Day 40: We Made It!

I liked Levison's summary in today's devotion.
1. We learn that the Spirit's anchor is Jesus.
2. We learn...that what the Spirit says is rooted in Scripture.
3. "The work of the Spirit is not just something brand new. It is something old made new for us. The Spirit...brings ancient Scripture to life."
4. We learn "[t]hat the Spirit--the bride of Christ, as well--is hospitable, generous, expansive beyond belief. The Spirit and the bride don't limit their invitation to the genteel, the sophisticated the self-reliant. They invite anyone who will listen, people with parched throats, people without the right coins in their pockets. It's a dangerous invitation."

What a great way to end.

I hope that those of you who persevered through the 40 Days with the Holy Spirit have not only gained a better knowledge about the person and work of the Holy Spirit, but that you have experienced the Holy Spirit in perhaps a new way. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit works powerfully not only in our own lives, but in the life of UCC Medfield!

Day 39: Almost There

In today's devotion Levison uses probably the most well-known text about the coming of the Holy Spirit, the text that is read at Pentecost every year, Acts 2:1-13. However, he takes a different angle on it from any that I have ever heard. Rather than focus on the event itself, he focuses on what goes on behind the scenes: stayed, prayed, and studied. Once again he wants to divert our attention from the spectacle of the Holy Spirit that some have, to the more mundane, ordinary, ways in which the Holy Spirit works. The Holy Spirit uses our efforts for preparing ourselves to be useful vessels. His prayer is my prayer:

Holy Spirit
Fiery ecstasy
Language maker

Don't let me come unsuspecting to Pentecost
or arrive ill-equipped at ecstasy

Sharpen my will to study
Hone my mind to think
Whet my appetite to learn

And when I part my lips
and breathe out words
god's praiseworthy acts--let them come first.
Amen

Day 38: Make Disciples

Make disciples. "The eleven must go. They must create learners--disciples.They must baptize them. Then they must teach them to follow every last detail of Jesus's commands, not with inventiveness, not with astonishing oratorical flourish, not with awesome miracles." Simple to say, more difficult to do. I am reminded of II Timothy 2:1-2: "You then, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus' and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well."

So the task at hand is to live the teachings ourselves, and to teach others. What we have the tendency to do, however, is to see Jesus' teachings kind of like a smorgasbord from which we pick and choose. We like the ones about being loved, about forgiveness, but we don't like the hard parts about suffering and surrendering ourselves to him lock, stock, and barrel. 'A dollop of things that make me feel good, and a dab of that which I won't find to inconvenient."

I like his prayer:

Today I pray that you, with the father and the son,
will embrace a shared purpose

To fire in me a passion to obey everything Jesus commanded

To stir in me a passion to teach others

To obey everything Jesus commanded

To forgive me when I don't obey

To forgive them when they don't...

Day 37: Pressure Cooker of Trials

Let's just say that I found this devotion rather bracing. Who wants to suffer persecution? I want the Holy Spirit in my life, but I would prefer the Holy Spirit without persecution, or really without anything seriously negative in my life to be honest. I think Levison gets it just right when he writes,

"So I've come to face it: I tend to like a gospel that tells me everything will work out in the end and that the Spirit will give me everything I need for abundant living in the meantime. I don't want a Spirit that shows up at the last minute to give me words that seal my fate."

The truth be told, I think most of us want the easy road and when it is easy we attribute it to the Holy Spirit. Fortunately, though, God knows better and promises to be with us on the hard road, even the most difficult road when things look bleak. Jesus promises us the presence of the Holy Spirit to give us what we need.

Day 36:Spirit on All Flesh

You have probably heard Joel 2:28-29, today's text, read during worship a number of times. It is frequently read on Pentecost  Sunday. Levison tells us that this text "bursts the wineskins" of Numbers 11 in two directions: horizontal and vertical. I liked his imagery. He notes that this prophecy cuts across all national/ethnic divisions. It also cuts across every division within a given culture. It's pretty radical stuff: "The Spirit melts the glue that holds together society, as we know it, in social tiers." Are we ready for that? It seems to me that in the abstract as a kind of principle it sounds great. But when it cuts into our privilege, and interrupts the way that we are used to living life, I wonder if we are so eager to embrace the Spirit's action.

I find my own self-interest interwoven throughout the things that I believe, and have discovered it is difficult, very difficult to know where my belief is motivated by my self-interest even though I can make a good theological case, or so I think. My capacity for self-deception, which I have mentioned numerous times in my sermons, is nearly limitless.

I loved this stanza of his prayer:

Holy Spirit...

Topple my world with your benevolence
Barrage my barricades with your generosity
Flood my heart with your compassion...

