Charles Kutz-Marks
Which Spirit is Holy?
Pentecost, June 4, 2006
Acts 2:1-21
Flipping through the TV's offerings a couple of weeks ago, I stumbled on the first pre-quel of the Star Wars series, known as Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. Believe it or not, that movie is already 6 years old now! The whole series began 29 years ago, 1977. Everyone under aged 35 in the U.S. has grown up living and breathing Star Wars. And it hit me all the sudden. Think of all the energy that people have put into these science fiction movies until I realized that it isn't that at all. The Star Wars series is an enormous morality play, on a cosmic scale. It is good vs. evil, good being turned to evil, and finally evil being turned to the good. The underlying power, a unifying energy of the cosmos called, "The Force." And if you have tuned an eye to it, the intertwining of Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist theology is just stunning.
It suddenly hit me, that Star Wars is more than entertainment; it is one of our culture's restatements of the timeless need to:
- To make meaning out of the seeming chaos, to find order in the universe,
- To find direction for one's life,
By finding a reliable center of faith and power,
And all of the comfort that brings.
Unfortunately for the moviegoers, after an enjoyable experience watching a make-believe universe where those characteristics are available, we have to walk out of the Digital Dolby surround Sound theatre and a face a real world where such an order is not so easy to find.
Do you suppose that that is what Jesus disciples felt those ghastly days after his crucifixion? They had waltzed through three years of ministry, side by side with Jesus. Theirs was not an easy life, but at least it was centered, focused, productive. They had what they needed and so much more. Jesus had taught them much about the Kingdom of God, about what God desires of human beings and how life can be fulfilling. Jesus taught them how to trust in God for all things. And then, long before they were ready, Jesus was taken from them.
Those brief resurrection appearances didn't energize the disciples for a full 40 days. One imagines the disciples wandering about Jerusalem, meeting with each other trying to make sense of it all. The Gospel writer Luke says in the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles that :
Acts 1:4 While staying with them, he [Jesus] ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of God. "This," he said, "is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." ... But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
And then PENTECOST breaks out in all its wonder and its power! The Holy Spirit descends. Everything changes!
So the Holy Spirit is granted.... but when it isn't so excessive, as in our Acts reading this morning, how do we recognize the Holy Spirit at work?
Simply put, the Holy Spirit does today exactly what Jesus did in his earthly ministry. I find it fascinating that the Apostle Paul interchangeably uses the phrases Spirit, Spirit of God, and Spirit of Christ. It seems that, the point is not to be able to theologically describe the differences between God as Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. The point is to be able to distinguish this moving spirit from all the host of other spirits that would claim our allegiance.
You see, there are lots of spirits in the world about us. Some of them inspire behavior and attitudes that are far from Christian. We have no trouble recognizing racist, or wildly nationalistic, or clearly self-serving spirits as being far from a Spirit we would call Holy.
But what of the spirit that goes to church and uses the language and traditions of Jesus of Nazareth, yet somehow misses the point of Christ's central teachings?
For example, some churches say that all we have to do is open heartedly look at what the scripture says and we will suddenly, immediately, incontrovertibly know exactly what God wants for us. Often they proudly claim themselves Bible centered churches. They offer an answer for every question, a verse for every occasion, an authority for every issue. Their Bible is no longer primarily a source of inspiration, but essentially a blue print, a rule book. Too often they make the Bible an ancient history textbook, an archaeological text, and the final replacement for all evolutionary biology texts. Now, sometimes these congregations are just a little bit severe, but the spirit of some of others goes much farther astray and is anything but loving, nowhere close to accepting those who are different from themselves. These churches have a spirit, but I surely wouldn't call it Holy.
And on Pentecost Day, we should remember others very conservative churches that are called "Pentecostal Churches." They are charismatic, celebrating sometimes-fantastical gifts of the spirit: Speaking in tongues, seemingly miraculous healings, exorcisms. and the like. They are:
> High on experiences of the Spirit, but often
> Highly dogmatic and most eccentric in their handling of the scriptures. Their folks may have wonderful time at church, but often have terrible troubles trying to sensibly link their day-to-day lives with what their teachers teach and their preachers preach. Again, there is a connection to a spirit. But is it the Holy Spirit?
