Pentecost - Being Christ in the World.

John 15:26 - 16:15

 

 

Today is Pentecost Sunday, the day of the breaking in and breaking out of the Spirit in the lives of all who live a life of love and compassion in Christ. To be en christos is to be empowered to live and love in a manner which challenges the accepted ways of the world. To, in fact, be Christ in the world. You. Yourself. No-one-else.

 

No longer is there a Jesus to turn to for direction, teaching, hope, advice and spiritual comfort. You are on your own. You are to speak as if you are Jesus and to act as if you are Jesus because, for John, you are. And you will experience life just as Jesus did. For you are mystically one with Christ.

 

John writes about the coming of the Spirit at a time when we associate Pentecost with miracles, speaking in tongues and other super-natural events, and yet that seems far from what John has in mind. No where in this farewell discourse does he mention the doing of miracles or speaking in tongues or ecstatic experiences s being the lot of the those he was writing, his community which was beginning to feel the wrath of persecution and the struggles of remaining faithful even within the synagogue.

 

One would have thought if these were to be the tools of a disciple’s life, John would have spoken strongly and clearly about the power available. He doesn’t. Instead he links the disciples lives and experience of life directly to that of Jesus and stresses that the Christ is now in them as God was in him and that is all they need.

 

Jesus is saying that even if I go away, the meaning I came to bring will not disappear. What I have done is to open to you a new understanding of what it means to be human. Trust it. Now that it has been opened, it cannot be closed again. Spong writes that Jesus continues with; ‘The spirit of truth, which proceeds from the father, will come to stand where I have stood.’

 

David Ewart suggests "Whatever else we may want to say on this day of Pentecost about the Spirit, it is important to notice that Jesus always refers to the Spirit as the Spirit of truth. And in John truth is always the way, the life, the light, the joy, the friendship."

 

Here we discover a mystical and mutual indwelling bringing into existence a new being in relationship. It is no longer one of authority but of indwelling friendship. It is a new way of engaging with the divine. The divine is no longer up there, beyond the clouds, but has entered life, your life, my life in the form of the very spirit of truth. This was the spirit we saw in Christ and now will be visibly evident in the lives of those who form the ‘body of Christ’. Us.

 

William Loader, of Murdoch University says, "Jesus is not left behind that we might soar into spiritual fantasy and relish the prospects of more magic and more religion. John promises no such flights and is silent about future miracles. The task of the disciples and disciples after them is to bear fruit, to let the seed sown in death rise to new life. Transitional events are minimised. What matters is life and love."

 

Our life and lives are transformed by the indwelling Christ. It is our actions, thoughts, experiences which become the visible presence of God in the world. Pentecost is not about the supernatural crashing into the world in the form of special effects and magic tricks, it is the empowering of ordinary people to do ordinary things so that extraordinary changes take place in people, places and things.

 

In the Anglican Church there has been a process for young people to take communion after confirmation. When I was a school chaplain I used to alternate the services with 2 out 3 services for the High School students being a Eucharist. Almost all of the young people had neither church background nor any religious education in relation to the sacraments. Yet when the invitation was given many would come forward to take communion. Fortnightly 25% of the 600 students did.

 

Some teachers and other clergy questioned to authenticity them taking communion. Yet these young people made a conscious decision to come forward as did those who decided to stay in their seats. For both groups this was not simply following the crowd but a deliberate act of the will.

 

And it was a truly Pentecost experience every time. They would look directly into you eyes as you distributed the sacrament, moving from bread to wine respectfully and deliberately. While they may not have been regular church attendees outside school, their reverential actions spoke loudly about a deep sacramental and mystical experience of God. They were experiencing being in Christ. They trusted what was within them and stepped forward in faith to receive.

 

John’s Jesus speaks to the ordinary person, saying I know what it is like to be a human who is different to those around me, to march to a different spirit. Jesus says I also know the spirit is sufficient for all your needs, not only your physical needs, but your need to make decisions, to live in a certain manner, to endure hardships and persecutions.

 

It is perplexing when we see the Spirit at work, and adults even Christian adults, respond with questions and doubts, unable to accept that God is at work in ways and in people outside of what we perceive as the normal spiritual way. We simply shut down Pentecost.

 

Here we sit amongst a community of people who are open to possibility. That is why they bring their children to ballet, make school lunches, run exercise classes. It is all about what is now and will be in the future. It is about awakening the spirit with in, going beyond the mind that is. It is the mystical ordinariness of the incarnated spirit of God alive in the daily activities of human beings.

 

In an experience known as the Louisville Epiphany, Thomas Merton expresses what this Pentecost event is, and it is no different to the first event in Acts.

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness… This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud… I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

 

We are challenged on this Pentecost Sunday to see the supernatural possibility in the natural, to see God’s spirit already at work in those around us and to find ways to engage and to be en christos with them. We are not to demand that they change or convert to our thinking but to find ways to befriend and to compassionately be one with them. In doing so we open up the miracle of Pentecost and bring about a new world for all. Amen’

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Thinking About Christian Unity.

John 17:6-19

This week is the World Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  An admirable title for an admirable goal, I am sure but I am a little unsure what the week of Christian unity was about. You may say it’s obvious. It’s about all the various expressions of the Christian church joining with one another in unity.

But what does that mean? What are we trying to unite? What are we trying to bring together as one? Can there ever be a united Christian church considering the varying doctrines, liturgical practices and church governance present in the world, let alone the history of animosity and bloodletting that has gone on over the years.  I can still remember not being able to talk to Catholic girls on the bus only 50 years or so ago!

The resource material for the week posed two questions:

 Which is the path of unity, the route we should take, so that the world may drink from the source of life, Jesus Christ?

