This month we celebrate a day which took the world by storm, or so Luke reports when he tells us of the Holy Spirit’s coming upon those first disciples of the risen Jesus on Pentecost, as tongues of fire.
Since then, the storms that seem to have taken over the world, crusades, earthquakes, floods, genocide, hurricanes, plagues, tornadoes, tsunamis, terrorism and wars, are too numerous to mention. And their combined toll on the human spirit is unimaginable.
We live in an age when “spirituality” is all the rage. Everybody, it seems, has one, even if they also have no church home, no religious affiliation, nor belief in the God of the Bible. More than that, followers of these assorted spiritual paths are eager to have us salute their practices because, as they say, “We’re all on the same journey, we just walk along different paths and call our ‘higher power’ by different names.”
Those are “nice” sentiments; seemingly “harmless” beliefs; and, even make the politically correct among us feel all warm and fuzzy because we’re all so darned tolerant.
Inside the story of the Bible’s God, where the coming of Emmanuel is announced, where the Messiah’s breaking open and pouring out is declared; where the raising from the dead of Jesus the Christ is affirmed, warm fuzzies are not sufficient for the spiritual life prompted by the outpouring and indwelling of this Holy Spirit.
As Luke writes, Peter’s announcement about the Holy Spirit’s arrival onto and into the borning community of Christian believers offered simply stunning consequences. Quoting the prophet Joel, Peter testifies to the reality that now, life in the Spirit offers God’s dynamic embrace to the lowest of the low. No longer are the roles of speaking in God’s behalf, visioning God’s alternative reality, and imagining God’s otherwise restricted to a few chosen agents. Henceforth, all people are brought inside the margins of God’s boundless love. From now on, all people are gathered into God’s unearned “for-us.”
In God’s Jesus, the final judgment has been rendered. The judgment brought an unexpected mercy, an unanticipated righting of the wrong, an unmerited belonging, and, an unwarranted opportunity to share a common life as God’s holy and whole people.
Peter’s encouraging refrain, offered to all those who would hear, was, “Repent!” In other words, “Turn around! You’ve been looking and seeing this all wrong.” Simply admit the world’s nice, neat, orderliness is a cruel hoax that’s kept us bound to the ravages of nature, tied in knots by greed, and separated from God by our selfishness and pride.
In that Spirit, we repent and are reborn at worship each Sunday. On occasion, it feels nice!
Friday, June 01, 2007
An Experience of Spirit
Last week I mailed a card to a member of our congregation. The note I wrote said something to this effect: There's a new spirit alive among us, thank you for your generous contribution to our mission and ministry.
As the celebration of Pentecost lies just over our shoulders, I'm puzzled by how I communicated my word of thanks. What did I have in mind? Frankly, as I wrote the note I struggled with whether or not to capitalize the "s" in spirit. I made a conscious decision not to do that.
I sat at my desk for several minutes staring at the page. I knew that the next word I wanted to write was "spirit." What I was unsure about was whether or not I wanted to make either a personal or a corporate claim for knowledge about the Holy Spirit's presence and activity.
What was going on here -confusion or cowardice? Those of you who've heard me preach can attest that I know how to sound bold when I want to. Those of you who've heard my fulminating know that I can communicate with a bravado that masks for certainty!
What was my claim? What is my claim? Was I citing evidence for an esprit de corps, or was I trying to testify to what I take to be evidence of the presence of the abiding Spirit of the loving God who seeks to be with us always?
Esprit de corps is no trivial thing. It can make grown men, like the Indiana Pacers, shave their heads to win basketball games. It can also impel someone to leap onto a hand grenade to save comrades in arms.
St. Paul says that no one can say Jesus is Lord unless by the prompting of the Spirit. Luther says, The Holy Spirit reveals and preaches that Word (Christ), and by it illumines and kindles hearts so that they grasp and accept it, cling to it and persevere in it.
Our tradition gives us lots of language, even personal language, by which to speak about God and to speak to God. Jesus taught us to say, Abba, Our Father. Doubting Thomas taught us to say, My Lord and My God.
But we don't have much language by which we make personal claims about the Holy Spirit. In fact, part of our experience makes us leery of those who speak as though the Holy Spirit were handy in their pockets, or otherwise hooked-in by some sort of pipeline to direct knowledge of God.
Perhaps the insight lies here. It's not we who claim the Holy Spirit. Rather, the Spirit of the Living God claims us.
In John's Gospel, especially chapters 15 and 16, Jesus tells the disciples that he will send the Paraclete. That is, one who "stands beside" to be their comforter, advocate and teacher. In his letter to the church at Rome, St. Paul says, For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a sprit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ -if in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
This Spirit is neither a silent partner nor an idle sidekick. The Spirit is the presence of God with us and in us. The Spirit is the ongoing work of God to transform us into a continuing declaration of concrete Good News, in the face of particular bad news.
So in the choice of language I used in my note, I was right and I was wrong. It's difficult to claim the Spirit. But it's even more difficult to deny the signs of God's presence, nearness, and activity in a congregation of believers whose love for God and neighbor becomes increasingly evident day after day.
That I can claim. Your faith makes it so. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.
As the celebration of Pentecost lies just over our shoulders, I'm puzzled by how I communicated my word of thanks. What did I have in mind? Frankly, as I wrote the note I struggled with whether or not to capitalize the "s" in spirit. I made a conscious decision not to do that.
I sat at my desk for several minutes staring at the page. I knew that the next word I wanted to write was "spirit." What I was unsure about was whether or not I wanted to make either a personal or a corporate claim for knowledge about the Holy Spirit's presence and activity.
