Introduction
When I was in highschool I had a good friend who belonged to the local Pentecostal church. I recall one morning, she found me in the hallway before school started, grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the closest private space she could find–the girl’s changeroom. She had something very exciting to share with me. She sat me down on the bench in the changeroom, her eyes shining with excitement and exclaimed, “it happened! It finally happened!”
I looked back at her, blank and puzzled. “What happened?” I asked.
“I was filled with the Holy Spirit,” she said. “I spoke in tongues!”
I didn’t really know what to say. “Congratulations! I am happy for you!” even though I didn’t really understand what had happened to her, or why she was so excited.
She actually sounded relieved it had finally happened. Like it was a significant milestone on her faith journey that deepened her relationship with God.
I knew there were bible stories about people being filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues but I didn’t have any firsthand experience with it. I had visited my aunt’s Pentecostal church a few times. I was always struck by the more dramatic, deeply felt emotions that were expressed during worship: fervent, passionate preaching, audible “amens”, hands raised and waving in praise. To my quiet more reserved and modest Mennonite sensibilities, it always seemed rather strange, and even a little unnerving. What did it all mean? Was I missing something in my spiritual life or was it just a matter of personal taste in worship style?
As I reflect back on that experience with my highschool friend, I am still curious about the gifts and the activity of the Holy Spirit. What does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit? What are the gifts of the Holy Spirit and how do we recognize them? How do you know when God’s creative Spirit is active in your own life?
In my experience it seems that Mennonites over the years have had some reservations, maybe even suspicions about dramatic expressions in worship, like speaking in tongues. Is it genuine or just for show? Is it a sign of being open to the moving of the Spirit, or a way to make an impression about how devoted you are as a Christian? Isn’t discipleship–following Jesus in life and action–more important than this personal, ecstatic kind of experience?
I do find the origins of the Pentecostal Movement interesting. At the risk of simplifying it too much, I understand that there was a series of revival meetings beginning in April of 1906, on Azusa Street, in Los Angeles, California, led by an African American preacher named William Seymour. Leaders of the Azusa Street revival, as it has been called, meant to reform and revive their existing churches. They observed that mainstream churches had become too ordered and formal, meeting as they did in their elegant sanctuaries. Their services had become dry, complacent and “coldly formal,” with lecture centered sermons that were academic and intellectual (”https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pentecostalism). They had become the churches of the upper, middle class. Those with limited means experienced churches to be elitist and they felt out of place and unwelcome if they didn’t have fine, respectable clothing to wear to church.
The Azusa Street revival meetings by contrast, attracted rich and poor, Black, white and Latino, appealing to a longing for a “heart religion” that would speak to their spiritual, emotional and physical needs. At the Azusa Street revival meetings there were ecstatic spiritual experiences, dramatic worship, healing miracles and speaking in tongues. In the early stages of the movement there was inter-racial mixing and an encouragement of women in leadership. Energized and empowered by the Spirit they desired to transform their churches into communities like those early churches described in the New Testament in the book of Acts.
But the movement was met with suspicion and derision from mainstream churches, Christian theologians and the secular media. Their behavior in worship was ridiculed as outrageous, unorthodox and even fanatical. Pastors who endorsed Pentecostal style worship were silenced, and people who spoke in tongues were excommunicated. Instead of reviving their own churches, they found it necessary to leave their mainstream churches and develop their own structures and institutions as a separate denomination.
In our church history, it seems Christians have not agreed on when or where or how the Spirit of God is at work. How do we react to new expressions of worship, theology and spirituality? What would it mean to pray for a breath of fresh air from the Spirit in our church today? And how do we discern if a new movement is God’s Spirit at work, or something else?
Nature of the Holy Spirit
In our worship series this summer we have already explored the creative nature of God the creator and Jesus the innovative teacher. Today we explore the creative nature of the Holy Spirit. How would you define who or what is the Holy Spirit? According to our Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, the Holy Spirit is described as “God’s presence and power active in the world” (p. 18). Said more poetically, we could describe the Spirit as the wind or breath of God that hovered over the waters at the beginning of creation like a bird brooding over her nest (Genesis 1:2), and breathed the breath of life into all creation (Genesis 2:7). I have heard it said that the Hebrew name for God, Yahweh, actually mimics the sounds we make when we breathe–the first syllable, Yah, is the inhale, and the second syllable, weh, is the exhale. So that God–Yahweh, is as close to us as our own breath. Breathing the name, Yahweh, can be a simple form of centering prayer.
Wind/spirit/breath (they mean the same thing in the bible) is one of our go-to symbols for the Spirit. When Jesus was trying to describe the work of the Spirit to Nicodemus he said “the spirit blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes” (John 3:8). We also describe the spirit as flame or fire, as a spring of living water, a cloud of presence. The bible uses a feminine name for the Spirit. Sophia is the Greek translation of the Hebrew “Hokhmah” meaning wisdom–a feminine figure co-creating with God in the beginning (Proverbs 8:22-31).