As I mentioned last week, as a college student, I was drawn into both of these styles of Christian religion and know the richness of those experiences... but also the dangers. Once freed from the grip of Christian fundamentalism and Pentecostalism, I can look back and tell you what it is like to be a casualty of these worldviews. I had been promised freedom, but in the end, these groups delivered what felt like finely crafted manacles for us to wear, supposedly in the name of faithfulness to Jesus. Ultimately, I didn't find true freedom in Christ there!
But at the other end of the spiritual spectrum are a growing number of those in our day who fearlessly seek enlightenment through the rouge spirit of our age, the Self-Spirit, the Independent Spirit, the Free Spirit...
In this view all wisdom is mediated by what feels right to them, what makes sense to them;
This approach finds it impossible to look outside themselves to any reliable authority, The final authority being ultimately their own subjective feelings...
According to sociologists, many of those most spellbound by the Star Wars movie series fit this description. Many were at the theatre less to absorb the entertainment, and more to imbibe the spirit of that movie, to somehow build it into their own personal myths...each so individually. Eventually and painfully the true seekers out on this end of the spectrum frequently end up recreating the wheel, and after a long-suffering lonely search, often return to a spiritual way pioneered perfectly well for them thousands of years earlier by Moses, Jesus, or Buddha. And the spirit of individualism that has impelled them will likely haunt them the rest of their religious journey. Theirs is a seeker spirit. Even they would not call it a Holy spirit.
Both extremes of the religious /spiritual spectrum have been carried by spirits....
The world is filled with spirits....claiming our allegiance.
And spirits have a way of leading people far beyond where they initially expected to go. Spirits have not only a meaning and a power in the present to entrance and hold, but they also have a trajectory, a direction toward which they move.
As we began our 2nd Claim the Future session yesterday morning downstairs in the Fellowship Hall, our facilitator, Herb Lynsky said that he is convinced that the Holy Spirit acts sometimes through individuals, granting prophetic insights and courage. And then he affirmed that the gathered Christian community offers a second vehicle for the coming of the Holy Spirit.
We witnessed that yesterday, downstairs in the Fellowship Hall, >among sandwiches and breakout groups;
>in stories of UT students whose lives have been changed by our Disciples Student Fellowship, and students' lives who might yet find that Holy touch;
>and time and time again in the our sharing visions - often with remarkable harmony, of who University Christian Church can become.
Yes, University Christian Church has a meaning and God-given power. University Christian Church has a spirit. And our spirit has a calling... a calling side by side with other congregations' callings... similar, yet different, too. I'd even say, unique.
Last night my personal discernment led me to understand that the God is calling for the sharing of the Christian gospel here in Austin to so many different categories of people. For many, a simple, conventional, "just the facts, mam" Christianity is enough. Thank God, there are plenty of churches here well organized to reach out to them with just what they need at this time in their journey.
But this is not our calling. No, I believe that our special calling is to provide for: confused and searching UT students,
>for nearly jaded state gov't leaders,
>for sophisticated urban dwellers moving back here into downtown Austin by the droves,
>for suburbanites who want to dig more deeply into the mysteries of life and of faith.
Our calling is to provide an inviting church home for those:
> who feel they'd been nearly inoculated against Christianity by a straight-jacketed orthodoxy;
>or who have so thoroughly outgrown the Christianity of their pre-teen years, that they are on the verge of giving up on Chrisitianity altogether, and > who are now trying to fashion a meaningful faith from the DaVinci Code and Star Wars movies. These are our special charge. 200 yrs. ago Fredrick Schleiermacher preached a more relevant gospel to those he called "My Cultured Despisers." Now it is our turn in this age to provide especially for these children of God, the word of Christian hope, the Good News, in such a way that they can discover again in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, a life of inexhaustible riches.
The Spirit of Jesus unleashed at Pentecost is our model. For in it, Jesus included everyone: people from every nation, and race, the poor, the social outcast, the women, children, the diseased.... All were part of the community God built.
And if we have felt the power of the Holy Spirit among us in this place; we must embody that power, that trust in God, and like the disciples of old, go out into a searching and needy world in Christ's name, bearing - we must always pray- that very same Spirit.
Amen.
University Christian Church
2007 University Ave.
Austin, Texas 78705
Church Office: 512-477-6104
Church Fax: 512-477-0725
Email admin@ucc-austin.org