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I kid
you not. Once, in a span of three or four days, a lady announced
her intention to join my church because (in her words) it
was so obviously "spirit-filled," while another
lady announced her intention to leave my church because (in
her words) it wasn't. Same church. Same preacher. Separate
ladies. Different perceptions.
All of
which led me to ponder: "What does a spirit-filled church
look like ... sound like ... feel like? How does one know
when one is in one? And do any of us have an exclusive right
to make the call?"
The problem
intensifies when more than a handful of Christians are consulted.
That's because definitions multiply and agreements recede.
Still there are camps ... broad camps ... into which people
gather.
One group
defines "Spirit-filled" sociologically ... by talking
about the ethos of the institution. How does the place feel?
How does the building look? Do the hallways hum? Are the hallways
full? Is the program growing? Is the money flowing? Are the
people smiling? Are the pillars moving? Is tomorrow reverenced
more than yesterday? Do the leaders assume they are elected
to give permission or withhold it? Do most people ask "Why?"
or "Why not?"
I often
hear people say to me: "There's a certain spirit about
this place. I don't know what it is, but I felt it the first
time I came through the doors." Which is nice to hear.
But I don't know what it is, either. If I did, I'd bottle
it ... peddle it ... write a book about it ... or become a
consultant and ease my way into retirement talking about it.
Is it the Holy Spirit? Darned if I know. You tell me.
A second
group defines "Spirit-filled" ritualistically ...
by talking about certain worship practices ... worship patterns
... worship styles ... that indicate the Spirit is sought
or present. Do we stretch out our hands when we pray? Do we
clap our hands when we sing? Does the preacher shout during
the sermon? Do the people shout during the sermon? Do folk
weep ... laugh ... embrace their neighbors ... dance in the
aisles ... or faint dead away during the sermon? Does the
preacher carry a manuscript into the pulpit? Or does the preacher
"wing it" (having first prayed for the Spirit to
loosen the tongue)? Do the parishioners ever break forth with
outpourings of inarticulate sounds (as a means of releasing
overpowering religious emotion?) Are there as many nurses
positioned about the sanctuary as there are ushers? Or is
there simply a circle of chairs in which everyone sits ...
and from which no one speaks ... until someone "feels
the Spirit" (usually an Elder), and the silence is broken?
If any one of these things is present, is the Holy Spirit
present? If none of these things is present, is the Holy Spirit
absent? Darned if I know. You tell me.
A third
group defines "Spirit-filled" behaviorally ... by
talking about the "fruits of the Spirit" that will
manifest themselves in the lives of individuals (and, by implication,
in churches) where the Spirit has been. Is there peace? Is
there joy? Is there patience? Is there gentleness? Is there
kindness? Is there faithfulness? Is there self-control (Galatians
5:22)? Do the people who claim to have it, live it? Do those
who talk it, walk it? Is it a matter of how high you jumped
the night you got it? Or is it a matter of how straight you
walked, once you came down? Do such behaviors, in and of themselves,
prove that the Holy Spirit is nigh? Darned if I know. You
tell me.
I could
make a case for any of those things. Or for all of those things.
But I am reluctant to overstate any case I might make. For
I simply do not know when the Spirit comes, goes, moves or
blows. Just about the time I am prone to say, "Here"
... something else leads me to say, "No, there"
... or even: "nowhere." For just as Jesus says (in
John 14): "I am going away ... you all can't come ...
you'll just have to live with it ... until you live again
with me ... but I will send the Spirit ... and you won't lack
for comfort," Jesus also says (in John 3, to Nicodemus):
"The Spirit is like the wind. Here! There! Every place!
No place! Revved up! Died down! Don't try to capture it ...
bottle it ... resist it." Which I take to mean that just
about the time I proclaim my church to be "Spirit-filled",
it might not be. This is why I will never advertise it as
such ... given that such self-promotion seems incredibly presumptuous,
not to mention more than a little bit arrogant.
I play
precious little part in making this place "Spirit-filled."
