Redefining Progress

"When going back makes sense, you are going ahead."

— Wendell Berry

Jeremiah 6:16 echos this maxim. God calling Israel to move forward by looking backward. The LORD exhorts Israel to "ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is. . . and walk in it." Sometimes moving forward in life means looking backwards at the conventional, collective wisdom of our ancestors. More often than not ancient wisdom is often more potent in our lives than faddish innovation.

What the Spirit Does

The Holy Spirit is sort of the enigma within the Trinity. We can wrap our minds around the Father. And, Jesus we "get". His divinity is cloaked in flesh and he looks, feels and relates like we do. We can at least begin to wrap our minds around that. But the Holy Spirit. . .or growing up Catholic, we would use the term "Holy Ghost". Now that's downright spooky, like something out of the Exorcist. After all, who or what is the Holy Spirit?

Well, despite the name it's reassuring to know that the Holy Spirit is referred to as a person in the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit is part of the God-head and is every bit as personal as the Father or Son. He is no more or no less "ghost" than the other members of the Trinity. Reassuring.

But, what does the Holy Spirit do?

This past week I was doing a Bible study with three theologians that I'm close to named Jackson, Caleb and Kate. And, we examined the role of the Holy Spirit in three important places in the Scripture: in the creation of the world, in the incarnation of Jesus Christ and in the new creation or the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. Some interesting themes emerged.

Holy Spirit in Creation.

Genesis chapter one sets the stage. Interestingly, we see that "in the beginning God creates the heavens and the earth." But Genesis goes further and says that these heavens and earth were "formless, empty and dark". Ever think about that? God makes the cosmos, but it initially has no shape, no structure, no form, no light. Sort of like raw cosmic ball of goo. I don't know what this world God created looked like, but many scholars say that it was like a blank, black canvas that was ready for the artist. I like this assessment.

Then the next line casually slips in that "the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters". Enter God's Holy Spirit. God's Spirit is present and interceding or coming between God's purpose and design and the creation itself. Of course, the rest of Genesis 1 speak of form, order and texture arising out of formlessness, fullness out of emptiness and light blazing through darkness. We can interpret from this text that the Spirit of God is active in God's creation in bringing His light and life, texture and form, color and creativity to what is otherwise dark, formless and void.

Holy Spirit in the Incarnation

Turning to the first pages of the New Testament we read about the fulfillment a prophecy. One is to come into the world who is the Messiah. This King will be no ordinary King, but will be the "son of the Most High". An angel appears to Mary and tells her that she will bear this child. I'm not sure if sex education existed in the first century, but Mary is no dummy. She informs the angel that it's going to be a tall order to get pregnant since she's a virgin and not yet married. In essence, Mary is saying my womb is formless, empty and dark. There's no capacity for life in there. And, the angel responds with the most amazing statement. He says "the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. . .and you will be with child."

Once again the Holy Spirit moves into a formless, empty and dark aspect of the creation (Mary's womb) and fulfills the divine plan of God with His super-natural creative power. I can't help but notice the similar feel of the spirit hovering over the dark waters in the creation and God's Spirit coming upon Mary and overshadowing Mary's dark womb. Both instances beget new life. They breed creative vitality and fulfillment where there was once nothing. Holy Brilliance and power at work!

Holy Spirit in New Creation

After Jesus was resurrected and ascended into heaven, Jesus promised that he would not leave his followers alone with the task of changing this world, but would send his promised Holy Spirit to be with them. Yet, this didn't happen immediately. There were several days between Jesus leaving and the coming of the Holy Spirit. During this time, the disciples understood the capacity of their mission, but lacked the capability to carry out that mission. We see them huddled together in Jerusalem praying and trying to make decisions. . .to muster up the wisdom what to do next. They were doing the right things, but didn't have the creative, life-giving power of God within them. There is no real form/substance, fullness or power in the church. . .yet. Then Acts 2 comes.

At Pentecost God's Spirit once again descends upon his creation filling those around, and doing what He does best. . .interceding with a super-natural, creative power that enables God's creation to come alive accomplishing the Father's purpose for the world. He brings form, fullness and light to God's people at Pentecost. First, form. After Pentecost, the church emerges with structure and a sense of order and super-natural unity. Second, fullness. God's people are filled with the mission of Jesus in a new way. They take on His passion and His boldness in a way that they could not without the Spirit's presence. Third, light. The post-Pentecost Church is not under the cloak of darkness, secretly hiding in upper rooms trying to survive on the victories of yesterday. No, the church with the Holy Spirit comes out of the shadows and into the light. Their unashamed boldness to reach the nations and be the light of the world becomes the theme of the post-Pentecost church and fills the remaining pages in the book of Acts.

