It's in you

When I was little, one of the things that scared me most about church was the Holy Spirit.

I know, you’d think there would be other stuff, and there was: when I was a kid, church was a pretty stern and solemn place where you had to be on your best behaviour or else. I was never exactly sure what the “or else” was when I was really little, but I was pretty sure it involved fire and eternal darkness and pitchforks and scary things lurking behind every pillar in the church. Thank goodness churches today are so much more welcoming, warmer and friendlier places where fear has been replaced by love. They are, aren’t they?

But the Holy Spirit, that was a pretty scary concept for a little kid. (Didn’t help that we used to call it the Holy Ghost.) It can still be pretty scary, I think. The story of Pentecost is all about tongues of fire and mighty rushing winds coming down on peoples’ heads. Pretty exciting story, I’m sure, especially in the hands of Spielberg or J.J. Abrams. But pretty scary all the same. Fire and wind are often in the news, and it’s never good. If the Holy Spirit is the power of God at work in the world, I wondered when I was little, how come it sounds like it could hurt? A lot.

Pentecost, by the way, really just means fifty days after Easter. The Bible (Acts 2:1-6) tells of the disciples, after Jesus had left them, gathering for a festival - the Jewish harvest festival Shavuot (fifty days after Passover, commemorating Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai). There is a sound like a mighty rushing wind and there are tongues of flame and “they were filled with the Holy Spirit.” Because they then go out and share the story of Jesus with people, we usually understand this event to be the symbolic “birthday” of the church.

Like I said, as a child, I always thought this sounded like something that had to be done to you, that the Spirit - to use older language - had to “come upon you.” Brrr. Creepy.

But now I wonder if maybe all that blowing and burning wasn’t really just for show, a symbolic act to inspire us to action. Just like in John 20:22, when Jesus “breathed on them and said to them, ‘receive the Holy Spirit.’” Sure the firey tongues and gusty winds are more impressive, but really they’re both ways of saying that God will give you the strength to do what you know in your heart is right.

Or perhaps a better way to describe that might be like a tool, a conductor connecting what’s “the image of God” already in us with God and each other, inspiring the love that’s already in our heart of hearts to become action. Maybe that’s what Jesus means when he tells the disciples that there will be “another Advocate … The Spirit of Truth.”

In other words, the Spirit isn’t something done to you, it’s already in you. From the beginning. Coming from God and returning to God, created in the image of God, coming closer to God in Jesus and inspired to live out love and grace in our lives. When we connect with God and each other, when we reach deep into what’s true in our hearts, the Spirit is the action of love lived out.

Maybe when we ask God to “send” the Spirit to us, it’s not about something new being added to us, but rather something within us being empowered. We don’t wait with expectation to receive, but we open ourselves to the gift that has already been given us.  It’s about the spirit in us bonding with the spirit of God. We are one in the Spirit, with each other and with God. That’s love, lived from within our hearts and out into the world.

You had it in you all along.

A Whole New World

It’s Aladdin’s signature tune. A Whole New World won an Oscar and a Grammy award and you probably know the song, whether you saw the 1992 animated classic or are looking forward to seeing the new live-action one.

It’s no spoiler to say that the song comes at the moment that Aladdin, dressed as Prince Ali, takes Princess Jasmine for a ride on his magic carpet. She leads a very controlled and structured life and has never seen much of the world beyond the palace she lives in. Freed from the confines of this glittering box, he promises to show her the world and open her eyes to the wonders she’s missing. Of course, it’s also a whole new world because they’re together and, having experienced even just a little of that, Jasmine knows she “can’t go back to where I used to be.”

As followers of Jesus, the stories of Jesus we tell are at the heart of who we are. Jesus is our example, our model to take to heart, our Way to follow. And Jesus was all about busting out of the box we put ourselves in, breaking the structure and confines of a society that trapped people where they were.