For the Spirit is not something I whip up, so much as something
that God drops down. So when I read those ads in the newspaper
saying, "our church is Spirit-filled", I want to
call them up and say: "How do you know?" But there
may be one sure way to tell (whether a church be Spirit-filled,
I mean.) And it grows out of this morning's text ... this
Pentecost text ... this dynamic, electric, weird and wired
text ... of what happened on the day for which this celebration
is named.
Actually,
I need to back up for a minute and remind you that Pentecost
was a Jewish thing, long before it was a Christian thing.
There were three ... count `em, three ... great Jewish festivals
to which every male Jew within twenty miles of Jerusalem was
legally bound to come. Those three were Passover, Pentecost
and the Feast of Tabernacles. Pentecost literally means: "the
fiftieth." Another name for Pentecost was: "Feast
of Weeks." It was so-called because it fell on the fiftieth
day after Passover ... a week's worth of weeks (seven days,
times seven weeks, equals forty-nine days, don't you see.)
Which meant June. Which meant good traveling conditions. Which
meant people coming from afar. Which meant a big crowd ...
an international crowd ... in Jerusalem. The feast had historical
significance, in that it represented the giving of the law
to Moses on Mount Sinai. And it had agricultural significance,
in that it commemorated the first barley harvest. It was also
a no-work day, meaning that the streets would be full ...
early.
Now it
so happened that at this feast ... in this particular June
... the Apostles (which may have meant the twelve, but may
have meant the 120 of Acts, l: 15) gather together. They are
in Jerusalem. And Jesus is gone for good. Which means that
they are working at "getting it together". Suddenly
the Spirit comes and lights `em up ... fires `em up ... fills
`em up ... and bowls em over. Lots of wind. Lots of heat.
Lots of sound. I don't know how to describe it. I wasn't there.
And neither do you. Because you weren't there, either. But
it must have been eye-catching and ear-popping ... what with
everybody talking at once. And, depending upon one's point
of view, all of that talk made absolutely no sense ... or
it made more sense than anyone had ever made before. What's
more, all those other people in town for the day ... off work
for the day ... heard it. And got it. Or got something. And
whatever that incredible mix of language was, it communicated.
It cut across race lines ... nation lines ... ethnic and culture
lines ... literacy and language lines. It drew people in.
It bound people up. And it promoted communal understanding.
The astonishment
of Pentecost was not the babble, but the understanding. Strangers
said: "We do not know these people ... we do not like
these people ... but we understand these people. How is that
possible?" The last time we encountered babble (at the
"tower" in Genesis 11), people split apart. Now
there's a second outbreak of babble, and people are coming
together.
That's
the miracle of Pentecost, don't you see. Not all the verbal
pyrotechnics, but the understanding. "These people aren't
like us. These people don't talk like us. How can it be that
we are hearing them?" It must be the work of the Spirit.
Which
will preach, don't you see. For while today's church doesn't
have many Egyptians, Pampylians, or Capadocceans ... let alone
many Romans, Romanians, Russians or Rwandans ... we have all
kinds of groups, caucuses and factions (both denominationally
and locally.) And most of these groups don't listen to or
understand one another, either. They talk at each other. They
talk past each other. But they seldom talk to each other.
You want
to know what a Spirit-filled church looks like? It's where
very different people ... sometimes with very different faith
stories and ministry agendas ... can come together to hear
and be heard. Increasingly, I am becoming convinced that it
can't be done ... apart from the Spirit.
We are
so different. And so distrustful. Which is why we have learned
to keep quiet, the better to remain companionable. Yet I know
... at least in this corner of the Kingdom ... how truly diverse
we are. It's taken me six years, but I know. That's because
you have gradually come to trust me. You walk into my office.
You shut my door. Then you wonder (out loud) if you're odd,
because you think this way or that way ... believing this
... doubting that. Or we have a good discussion in one of
the groups I lead, but when it's all done and everybody's
heading home, you come up and tell me something that you couldn't
quite bring yourself to tell the group. It would have greatly
enhanced the discussion, had you said it. But you didn't.
Because (as you say to me): "I didn't know if it would
be appropriate ... I didn't want to waste the group's time."
Which wasn't it at all. You didn't say anything because you
didn't know what the group would think. You weren't willing
to test the house ... or trust the house. Although you are
now willing to trust me. Finally. After six years.
