Tag: spirit

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Better Unseen

Day of Pentecost  |  John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

Lectionary Project—Part of an ongoing three year project of weekly posts related to the Sunday reading from the Revised Common Lectionary. A study in practical theology.

Sparkler HandsOn this Sunday, the Church celebrates the Day of Pentecost. The Christian remembrance of this day depends upon accounts left by the early followers of Jesus, left leaderless after his crucifixion. They told of experiencing the presence of the Spirit of God in ways that make little sense to modern readers. To make the matter more mysterious, the accounts do not even agree with one another.

According to the book of Acts, something “like tongues of fire” appeared to these earliest Christians, or happened to them, or by some other difficult to describe experience changed them. Afterward they left off their new practice of withdrawing from society, as they had done partly in fear of persecution and partly for lack of a clear idea of what else to do, and went out among the streets and people of Jerusalem, telling everyone that Jesus had been resurrected.

That makes a string of odd experiences.

John recalls the events differently than the other gospels. In the verses outlined by the lectionary, Jesus tells his followers that he is leaving them, and that only when he has left them will they come to know another aspect of God, the Advocate, the Spirit of truth. In this gospel, after the crucifixion a resurrected Jesus and some of his followers are gathered in a room when he breathes on them—another peculiar detail—and tells them to receive the Holy Spirit.Candle in Salt

The New Testament accounts are not clear, and they do not tell the same story. We might agree that something happened to change the way these earliest Christians understood the presence of God. We might agree precisely because of the lack of agreement in the texts—if these folks were making it all up, surely they would have done a better job of getting the details down, but their focus appears to have been on the result, not the method.

Whether some of these people had a visual or physical experience of fire, or were merely expressing their experience in such language as a metaphor, or were more apt to describe some quieter occurrence as in the Gospel of John, all of them claimed that something happened. More to the point, these early Christians began to behave in a different way—something changed in them and something changed in the way they related to the people and the world around them—and as a result our own civilization changed with them. Whatever they experienced was powerful enough to change history.

Oddly, in this passage of John’s Gospel, Jesus tells his followers that “…it is helpful to you that I go away.” The word translated as helpful, or as to your advantage, literally means bring together. (Even today, to ‘get it together’ means something a little different than what the words convey.) We find a version of the same term in Acts 19:19 — “…those who had practiced magic arts brought together their books and burned them….” The greater oddness of that passage aside, it is interesting to think that the words of Jesus have a double meaning: it is to your advantage and it will bring you together.

SparksAt a stretch, then, we might translate the verse this way: But I tell you the truth, you will be brought together if I go….

Whatever the meaning, that was the effect.

Watching a teacher is a good way to learn, but we don’t really know something for ourselves until we do it for ourselves. Hearing the gospel taught, listening to the words, is not the same as living and sharing the gospel. Hearing that God draws near to us, whether we recognize the moment or not, is not the same as internalizing it, having faith that it is so. Hearing that our failures can be redeemed, that there is always an opportunity for grace, is not the same as accepting it, walking with it.

The followers of Jesus got it together when he left them. He got out of the way. If we hope to experience love and grace and God in our lives, sometimes the best thing we can do is to get out of the way.

Holding Sparklers

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In Those Days

First Sunday in Lent  |  Mark 1:9-15

Lectionary Project

This entry is part of a ongoing three year project, a series of reflections written to match the Gospel readings of the Revised Common Lectionary. Beginning on Ash Wednesday, the Christian world recognizes the season of Lent, a walk lasting forty days and six Sundays and ending at Easter. It is a season of remembrance and of reflection.

When Mark says that the Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness, he is really saying that the Spirit “threw” Jesus into the wilderness, just like we throw a ball. That is the actual word he uses.

Threw. Tossed. Punted. Drop kicked.Eggs Wide

It has happened to all of us. (If it hasn’t happened to you, just wait for it. It won’t be long now.) We think we are minding our own business, doing pretty ok, and something drop kicks us into nowhere.

Welcome to the wilderness experience. This one is not about campfires and marshmallows. This one is about being alone in the dark, sand in all the cracks, wondering what is making that sound in the distance and whether it knows we are here—yet.

