Is it easy for you to trust something you can’t see? (Can you trust the wind?)
It was one of those more salvific moments on a golf course. It was my first trip to Ireland to play golf. We had played several rounds inland, but this was the first seaside course. The 11th hole ran right along the Atlantic Ocean. So there are two things going on at that moment. First, it was a very narrow tee box, and there is this cliff like drop off on the right side of the tee, right down to the ocean in what seemed to be a thousand food drop. Now you need to know that I have this occasional fear of heights thing – which by then was in full bloom for me. My heart is pounding as I put the tee into the ground. The wind rocks the ball side to side as I step back. My heart was pounding, and I was sure that when I swung, I would miss the ball, fall down, miss the tee box and somehow fall to my death. At that moment the caddie says to me: “Aim the ball out into the ocean.” WHAT? “Aim the ball out into the Ocean.” – see that boat – aim just to the right of that. In my mind, I knew he was right. I knew I had to trust the wind to carry the ball back, and if I would have hit the ball where he told me, I’d have been right in the middle of the fairway. I couldn’t do it. I start the ball down the middle of the fairway. It lands 5000 yards to the left into the thick rough.
The salvific moment? – The question that floated into my mind as I walked to the rough to find my errant, windblown golf ball: “If I can’t trust the wind with a $1.10 golf ball, how will I ever trust the Holy Spirit guiding and shaping my life?”
You see, the predominate image that Luke uses for the coming of the Spirit is what I experienced on that tee box – a STRONG, DRIVING WIND. Enough to change a golf ball’s flight half a football field’s length in direction. Here in St. Louis, we experience that kind of wind most often just before the storm comes – as the squall line blows through. You know that feeling, if you’ve been out it in. There’s electricity in the atmosphere. The birds are very active – flitting place to place for shelter, or the bigger ones enjoying the wild ride that the air currents bring. You know that the energy of the storm is about to be unleashed in amazing ways. “There came from the sky a noise like a strong, driving wind,” Luke tells us. And the invitation that comes from Jesus today is the same one the caddie spoke to me on that tee box. TRUST THE WIND! Trust the wind of the Spirit that will blow in you and move you and fill you and direct you and create in you new opportunities of grace and love and power. TRUST THE WIND!
Maybe it is easier to do that in the big moments. Certainly my appointments in the priesthood were examples of that. Leave parish work to teach High School. Leave HS work to be the Vocation Director. Do college campus ministry on 6 different campuses. Then on just ONE campus. Move to St. Luke’s. To St. Ann. To St. Justin. Got those. And what I know in all that is this truth: When the Spirit comes, we discover that God has a better future for us than our past.. And certainly the spirit calls us in those big moments.
But doesn’t the feast of Pentecost also capture us in those smaller moments – clarifying our speech so that others can understand what we are saying; inviting us to simply have a conversation with the newcomer in the gathering space who is looking just a bit lost; hosting a progressive dinner or appetizer. Something that stretches us and calls us out of our comfort zone – to trust in the wind.
We had an amazing day of service. People climbing ladders and painting bird houses and handrails and making fleece blankets and spreading mulch. Little ways that we trusted the spirit to use our gifts and talents. Little launches of the Holy Spirit into lives of service. And what I hear is the Holy Spirit saying to us as a parish – great start. But I WANT MORE from you. More passion for justice. More service to the elderly. More of a hand up than a hand out to the poor.
“Aim the ball out into the ocean!” came the suggestion from the caddie. Trust in the force of that Driving Wind – comes the plea from your pastor. Will you allow the rushing of God’s mighty wind to blow freely through you – rearranging your lives, your plans and your orderly ideas – so that God can create a new heavens and a new earth?
In many ways, this is the what the Holy Spirit does best: When the Spirit comes, we discover that God has a better future for us than our past. God’s Spirit always has a better plan for our future than what we have know so far. And so we pray together that ancient prayer of the Church. Come, Holy Spirit. Fill the hearts of the faithful, and enkindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth Your Spirit, and we shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth…