The Holy Spirit: It or She (or He)

So at the moment, I'm working on writing tomorrow's sermon. I decided to actually write out a "sermon purpose statement" this week, which is something that I do think is a good idea to do (as my preaching professor Dow Edgerton recommends, along with folk like Fred Craddock and Frank Thomas)--although I must confess that I probably only end up actually doing it about a quarter or a third of the time.

The form of sermon purpose statement I'm using goes something like:

- To those who... (who do you take the people you're preaching to be)
- I want to say... (what do you want to say--the message itself)
- I want to do... (what do you hope the sermon will do)
- So that... (what is the response you hope to generate)

In working on the final piece ('So that..."), I first wrote:

the community might place their trust in the abundant Christ, in order that they might be open to the working of the Spirit and its various and diverse ways of working

But then, I looked at it and changed it to:

the community might place their trust in the abundant Christ, in order that they might be open to the working of the Spirit and her various and diverse ways of working

Anyway, all this is to say that I am a little amazed at what an effect the difference between the Spirit as "it" and the Spirit as "her" made in my own perception of the statement, my own imagery, my own feeling about it all. I think the biggest difference is in the personal vs. impersonal, and not about male vs. female ('he' vs. 'she'), although I must admit I've never much thought of the Holy Spirit as a "he"--only an 'it' or a 'she'.

Food for thought!

Oh, and for those who are curious, here's the complete sermon purpose statement:

Texts: 1 Corinthians 12:1-12 (Many gifts, one Spirit) and John 2:1-11 (Jesus turns water into wine at the wedding in Cana)

• To those who are: feeling anxiety about change in the congregation, and about the place of ‘traditional’ mainline Protestantism in the world/church
  
• I want to say: through the abundance of Christ and the varieties of the gifts of the Spirit, new life is possible (likely, in fact) through the ‘old’ vessels of this community
  
• I want to do: affirm the gifts of the Spirit already present in the community, affirm the ways that God/Christ has already in the past worked ‘miracles’ of transformation and new purpose
  
• So that: the community might place their trust in the abundant Christ, in order that they might be open to the working of the Spirit and her various and diverse ways of working