When we hear Jesus saying things like love God and love your neighbour as yourself, love your enemy, care for the poor and the sick, be generous with all you have, love each other the way I loved you, I imagine the people he was telling this too had a little feedback. I imagine there was some discussion, some concern about how hard it is to do some of these things, to live love as Jesus did. And I’m sure Jesus would say I know, I understand how hard it is, and he’d share some practical advice and encouraging words.

But most importantly, I think he’d say just imagine how things would be if we could. Imagine the world that we’d live in if we loved each other, built relationships with each other, engaged instead of feared, embraced instead of hated, loved life instead of worrying about death. It wouldn’t just be a new world, it’d be a whole one, too.

And it’s not imaginary. It’s a promise. It’s hope. Not for some distant future, but today.

Look at the Book of Revelation for minute. We spend altogether too much time on hearing Revelation as being a vision of the end of things. All this terrible craziness and destruction that’s going to happen when the world comes to an end. But Revelation isn’t just a prophecy of doom and destruction and the end of things, it’s the hope of the beginning of things: “a new heaven and a new earth … and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Rev. 21:1, 3-4)

Somedays it feels like we’re already living in those end times. And maybe we are because endings and beginnings are all around us. They’re part of our daily life and they’re part of what brings us new life, daily. So how do we bring the world, experiencing brokenness and pain and hurt to the Whole New World that Jesus and Revelation promise can be here?

At the end of that story in John when Jesus tells the disciples - and us - to love one another as he showed us with his life, Jesus prays. One of the things he prays is that “all may be one.” But Jesus idea of unity isn’t about agreeing on everything, being identical, following a specific idea or religion. It’s not about sameness. It’s about finding the one common thread that connects us all, and he describes it: just as God is in Jesus, Jesus is in us; just as we are in Jesus, so is Jesus in God. In other words, we are all related.

Diverse, unique, special and all connected by God. Describe that how you like: as being created in the image of God, made of love, part of the fabric of creation, all my relations - we are all connected to each other. When we embrace that instead of fighting it, we can make a whole new world.

Whole

There are over thirty stories of Jesus performing miracles in the four gospels. Some of those might be shared stories, but that’s just the ones we hear about. As the epilogue added to the end of John’s gospel suggests, there were lots more that: “if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” I agree, and wonder about what some of those might be.

But that’s for another time. I’m interested in a particular healing miracle today, and healings form a significant part of the total number of miracles.

Actually, now that I think about that, I think one could argue that all the miracles are healing miracles. Turning water into wine, a miraculous catch of fish, feeding the crowd, calming the storm, isn’t there healing of some kind happening in each of those? Isn’t there a broken moment healed, a discontinuity restored, a destructiveness ended, a sense of wholeness found?

That’s worth remembering when considering the “miracle” aspect of these stories. I think, for some people, the stories start to lose some of their miracle-ness when we start to talk about them. In other words, we can get lost in the “is it a real physical miracle that reflects the divine power of Jesus or is it a metaphor for a spiritual healing or is there a perfectly logical explanation of what happened” debate.

Just to be clear: whether you believe it to be A, B or C above, it’s still a miracle. Really. And all those approaches are legit ways to talk about the story because they reflect our relationship with Jesus: alive in the world, alive in our hearts and alive in our hands. As I think Jesus would say, there’s no “either/or” here: it’s all “with/and.”

It might seem like I’ve wandered, since I said I was interested in a particular healing miracle, but I haven’t. I’ve just come to it.

There’s a story early on in the Gospel of John about Jesus coming to a healing pool at Bethesda. It’s a place where people gathered to be physically healed by the waters which, legend has it, are occasionally stirred up by the wings of an angel. The first into the pool after that happens can be healed by the water. Jesus meets a man who’s been there many years and asks him if he wants to be healed. He says that he doesn’t have anyone to help him into the water, so he’s never been fast enough to be the first. Jesus replies “get up and walk” and the man is healed. And, by the way, this happened on the sabbath. (John 5:1-9)

There’s a lot there, I think, that makes this one special among healing stories. The man doesn’t approach Jesus (Jesus approaches him); his infirmity is never described; his response to Jesus asking him if he wants to be healed isn’t “yes” but rather a reason why he thinks he’s still there (and it’s not him); there’s no mention of his faith or even an indication that he believes Jesus could do anything; there’s no expression of joy or faith once he’s healed; and, bonus, Jesus heals him on the sabbath.

