non-Christians I had grown up with. At all. But though my life was full of the pursuit of pleasure, I was finding a spiritual void. Finally, after three years, I cried out to God in utter despair: if He was there, to reveal himself to me. He responded within 24 hours, and gradually, I made my way back to the church with a rigid determination to be a "real" Christian. No head trips, no legalism, no hiding behind a Christian mask of piety. I longed to be an honest Christian--the first to admit that I was a hypocrite, and not shrinking from any earthy or vulgar reality. It was a big step, but God allowed me to step boldly, and the next few months were a crucial time of growth and preparation, for soon, Cherrisa (my wife) and I were moving to Riverside. My family had made it clear that they would provide the means for me to go to college so long as it was a Southern Baptist college.

I feared living in (and exposing Cherrisa to) a fundamentalist community, and was determined to stay true to my commitment to "real, essential" Christianity in the face of all else. So I grew my hair out and got my ear pierced so that every time I looked in the mirror I would remember who I was, what I was and not be sucked in by the Fundamentalist insistence of conformity.

For nearly a year., all went well, until the monster-God of my childhood came back to haunt my nights with threats of hellfire and the nagging insistence that I was worthless and stained. I wished I had never been born so that I would not have to risk Hell. I would wake Cherrisa up in the middle of the night with my desperate sobbing. Then, in a literature class we read a poem depicting a cruel and angry God who was served by loathsome creatures who really hated him but pretended adoration so as not to be struck down, and it made me question whether repentance born of fear is true repentance at all. Finally, at the end of my emotional rope I cried out to God in the night in utter desperation. Again, God's answer was mercifully swift.

I am a big C.S. Lewis fan, and have been since I first read his Narnia stories in sixth grade--I even made a pilgrimage of sorts, to Oxford, England just to see where he taught and lived. One of Lewis' friends was Charles Williams, who was also an Anglican writer of both theology and fiction. A little over a year ago, it was in another literature class (both classes were taught by St. Georgian Dr. Margaret Dana) that I read Charles Williams' "All Hallows Eve", and it turned my world inside out. In his books I saw a vision of God which I had never seen before. A glorious God of love and patience and endless wonder. I saw in his books something I desperately wanted for myself--and it was at this time that I cried out to God, and was answered. A day or so later a friend just said, out of the blue, ''Why don't we go see what Lewis and Williams were writing about when they talked about 'church'?" And so it was that my friend and I wandered in to the 8:00 mass at St. Michael's Episcopal Church.

I was instantly struck by the massive, grotesque crucifix which demonstrated without question God's great act of love. I was in a state of shock, as all that I had read about and longed for were all here --- the ineffable majesty of the mass, the overwhelming presence of the Spirit. And when Father John said ''The gifts of God for the people of God'' I felt God's stirring within me as I raced for the rail, saying "This is my Mercy for you--see it, feel it, taste it. It is real." It was not more of the abstract concepts of Justification or Sanctification that placated me in my childhood--it was the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, and it was real and as I ate and drank, the Spirit of God washed over me and I was simply enveloped by God's presence, within me and without and I felt a peace which I could not comprehend, or adequately explain even now. Let us say that I was fed the bread of life and hungered for more.

My Journey into Anglicanism began there, and I have barely been able to keep up with God, as if He is running ahead of me. guiding me, and it is all I can do to keep pace, to cope with this wondrous new life which has flowered open. In the Anglican tradition 1. have found satisfaction and growth for the whole human being; body, mind and spirit. In the Evangelical church, all is internalized, and physical things are tainted and evil. But I have discovered wonderful news---that God has created me as I am, as a physical creature. I am meant to inhabit a body and after death I will inherit another body. I shall always be a resident of flesh and bone and it is the greatest relief to know that God loves what we are and to know that it is okay to 'Love what I am.

In the Episcopal Church our worship is not an internal, intellectual discipline, but a vivid celebration of our humanity in which we use our whole bodies to worship and adore our creator. We stand, we kneel, we cross ourselves and respond as one.

Our minds, as well, are respected and we are encouraged to use them. There is a wonderful poster put out by our church showing an intellegent-looking man on it, with his mouth taped shut and a caption which reads ''The only problem with religions that have all the answers is they don't allow questions." I love that because if we pretend like we have God all figured out and have a foolproof formula for all of life's problems we are fooling ourselves and lying to the world. We don't have all the answers, what we do have is doubts and paradox arid fear and confusion and we don't deny or discourage a word of it. The Episcopal Church doesn't promise all the answers. It has only the promise of God to be present where two or three of us are gathered; to feed us in the Holy Sacrament of His Body and Blood. And that is enough. We are not required to shelve our intellects nor to toe the line on some "official" political or moral position. The Episcopal Church respects the intelligence and discernment of it's people and ideally we function in love and tolerance and mutual reverence for one another as members of one Body.

As for the Spiritual part of a man, this is the greatest attraction to the Episcopal Church (and the Catholic tradition in general). There is an air of Holiness to this place that is like nothing I've experienced before.

There is a sense of the mystery of God that hovers around the altar. A hushed electricity in everything around us. Here we have a place in the great history of the Church. In the Evangelical tradition, one gets the idea that there was no church previous to the 19th century. I have always longed for a heritage--I envied Jewish friends their rich tradition, and most especially I envied my Roman Catholic friends, and I felt that since I am a Christian, that that should be my heritage too! I longed for it and felt rootless and ancestrally shallow. But finally, now, God has led me to a wondrous place embracing the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Faith, in all it's depth and splendor.

In the Evangelical tradition, very little real. worship" is possible, since the core of the service is instruction through a sermon; it's more like a performance, the congregation being more accurately an audience with limited participation. But the glory of the liturgy is that we all perform it. It is our act of worship, and I see that only in this last year have I truly begun to learn what worship'' is, and how to do it.

It has not been my purpose to slam the Evangelical tradition, for it is a style of Christianity which is appropriate for millions of people, and is serving our Lord in sincerity.

I have a strong burden for the unity of believers, not in a beaurocatic merging of denominations, but a merging of hearts and minds--a. consciousness of the world-wide church as the one Body of Christ. But I love this, our Anglican tradition, because it ministers to the whole man, because it embraces the fullness of our priceless heritage, and I want to be confirmed today to show the world the God and Church which I embrace, which first embraced me.

No, two years ago, I would not have believed that this day would come--I did not plan it. As Jesus told Nicodemus today "The wind blows where it wills; you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."

Amen.