Discerning the Spirit

In a spiritual reflection for Pentecost Sunday Richard Rohr says, “Pentecost is actually every day, if we expect it; but, not surprisingly, this is the greatest forgotten major festival of the entire church year.”

Some of the reason for its neglect may be intentional, because talk of the Holy Spirit is always a bit mystifying to some people. Some of this, I think, is due to the way we have tried to describe the Spirit in our Trinitarian formulations. The Spirit in both the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament is another way of talking about God’s presence and activity in the world. God engages creation and particularly human beings through the Divine Spirit.

For Christians, the Spirit’s major task is to reveal Christ. In the Gospel reading for Pentecost Sunday Jesus says, “He (the Spirit of Truth) will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” (John 16:14). The function of the Spirit in the Christian community is to make Christ known. But not in the sense of dispensing information about Christ. Information does very little to convert us. The function of the Spirit is to make Christ known on an intimate, personal, relational, and communal level in a way that is transformational.

We sometimes pray, “Send the Holy Spirit,” or “May Your Spirit fall fresh on us,” and what we are asking for is a fresh sense of God’s presence or renewed spiritual strength and empowerment. There’s nothing wrong with these prayers, except that they could leave the impression that we do not have the Spirit and need to get the Spirit, or that the Spirit comes and goes. We all have the Spirit all the time, and we have all the Spirit we can get. The problem is on the human side. Are we in touch and communion with the Spirit that is within us and all about us?

You see, it’s not a matter of God giving us something we already have (a relationship with God); it’s a matter of our being aligned and in harmony with the Spirit, so that the Spirit can fill us and empower us. We are all children of God and we all have the Spirit, but not all of us have claimed our “belovedness” as God’s children and not all of us are being led by the Spirit.

The fruit of the Spirit is evident to any one with just a small amount of spiritual discernment. Paul put it this way in his letter to the Galatians: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (5:22). He goes on to say (5:24) that the one who is led by the Spirit has “crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (that is, he has put to death the little ego-driven self that is prideful, greedy, and arrogant; that seeks fulfillment in position, power, prestige, and possessions). Paul says “that against such things (the Spirit filled and Spirit led life) there is no law” (5:22). The one who is led by the Spirit does not need a bunch of commandments to follow, because she or he will always respond in a loving, compassionate, good, kind, and just way.

What better time than the season of Pentecost to learn more about the role of the Spirit in our lives and most of all, to align ourselves to the Spirit, so that we can experience and live the Christ-life.

Does Jesus Have a Friend in Me?

Anyone who has ever been in church is familiar with the hymn, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” It was written by a son to comfort his mother whom he had left behind in Ireland when he came to the United States in the 1850s. According to the hymn, Jesus is our friend because he bears our burdens and sorrows. The hymn writer wrote the hymn to assure his mother that though he couldn’t be there with her, Jesus is with her and he is a friend like no other. He asks, “Can we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share?” Yes, we have a friend in Jesus, but the question I want to ask: Does Jesus have a friend in me? Am I the friend of Jesus?

Jesus says to his disciples gathered with him in the upper room: “I no longer call you servants, because servants do not know their master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15).

It sounds like a promotion doesn’t it? Going from servant to friend. Being a servant, however, is not a bad thing. In fact, being a servant of God is always a high honor in the biblical tradition. It’s very likely that Jesus thought of himself as God’s Servant after the manner of the Servant Songs in the book of Isaiah. Certainly, his first followers made that connection.

Jesus embodied the life of God’s Servant and taught his disciples to do the same. This is surely at the heart of what the feet washing is about in John 13. When Peter objects to Jesus washing his feet, Jesus says to him, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me” (13:8). Jesus is saying, “Unless you allow me to teach you how to be a servant, you cannot share in my mission, you cannot be about what I am about.” 

Maybe friendship with Jesus is a kind of relationship that we have to grow into. Perhaps it is a stage of discipleship that is not a given, but a relationship that we must nurture and develop. Until we learn how, with some humility, to be a servant of one another, to wash one another’s feet, we cannot enter with Jesus into that next stage of discipleship. Until I can say, “Yes, I am my brother and sister’s keeper. I have a responsibility to my sisters and brothers in the human family. I am a servant of all,” then I cannot share in a friendship that is a partnership in the kingdom of God.

When Jesus says to his disciples, “Everything I have learned from my Father I have made known to you,” what is he talking about? Jesus is certainly not talking about a mere sharing of information. Surely he is talking about a relationship, a shared intimacy, a sharing of God’s passion and heart for the world. This is why Jesus can say, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last” (15:16). This fruit is what flows from our lives quite naturally when we abide in Christ, when we share Christ’s heart, love, and passion for the world.

