Stoking the Divine Fire: Participation with the Spirit

This message invites us into an understanding of participation in the Christian life through the metaphor of tending a fire. Just as building a morning fire requires attention, patience, and the right combination of materials, our spiritual life demands active participation with the Holy Spirit. The sermon draws deeply from Isaiah 61, the same passage Jesus read in Nazareth when he declared, 'Today this scripture is fulfilled.' We're challenged to see the Spirit not as a dramatic voice or mystical experience, but as a holy inertia—a divine momentum set in motion at the incarnation that inclines us toward the lowly, the broken, and the bound. The most striking insight is this: why does doing good feel good? Why does sin leave us hollow? Perhaps it's the Spirit within us testifying to what we're made for. Participation means paying attention to the ten daily nudges toward mercy we so often ignore—the melancholic neighbor, the grieving friend, the person struggling with addiction. Or perhaps it means something costlier: visiting prisoners, fostering children, entering places of discomfort. The Spirit doesn't just comfort us; it aims us. And when we cooperate with that leaning toward love, we experience what the church has always called life itself.