James Reimer, in his book The Dogmatic Imagination, describes the Spirit as “that which, like love, is within the realm of ordinary experience, yet without boundaries, beyond space and time” (Reimer, p. 13).
What words would you use to describe the nature or activity of the Spirit? Dynamic. Active. Lively. Energetic. Powerful. Perhaps even a little wild. How do you experience the Spirit? A comforting presence, an impression or feeling, almost like a sixth sense. A voice in your head, like your conscience. That feeling of being at peace, in the flow, totally connected, and at one with all that is? We are struggling for words here, because this is not an easy concept to grasp or explain with our rational minds.
James Reimer notes that “the biblical career of the Spirit is a most remarkable one” (14). The Spirit is present at creation, present in a pillar of fire and cloud to guide the Israelites in the wilderness. The Spirit inspires and strengthens the prophets to speak, envelopes Mary who says “yes” to the birth of Jesus, descends on Jesus at his baptism, empowers his healing ministry, inspires his teaching, sustains him through his journey to the cross, and raises him back to life. The Spirit came to all the believers at Pentecost and gave birth to the church. And as Reimer writes, “It is the Spirit that has been present with the church throughout the ages and has given rise again and again to renewal movements within the church” (14-15). It is interesting to note that all through the ages in those renewal movements, women and other marginalized people frequently play leading roles (15). And the Spirit continues to act in the creative process set in motion by God and the Spirit at creation. In all of that history the Spirit empowers, reveals God’s wisdom, comforts, inspires, encourages, sustains, guides, challenges, motivates, awakens, stirs things up, and brings new life.
Scripture Today–Many Gifts
So how do we know where the Spirit is and what the Spirit is doing? As we read in our text today it is the Spirit who gives us gifts–is present in that diversity of gifts, each one important. This particular list of gifts is just what is needed in the life of a church–first apostles to share the good news and get the church started, then prophets and teachers to challenge growth and nurture faith formation and practice, then those who have gifts of healing, encouragement, helping, supporting, and organizing to nurture healthy community life, and love and care for their neighbours.
It is interesting that Paul puts the gift of speaking in tongues last. It seems that the Corinthians, to whom this letter was written, were drawn to showy, dramatic preaching and worship. Corinth was also a very competitive culture, all about rank and status, outdoing your rival and seeking honour and attention. It sounds like they may have been bragging to Paul in an earlier letter about their awesome, dynamic worship, how mature they were in Christ shown in their ability to prophecy and speak in tongues after receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. Paul responds to their letter by reminding them of all the other gifts that are just as important for the body of Christ, even though they are less showy and dramatic than speaking in tongues. And he gives them a simple, but important reminder. All of the gifts–the showy ones, and the plain ones, the public ones and the behind-the-scenes ones, have one source, and one purpose. They come from God through the Spirit, and the purpose of any gift is to help each other, to build up the body of Christ. This is how God’s love is made known. It is just after this passage that Paul goes on to describe what love looks like in detail in 1 Corinthians 13. We can speak in tongues, and prophecy and wow people with our great knowledge, but if we have no love for each other then it is all just a lot of noise! The purpose of our gifts from the Spirit is to create a community of love.
Discerning the Holy Spirit–How do we Know?
There is this wonderful free flowing nature to the Spirit, and we want to be open to how the Spirit might inspire us in ways we don’t expect or anticipate, and to maintain a sense of awe for how God’s Spirit is at work among us and around us. We may even find ourselves called by the Spirit to develop and use a gift we didn’t even know we had. We want to give space for the creative and dynamic nature of the Spirit to do her thing. We cannot capture the Spirit within the boundaries of time or space. The Spirit is not ours to manage, control or manipulate. And we certainly don’t decide who or what is of the Spirit. But life in the Spirit is not some wild free-for-all.
We also want to respect the framework or the boundary within which the Spirit gifts us and calls us. Always, our diverse gifts from God’s Spirit are intended for helping others. We identify the activity of the Spirit by the fruit it produces according to Paul’s letter to the Galatians. So when we see love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control we know the Spirit is at work (Galatians 5:22-23). By these gifts of the Spirit the church builds itself up in love. So the Spirit is both freely creative, and bound by doing good for others.
Anabaptist distinctive
Our Anabaptist ancestors believed the activity of the Spirit was of immense importance. In his book about Anabaptist spirituality, Following in the Footsteps of Christ, Arnold Snyder explains how early Anabaptists taught that the Spirit was necessary for an inner process of renewal, a process that began with a sense of awe and reverence in the presence of God (what they called the “fear of God”), leading to a posture of repentance for the things that have led away from God, and then to a yielding of one’s own will and heart to God (Snyder, 41), trusting in God’s compassion and forgiveness. All of this inner transformation was inspired by the Spirit, and symbolized by water baptism. Only after this kind of inner transformation took place, was a person able to live a new life of discipleship, following Jesus in life.