To me, it’s almost as if John wanted to make sure that Jesus covered all the bases (A, B, C above), and do it proactively, so that our attention might be drawn not to one thing, but to the wholeness that brings real life and that Jesus will bring that to us, whether we seek it out or not.

Wholeness isn’t just about physical or spiritual healing, it’s about both, together. Notice, too, that Jesus doesn’t help the man into the pool (or take any action, for that matter), he doesn’t repeat the question to get the right answer, he doesn’t say “be healed” or anything other than simply “get up.” Whatever the physical issue, the man had been there a long time, long enough perhaps to give up or get used to his life or simply stop caring. He needed more than physical healing.

This might also be a story to open the door on our thinking about what language we use with people with disabilities. Most translations describe this man as an “invalid.” Think about that for a moment and what the connotation of that word means to a human being. “People first” language isn’t just about etiquette, it’s about inclusivity and that’s a key piece of wholeness.

Jesus heals by restoring connection, by empowering the marginalized to know they are valued for who they are, just as they are. Whatever the physical healing, the heart and spirit must also know love. And we, like Jesus, can do that too.

Jesus didn’t wait for the man to “come unto me.” He didn’t ask for a declaration of faith and he didn’t wait for the sabbath to be over. Love is for all, at all times, everywhere. And we, like Jesus, can do that too.

One word makes a difference

I think “belonging” is a hot topic in churches right now. I want to say that it always has been, but we did go through several centuries where obligation, requirement and fear were pretty powerful motivators. Maybe they still are, for some. But, in these days of declining attendance and participation, churches that thrive do so, I think, because they cultivate a sense of belonging.

It’s not just churches, of course. Any institution, organization or group that wants to create community, especially sustainable community, needs to pay attention to what it means to belong. And you know what that means. It means there’s experts, surveys, studies and reports and everyone has an opinion. If you’re keen to look into it, just Google it and see.

One, in particular, is a multi-year study begun in 2015 by Community Foundations of Canada as part of their Vital Signs initiative. I’m sure that everyone has their own definition of  belonging, with varying degrees of complexity, but they began with two very simple points: belonging is about “being part of a collective we” and that it’s a two way street. It’s not just about the community being welcoming, it’s about how a person feels they’re a part of it. Then they went in depth through a variety of lenses, including social, arts, sport, community systems and more.

I’m not an expert, but I do have some thoughts on it. As you might imagine, that springs from something Jesus said. Or maybe I mean intended.

Let me just clarify that. There’s a passage in John’s gospel in which Jesus describes himself as the Good Shepherd and attempts to describe his relationship with his followers as that of a shepherd and sheep. It’s a rather testy exchange with a divided crowd and towards the end of it, John writes that Jesus says to them “you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”

It could just be our 21st century sensibilities, but there’s lots of people who struggle with the whole sheep and shepherd image from the start. But even if you’re not concerned about the connotation of being a sheep, it can be easy to hear that passage as Jesus saying the sheep are mine and they follow me. And that can quickly become all sorts of negative. It can sound like ownership and unthinking allegiance or, at best, blind faith. Not to mention, exclusive.

But hang on a minute. I don’t think that’s what Jesus intended.

I don’t want to get into a debate about different translations of the Bible (another time perhaps), but reading this in a variety of them, I notice most say what I quoted above from the New International Version. The New Revised Standard Version, though, throws in a little something extra here. It says “you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.”