Day 35: Blossoming in the Presence of the Holy Spirit

"For those of us who insist on identifying God's presence in the world, God's absence is tough to stomach. Maybe it's not God's absence so much as Gods withdrawal." I think he captures my feelings about this exactly. I want to experience God's presence in my life--moment to moment--not his absence. I hate it when I feel that God is absent from me. And yet, at times God withdraws for God's own reasons and we need to trust Him even then.

I thought his main point was well spoken in this morning's devotion. Yes, the Spirit is about self-preservation, conservation, and protection. There are promise for this throughout the Old and New Testaments. The Psalms are full of pleas for protection and self-preservation.

But, as Levison points out, the Spirit is not just about self-preservation, conservation, and protection. "The Spirit is about transformation." It is about God's love reaching out into the world and welcoming them in. The Holy Spirit is about outreach, about "Kingdom work," as I mentioned in my sermon this morning. We become transformed along with those "outsiders" who become "insiders." As he captures so well, "The Spirit's presence may allow for protection and comfort, but ultimately the Spirit is about transformation from the outside in--from outsiders who become insiders."

Day 34: Speaking in Tongues

Today is July 4th and I want to wish everyone a great day!

Today's devotion focus is on what is called, "speaking in tongues," or the academic term is "glossolalia." Levison shares an experience he had many years back which probably was speaking in tongues although he is uncertain exactly what to call it. I have never had the experience of speaking in tongues although I am open to it if it happens to me. I think this text is more academic if you come from a denomination for which speaking in tongues isn't really part of the faith experience and if you have never had the experience.

Nevertheless, the principle of not elevating our spiritual experience in such a way that it puts us in the limelight, we become proud that we have experienced this (whatever it might be) and not others is important. Whatever spiritual experiences God gives us are meant to be received humbly, thankfully, and in a way which will build others up. It's a gift to be used for God's glory and our own and other's edification. The Holy Spirit isn't about gifting us to make us proud; rather, the Holy Spirit gifts us to grow in our faith and to bless others. 

Day 33: You Are God's Temple

In the New Testament we are referred to as God's temple both in the singular and in the plural. In other words, each of us individually is God's temple and we are to treat our bodies as such, and the church is God's temple and we are to treat each other as such. I Corinthians, the text for today's devotion, focuses on the church as God's temple. It is such a wonderful image and sounds so good, but is so difficult to pull off! As Levison comments about the church he grew up in, he notes that they split up over what kind of music--instrumental or a cappella--is appropriate to worship. What about things that we believe strongly? What if they are being denied? The church has splintered hundreds, even thousands of times over some major and significant issues and many minor issues. There is the phrase that you may have heard: In essentials, unity; in non-essentials diversity; in all things charity. It sounds good, but the problem is that we can't agree on what is essential and what is non-essential.

It is clear, though, that the Spirit creates unity, and it is our own sinfulness, finitude, and weakness that creates divisions. His closing prayer is excellent. 

Day 32: The Holy Spirit and Conflict

Today's devotion gave a good dose of reality. In the early church, "They argued fiercely. Confrontation turned to combat before it ever became compromise."

I thought the penultimate paragraph was worth quoting in its entirety here.

In the tough, gritty work of conflict and compromise we find the Holy Spirit. Not in the revelation of an easy solution. Not in the avoidance of conflict. In this gritty process, rather than instantaneous solutions or conflict avoidance, we discover a rich vein of the Spirit. Compromise--the battle-scarred road that leads to it, too--can seem good both to the Holy Spirit and to us."

As a church intent on discipleship, we should take these words to heart and not be afraid of conflict and the rough and tumble of disagreement, even strong disagreement.

Day 31: Barnabas and Saul

I find this devotion challenging in a couple of ways. He notes that the church in Antioch did a lot without a paid senior pastor, associate pastor, youth minister, and minister of children's ministry. He also mentions how multicultural the church was. Of course UCC Medfield has all these paid positions plus some, and we are not what you would call a multicultural church. So what do you do with that? We're not multicultural primarily because Medfield and the surrounding towns are not multicultural. I do love worshiping at churches that have many different ethnic groups, but that is not the demographic context in which we find ourselves, so that isn't going to happen until that demographic changes. So we welcome and love those in our cultural context.

Concerning a paid staff, the time may soon come when church "staff" have regular jobs and volunteer or are paid a minimal amount for their work. That is the way the LDS (Mormon) church operates. The current model of paid clergy and staff has worked for a long time, but who knows what the future holds for the church? There is an ebb and a flow to its life.

As far as the core take away from this devotion, the last full paragraph on page 116 caught my attention:

"Notice, too, that the energy of Antioch arises from a community committed to the disciplines of faith. The Spirit inaugurates mission among the Christians at Antioch while they 'were worshiping the Lord and fasting' (Acts 13:2). This little clause lets us know that community disciplines provide the precondition for hearing a word of the Holy Spirit "(Bold, mine).

Once again we are reminded that the spiritual disciplines that we practice behind the scenes are the soil out of which grow the fruit of the Holy Spirit.