8 Jun 2025, Pentecost Sunday (John 14:8–17, 25–27), Becoming Channels of the Holy Spirit

He will give you another Helper to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth.” I

Many of you received a spam email this week that looked like it came from me, but was actually sent from a fabricated email address. On Thursday afternoon, I started getting a flood of messages, calls, and emails about it.  It seems there were two different scam emails. One asked, “Could you do me a favour?” while the other went straight to asking for a $1,500 gift card. Thankfully, nobody fell for it or lost any money. I’ve changed my passwords and I’m letting everyone know to be careful.

In the middle of all this, something really nice happened. A lot of you, not realising it was a scam, called me directly and simply asked, "What can I do for you?" I was so touched by their immediate, generous willingness to help. That generosity warmed my heart—thank you to everyone who reached out. I've heard that similar scams have targeted other churches. It seems scammers are specifically targeting churches and Christians, we have warm hearts and are often willing to help without hesitation. Personally, once I’m certain a call is a scam, I use my magic phrase: “Me no English.” Nine times out of ten, they hang up straight away. (Obviously, you might not be able to get away with that.) Most people just hang up. I’ve had a few scam calls myself, but luckily I’ve never lost any money.

Let me share one of my more embarrassing moments: When I first began my ministry at Payneham Road UC, it was the middle of summer—every day felt like an oven. I decided to call some church members just to check in. I rang one of the members: “Hello, this is Do Young…”—click—she hung up. Nothing. I tried again: “Hello—hi, this is Do Young.”—click—still nothing. I was pretty sure I’d heard her say “hello” before she hung up. What was going on? That week I made about twenty calls, and on three or four of them I got the same immediate hang-up. Can you guess why? They thought it was a spam call. It turns out that my unfamiliar number, combined with an accent they'd never heard before, made them suspicious.....they thought I was the scammer! Since then, I’ve preferred texting over calling. When I explained the situation at church that Sunday, we had a good laugh.

A scam has a simple but powerful aim, it tricks us into believing things we can’t see. The person on the other end of the line gets you to worry about something that isn’t real but they make it sound so believable. When they say, “There’s a problem with your bank account that needs fixing right away,” they plant a seed of fear. If you’ve ever had a money scare before, that fear is hard to shake.

On the other hand, they might dangle an amazing reward, saying, “You’ve won a cash prize.” If money’s tight at the moment, that can feel like a miracle. Scams work by attaching real feelings…..fear, anxiety, hope…to things that don’t exist, and then stirring those feelings until the made-up becomes real in your mind. Before long, we start looking at even genuine emails and messages with suspicion, thinking, “Is this a scam?” and carrying that uneasy feeling around.

In today’s reading, Philip’s question captures this very mindset: “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Philip and the other disciples weren’t merely curious, they were looking for real proof that God was truly present with them. In this scene, Jesus says, “My dear friends, though my work will end on the cross, do not be anxious. From now on, in my place, I will send you God the Holy Spirit who will care for you, be with you, help you, and comfort you.” What a powerful promise: the Spirit will teach you and guide you into all truth. Yet the promise was so great that the disciples couldn’t fully grasp it at once. It’s like hearing an offer that seems too good to be true, you pause and wonder, “Can I really trust this?” So Philip, with that very hesitation in his heart, asks, “Lord, then show us the Father.”

I don’t think Philip’s question sprang from a lack of faith. It was a deeply human response. Imagine your beloved Jesus suddenly talking about farewells and death, sharing “the last meal” together, washing your feet, and then saying, “Peter, you will deny me three times.” The disciples must have felt a rising dread, guessing that something huge was about to happen even if they didn’t know exactly what. So Philip spoke up. He needed to know whether Jesus’s incredible promises were real, or spam not a dream he couldn’t hold onto. “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us. Then I think we can lay down our anxiety." So Jesus is saying, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” But for those who still struggled to understand, He offered a beautiful gift. “I will ask the Father,” He said, “and He will give you another Helper to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth.” In other words, Jesus promised the Holy Spirit as a comforter and a friend who would always stay by their side. It's like He's saying...“ Don't worry. Don't be anxious. Just as I was with you, eating and drinking with you, hurting with you, and crying with you like a friend, like a father, the Holy Spirit will now be with you in the very same way. Don't be afraid. Just receive it. This is my final gift to you.”