Do you see it? I think that’s what Jesus is talking about. It’s not about ownership or control, it’s not about follow-the-leader, it’s about belonging. It’s about being part of “we” and the two-way street that makes it a “we.” It’s about a relationship with Jesus. And that means how we live our relationships with each other, too.

I think Jesus wants us to be who we truly are, in our hearts. You know, created in the image of God. And I think Jesus show us how to do that by showing us how to love, fully and openly. To follow Jesus means living that, not just an hour a week, but every moment. Not just in church, but everywhere.

I hope churches want to be welcoming, as should anyone who aims to create community. I’d also like us to be open and inclusive and engage people where they’re at, not just wait for them to come to us and do what we do. I think a welcoming community is one that respects people for who they are, engages them and encourages them to grow and live positive and affirming relationships, honours the gifts and the questions that they bring with them, and recognizes what they contribute to the wholeness of the community. The common ground of how we understand God is just the start.

And for those who seek belonging - and I’m pretty sure that’s all of us - I’d suggest that it’s not just about fitting in, it’s not about always agreeing with everyone, and it’s certainly not about being all the same or even doing as you’re told. Real belonging comes from knowing that you bring something to the community that impacts the community, just as it impacts you. You being there is part of what makes it what it is or can be, just as what it is impacts who you are and what you can be. Respecting and honouring that in others is part of making the community. Any community. Any flock.

Who are you?

In the history of the Christian church, Paul is certainly a “somebody.” His letters - the epistles - form a significant chunk of Christian scripture in the Bible, though some may be more authentically Paul than others. Perhaps even more significantly, we have those writings because he travelled, establishing communities of faith around the Mediterranean. Responding to the experiences, issues and concerns of those young communities are much of what those letters are about. Peter might have been the rock (Matt. 16:8), but Paul laid the foundation for the church. He probably did a little framing and drywalling, too.

Paul didn’t always love Jesus, and the story of Paul’s conversion is pretty epic. Paul was a devout Jew who persecuted the followers of Jesus. He was at the stoning of Stephen and, records the author of Acts, he “began to destroy the church.” He went out of his way to root Jesus out of synagogues and homes. On his way to do just that in Damascus, he’s suddenly stopped by a bright light and he hears a voice asking him “why do you persecute me?” Paul asks who is speaking, the voice says it’s Jesus, “whom you are persecuting,” and tells Paul to go into Damascus where he will learn what he’s to do. Paul is blinded by the vision, but his companions help him into town.

In Damascus, a disciple of Jesus named Ananias hears “the Lord” tell him to go to Paul and restore his sight. Ananias is understandably wary - he’s heard of Paul - but does as commanded. He returns Paul his sight and tells him that Jesus “has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” From then on, Paul is a follower of Jesus, preaching and teaching about him. People are skeptical at first and found this sudden switch hard to believe. As you might expect, many of Jesus’ followers were afraid of him and didn’t trust him.

If we were there, we might think the same. But we know the story and we know what followed, so it’s pretty easy to characterize this sudden and epic moment of conversion in pretty clear cut terms. With one great flash of light, the villainous persecutor of Jesus’ followers becomes the saint who establishes the communities of the faithful and helps them grow. With the flick of a switch, even.

In fact, we often characterize this shift with his name. All through that story about Paul in Acts, he’s referred to as Saul. So the villain is Saul, the saint is Paul. 

Like he’s a different person.

Except he’s not. Saul is simply his Jewish name. Paul is his Romanized name. Paul was born in Tarsus and there are a couple of references in Acts to his Roman citizenship, but whether he was or not, he would have likely had both names since birth anyway. The vision of Jesus calls him by his Jewish name, of course, and he’s Saul throughout this story and not referred to as Paul until much later: “Saul, who is also called Paul” (Acts 13:9). Since most of his mission work was to non-Jews, it makes sense that they’d know him as Paul. As we do.

But it’s still the same guy and that’s the thing about Paul. He never hid his past. And, while we might know him as only the great apostle and saint, he was more. Our one dimensional portrayal of him doesn’t do him justice. He’s much more complex, just like you and me.