Maybe Jesus went off into the wilderness for a personal retreat before engaging in public teaching. Everyone starting a daunting task needs some preparation time. Anyone heading out on a journey that leads to rejection and crucifixion, well, all the more so. One can imagine Jesus being driven by the Spirit, his own Spirit, the deep quiet voice within him, out to a place where he could be alone.

That’s the trouble, though. We’re never alone. Jesus wasn’t, not in Mark’s account. Out there, in nowhere, were the beasts, the Satan, and the angels, to say nothing of whatever interior dialogue Jesus carried with him.

The wilderness experience is a metaphor, of course, just like the transfiguration on the mountaintop. In this case we can more easily imagine a real journey, but we get more out of the metaphor.

As I said, we all end up in the wilderness sometime. I don’t mean a spiritual retreat in some remote place. I mean that there are times when we are thrown into a hard place by forces we did not anticipate and that we cannot control. There we are, like Jesus, all alone, and like Jesus never alone. There are always the accusing voices, the wild things that run through our minds, things that will not quite be controlled. And thankfully, there are angels, even if we have to find them inside ourselves, among the voices in our heads.

We get thrown into the desert that we carry within us.

FlowersInRocksThat is the whole point of a spiritual journey. There are places within us that are not planted, where nothing much is growing. Barren places. Untouched. All of this prayer, reflection, looking for God out there, within ourselves, in the eyes of strangers, all of it is about nurturing that inward plot of land. Making our wilderness into a garden.

There are times when we find ourselves in the desert. In those days, we needn’t look for the way out. We are oddly where we should be. Once we tend to the the place where we find ourselves, the wilderness is gone. All that is left is us, and the Spirit who threw us where we would never have gone on our own.

The kingdom of heaven is within us, Jesus says in Luke’s Gospel. If heaven is within us, we might take it that hell is also within us. Which one we experience on our inward journey depends on our us.

On Canoe Pointing

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God by Lamplight

God by Lamplight  |  Matthew 25:1-13

Ten maids there were. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.

As stories go, it is a wonderful beginning. We hear these lines and know that the story might go anywhere. It is as though this is a Jesus version of Once Upon a Time. As with all great fairy tales, we do not think this is a true story, but we do believe that the story is made of truth. Anything might happen, anything at all, but we know that nothing good will come to the five foolish girls.

Most Christians hear this story, or the others like it, and think that it is about something called the Second Coming, the return of Jesus, the moment that evangelical Christians point to as the future and hope of humankind. They are probably right.

What if that isn’t the point, though? What if this story is about something different?

Let’s put it another way. How about the Trinity? Given much thought to the Triune expression of God as Father and Son and Spirit? Ever tried to explain it to a third grader? Ever tried to explain iThreeDuckst to a grownup?

What am I talking about?

Suppose we work with the basic notion of God the Father, the pre-existent Other-That-Is-God, before and after and beyond us—the aspect or expression of God that is untouchable, unknowable, unapproachable. And suppose that we consider God the Spirit, the expression of God who is or can be everywhere, at any time, within and behind and around and through everything everywhere, all the time. And, of course, there is God the Son, who as the incarnate Christ was fully God and fully human.

All three aspects are God. All the time. Everywhere. So what makes us think—in the Kingdom of the Triune God—that we are only waiting and watching for Jesus? How about the Father? How about the Spirit?

Might not God the Father break into our lives? Certainly Moses would argue that it might happen. Might not God the Spirit blow across our lives? Certainly Elijah would say so.

Jesus promised his followers that he would return, that is plain. The manner and timing and form of his return was left less clear.

When the five wise maids take their lamps and flasks of oil to go and wait for the bridegroom to arrive, they don’t know how long they might have to wait. (Even these wise ones fall asleep—a word of hope for us.) Why were they wise? They were prepared to see.

We seem to insist that God appear to us in the form we expect. In that, we act as though we have never read the scriptures. In all of those stories, when did God ever do anything the way anyone expected? Why do we think that this surprising God will appear in our lives in the form and in the way that we are expecting?