To be a friend of Jesus is to share and bear the intimate knowledge of God’s love and passion for the world. It is to share in what God is doing and how God is doing it. The fruit of friendship with Christ consists of acts of peacemaking, works of forgiveness and reconciliation and restorative justice, deeds of healing and compassion. This is why Jesus could say, “You are my friends if you do what I command.” And, of course, what Jesus commands is love (15:12, 17)

Friendship with Jesus is both a wonderful gift and a terrible burden. It’s an immense joy to be able to share first-hand experience of God’s great love for the world. It’s also a crushing weight. This burden is hard to explain. Perhaps the best analogy is a mother’s love. A loving mother suffers with her suffering child and would gladly bear the suffering herself if she could. The loving mother suffers more when her child suffers that when she herself suffers. That’s the burden of friendship.

Tony Campolo tells the story of being on a landing strip just outside the border of the Dominican Republic in northern Haiti. A small airplane was supposed to pick him up and fly him back to the capital city. As he waited, a woman approached him holding her child in her arms. The baby was emaciated—his arms and legs were like sticks and his stomach swollen from lack of food. She held up her child to Campolo and began to plead with him, “Take my baby! Take my baby!” she cried, “If you don’t take my baby, my baby will die!” 

Campolo tried to explain why he couldn’t take her baby, but she would not listen. No matter which way he turned, she was in his face, crying, “Please, mister, take my baby!” She kept saying, “Take my baby to a hospital. Feed my baby. Save my baby. Please take my baby!”

Campolo breathed a sigh of relief when the Piper Cub airplane came into sight. The minute it touched down he ran to meet it. But the woman kept running after him screaming, “Take my baby! Please, take my baby!” Campolo boarded the plane as fast as he could. The woman ran alongside the plane as it started to take off, the child in one arm and with the other banging on the plane. 

Halfway back to the capital, Campolo says it hit him with a force. He thought of Matthew 25, where Jesus says to the righteous, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink . . . in as much as you did it to the least of these, you did it unto me.” Then he realized that the baby was Jesus.

It feels good singing, “What a friend we have in Jesus” doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to have a friend to help us bear our griefs and sorrows? But the more important question: Does Jesus have a friend in me? Am I the friend of Jesus?

Growing Up Involves Participation in God's Larger Life

As we mature in our discipleship to Christ, our world should expand and grow larger too. As we grow spiritually, we will move into a larger sphere of reality while staying connected to our faith community and tradition.

Imagine living on a Great River and being part of a community that lives in one of the inlets. In that community there are certain guidelines and boundaries necessary to sustain a healthy community. In the community we form deep friendships. We provide and receive services. But we are not confined to that community. We navigate on the Big River and may be away for extended periods of time, but we always come back to our community.

We need our community, but think how limited life would be if we were confined to that inlet and never navigated the Great River. Unfortunately, many Christians remain locked into their little communities and faith traditions, never venturing out onto the Great River. They get bogged down in meticulously defining life in their inlet community, and are quite unaware and blind to the diversity and richness of life on the Great River.

I have no doubt that God abides with us in our small communities, but God is so much more. God’s Spirit pervades and permeates the Big River. God engages the larger world at many points and on many levels. Only as we are willing to risk and explore beyond our little inlet, do we become conscious of the Divine Reality that is so much greater, larger, and diverse than we ever imagined.

What can we do to venture out on the Great River? We could reach out in friendship to someone of a different faith tradition. We could expand our understanding by reading books on world religions that focus on their positive teachings and practices. We can ask God to open our minds and hearts so that we can discern God’s presence in encounters, conversations, actions, words, and experiences outside our Christian faith. We can become open to the possibility that God’s Spirit takes on other forms and speaks through other mediators than just through Jesus of Nazareth.   

In my earlier years I spent a great deal of time trying to get people to accept my doctrines, join my group, and think like me. Now I realize that God cannot be confined to a particular inlet, but is the Source of the Great River. Spiritual growth involves an expanding consciousness and awareness of the issues that the God of the Great River cares about: restorative justice, stewardship and care of the planet, peacemaking, fairness, the dignity and worth of all persons, poverty, oppression in all its forms, and systemic injustice and violence. And yes, God cares about the details of our lives too. Such is the greatness and largeness of God.