Saul was a good Jew who, in his love for God and his faith, lost his way. Like others, he felt his faith threatened by these Jews who claimed Jesus was the messiah and followed his teaching. He defended the institution of his faith by attacking the blasphemous People of the Way, even to the point of violating the very commandments that, according to Jeremiah, should have been written on his heart. It blinded him.

We’re easily blinded, too: by fear, by different and unfamiliar things, by things that seem to question or challenge what we think we know. For as often as we hear the expression “outside the box” these days, we’re so much more comfortable in one. And the walls of that box must be defended at all costs. Sometimes to death.

What if there wasn’t one? What if we could take the blinders off and see possibility for growth, better understanding and more appreciation of the world around us, whether we agreed with it or not? What if we weren’t so afraid?

For me, one of the great things about Paul is that he’s complicated. Just like you and me. He’s got a past, some of which he’d probably rather not have, but it did bring him here. Just like you and me. What he repented - what he turned from - was fear and hate. I think that, going forward, his faith wasn’t begun with Jesus, it grew, it was renewed and refreshed and opened to others, just like the followers of Jesus he had persecuted. All that Paul could be was already there, it just needed to be freed and brought into the light. The light he saw on that road didn’t blind him, it opened his eyes. The light he saw was love.

Faith alive with doubt

Every year, on the Sunday after Easter Day, we tell the same story. And I don’t mean the same story but a different source. Like, on Easter Day, we tell the resurrection story every year but from a different gospel. The schedule we follow for readings, the Lectionary, says one year it’s Matthew, or John. Another it’s Mark, or John. And then Luke. Or John.

Okay, you could read the story from John every year, but usually we alternate to get a different perspective, different features and different ways to get into the most important story of the church year.

But not the Sunday after Easter Day, the second Sunday of the Easter season. That’s always the same story from John, the story of Thomas who, gulp, doubted.

And that right there is the traditional point of the story in a nutshell. The resurrected Jesus appears to the disciples, but Thomas isn’t there. When the other disciples tell him, he refuses to believe until he sees for himself. The next time Jesus appears, he’s there and Jesus shows him his wounds and Thomas believes. John’s point seems to be don’t doubt, believe.

Consequently, we’ve tended to cast Thomas as the doubter and told this story as a means to encourage faith. Blessed are those who believe without needing to see, Jesus says. If only we could aspire to that!

So we tell that exact same story every year. So, please forgive me, but I’d like to tell the story again here. But not exactly like that.

See, Thomas wasn’t the first to doubt Jesus was alive. The empty tomb seemed to catch everyone by surprise. Mary didn’t recognize Jesus when she saw him and thought he was the gardener. The other disciples were hiding when Jesus appeared to them and the first thing he does is show them his wounds. Later he’ll walk to Emmaus with other followers who don’t recognize him and the disciples again won’t recognize him at first after they go back to fishing and he comes to them. Why? I think they didn’t expect to see him. He was dead, after all. It’s perfectly understandable. They saw him die, it would be impossible for him to be alive.

But Jesus has demonstrated the impossible frequently in all the stories we know of him. So let’s not use that as an opportunity to give doubt a bad name. I think we need doubt. I think doubt is a part of faith, the same way that death is a part of life. The inevitability of one shouldn’t stop us from living fully into the other. Doubt can inform our faith, questions increase our understanding, engagement with our faith deepens our faith.

Instead, we’ve demonized doubt like it’s the opposite of faith. It’s not. Fear and certainty are, the two things that can paralyze our openness and willingness to engage the uncertainty of life and instead cling stubbornly to “what we know for sure.”

So I want to tell the story like this.

