One year for Lent, I decided to give up my morning cup of coffee. I know, I know. Who would do such a thing? I didn’t have much experience with fasting as I was growing up. I belonged to churches that never really talked about fasting, or if they did mention it, they talked only about fasting entirely from food for a period of time in order to pray and discern something in their lives. I never seriously considered a full food fast as something that was for me, in part because of my lack of knowledge about fasting, and in part because I get hangry really easily. Or, as Bertolt Brecht realized as he wrote The Threepenny Opera: “Even honest folk may act like sinners unless they’ve had their customary dinners.”

Over the course of the years before I decided to fast from coffee for Lent, I usually chose something to fast from that I really had no business doing anyway. One year I fasted from gossiping, even though gossiping is something I really shouldn’t have done before or after Lent either. I fasted from sweets as a way to curb feelings of guilt about my sweet tooth, and once I even fasted from negativity. I didn’t understand that fasting was meant to be the removal of something you’d miss in your life in order to make room for more awareness of your dependence upon God.

 And so, when I decided to fast from coffee, it was because I had come to realize I had a disordered dependence on it. I knew I would miss it. Coffee was not wrong in itself. But, I would miss having it, and it would create an opportunity for me to direct my attention towards God in those moments when I was especially missing that hot mug of coffee in the morning. I had gotten to the point in my dependence on coffee that I would fall into bed after a long day of chasing my kids around and I would get the actual hint of the taste of coffee on my tongue. I would lie in bed thinking about that morning cup of coffee as my eyes started to close, and my first thought in the morning when I woke up was brewing some coffee so that I could appease that craving.

I made the decision to taper down my coffee consumption for two weeks prior to Lent so that I wouldn’t get a withdrawal headache. For a week, I had half a cup of coffee each morning. For the second week, I had maybe ¼ of a cup each morning. And then, I quit. For a moment, it was good. I used that space in the morning to pray and to sit in stillness. But after a couple of days, I felt fidgety. I missed the warmth of the mug in the morning. When it was chilly in my house, I would think about wrapping up in a blanket with a cup of coffee in hand, and I started thinking about other ways to get that feeling.

One day, while doing my grocery shopping for the week, I had a brilliant idea! I could get that instant, flavored cappuccino mix and use that in the mornings! It wasn’t regular coffee, so I wasn’t breaking my fast. Really, I wasn’t. And I could feel warm and caffeinated in the morning again. Wasn’t I so smart?

After a couple of weeks of feeling smug about finding a loophole in my lenten discipline, I realized what I had done. I quit one habit and replaced it with another. I dropped the morning cup of coffee, but that left an empty space in my life, and I was anxious to fill it with something else. I’ve talked to many people who have quit smoking. They told me that (for them) quitting smoking wasn’t as hard as finding something different to do with their hands. Or, maybe you used to have an end table by your front door that became the collecting place for all the mail you received. That empty, flat surface was just begging for you to put something on it. When we quit doing something, when we lose something important, or when our routines shift–like when your kids go off to school for the first time, or when they are first off for the summer–we feel anxious to put something else in its place.

 Today is Pentecost. Pentecost comes 50 days after Easter, and it is the day of the church year when we remember the gift of the Holy Spirit upon the first followers of Jesus. Before this, in the upper room, Jesus taught his disciples the importance of having love for one another, and he told them that God would send the Holy Spirit–or the Advocate–to be with them. Jesus says this in verses 25-26: “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” This promise was important because Jesus would soon be crucified, and then he would rise from the dead, and ascend into heaven. The disciples were about to lose their teacher, and Jesus knew they would look to something or someone to fill his absence.

In verse 18, Jesus says a simple, but profound thing: “I will not leave you orphaned.” In the Greek, the word for “orphaned” is orfanous. It does mean “orphaned,” but it also means “bereaved” or “desolate.” Jesus says, “I will not leave you desolate. I will not leave you empty.” Even though Jesus would no longer be walking by their sides in the flesh, he would draw nearer to them in a more personal, more abiding way. Jesus continues in verse 23: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” Jesus promised the disciples he would not leave them empty. He would send them the Holy Spirit, and they would be filled.

Today as we continue our sermon series on Mysteries of the Faith, we are exploring the mystery of the Holy Spirit. We mention the Holy Spirit often in our worship. We refer to God as triune–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We even close most of our worship services with a blessing that names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But, how much do we really know about the Holy Spirit? How much do we understand the Spirit?