What was going on here -confusion or cowardice? Those of you who've heard me preach can attest that I know how to sound bold when I want to. Those of you who've heard my fulminating know that I can communicate with a bravado that masks for certainty!
What was my claim? What is my claim? Was I citing evidence for an esprit de corps, or was I trying to testify to what I take to be evidence of the presence of the abiding Spirit of the loving God who seeks to be with us always?
Esprit de corps is no trivial thing. It can make grown men, like the Indiana Pacers, shave their heads to win basketball games. It can also impel someone to leap onto a hand grenade to save comrades in arms.
St. Paul says that no one can say Jesus is Lord unless by the prompting of the Spirit. Luther says, The Holy Spirit reveals and preaches that Word (Christ), and by it illumines and kindles hearts so that they grasp and accept it, cling to it and persevere in it.
Our tradition gives us lots of language, even personal language, by which to speak about God and to speak to God. Jesus taught us to say, Abba, Our Father. Doubting Thomas taught us to say, My Lord and My God.
But we don't have much language by which we make personal claims about the Holy Spirit. In fact, part of our experience makes us leery of those who speak as though the Holy Spirit were handy in their pockets, or otherwise hooked-in by some sort of pipeline to direct knowledge of God.
Perhaps the insight lies here. It's not we who claim the Holy Spirit. Rather, the Spirit of the Living God claims us.
In John's Gospel, especially chapters 15 and 16, Jesus tells the disciples that he will send the Paraclete. That is, one who "stands beside" to be their comforter, advocate and teacher. In his letter to the church at Rome, St. Paul says, For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a sprit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ -if in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
This Spirit is neither a silent partner nor an idle sidekick. The Spirit is the presence of God with us and in us. The Spirit is the ongoing work of God to transform us into a continuing declaration of concrete Good News, in the face of particular bad news.
So in the choice of language I used in my note, I was right and I was wrong. It's difficult to claim the Spirit. But it's even more difficult to deny the signs of God's presence, nearness, and activity in a congregation of believers whose love for God and neighbor becomes increasingly evident day after day.
That I can claim. Your faith makes it so. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Blow Spirit, Blow!
They hung in the Lobby for more years than I’d care to admit. They were well past their prime. Their bright colors faded. Missing pieces left both contraptions lopsided and unattractive. Still, I couldn't remove them.
I’m referring to the mobiles that hung from the Lobby ceiling until just a few weeks ago. They were made by youngsters in our Wednesday youth bible study years ago, to celebrate Pentecost. Originally, each mobile ferried eight doves made of bright paper. Written on one side was the name of the child who’d traced and cut the dove from a pattern. On the backside of their paper dove, each child had written these words: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me … God has anointed me to proclaim Good News!
While the words paraphrase Jesus’ first sermon (see Luke 4:16-21), my reasons for keeping these increasingly unsightly objects in a space of honor was sentimental, not theological. I left these wobbly, colorless mobiles in the Lobby because both pairs of dowel rods, and the fishing lines that suspended the cut-out doves, had been fastened together by Pastor Chuck Schroeder. He completed this task at least two years before his death in 2004.
Removing them, unsightly as they were, was a “departure” I could not make. In the end, what persuaded me was my realizing that the mobiles were single-handedly responsible for nearly fifteen false burglar alarms. It seems our motion sensors were overreacting to the unusual flight pattern these mobiles took on windy days and nights!
No doubt the mobiles could have been moved to another room, or put some place where I reverence way too many treasures from days gone by. But in reality, it was long past time for them to go.
Jesus said, in John 3:8, “You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God.”
As a new season of Pentecost unfolds, the Spirit keeps calling us not only to new places, not just to new opportunities for mission, but to new heights of intimacy and belonging with God and with each other. Experiencing this newness will require our making a departure from our comfortable “now,” to what might be an alarming future.
Please pray with me that our “letting go” and our “departing” moves more readily than my redecorating!
I’m referring to the mobiles that hung from the Lobby ceiling until just a few weeks ago. They were made by youngsters in our Wednesday youth bible study years ago, to celebrate Pentecost. Originally, each mobile ferried eight doves made of bright paper. Written on one side was the name of the child who’d traced and cut the dove from a pattern. On the backside of their paper dove, each child had written these words: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me … God has anointed me to proclaim Good News!
While the words paraphrase Jesus’ first sermon (see Luke 4:16-21), my reasons for keeping these increasingly unsightly objects in a space of honor was sentimental, not theological. I left these wobbly, colorless mobiles in the Lobby because both pairs of dowel rods, and the fishing lines that suspended the cut-out doves, had been fastened together by Pastor Chuck Schroeder. He completed this task at least two years before his death in 2004.
Removing them, unsightly as they were, was a “departure” I could not make. In the end, what persuaded me was my realizing that the mobiles were single-handedly responsible for nearly fifteen false burglar alarms. It seems our motion sensors were overreacting to the unusual flight pattern these mobiles took on windy days and nights!
No doubt the mobiles could have been moved to another room, or put some place where I reverence way too many treasures from days gone by. But in reality, it was long past time for them to go.
Jesus said, in John 3:8, “You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God.”
As a new season of Pentecost unfolds, the Spirit keeps calling us not only to new places, not just to new opportunities for mission, but to new heights of intimacy and belonging with God and with each other. Experiencing this newness will require our making a departure from our comfortable “now,” to what might be an alarming future.
Please pray with me that our “letting go” and our “departing” moves more readily than my redecorating!
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