So, what does the work of the Holy Spirit have to do with our lives today? Well, we see in the creation, the incarnation and in new creation that the Spirit likes to do his creative work in the formless, empty and void-ness of life. In essence, he likes to work within the barren and desolate places of life. Be it within cosmic confusion, a barren womb or a bunch frightened disciples, he delights to work within what's undone and dark to bring divine form, substance, fullness and light to God's world. Fascinating!

Soren Kierkegaard has this great quote that goes like this. "God creates everything out of nothing. And, everything which God is to use, he first reduces to nothing." Perhaps that's the heartbeat of the Holy Spirit. To work alongside the Father to make nothing into something great. If this is true, perhaps our take home point to a greater life in the Spirit is not trying to attain anything or "get" more of God's Spirit. Perhaps what God wants and His Spirit delights in is our willingness to admit our own formlessness, emptiness and darkness so that His Spirit can begin to work in us. While such an admission is an irritation to our pride, if my theology is right, it is an invitation to the Spirit to work His magic in our lives to the glory of God.

The Stories We Believe

"To heal the person, we must first heal the story they imagine themselves to be in".

-James Hillman

Mission and Worship

"Mission exists because worship does not."

-John Piper

I appreciated this apt quote. It takes a little thinking to even understand it.

Sometimes we forget that the entire purpose of mission and ministry is to help people see, experience, love, adore, honor and glorify God. If all creation honored their Creator and gave Him themselves, there would be no need for mission.

Consider this. There will come a time when mission work is complete. It will be no more. But, there will never be a time when worship is complete. Mission will end, worship will last forever.

Therefore, worship must be the end to which we aspire and perspire in our life. Mission is merely the means, the outworking of our worship to God. Any mission work whose intent is not ultimately the worship and glorification of God, is mission gone sadly awry.

Sometimes we think of mission as the most thing in our lives that matters to God. It is not. Mission will come to an end one day, but worship will not. Of course, to truly worship God. . .to see what God sees. . .to delight in what God delights . . .to go where God goes. . . compels and thrusts us into mission.

But, let us not mistake the means from the end.

The Gospel and its implications

What is the gospel?

Social justice, community reform, personal morality should never be mistaken as the gospel itself. They are actually the IMPLICATIONS of the gospel fleshed out into our life and world. Social Justice, for instance, is a tentacle, an extension, an outworking of the gospel of Jesus Christ. A tentacle is an attachment...something that grows out of the core substance of something. Like we find on a jellyfish. . .the tentacles grow out of the core and are connected to the core, but only represent a part or an extension of the whole.

I think the same is true of the gospel. When we trace our behaviors, values, choices, thoughts back to their source, everything should be sourced in the essence of the gospel: that God is rebuilding his Kingdom precisely through His own incarnation, suffering death and resurrection on behalf of mankind.

So, feeding the poor, helping a handicapped person, saying "no" to sexual temptation, attending church, handling personal rejection, or spending money...all of these things become natural implications in our lives of coming into a right relationship with the living God through Jesus. All of these things are the implications, the tentacles, of the all-encompassing gospel of Jesus, but they are NOT in themselves the gospel. Historically, liberal Christianity has mistaken the gospel for social justice. Conservative Christianity has mistaken the gospel for personal morality. Both sides have drank different flavors of the same poison. Neither social justice, nor personal morality are the gospel. Both, however are both implications of the gospel at work, and should be tentacles in a gospel centered life. But, they are not the gospel themselves.

Our problem today, whether on the left or the right, is the need to embrace the gospel and then think through the profound implications of the the gospel. As, Keller's quote below goes on to say...a central problem in our lives stems from not thinking, perceiving, contemplating how the gospel reorients all of life. He writes:

"The main problem, then, in the Christian life is that we have not thought out the deep implications of the gospel, we have not “used” the gospel in and on all parts of our life. Richard Lovelace says that most people’s problems are just a failure to be oriented to the gospel–a failure to grasp and believe it through and through. Luther says, “The truth of the Gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine. . . . Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually.” The gospel is not easily comprehended. Paul says that the gospel only does its renewing work in us as we understand it in all its truth. All of us, to some degree live around the truth of the gospel but do not “get” it. So the key to continual and deeper spiritual renewal and revival is the continual re-discovery of the gospel. A stage of renewal is always the discovery of a new implication or application of the gospel–seeing more of its truth. This is true for either an individual or a church".