That’s way, I love to call this passage “Jesus’s final letter.” While a farewell note or a will is often filled with sadness and regret, this “letter” has brought deep comfort and peace to the disciples, the early church, and to everyone who has reflected on it for the past 2,000 years. And that is because it holds such an astonishing promise. Philip wanted something he could see with his own eyes. It’s no wonder he felt uneasy, as if he’d received an offer that was too good to be true. Yet Jesus gave him something far more precious: the inner peace and joy that come from the Holy Spirit. How amazing is this gift, invisible, yet eternal!

This final gift from Jesus, this promise, isn't just for the disciples back then. It is the greatest comfort and strength for all of us living today. That is why today, on this Pentecost Sunday, we celebrate the fulfillment of that promise and remember His love letter to us once again. And so, no matter what challenges may come our way, when we remember that God sent the Holy Spirit to help us, we can be thankful. Sometimes, very often, when we don't even realize it or expect it at all, He speaks to us like the wind, like fire.

He says, "I am here."

He gives us wisdom: "Go this way."

He gives us warmth: "Do not be lonely."

He gives us healing: "I will make you well." Isn't that wonderful?

So today, let’s change Philip’s question from, “How can we see the Father?” to, “How can we see the Holy Spirit?” and then go one step further: “How can we show the Holy Spirit to the world?” Because, just as Jesus promised, the Holy Spirit already lives within us.

The answer to this question is vast and can sometimes feel complex. I, too, spent a whole semester and year in college studying what the Holy Spirit is and how He engages with our lives to help us. But I learned the clearest answer to this question from a recent small happening, and I learned it right here, through you. The answer is this: to become a "helper," and to become a "community that walks together."

When I told you about the scam emails at the benining, many of you rang me without a moment's hesitation to ask, “Are you okay?” and “What can I help you? Someone says, I feel so important from you” In that very moment, I got a sense of divine moments. I saw the image of the Holy Spirit whom Jesus promised, the "Helper." I was so happy, so thankful. Each phone call, each message, was a simple act of kindness. In the grand scheme of things, it might seem like something small, something easily overlooked. But to me, in that moment of frustration, it was everything. It truly warmed my heart and was a powerful reminder, the Spirit of God is here with us. It really was, we weren’t calling to complin or question it. No, we were calling to ask genuinely, willing to jump in, willing to engage with. I love this. I realized that the Holy Spirit doesn't just appear like lightning from the sky to solve problems. The Holy Spirit doesn’t come to us as a grand and epic scale. He comes to us very slowly, gently, quietly, sometimes in moments we don’t even notice. He helps us through the people around us, through our brothers and sisters, and sometimes through the warm words and helping hands of a stranger.

That is why I am convinced of this: the fullness of the Spirit, the work and evidence of the Spirit, is to become a comforter, to become an advocate. It is to let the Counsellor who lives within us flow out near and far, to share Him. That is how the world is able to see the Holy Spirit through us. Just like the title of today's message: Becoming Channels of the Holy Spirit, when someone is in trouble, and we go to them and share the divine gift that is within us, then we, and the world can see the Holy Spirit.

My dear friends, the world is still asking, just like Philip, "If there is a real God, show Him to me." The world wants visible proof. And sometimes, we ask the same thing. That's why on this Pentecost Sunday, many worship places decorate the church with red, with doves, with balloons and red banners. These symbols are beautiful and important, they are pointers, reminders of the story. But they are not the story itself. The Holy Spirit works in a way that is more real, in a way we can truly feel.

The Holy Spirit is present wherever there is a sharing of love, compassion and justice. He is found in a hand offered in friendship, a voice speaking up for the voiceless, and a heart that breaks for what breaks God’s. He wants that love to flow to thirsty souls, for springs to rise up in dry lands, and for it to be felt by the poor and the captive. And that happens when we share.

When we become "helpers" for one another, when we become a "warm community" for one another, the world will see the Holy Spirit working within us. We are the most certain proof of the Holy Spirit that we can show to the world. So let us share this gift from Jesus, so that when the world looks at us, they don’t dismiss us as just another spiritual scam, another piece of scam to be ignored and deleted. Instead, let them see what is real: a living, breathing community of the Holy Spirit.

This week, I hope that you will live as a living gift of the Holy Spirit in your own place in life. Please, share the precious gift that is within you. Share it with those near, and with those far away. Through our small acts of help and the warmth of our community, may the world, exhausted by anxiety and fear, come to meet the Holy Spirit, our Helper and Comforter. I earnestly pray this in the name of the Lord. Amen.