Have you had experiences where afterwards you felt, “Wow, that was the Holy Spirit!”? Or you wonder, “Whoa, is this what they mean by the Holy Spirit?”

What have those experiences been like for you?

Last Sunday I wasn’t at the adult spiritual formation book study, but I hear some folks were moved to tears through the open-hearted sharing in that circle. Would you say the Holy Spirit was on the move?

When else?

Many people have the experience of someone they haven’t seen in a long time just popping into mind, just all of a sudden being on their heart. So, they send them a message or give them a call. And it turns out this person has been having a really hard time and needed that call with a friend. Have you ever experienced that? Is that the Holy Spirit at work?

Sometimes when people pray they feel a warmth spreading out from their heart, or they feel a light pouring into the top of their heads and washing through them and out into an embrace of the world.

Sometime when people sing together or make music together or dance or share in worship there’s a kind of dissolving of the usual boundaries of ourselves and a sense of a larger movement that’s inspiring and healing and uplifting.

Is this the Holy Spirit?

Or maybe there is a special place you’ve found that has a sacred presence to it, a peace or a power – a grove of cedar trees in a forest, perhaps, or a spot beside a stream where you like to sit or fish, or a sanctuary or a chapel that just holds a sense of the holy. Is this the Holy Spirit we feel? Are these places where it is easier to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit?

How else have you experienced the Holy Spirit? Or wonder if maybe you have?

It doesn’t have to be something ecstatic or extraordinary – it can be – but could be quite ordinary, perhaps even easy to overlook, a still, small voice.

When you have had some taste of the Holy Spirit, What does it feel like? In your body, what do you feel? What do you hear and taste and smell and touch and see? In your soul, what do you sense, what stirs and moves? In your heart, what do you feel? From where is it coming? And where is it leading?

In the story passed down in our tradition as Pentecost, how did the first community of Jesus followers experience the Holy Spirit? They felt it to be like a wind, with a tremendous sound, a rushing, a roar. Then the experienced changed to be like fire, tongues of flame igniting from the crowns of their heads. And then it changed and moved into an experience of ecstatic interconnection, they were swept into a movement that carried the message of Divine love communicating across the boundaries that usually divide us.

From where was this coming? And to where was it leading?

In Jesus’ experience of the Holy Spirit during his baptism, this is what it was like: He was plunged into the waters of the river, and as soon as he broke back through the surface into the air, he encountered a bird. The bird embodied the Holy Spirit. With the bird came an experience of Belovedness, the love of God for Jesus, like the love of a parent for their child. All who witnessed this experience felt this Belovedness, and heard this message of Divine love communicating across the boundaries that usually divide.

From where was this coming? And to where was it leading?

In these stories about the Holy Spirit I find it amazing just how visceral they are. Sometimes we can make it seem like the Holy Spirit is abstract and ethereal. But these stories from the New Testament are full of heat and force and beings with wings. These are strong sensations, elemental, animal forces.

These are experiences of very real encounter between bodies and between realms of being. And through these encounters there flows a tremendous love that draws us into communion with an astonishing Mystery, as it draws us into communion with others. It comes from a God of love and leads us back to a God of love for all.

***

Before I found a home with the United Church of Christ, for several years I attended Quaker meetings, the Society of Friends. The Quaker way of meeting for worship is to simply be still and silent together in prayerful attentiveness to what they call the Inner Light, that-of-God within oneself and within every being. Then within that communal silence the understanding is that the Holy Spirit may move. Sometimes it will move someone to speak, to share a message, or to share a song. The others in worship will receive that message, prayerfully, then return to silence.

What people share is often quite a gift to at least somebody else in the gathering. It’s an amazing experience when that person is you, who hears what you need to hear, or who hears what you’ve been longing to express.

In Quaker communities, there’s a lot of received wisdom about how to discern the Holy Spirit.

The way that one elder put it was,

“How can you tell it’s the Holy Spirit moving, and not just indigestion?”

This is a very good question.

Because you know what can feel like the Holy Spirit moving?

Doing “the wave” at a football game.

Or I guarantee you that thousands of people at Hitler’s Nuremburg rallies felt like the Holy Spirit was moving in that place.