If all our time and attention are invested in defining, defending, and declaring our group identity without a larger frame of reference, then our group loyalty can easily become group superiority and idolatry. Without the prophetic critique of a larger vision, we become blind to our sin, we become blind to our egocentricity and complicity in evil.

Christianity that does not move beyond the inlet, that does not venture out into the Great River, is usually characterized by it exclusiveness and by what it is against. While Christianity that swims in the sea of abundant grace and diversity, is much more inclusive and known by what it is for. 

Living and Loving through Unfairness

In Jean Vanier’s wonderful book, Becoming Human, he quotes the African-American writer Patricia Raybon about how the oppression she experienced in the United States had taught her to hate white people. She writes:

 “I hated them because they have lynched and lied and jailed and poisoned and neglected and discarded and excluded and exploited countless cultures and communities with such blatant intent or indifference as to humanly defy belief or understanding.”

But then she goes on to talk about how she came to recognize that her hatred, no matter how justified, was eating away her identity and self-respect. It blinded her to the gestures of hospitality and friendship a white girl in high school offered her. She realized that instead of waiting for whites to repent of the atrocities they had inflicted on blacks and ask forgiveness, she needed to ask forgiveness for her own hatred, for her inability to see a white person as a person and not just as part of a race of oppressors.

Only forgiveness can break cycles of hate and resentment. But forgiveness can be a very difficult process, especially when there is no repentance or acknowledgement on the part of the perpetrators and oppressors.

But without forgiveness, there is no fullness of life. We can become our own oppressors when we carry around bitterness and resentment. Resentment poisons our own soul as well as the relationships we have with the people who respect and love us. For our own inner peace and wholeness, and for the development of flourishing relationships, we must come to a place of forgiveness.

This, I think, is true of life in general: we must forgive the world for being what it is and we may even need to forgive God for God’s part in the evolution of life on this planet. Life is not fair. Some folks have it much harder than other folks. And this has absolutely nothing to do with personal worth or value.

It would be easy for those who experience the unfairness of life to become bitter, resentful, and angry. And some do become cynical and hardened. But there are others who are able to transcend their circumstances and become generous, gracious, and joyful people, even while having to cope with life’s lack of justice.  

What makes the difference? I think that the resources of faith and hope play a major role. The quality of spirituality we pursue and develop has much to do with how we respond to life’s unfairness. Jesus encountered a landslide of injustice that swept him up on a cross, rejected, hated, and crucified by the powers that be. But he refused to allow his circumstances to diminish his worth and sense of who he was.

Jesus did not become bitter. Even when he was in agony in Gethsemane as he contemplated his fate, he resolved to do the will of God and be faithful to God’s cause to the end. The intimate relationship with God he had nurtured sustained and empowered him. He was still able to love.

John’s Gospel puts it this way: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (13:1b). I hope that the quality of our relationship with God supplies us with the resources we need to continue to love, to work for peace and restorative justice, to be grateful, generous, and joyful, even when we are bombarded by the injustices of life. 

Easter Anticipates the Triumph of Love

Through Lent and Holy Week we have walked with Jesus to the cross. Our participation in Jesus’ death is one way through which his death has healing and redeeming efficacy. We too must die to our ego-driven self if we are to experience new life (John 12:24–25).

The Passion story compels us, to not only identify with Jesus, but with all those who acted upon or in connection with Jesus. In so doing, we see our part in the crucifixion. Our shocking complicity in evil is exposed. Against this backdrop appears the shocking revelation of God’s love. Jesus says, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself” (12:32). In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ “lifting up” includes both the cross and the resurrection.

As the risen, cosmic Christ, the Spirit of God is at work wooing, drawing, nudging, and mysteriously persuading all of us into healthy divine-human relationship. On Good Friday we mourn Jesus’ death and our participation in his crucifixion. On Easter Sunday, we celebrate Jesus coming back into the world that rejected and crucified him.

The amazing thing about the gospel of the risen Christ is that it means that God continues to love the world and pursue the world, even when the world responds in horrific ways to the truth and goodness of God. But God must work in subversive ways. Easter was not a public, spectacular event. Only a few people witnessed the risen Christ. God has to get to us through the back door. 

We couldn’t handle the truth that Jesus brought us, so we crucified him. We haven’t evolved much since then. Still today, we struggle with the truth that was incarnated in Jesus. But God does not give up on us. The hidden, subversive Christ is at work. The living Christ works through diverse mediators, persons, and experiences to draw us into a transformative relationship. The living Christ is not limited by time and space, nor by creeds and dogma, and is always breaking into our consciousness in fresh, unexpected ways.