The disciples were gathered together, sharing in their grief. Thomas wasn’t there. And Jesus didn’t ask “where’s Thomas?” I think he might even have known what he was doing. He might have known that Thomas, who always had lots of questions, also had a different idea of how to work through his grief about the death of Jesus. He believed. He believed Jesus that time when he asked him about the way to God and Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life.” He believed Jesus when Jesus said “go and love one another as I loved you. That’s how people will know you are followers of me.” He believed what he saw in Jesus life and he believed what he saw when Jesus died. He believed Jesus when he said “don’t be afraid.”

Thomas wasn’t with the others because he was out sharing the story of Jesus. He was already telling people to love one another and showing people the power of love, even in the face of grief. Jesus was already alive in Thomas. When he saw his friends again, it wasn’t Jesus he didn’t believe in, it was their grief-stricken story of a living, breathing, wounded Jesus. And when he saw Jesus, he said “My Lord and My God” as an affirmation of all he believed. He may have doubted his very human friends, but I don’t think he doubted Jesus for a minute.

He's not there, he's here.

The tomb was empty.

The stone was rolled away from the entrance. The linen burial shroud they wrapped him in was still there, but the body of Jesus was gone.

Isn't that just like Jesus. He never seems to stay where we put him.

Good thing: if he did, we might never really see him.

That’s the important part of the Easter story to me. The tomb is empty. He’s alive. Impossible? Exactly. Even though Jesus told us to expect it, it can’t be happening. It’s just not possible.  Even the disciples, even Mary, suspected that someone had just moved the body somewhere else.

Wow. It's not even that Jesus wouldn't stay where we put him, it's that someone else moved him. That's an elephant-sized metaphor.

Still, I don't think that where he isn't is nearly as important as where he is.

As the Gospel of John tells the story, Mary turns from the empty tomb and sees him. Well, not at first. It takes her a minute to recognize him because she wasn't expecting to see him. You've probably experienced one of those moments. You know, when you pass someone on the street, or in a store, maybe, and you don't recognize them at first, just because you weren't expecting to see them there. You probably know the feeling.

Mary wasn’t expecting Jesus to be alive. He was dead. It would not be possible to see him upright and walking around.

Except. This is the Jesus who had, himself, raised Lazarus from the dead. This is the Jesus who healed the sick, rid people of their demons, performed acts that can only be described as miracles, inspired people and restored people. This is the Jesus who called people to love, to love their neighbour as they love themselves, to love even their enemy. Talk about making the impossible happen.

So, having done all that, there’s one more impossible thing to do: he would rise from the dead. Given his track record, maybe Mary should have been looking for Jesus anywhere and everywhere. Rather than mistaking Jesus for the gardener, maybe she should have assumed that everyone was Jesus until she could see otherwise.

Maybe that’s a learning from the Easter story. Whether you hear this story of death and resurrection as literal or metaphorical, maybe it’s okay to acknowledge that it’s about the impossible happening. And then remember all that seemed impossible in the life of Jesus and remember, too, that things are really only impossible because we haven’t done them yet.

I think that’s a key part of Jesus’ teachings about love and grace. Loving your enemy and those that are difficult to love is hard, but it’s not impossible. Forgiveness is hard, but it’s not impossible. Peace is hard, but it’s not impossible. Inspiring new life in the broken and hurting is hard, but it’s not impossible. Are we ever one hundred percent perfect at doing that? Of course not. We fail. A lot. But Jesus never asked for perfection. Jesus asked for love. And when we love, we bring life and create possibility. We just need to let it out. Keeping love to ourselves doesn’t protect us and it’s not being safe. It just entombs it.

That’s the Easter story, too. We can’t contain Jesus, in a tomb, on a cross, in a book, in a tradition or in a church. Jesus lives. Everywhere. He is love and love is not ended by death. If we first looked at everyone around us as if they were Jesus, wouldn't that change the world? If we were to see Jesus - first - before all the assumptions and biases of appearance, status, culture and religion, if we were to love one another as if we were loving Jesus, just as Jesus loves us, wouldn't that breath new life into our world? Wouldn't that let us out of the tomb, too?