WatchingIf we open our eyes to see, we might be amazed at how often God appears, and in what forms. Today, God may have shown up as a child wanting a smile. Yesterday, we might have lost our temper with God when we thought we were only speaking to a waitress, as if anyone were ever only anything. Tomorrow, the Spirit might burst into our lives by way of a job, an illness, a flood, a gift, a stranger or a friend, and we will not see because God has not met our paltry and limited expectations of how, when and where God is supposed to appear, or how often, or to whom.

Once upon a time there were God the Father, God the Spirit, and God the Son. And with that beginning, anything might happen. Anything at all. Anywhere. Anytime. To any of us. Whether we are prepared to see or not.

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Some Doubt

Trinity Sunday  |  Matthew 28:16-20

And having seen they worshiped him; but some doubted.

Mal lying down 027Eleven people went up a mountain in Galilee to meet Jesus. This was after he had died, of course, and after the resurrection. It does not say that some worshiped Jesus and some doubted. It says that they worshiped, and some doubted.

To make it plainer, some of the ones worshiping were also the ones doubting. That may be one of the most reassuring ideas in all of scripture.

The word that we are hearing is ἐδίστασαν, from διστάζω, not a particularly helpful fact if we do not know the Greek of the first century. It is a word that means something like “to stand in two places.” That is a more elegant expression of doubt, and one way that we can try to understand what happened—they worshiped while they doubted, trying to stand in two places at once.

It is understandable, their being of two minds about Jesus. After all, they watched the man die, and now here he was standing in front of them. It is hard to deal with that sort of dissonance when the universe dishes it up.

Most Christians today took an easier path. We began with the idea of an already resurrected Jesus. That way the death of Jesus becomes just part of the story, the background to this already living person. Doubt or wonder, or both, creep in when we try to put together the details of the resurrection story. Then we find that we, like those followers on the mountain, have one foot in faith and one in mystery.

The resurrection is simple compared to the Trinity. This man Jesus died, and then he was alive again. Fine, we might say. At least it is a story that moves in a straight line, life to death to life again, and who doesn’t want to hope for life on the other side of death? This was the God-man, you say? At once God and human? Fine, we can accept that too.

God is one God and three persons at the same time, you say? There is God who is entirely Other, and there is an aspect of God who becomes this Jesus person, and there is the aspect of God who is in all places and times at once? This is where most of us have to get off the train. We cannot imagine it.

On the other hand, I am a father, and I am a son, and I am myself. It is true that at some moments I appear to be more one than the others, but I am always all three. A star is comprised of the material within it, an impressive fusion reaction, and the energy that flows out from it as light. My dog has many aspects. He is guardian and watcher, hater of crows, lover of ice cream, bane of cats, fearless behind me, white fur blurring in chase or restful in sleep, his own person, my companion. He is all of those things, yet he remains dog, and I love him for all of his aspects.

The idea of the Triune God comes from scripture, but we have added a great deal over the centuries by way of explanation and illustration. For that matter, we’ve added a great deal of explanation and illustration to everything having to do with God. From the three rings of a pretzel to a bookshelf straining under the theology of Karl Barth, we keep trying to explain it. Here is how God created the universe, we say, never mind that the scriptural point was simply that God did rather than how God did. It is a God-thing. This is how the whole crucifixion thing works, we say—here’s what was paid, or ransomed, or fulfilled. Never mind that Jesus simply said to love one another as he loved us and left off the explanations.

Forget about explanations for a moment. If they mean so much, God would likely have provided a clearer manual for us to read, something with summaries and a nice index. Forget about the rules, who is right and who is wrong, especially who is wrong. Instead of explanations, we have stories, from creation to Jesus on a mountain. That might be a clue as to what is important, what matters.

The stories say that God is not like us, but that we are a little like God. The stories say that God has walked among humans. The stories say that God is love and light and that God loves each of us, though we don’t find any compelling reason for God to do so—quite the opposite. And the stories say that God is everywhere.

All of that leaves us with faith pushing against doubt, reason pulling against acceptance. It is like walking: we only manage to stand because of the tension in our muscles and bones. If you think too much about walking, you won’t be able to do it.

If God is everywhere, let’s expect God everywhere: in the rain, in strangers, in dogs and in starlight. Everything we find reveals part of God, and every revelation of God is all of God. We can worship while we doubt, and it is fine to doubt while we worship. It is part of our story of God, and God loves us for it.