When the
Spirit moves, such conversations can take place. And people
can be held close. All of which leads us to say (in pure astonishment):
"Isn't it amazing that we can understand each other."
Which
happens. Sometimes there. Sometimes here. Often here. The
other day I was talking to a bride and groom ... a future
bride and groom. I am going to do their wedding. But I am
not their pastor. Nor is this their church. They had a church.
But they left it because the pastor didn't speak their faith
language ... didn't share their religious agenda ... didn't
think the same things were important, spiritually. Later in
the conversation, they got into specifics. They outlined the
differences with their previous pastor. They claimed that
I was just what they needed ... just what they wanted ...
just what they desired. But you want to know something funny?
I am almost a carbon copy of the pastor they left behind.
Maybe ... just maybe ... there's a movement of the Spirit
going on in my relationship with them. How else can you explain
the fact that they can hear me ... that I can hear them ...
and that there can be a bond between us, in spite of the issues
that divide us.
The movement
of the Spirit ... it's the only way we can hold together.
Drop back with me two weeks ago, Monday. There was a Membership
Class in my living room. There was casual talk ... church
talk ... instructional talk ... then cookies, coffee and small
talk. Suddenly one of the participants said to me: "I've
got a list of questions. Can my wife and I stay a few minutes
and go over them with you?" "Sure," I said.
So we went over them ... all ten of them. And some other folk
(eavesdropping upon the conversation) stayed too. As did Kris,
Ann Windley and Pat Sheren, who were handling the hostess-type
stuff.
They were
great questions. Deep questions. Theological questions. And
I answered every one of them honestly ... even thought there
were times when I said: "Now you understand the house
divides on this one." And once or twice, I even said:
"The staff divides on this one."
It was
a wonderful conversation ... a free-flowing conversation ...
a wide-open conversation. And I am sure I did not answer all
ten questions to his satisfaction. But you know what? He's
here this morning. He joined our church twenty minutes ago.
How do I explain that? You tell me. It has to be the work
of the Spirit.
There
is a time-honored saying in the Anglican Church that schism
is worse than heresy. What that means is that it is okay for
us to disagree. And it may even be okay for some of us to
be out in left field as far as orthodox theology is defined.
But is not okay for us to let go of one another. The older
I get, the more I believe that.
A young
minister I love and respect recently asked me if I thought
our denomination would split over some of the social and sexual
issues currently unsettling us. In response to which, I said:
"For your sake, you'd better hope not. Because, should
such a thing happen, you'll spend the next fifteen years of
your ministry mopping up blood. And you've got better things
to do than mop up blood." Barbara Brown Taylor writes:
I had
a wonderful old lady friend until she died (a few years
back) at the age of 97. As she got older, her short-term
memory got worse. But (as is often the case) her long-term
memory got better, which is how she came to tell me about
the summer's day from her childhood when she and some of
her girlfriends hitched up their long skirts and climbed
Mount Washington in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
But they went too far. They stayed too long. And before
they knew it, the beautiful sunset they were watching had
turned into a foggy dusk, so that they could not see their
hands in front of their faces.
No
one had a flashlight. Flashlights had not been invented
yet. And no one knew for sure which way was down. But they
all agreed they would hold hands and would not ... under
any circumstances ... let go of one another. So that was
how they did it. One girl took the lead, picking her way
down the mountain, one step at a time. And the rest of them
strung out behind her, holding onto each other's wrists,
so that they made a human chain. Every now and again, someone
would want to argue about the way to go. So they would all
stop and debate the matter, to the point of making an occasional
change in direction. But the one thing that none of them
did was let go.
"Sometimes,"
she said, "all I knew or could see of the world was
the hand ahead of me and the hand behind me. Sometimes my
arms ached so bad, I thought I would cry out loud. But that
is how we made it home at last ... by holding on to one
another."
My friends,
if it weren't so dark outside, we might not need to do that.
And if the Spirit weren't occasionally) moving inside, we
probably wouldn't be able to do that. The Anglicans are right.
Schism is infinitely worse than heresy. And far more bloody.
So on this, our annual celebration of Pentecost, let us rejoice
in what an odd lot we are ... while marveling at how close
(and how Christ-like) we can sometimes be.
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