Of the Queen and the Spirit

 There is a double occasion for celebration this holiday weekend.  It is a holiday weekend because we are celebrating Victoria Day today.  For those who are not Canadian, and perhaps some who are, the Victoria Day holiday weekend celebrated the birthday of Queen Victoria whose birthday is May 24^th.  The holiday Monday was designated as Victoria Day even though it doesn’t necessarily fall on that date.  The 2-4 weekend - as it is called colloquially – is the opening of summer in much of Canada and many a case of 24 beers are purchased and consumed on the weekend.  The weekend is celebrated on the Monday before May 25th and was declared a holiday after Queen Victoria’s death in 1901 to honour the “Queen of Confederation.”

The other occasion is about a different kind of spirit than the spirit in the case of 24 beers – yesterday we celebrated the Day of Pentecost in which the Holy spirit alighted on the Christians gathered in Jerusalem and a fire descended on them and was lit under them and gave birth to the Christian church.  Pentecost is the day in which the church celebrates the third Person in the Holy Trinity and gives it its due.  Unfortunately, from my perspective, the organized church – or the part I am experienced with - does not actually give the Holy Spirit the due it deserves.  My little joke about this is that the Holy Spirit is the Rodney Dangerfield of the Holy Trinity – it doesn’t get any respect - or more accurately, it “don’t get no respect.”  I hope most of you are old enough to get the reference. 

I believe hat the problem with the Holy Spirit – from the perspective of the organized church – is that it has a mind of its own that the power of the Holy Spirit cannot be control.  As it says in the Gospel of John, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  If people have direct access to the Holy Spirit – or more accurately, the Holy Spirit has access to them, who knows what the Spirit might encourage them to do and be.  

One area where I know the spirit is at work in people today is through their dreams.  I know that God does speak to us in and through our dreams and can give us guidance about how we can live our lives more fully as God intends us to live.  However, to give the church leaders some credit, there can be a problem if people misunderstand what the Spirit is telling them.  There may also be other spirit that try and influence people and lead them astray.  In another forum I have been reviewing some rules that can help us understand if what we are being told is actually from God.  There are nine questions which can help us in discerning if it is God’s will or another source.

When a course of action seems to present itself through dreams, prayer, or synchronicity, how do we know if it is indeed Divine Will? The following questions applied separately may not give us a definitive answer, but applied collectively they can help determine who or what is truly calling us to action. They may help us discern God’s will:

1.       Is it harmful? God’s will is man and woman’s well-being. Do I feel free or compelled? The Spirit is not compulsive; we have a choice. A sense of urgency may signal neurotic compulsion, rather than freedom of choice in God.

2.       Does the course of action take into account the obvious facts of my situation? Does it acknowledge my other responsibilities? Do circumstances seem to be shifting of their own accord to accommodate this course of action?

3.       Does the course of action feel natural − do I feel “at home” with it? Can I look back at my life to date and see this new development as a positive, natural extension of my life’s journey? Does it seem to “fit?”

4.       In retrospect, what have been the fruits of my choice? If we experience consistent failure or disappointment in a course of action, perhaps our true gifts lie elsewhere.

5.       Even though individuation sometimes means going against mainstream culture, is this a decision I can put before the broader community, at least for discussion? If no one in my Christian community can support my course of action, I may need to re-think it.

6.       Is the message persistent? Am I hearing it from a number of sources?

7.       Is the action required of me, or of other persons? God’s will for our lives usually requires us to do our own footwork.

8.       Do I seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time and thought “building a case” for this course of action? Could I be rationalizing some compulsive behavior?

9.       Am I willing to take “no” for an answer? Do I feel like everything depends on this particular course of action being carried out? Or that this is the only “right” way?

I hope that you are blessed to be able to listen to the Holy Spirit and discern God’s truth on your journey.

The Truth About Miracles

 

As I wrote last week, I am currently engaged in a biblical study course on the Old Testament.  Last weeks lecture raised the question about the human involvement in divine action – specifically, what does it mean for scripture to be inspired by God?  The following chart offered by the leader, Murray Watson, gives a continuum of possibilities in how to understand the inspired nature of the relationship between Devine and Human beings.

A spectrum of possibilities in terms of the human-divine relationship

 It struck me that this is a good illustration of the challenge that miracles bring to people in our culture today.  The belief in the part which God plays in the world relates directly to how miracles are understood and accepted or not accepted by people.  On the one end of the continuum, the stories of miracles in the Old and New Testaments in the bible are actual, literal accounts of the events.  On the other end they are made up stories which have no validity as factual accounts of actual events.

To illustrate, how do you understand the account of the flood in Genesis in which God told Noah to build an ark to hold a pair of every kind of animal to enable them to survive the flood which God sent upon the face of the earth?  Whether you believe that this actually happened as recorded in the Book of Genesis or was just a “myth” i.e., it didn’t happen, can create an inseparable barrier to people exploring with each other how God is working in their lives today. 

In my view, there is little to be gained by arguing over the details of this account or other accounts of miracles in the bible.  If we can put aside the issue of this historical nature of the event and whether the details are historical facts, we are much more likely to have a meaningful discussion of how God in working in our lives today.  Rather than argue over the truth of the facts of the case, we can explore the capital ‘T’ Truth of how God was operating in the lives of the people who wrote down the account and explore that Truth in our lives today.

