NRS John 14
8 Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." 9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. 12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.
15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
25 "I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26 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. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

Sisters and Brothers in Christ, may the Holy Spirit empower us with hearts of fire and tongues of praise for the only Son Jesus, the Messiah. Amen.

About 15 years ago I was an officer on the board of a community, not-for-profit hospice organization. Upon the resignation of our executive director, we, of course, initiated a hiring process for a new person to lead our agency. We advertised, reviewed resumes, and conducted interviews. In the end, we hired from within our current hospice staff, promoting one of our associate directors to the lead position. About a month or so after we announced our decision and our new director had taken the reins, we received official notice from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that a complaint had been filed against us charging discrimination. We received further notification that in addition to the EEOC complaint, a civil suit was also likely to be filed against the board and the individual members thereto. Gulp.

Up to that point in my life I had gone 40 years without anybody suing me, and I was not thrilled with the prospect. I was, in fact, kind of shaken, even though I was confident that we'd been fair and just in our hiring. Other board members shrugged it off and assured me that this kind of thing happens all the time. Nonetheless, we retained the counsel of a specialist in labor and employment law. She reviewed all our documentation, examined the complaint, and after she filed her response on our behalf, the complaint was dismissed and the civil suit never materialized. And that's when I stopped telling lawyer jokes.

Lawyers are, you know, a pretty big target these days. We have plenty of them, and along with doctors, ministers, and used car salesmen, I'm sure there are some who qualify as the butts of our jokes. But when someone is dragging you to court, that's usually when the jokes stop and you start to look for an advocate.

In Scotland trial lawyers are called advocates, the chief law officer of the Crown being the Lord Advocate. But besides the legal kind, there are, of course, many other types of advocates, if only because there are so many situations in which we need someone to advocate for us. If you're sick or recovering from surgery, you're typically not in the best position to keep up with all the different aspects of your treatment. You need an advocate to look out for you and monitor what tests you're given or what medicines you're receiving. If you're involved in a workplace dispute with a manager or supervisor, there might come a point when you need an advocate to insure that all the appropriate policies and procedures are being followed. If a merchant or business sells you inferior merchandise or poor service, you might give a call to someone like Marvin Zindler to advocate for your rights and stand up on your behalf.

In today's Pentecost Gospel, Jesus assures his disciples that at his behest the Father will send them the Holy Spirit, "the Advocate." The Holy Spirit is sometimes the forgotten member of the Trinity. In the creeds the Father Almighty is clearly the Creator, the only Son is just as clearly the Redeemer, but the Holy Spirit's work sounds maybe more like a laundry list than a job description. Given the recent rise in the numbers of Pentecostal churches, the Holy Spirit is now often associated with things like tongue-speaking and miraculous healing. But in today's Gospel, Jesus actually has a very specific job in mind for the Holy Spirit, the Advocate.

As Jesus addresses his disciples for the last time before he is arrested and crucified, he fully expects that they will face persecution. Just as the world has hated him for exposing the world's sin and injustice, so the world will hate them for following in his footsteps. The Christians who first heard John's Gospel were themselves already facing persecution that would in short order reach across the entire Roman Empire. Already they were being put out of the synagogues. Already they were being disowned by their families. Already they were being made the focus of criminal prosecutions. Both literally and figuratively, they were being thrown to the lions. Jesus, however, does not promise them, or us, an escape from this hostile world. But instead, Jesus promises them, and us, the Holy Spirit, the Advocate.

In the gift of the Holy Spirit Jesus promises his disciples, past, present, and future, that when your back is up against the wall, the Advocate will plead your case. When your mind goes blank with panic and sheer terror, the Advocate will recall for you the words of Jesus. When you don't have the vaguest idea of what to do or where to turn, the Advocate will counsel you and comfort you to turn to Christ and do the right thing. And through the power of the Advocate working in you, the world will behold the living God who so loves the world that, in spite of its hatefulness and cruelty, sends the Son into the world for the salvation of all people.

I don't know about you, but so often I find myself in situations that are just totally over my head and completely out of my depth. Maybe other people have had similar circumstances to deal with, but when I have to cope with something brand new to me, it can be very scary. Not so many years back I remember when my brother was desperately ill. He'd been in intensive care on a respirator at Methodist Hospital in Houston for nearly three weeks. He had more tubes running in and out of him than I had ever seen on any patient I had ever visited, and he was, of course, completely out of it. I met with his doctor who explained that conventional treatments weren't working, but there was a new experimental drug. At that point it had only been tried on a very few patients, but results were (his word) "promising." He pushed toward me a clipboard with about thirty different forms to sign and date, with each page listing some possible dread side effect and the bottom line being that if my brother died from the drug, it wouldn't be their fault - not the doctors', not the hospital's, not the drug maker's. But would it be mine? Could I be signing my brother's death certificate? And why was I the one having to make this decision? Where was everybody else? I knew that I was in very deep water, and just as surely I knew that I needed not just an advocate, but "the Advocate." I signed, the drug worked, and my brother lived another 12 years.

Before his journey to the cross, Jesus told his disciples, "I will not leave you orphaned" (John 14:18). Neither does he leave us to fend for ourselves, to scratch and scuffle our way through this world of deep trials and dark valleys. No, but instead, he gives us the Holy Spirit, the Advocate.

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.