William Law was a priest in the Church of England in the early 1700s. He was ordained in 1711, and he taught in Cambridge. Only three years later, Law was dismissed from Cambridge for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to King George I. He continued to write and serve as a curate, until that ministry service was no longer possible with his refusal to take an oath of allegiance. Law was concerned that Bible scholars and pastors were revered for being knowledgeable about the Bible, and he worried that these scholars and ministers were putting too much stock in their own learning and human wisdom than in the inspiration and correction of the Holy Spirit. 

He writes this: “The manner in which Greek and Hebrew scholarship is admired and sought after in the church would lead one to believe that a man has all the divine life and reality of a Paul if he can only say his epistles by heart…Such a man, while more thoroughly grounded in the letter, must remain just as empty of the reality of the gospel, unless he knows in his own experience the immediate inspiration and quickening power of the Holy Spirit.” He continues, “When this empty, powerless knowledge of the letter of spiritual truth is held to be the possession of the truth itself, then darkness, delusion, and death overshadow Christendom. For gospel Christianity is in its whole nature a ministration of the Spirit…”

In other words, if we are not filled with the Spirit, we are going to fill up that space in our hearts and lives with something else. William Law wasn’t saying learning Greek and Hebrew is wrong. His concern is that biblical scholars were leaning on their own knowledge rather than on God as they ministered. We all have the temptation to do the same. We might fill the empty spaces in our lives with our credentials, our own education, our accolades, or the opinions of others. If we have an empty space, we will fill it, and not always with the best things.

Jesus told a parable in Luke 12 about this very thing. He said, “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but not finding any it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it returns, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first.” We get bogged down by the talk about spirits, and we miss what Jesus is saying. The person in the parable did the right things. When the unclean spirit was cast out, the person set to working setting things right. He cleaned his house. He swept the floor. He got his life cleaned up. But his house was empty. Later on, more spirits come and take over his house because he hadn’t filled it with what was good. 

In the past, when I’ve read the story of Pentecost, I’ve focused on the miraculous–the rush of wind, the tongues of fire, and the miracle of everyone hearing the good news in their own languages. But this year, I was struck by verse 4: “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” All of them were filled. This is a fulfillment of the promise Jesus made to his disciples in that upper room when he said he would not leave them empty. He promised not to leave them alone and directionless. He promised not to leave them with an empty house and empty heart that would just get filled up with some knock-off replacement religion. He promised them that if they waited and if they made themselves open to what he was going to do next, that they would be filled.

What’s filling your spiritual house? Are you settling for a replacement spirituality, something that fills the empty spaces, but leaves you feeling just as hollow? Jesus didn’t ask his disciples to say some magic words, or follow a certain formula in order to receive the Holy Spirit. Just like B.J. Eaton preached on Ascension, all Jesus asks them to do is wait. He asks them to make themselves available and not to rush to fill that void with something else. And that’s the tough part. Once we’ve identified our idols, our substitute gods, our clutter and misdirection, we can set about getting rid of it and cleaning the house again. The hard part is waiting to be filled by the Spirit. The hard part is not just filling that space up with something else again. The hard part is not replacing a coffee addiction with an instant cappuccino addiction. 

This week, find a quiet place. Carve out 10 minutes to listen in quiet to God. Make a list, if you feel inspired, of what priorities might need to shift or what clutter might need to go to make room for the movement and leading of the Holy Spirit. And then ask God to help you be patient and wait to be filled by the Spirit’s leading and guiding. 

During a meeting with Jaimi, our virtual seminary intern, she read me a poem by Roger Robinson called “A Portable Paradise.” In this poem, he allows himself to examine what paradise means to him. He takes it out of his pockets so that he can remember it is there with him all the time. Perhaps this poem will encourage you to do the same.

And if I speak of Paradise,

then I’m speaking of my grandmother

who told me to carry it always

on my person, concealed, so

no one else would know but me.

That way they can’t steal it, she’d say.

And if life puts you under pressure,

trace its ridges in your pocket,

smell its piney scent on your handkerchief,

hum its anthem under your breath.

And if your stresses are sustained and daily,

get yourself to an empty room – be it hotel,

hostel or hovel – find a lamp

and empty your paradise onto a desk:

your white sands, green hills and fresh fish.

Shine the lamp on it like the fresh hope

of morning, and keep staring at it till you sleep.