The resurrection of Jesus is a foretaste and pledge of the triumph of love. God will never give up on the world. God will never give up on us, no matter how far we stray or how cynical we become. We may have to live through some “hells” before we get a taste of “heaven.” We may have to live with the consequences of our selfishness before we come to the place where we can “die” to the egotism of the small self and embrace the largeness and goodness of the Christ self, but that’s okay.

John’s Gospel says, “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him” (1:11). But God still “so loves the world.” John’s Gospel bears witness to a great truth: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love” (13:1b). And now that he is lifted up through death and resurrection, the cosmic Christ will continue to draw, through any means available, all people into the circle of God’s love, until there is no one left on the outside. Then will “the gates of Hades” be overcome and the Beloved Community complete.   

The Cosmic Lure of Jesus' Life and Death

One of the reasons Jesus’ death is referenced in John’s Gospel as the hour of Jesus’ and God’s glorification is because of its universal impact. In John 12:32, Jesus says, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” Jesus’ death and resurrection constitute a revelation of God’s love for the world of such magnitude that it becomes a kind of cosmic lure, drawing all people into the Christ life. 

What is the appeal? The drawing power is the beauty of God’s unconditional love embodied in the self-giving of Jesus. 

What does “the Christ life” look like? (This is what John’s Gospel calls “eternal life”; I like to call it “the good life”). It is a life of non-violence and one that exposes the myth of redemptive violence. It is a life of grace and goodness, a life of forgiveness and moral strength and courage. It is a life that confronts the false claims and values of “the System” (what John’s Gospel calls “the world” in its delusional and alienated state) and refuses to get sucked into a spiral of bitterness and hate. It is a life committed to compassion and justice for the disenfranchised and most vulnerable among us. It is a life of loving God, loving others, and loving self in healthy and transformational ways. It is a life of balance between joy and sorrow, giving and receiving, suffering and contentment. 

I believe that when the beauty and goodness of this life is manifested in our lives and relationships, and when somehow people can see beyond their own self-interests and selfish passions, this “good life” has magnetic power. 

But to enter into the good life, we must be willing to die to some things. Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life [the good life described above]” (John 12:24–25). In this rather paradoxical teaching Jesus is talking about dying to the ego-driven life in order that we might live the good life. 

In a picture book for adults titled, Hope for the Flowers, Trina Paulus weaves a wonderful story about two caterpillars named Sripe and Yellow. In one part of the story, Yellow comes upon a gray-haired caterpillar who tells her about becoming a butterfly. “But how do you become one?” Yellow asks. Gray says, “You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.” “You mean to die?” asks Yellow. “Yes and No,” says Gray. “What looks like you will die but what’s really you will still live.” 

Some parts of us have to die in order for that which is really us, that which is authentically human, that which is true and good to emerge. 

But it takes a compelling vision. Gray says, “You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.” What are we willing to give up, to die to, in order to live a life of beauty and goodness?             

All caterpillars do not yield themselves to the cocoon at the same time. Some of them actually resist the process and cling to their caterpillar life. They put off entering the cocoon until the following spring, thus postponing their transformation. 

It would seem that all God’s creatures have trouble letting go. What can we not let go of? Unforgiveness? Grievance stories that keep us bitter and resentful? Guilt or shame over past failures? Habits of attitude rooted in comparison and competition? Ingrained prejudices against people who think differently or look differently or believe differently than we do? The need to be great; the need to accumulate more or achieve more so that our status is enhanced? What are we still clinging to that would prevent us from dying so that we can live? 

Sometimes it takes an experience of some kind to move us to a different place. I heard about a very successful business man who was happily married and seemed to have everything he wanted. He was all closed up in his own private world. He lived for his own personal fulfillment and the well-being of his immediate family. Then one of his children developed a severe psychotic disorder. He felt lost, angry, and utterly powerless. Nothing seemed to help his son. Then he met other parents living similar situations and he discovered a world of pain that he had previously ignored. It moved him beyond his own closed-in, private world and led him into a new openness and commitment to help others. It led him to become part of something much greater and larger that transformed him into a more compassionate person. 

What will it take to move us to larger, more compassionate place? What will it take for us to stop clinging to our selfish, small lives so that we can become more spiritual, more loving, more humble, and more sensitive people, engaged in relationships and service that advance God’s good and gracious will for this planet and the diverse people and creatures who dwell here?  