A force much larger than yourself sweeping you into ecstasies on behalf of a movement of epic scope … it can be very dangerous.

Or I’ve had people say that the Holy Spirit is compelling them to inform me in no uncertain terms that I’m going to burn in eternal hellfire, because I proclaim the belief that gay folks will not burn in eternal hellfire (or, even worse, maybe no one will).

Really, are you sure you’re saying this because of the Holy Spirit, or do you just need an antacid to cool off that hateful bile in your belly?

So how can we tell that it’s the Holy Spirit and not just indigestion?

Now, remember some of those experiences that I evoked earlier, experiences in your life that felt like the Holy Spirit could be on the move. Remember those experiences in the New Testament. Remember some of the feelings that came with these experiences.

The Quaker wisdom is that if we wonder if an experience is one of the Holy Spirit, we can explore it, inquiring of it, with these two questions:

Where is this coming from?

&

Where is this leading?

These are simple but deep questions.

The wisdom is to explore these questions not just in an overly intellectual way.

Genuine experiences of the Holy Spirit are deeply felt experiences. So, we should explore these discerning inquiries with the wisdom of the heart and of our intuition and of what we know to be true about the nature of God.

Where is this coming from?

Is it coming from some part of myself, if I’m honest? Some unmet need within me? One of my own desires and agenda? Is it coming from someone else and their needs and agendas?

Power, money, fame, violence, what have you – they all have their false spirits that can sweep us up. False idols have false spirits that can inspire surrender and worship. I’m sure it’s a rush to be on the trading floor in Wall Street, and the energy of the place is coming from somewhere much greater than oneself, but that’s no reason to bow before the golden bull.

So if we feel it out and discern that this experience is coming from my own agenda, or from another person’s agenda, or some human force or force of nature – if so, then let it pass by.

But say we’ve discerned that this feeling is indeed coming from somewhere or something or someone beyond all that, beckoning from a realm beyond what I know, some great Mystery, then feel out : What can we tell of the nature of this great mysterious source? Does it seem to have a nature that accords with what we know to be true about God – a source of both great power and great love?

If so, then feel out where that power and that love seem to be moving you, and ask the next question:

Where is this leading?

You may not know until you go with it for a bit. But another way to ask this question is, what kind of fruit will this bear?

All kinds of feelings of enthusiasm can lead us in all kinds of different directions. Is this leading me to want to throw beer cans on the players of the opposing team? Is this leading me to want to wage a race war? Is this leading me to believe that God has sent me into the world to condemn to hell those people who make me feel uncomfortable?

If this is leading to an increase of my bitterness, my greed, my hate, my violence, my self-centeredness, self-righteousness, fear, then, sorry, it’s not-of-God.

Fortunately, we have a very sound, tried-and-true litmus test for discerning the leadings of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul called these the fruit of the Spirit: “love, peace, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). Jesus at the end of his sermon on the mount said that plenty of people evoke the Lord to justify their behaviors, but it’s by our fruits that we are known, and the fruits that Jesus is looking for are just the kinds of ways of being that he taught in the sermon on the mount: love, mercy, non-judgment, integrity, generosity, courage, faithfulness, justice, humility… The prophet Micah spoke also of these kinds of fruits: “What does Yhwh require of you but to love mercy, do justice, and walk humbly with your God.”

If the experience seems to be leading us to become more like this, then, yes, go for it!

If not, then it’s wise to say, “No thanks,” and to be on our way.

Experiences that could be the Holy Spirit are often very, very powerful. They can be quiet, they can be loud, they can be gentle, they can be overwhelming; the Spirit can be like fire, or like wind, like water, like breath, like a bird, or like stillness that runs deep, or any other deeply felt experience.  

There is always great power and great love that moves us beyond ourselves. It’s important that we are open to this. As important as it is to be wise and savvy in our discernment of the spirit, when we feel it to be moving, let’s be open to surrendering and letting ourselves flow with it.

Eternal Spirit of the living God

May we awaken to how You stir within us

May we breathe with Your holy breath

May we awaken to how You move among us

May we unfurl with Your holy wind

May we awaken to how You burn through us

May we ignite with Your holy fire

May we be refined as Christ, God-with-us

Made new in Your sacred purpose for our lives together.

Amen