We hear in the gospel today the only time Jesus was amazed! All the miracles he did, all the curings he did, people were amazed by what he was doing, but the only time that he was amazed was by their lack of faith. He was so amazed that after everything that he had done, there was a lack of faith there.
Sometimes that happens to us. Sometimes we lack faith. We hear in the first reading, “The son of man I am sending you to people who have rebelled against me. Hard of face and obstinate of heart.” What do we do when we become hard of face? What do we do when we become obstinate of heart? We hear in the first verse, “The Lord spoke to me, the Spirit entered me, and set me on my feet.”
I want to talk about the Holy Spirit. What does it mean to have the Holy Spirit within us and sent to us? The spirit has three meanings that I just want to go over. One meaning is, “The spirit is this inner superhuman strength which guides our actions in all living creatures in deciding when we should move and where we should go.” It’s this inner stirring in us that gives us that motion to turn into the Lord’s direction, to take that step that we know God wants us to take. The second thing is that the spirit also helps us decide which way to go in our lives.
When we’re not sure what God is asking us to do or calling us to do, it’s that inside of the Holy Spirit that will lead us. The third and final thing with the Holy Spirit is, it’s the breath of God. God breathing into us. The interesting thing is that we are embodied spirits. That means that when we receive the Holy Spirit, when we feel that inner stirring, when we have this nudge to try again or to do more, that’s the Spirit moving within us.
I want you to think about your own life. Are there any times in your life where you just felt the Holy Spirit was guiding you, or the Holy Spirit was giving you that nudge to take that step that you needed to take?
I remember when I was discerning going into the seminary and I was asking God for a sign. I went out into this courtyard. I was on retreat in the seminary and at the statue of Mary. I was praying. I said, “Lord I need a sign. If you want me to be a priest, I’ll do it, but give me a sign.” And the wind picked up in the courtyard and started blowing. I was like, “Good try but I need a bigger sign.” And he did it. The wind started really whipping around. Then I took a deep breath in, and I felt the Holy Spirit in my body, so much so that the hairs on my arms stood up, and on my head, and I felt the Holy Spirit in my body. That’s what gave me the courage to take that step. The Holy Spirit continues to come to us.
We’ve been doing this series on the Wild Goose every Tuesday night to help us really enter into and receive and understand what the Holy Spirit means in our lives. What do we do when we lack that faith? What do we do when we’re unsure of taking the next step? It goes back to that proverbial “get back on the horse.” Even if we have become hardened of heart, even if we’ve fallen back into a life of sin, even if we’ve fallen back away from God, the important thing is to ask for that gift of the Holy Spirit and to stand back up again. This spirit sets us on our feet. It’s like a little child, when the child falls over and the parent picks them up and they start walking again. When we fall, the Holy Spirit picks us up and we continue to walk in our journey.
We hear in the second reading that St. Paul talks about this thorn that is in his side, this thorn in his flesh. Three times he asked the Lord to remove it from him, and each time the Lord says, “Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. Power is made perfect in your weakness.” It’s when we come to those weak points in our lives. It’s when we come to the desperation and see that we can’t do by ourselves what God is asking us to do, that we call and we ask for the Holy Spirit.
Shark week is coming up pretty soon, and there was a beautiful story, a book and a movie, by Bethany Hamilton. She suffered a shark attack, and she lost an arm, but she continues to go out and she continues to surf, and she says, “You fall off the horse, you get back on again.” John Wayne was quoted as saying, “Courage is being scared to death and then saddling up anyways.” Mark Cuban of Shark Tank says, “I’ve learned it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve failed. You only have to be right once.” He said, “I was an idiot lots of time, but I learned from every fall.” Albert Einstein, at the age of four, was unable to read until the age of seven. He was expelled from school and denied entry into a school that he wanted to get into, and now he’s almost the one name we always say when we speak of genius. The Beatles, as they were getting together, were originally rejected by their record label that said, “Guitar groups are on their way out,” and that the Beatles had no future in show business.
Elvis Presley was fired by Jimmy Denny, the manager of Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, and he said to him, “You ain’t going nowhere son. You ought to go back to driving a truck.” Elvis Presley. JK Rowlings, penniless, went to twelve publishers to try to publish her manuscript for a children’s book, and when Bloomsbury finally agreed to publish the book, they warned her, “There is no money in children’s books.” She said, “You may never fail and scale as I did but it’s impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all. In which case you have failed by default.”
Harlan Davis Sanders, would be known as Colonel Sanders, submitted the now world-famous chicken recipe to 1,009 restaurants before he found a buyer. Henry Ford, of the Ford Company, was broke five times from his different failed ventures until he founded Ford. Michael Jordan, obviously one of the best basketball players ever, once said, “I have missed 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I was entrusted to take the game-winning shot and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed.”
Steven Spielberg was rejected from the University of Southern California’s film school. After attending there he went to Long Beach and subsequently dropped out and pursued without a degree. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb and he was quoted as saying, “I discovered 1,000 different ways that you could not build a light bulb.” Walt Disney. Walt was fired from his first job at the Kansas City Star because of this: he lacked imagination and had no good ideas. There’s a Japanese proverb that states, “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” So, if you fall, get back on the horse. Think about a child taking their first steps. Every child falls, right, taking their first steps? It’s part of learning to walk. We fall and we fall, and we try again, and we learn to walk. But it’s the Holy Spirit that picks us up again and puts us on our feet.
As we celebrate this Eucharist today, I think it’s important to think, what is it that I need to keep going? What’s that one thing that I need to try one more time? Is there something that I’ve given up on in my life and thought ‘I’m never going to get past this? I’m never going to do what I feel like God is calling me to do. I’m never going to overcome this recurring sin in my life.’ What keeps us going? What gets us to keep trying? The question is not what, but the question is who? It’s the Holy Spirit that keeps us going. The Holy Spirit that helps us continue to reach out to those that are hard of heart and stubborn of mind.
All of us need that lifting up and putting us on that right path. And so, let’s pray for that gift of the Holy Spirit, that the Lord may lead us, that the Lord may guide us, that the Lord may pick us up once more and put us on our feet.