A Meditation on the Power and Wisdom of the Cross from 1 Cor. 1:18-25: A Process View

In this passage, Paul draws a contrast between those who "are being saved" and those who "are perishing." Our human tendency is to put ourselves in the group that is being saved as opposed to the group that is perishing. When we label and categorize we polarize people; it leads to “us” vs. “them.” So, instead of applying this to other persons or groups—this is the being saved group; this is the perishing group—what we need to do is apply this to ourselves.

We make choices each day, choices that set us on a course of spiritual ruin or spiritual well-being. The choices I make today are choices that will contribute either to my spiritual collapse or my spiritual health. The decisions I make tomorrow will either nourish or impede a healthy spiritual life; they will nurture a “being saved” kind of life or they will contribute to a “spiritually perishing” kind of life.

Salvation is more of a project, than a one-time event. It is more of a journey, than a single experience. Clearly, there are some experiences that are life altering. Paul talks about an experience he had where he encountered the living Christ in a way that changed the course of his life. This is one of the themes that emerges in the movie, Hereafter, when the French television journalist (Marie) has a near death experience that changes the course of her life. She tries to go back to her life as it was before the experience, but the experience is too compelling. It sets her on a new course and direction. But the new course doesn’t happen all at once. The experience works on her, shaping her gradually in new and profound ways.

For most of us, this is how we experience conversion. We may or may not be able to point to a particular experience that is life altering, but if we are “being saved,” then we are weekly and daily discovering healthy ways to love others, to love God, and to love ourselves. If we are “being saved” then we are entering into new attitudes and patterns of life daily that are good, just, compassionate, and helpful. 

I don’t believe that any one or group is chosen over another. When we think of being chosen, we naturally think that there must be others who are passed over, who are not chosen. That’s the way are binary minds works. Binary thinking is great for scientific investigation, but tragic when applied to religion. I believe that we are all God’s chosen, that God has a vision of what God can do in every single life. The question is whether or not we will say “Yes” to God’s call. The question is whether or not we will cooperate with God in this process. 

The power and wisdom of salvation, says Paul, is the power and wisdom of the cross. Paul says that this is foolishness to Gentiles and scandalous to Jews. The wisdom of the cross is directly opposite the conventional wisdom of the world. The power of the cross is juxtaposed to the violent power of the world. It’s a different wisdom and a different power.

The wisdom of the cross is not about persuasive rhetoric that moves the masses; it’s not about pride, self-sufficiency, or trickery. The wisdom of the cross is about humility, honesty, and forgiveness.

The power of the cross is not about control or coercion. It’s about service, sacrifice, and self-giving love that pursues the good of others. As Paul says in his letter to the Romans: “But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Christ, in the service of God’s cause and in the service of the good of humanity, gave himself over to be killed by the Powers of the world.

The hard thing for us to accept is that the wisdom and power of the cross does not lead to success and greatness, to fame and fortune, to prestige and prominence; but rather, the wisdom and power of the cross leads to surrender, rejection, suffering, and death.

At the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says: The gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction (spiritual ruin); but the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life (spiritual salvation). Every day we have to choose which road we will take. Spiritual ruin or spiritual salvation happens little by little every day. And every day we must choose whether we will enter the wide gate and walk the easy road, or enter the narrow gate and walk the hard road. Every day we must choose the path of spiritual ruin or spiritual redemption.

Fred Craddock tells about going home to west Tennessee to visit, where an old high school friend named Buck owned a restaurant. One day Buck said, “Let’s go for coffee.” Fred said, “Isn’t this the restaurant.” Buck said, “I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder.

So they went out for coffee. Buck asked, “Did you see the curtain?” Fred replied, “Buck, I saw the curtain. I always see the curtain.” In that little town they had a number of shotgun buildings, with two entrances, front and back. One entrance was off the street; the other was off the alley, with a curtain in the middle. In that day, if you were white you entered off the street, but if you were black you entered through the alley. 

Buck said, “Did you see the curtain.” Fred said, “I saw the curtain.” Buck said, “The curtain has to come down.” Fred said, “Good, bring it down.” Buck retorted, “That’s easy for you to say.”

He couldn’t leave it up and he couldn’t take it down. He was torn. He said to Fred, “If I take the curtain down, I lose a lot of customers, maybe even my business.” But then he said, “If I leave the curtain up, I lose my soul.”

That’s one example of the difference between the wisdom and power of the world and the wisdom and power of the cross. That’s the choice. It’s not easy. Jesus said it wouldn’t be easy—it’s a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life. The spiritual journey many of us take during Lent reminds us that the adventure we are on leads not to a throne, not to a place or position of power, but a cross.