Tripolar spirituality
In his book The Naked Anabaptist: The Bare Essentials of a Radical Faith, Stuart Murray explores the core components of Anabaptism and what they mean for faith today. He says that you can’t separate spirituality from discipleship, which is “at the heart of Anabaptism” (Murray, 169). He describes a “spirituality of discipleship” (Murray, 171) that is “tripolar” in nature (Murray, 170). Monopolar would be concerned only with an encounter with my inner self. Bipolar would be concerned only to know God as well as myself. But tripolar adds the dimension of our engagement with other people. So, tripolar spirituality means the inner journey, the God-ward journey and the co-human journey with friend and enemy cannot be divided (Murray, 170).
One of my favourite metaphors to describe the nature of our relationship with the Holy Spirit is to imagine that each of us is a boat on the sea of life. Circumstances affect our life journey just like waves, weather and water currents affect the voyage of a boat on the sea. We cannot control the elements, just like we cannot control many of the things that happen to us in life. But we are not helpless, simply tossed about by the sea. If we imagine that we are a sailboat, and that God’s Spirit is the wind, then there is much that we can do. Even though we do not propel the boat on our own power, we can pay attention to the wind, and we can hoist and trim our sails in such a way so that we catch the wind of the Spirit, and move as the Spirit fills our sails. There is a dynamic interplay, a cooperation, a dance between us and the Spirit.
Application to our Theme of Creativity
At SJMC we are pretty intentional about calling the ministry tasked with filling all of our volunteer positions a Gifts Ministry. For us this is about calling out and encouraging gifts in one another, rather than just filling a slate with names. And we try to be responsive to where we are being called to share our gifts and how we match gifts and programs together. At some points we have let go of or merged ministries when we sensed we were no longer called to use our gifts in that way. At other times we have called out new ministries.
After two plus years of irregular meetings and pandemic disruptions, we can celebrate, with some sense of awe, that the Spirit has been alive and active among us. Several new ministry initiatives have bubbled to the surface–a PJSC group has formed, a Refugee Sponsorship committee formed to welcome a newcomer family from Syria, and most recently, people from SJMC are volunteering with others in our community to renovate the Jakobstettel Guest House into a safe and welcoming space for Ukrainian refugees. And I know there are examples of the Spirit bubbling up in individual lives to do new things with great love.
But we also find ourselves in a season of discernment when it comes to our gifts and our ministries. The Gifts Ministry and Leadership Council and other groups in the church are talking about how we use our gifts post pandemic, acknowledging that some ministries and programs may need to end or change in significant ways. A concrete example is our children’s Sunday School program. We are planning for this program to begin again in the fall. There will be some similarities to what we have had in the past, but some things will change. We may meet in blocks of time with breaks in between. We may not have as many different age groupings as we used to have.
This can feel like a vulnerable time. We are not always certain of the best way forward. We don’t want to lose beloved programs and ministries, but we also don’t have the same kind of volunteer capacity that we once did.
The Spirit is creative and dynamic. The Spirit will continue to blow. It takes vulnerability to open ourselves up to be filled by the Holy Spirit–to trim our sails in such a way that we catch the wind of the Spirit. For many of us this can be unsettling. We like things that are more predictable and more tangible. I don’t know much about sailing, but I gather that it involves a great deal of awareness and trust in the wind, and comes with a measure of risk. I’d rather paddle a canoe or a kayak where I have a better sense of control. But the Spirit doesn’t fit neatly into a pattern or system or structure. There is not a “how to” manual for managing the Spirit. Nor can we strive to harness and manage the Holy Spirit’s power in our life. We can only open ourselves up to the Spirit.
As Mark explored with us last week, the incarnation–God making Godself known in human form in our world was a profound act of creativity. As we are open to the Holy Spirit we also cooperate with the incarnation. The incarnation takes place not just in Jesus, but also within us. And it does require vulnerability to be open to being filled by the Holy Spirit.
The dictionary definition makes vulnerability sound like a negative thing. To be vulnerable means to be unprotected, unsafe, unguarded, open and susceptible to attack or harm. But it also means to be open, honest and real about who we are, how we are gifted and where our limits lie. It means letting go of our ego, self-emptying and putting our trust fully into God. In the words of Jesus, “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Our Confession of Faith says it this way, “We are most open to the spirit’s work in us when we are becoming poor in spirit–emptying ourselves of all that is foreign to the way of Jesus” (p. 19). For most humans vulnerability is so difficult because we struggle to trust. Can I trust God enough to be there? is one of our biggest questions.
The promise is that God will be there for us, and will be present for us in the form of the Holy Spirit. Our world needs the best of our gifts, and the best of our creativity and imagination put to good use through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Can we trust God enough to be there in the uncertain days ahead? Yes in the form of the Spirit who is there to comfort and encourage us, but also to gift us, call us and empower us into her dynamic and creative ministry of love.