Mtr Taylor Devine

Good morning,

It appears in the readings that the Anglican Communion around the world encounters today, that the Holy Spirit surprises and flips expectations again! Have you had Holy Spirit moments like the one in John or Acts?

“Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you? Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee.” John 7:52

“The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” Acts 10:45-47

In both John and Acts it appears to me that the Holy Spirit is present and active among the ones with whom others may have least expected it. In John, it is the person of Jesus who is from the wrong community. In Acts, the uncircumcised are being equally drawn toward Baptism, those who had always followed the rules in the same place desiring God's transforming grace as those who recently joined in. There was a time when I was working in a small Church, it was really one room upstairs (the Sanctuary) and one room downstairs (the Undercroft). Unless we were having a service or an official annual meeting, most events took place downstairs. One afternoon when I came upstairs from a post-Church potluck, I was surprised to meet someone in the back of the Sanctuary. This surprise meeting was with a very tall man with a large bicycle, who in a very small voice asked, "do you have any food to eat?" It was startling, not only because I wanted to jump to action and indeed get him some food to eat, but because of the way he asked it. It wasn't "do you have a food program," "do you know who I could talk to about getting some food," it was direct, hungry and had the resonance of Biblical, prophetic language.

He joined our potluck and I'm sure had a bit of an awkward time taking plates back home on his bicycle, and I never saw him again. But his simple request has stuck with me because it begs the literal question, but it also asks, what do I have, much less what do I have to offer? Our chance meeting in the Sanctuary put us right in the middle of the question about the Daily Bread that we had just consumed in the Eucharist. Do you have anything to eat? Do you have anything to gnaw on, to work with, to consume? Do you have a God who holds your life and is the All in All? I think it was a moment where the Holy Spirit was exceedingly present, and taught me again how the Holy Spirit can flip a moment into a Holy encounter. Have you had ordinary moments that have been flipped like this?

In Christ,
Taylor