Which is the path of unity that gives proper respect to our diversity?[1]

John, the Jewish mystic provides a path for us to follow in the gospel reading of today. And it all hinges on a basic Jewish mystical concept – that God was and is a permeating presence, not an external being. John Spong suggests in his book Tales of a Jewish Mystic, God was that life-giving power that embraces all those who are willing to accept the vulnerability that love always brings. For John, Jesus was not one who had come and then departed and who would someday come again. Jesus was rather a God presence inviting all to enter who he was and is, to be born of the Spirit and to participate in the eternity of God.

This passage is known as the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus, a prayer for the church of the Ages in which Jesus would be enshrined as its high priest. Jesus interceded with God on behalf of all who are embraced as God’s body, the Church here on earth, past, present and future. It is a kairos prayer, cutting across all categories of time and peoples to be ever present and ever personal.

Jesus in fact prays three different prayers. He prayers firstly for himself, then for those who had been with him and for those who would believe because of the witness of the disciples.  The primary focus of his prayer is unity but not unity as we would normally think of it. 

It was not a prayer for ecclesiastical unity, a prayer for the institution and its power to exist and to manipulate those within it for its own purpose. The larger the institution, the more the power and the prestige, the money and the influence. We have lived through that stage and have seen the many abuses of power and might that have occurred at state, institutional and personal levels. The recent child abuse expose is evidence enough of how power can be misused.

It was not a prayer for false unity. The Archbishop of Canterbury made this clear at a recent inter-religious conference: “We need to move beyond inter-religious interaction in which we the usual suspects issue bland statements of anaemic intent with which you could paper the walls of Lambeth Palace – and much good would it do you – all desperate to agree with one another so that the very worst outcome could possibly be that we end up acknowledging our differences. … ... True friendships and relationships can withstand honesty about differences in values, opinions and religious understandings and a common commitment to mutual flourishing in diversity.”

It was not a prayer for content or doctrinal unity. It is not about right believing, having the right words and formulas in which to package the authorised belief of this or that institution, theologian or teacher. Getting a uniform set of doctrines or creeds has been historically thwart with angst and appear no closer to being resolved that an the force church council. Anyway doctrinal unity is more about excluding ideas and beliefs which conflict with and undermines institutional stability and power.

It was not a prayer for a unity that can be imposed by any external agenda or program. It is not a law and cannot be legislated fore. Like morality and ethics, unity does not come from the outside. Regardless of the range of laws we may impose on what people can and cannot do, they will continue to do as they wish, when they wish and for whatever reason they wish. Legislated morality will never deal with immoral behaviour. That is a decision that comes from with in and will always over rule the law.

It was, is a prayer for unity that is an internal experience and revelation, something that rises up within and infiltrates us from the inside out. It is being in christ - en christos - an idea that permeates Paul’s writings. It is a prayer for the actuality of the vine and branches in individuals in such a way they are united by their oneness with the divine. It is our individual oneness  with God through Christ that unites us, not any externally imposed form of unity.

In 17:3 ‘John even makes Jesus use the third-person name and title for himself to make this point: Unity comes in knowing “the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent”.’ Spong again:  “The word of God comes from God, reveals the meaning of God, and returns to God”.  It is a mystical experience of oneness in  which individuality is not lost but affirmed, security is surrendered and a new being is entered.

This unity already exists. It is the possession of every believer who has seen into the God who is in us individually and in the church catholic. We are striving to bring about a unity which already exists. We already have what we are searching for and are perhaps afraid to acknowledge. Christian unity is the unity which we share in Christ. It is already present. We simply don’t act on it.

We know that there is enough resources in the world to solve the problem of world poverty. How much does it cost to solve world hunger? A price has been set and estimated by the United Nations to solve this crisis – $30 billion a year. It may seem like a large sum of money, but when compared to the U.S. defense budget of $737 billion in 2012, $30 billion seems more attainable.[2] We have what we need to deal with this seemingly intractable problem but we fail to activate it for a range of apparently rational reasons. It will cost us power, control and may in fact allow others to challenge our position in the world.

I would dare to suggest that the same occurs with in the Christian church. To accept that we are already at one with each other means that we have to let go of our finely tuned theological, doctrinally and liturgical positions and begin to focus on the one essential belief that unites us. It would mean saying yes to sharing resources, facilities, leaders, programs and worship in such away that we begin to give form and shape to the kingdom of God, right here and now.

Just a cursory glance across the suburbs of Melbourne shows us that we have much money, people and time resources tied up in replicating the activities of each other. In pronouncing our manifestation of the Christian faith as more hip, cool, relevant, traditional, evangelical or progressive than that found any where else we are diminishing the visible presence of the kingdom of God in our city. This is a worldwide phenomenon. Even the Anglican Communion is again facing a possible split because we are unable to find unity on doctrine, practice and morality.

John says the unity we seek is mystical and is the possession of all who believe in Christ. There is neither Greek or Jew says Paul because we all share the same baptism through the life and death of Christ. What would it be like if we could only grasp this truth? What would the church look like? What would it mean to come together to worship God? Would we have as many Sunday services in Glen Iris/Ashburton as we have today or would we come together as one?

These are uncomfortable questions in an uncomfortable world yet that is the essence of the High Priestly Prayer. Jesus the high priest has made the sacrifice on behalf of all so that we can all be one in God. No longer are there those who are unclean in doctrine, practice or lifestyle, the Christ has come and set us free to embrace a relationship in God and each other. When are we going to make a start or are we always going to be praying for a Christian unity that has already come? Are we so  blinded by our own religious geography that we fail to see it? Amen

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[1] http://www.ncca.org.au/component/content/article/25-wopcu/786-week-of-prayer-for-christian-unity-2015

1.    [2] Feb 15, 2013

2.    The Cost to End World Hunger - The Borgen Project

borgenproject.org/the-cost-to-end-world-hunger/