For me, the story of the flood shows that God’s creation is redeemable regardless of how fallen the world seems to be.  God can and does work through individuals who can work to redeem the world against impossible odds.  That is certainly applicable to the world today as we see the challenges that are facing the world from pandemics to a new outbreak of conflict between the Israeli and Palestine - not to mention the chasm that exists between political parties in our neighbour to the south.  To me, it doesn’t matter whether or not a person named Noah existed and whether or not he built an ark that held all those animals.  The Truth is that God has and does work through people to bring about the salvation of the world.  We can have hope in that and not give into despair when we read today’s news.

Blessings on your journey and may you know the Truth of God in your life.

Reconsidering the God of the Old Testament

I am currently auditing an Old Testament course at Huron University College in London Ontario.  I signed up for it after getting a taste of what was on offer at the first lecture which is, of course, offered by Zoom.  Lorna had signed up for the course so it is through her encouragement that I was introduced to what should be a very engaging overview of a subject that is well worth exploring further.  The course is being led by Murray Watson who did a great job in the first lecture and left me wanting more.   

I have not taken a formal course in the Old Testament since studying theology at Huron almost twenty years ago, so I thought this would be a good way to dip my big toe into those very deep waters again.  I must confess that I have always been fascinated by the Old Testament ever since I was captivated by all the stories of heroes such as David the shepherd boy slaying the giant Goliath or the blind Samson pulling down the building and killing all those evil Philistines.  The stories of Jesus in the New Testament just didn’t do it for the young me until much later when I could more fully appreciate that love can be more powerful than heroic acts even when the underdog defeats the forces of evil.   

The Old Testament of the Christian bible is deep water with many currents and eddies and even rip tides that can be hard to navigate for Christians who follow Jesus who proclaimed and lived out his life as the son of a God of love.  The first lecture had an interesting exploration of these challenging waters with a short discussion of the heresy of Marcion.  Marcion who was a second century Christian theologian who taught that the malevolent God of the Old Testament was a different God than the benevolent one of the New Testament who sent his son Jesus Christ to redeem the world. 

Now Marcion was heretical and indeed wrong in his belief that the God who made a covenant with Abraham and wrestled with Jacob was not the God whom Jesus Christ prayed to as his Heavenly Father.  However, even a cursory reading of the Old Testament will reveal what might have been the basis of his heresy.  The OT God who – as an aside had many different names such as Elohim, El-Shaddai, Yahweh, Jehovah and Adonai – did not seem to often believe in justice for people who were not his chosen ones despite what the prophets proclaimed and was not slow to anger as the psalmist sang – at least not always.  Yahweh would have wiped out the Israelites after they demanded the Golden Calf to worship if it wasn’t for the intercession by Moses.  It is this God who sent the flood and drowned the world and everything in it except for Noah and the favoured few people and animals in the Arc.  Yahweh also commanded the Israelites slaughter of the inhabitants of the Promised Land, “You shall annihilate them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the Lord your God has commanded.” (Deuteronomy 20:17)

So, how do we reconcile the difference between the God the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament without following Marcion down the dead end of his heresy?  How can we reconcile the apparent differences in the actions and behavior of God?  I believe that it was not God that was different but rather, it was the people who saw and heard God through the lens of their culture and times.  The people of the OT were not ready to appreciate a God that did not have at least some of the characteristics that we see as negative today.  Similarly, people today are not ready to embrace the message of what it means to pick up our crosses and truly follow Jesus - I am in no way claiming I do this a lot of the time.  For me the key is in John 16:12-13 - "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. ¹³When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come." 

Murray Watson addressed this in a more learned manner in a response to me:

I prefer to think more in terms of "evolution" and "transformation" over time (as you suggest in your message). We often speak of "progressive revelation" over hundreds of years, and you're right ... those who received some of that revelation in the earlier centuries lived in a world of warriors, constant violence and battles ... and their understanding of God definitely fit into that familiar framework. I often go back to what I learned in my university courses in Thomistic philosophy; St. Thomas Aquinas said (in Latin): "Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur" (Whatever is received, is received according to the mode of the recipient) ... as human beings, we are conditioned by our time

Carl Jung affirmed the same point when speaking of people not being conscious enough to appreciate the truth of the world in which we live, “There does seem to be unlimited knowledge present in nature, it is true, but it can be comprehended by consciousness only when the time is ripe for it.”  I do wonder how the people of the future will regard the follies and foibles and atrocities of our world.

Perhaps we are blessed if we can do our utmost to avoid heretical paths on our journey.

Natural Law Is Not Spiritual Law

Recently I was given the gift of an epiphany in something written by Rev. Sherry De Jonge.  It was the concept of spiritual law https://www.exultantministries.org/post/god-of-the-impossible:

An old woman and a virgin will each bear a son. Impossible in the natural, but we forget that we also live in a creation that is spiritual – it has spiritual laws and it has spiritual consequences,

It is somewhat surprizing to me that I had never thought of spiritual things in terms of spiritual laws that operate in the universe just as there are natural laws.   Natural laws have been developed to describe how the universe operates in material ways which can be weighed and measured even if it is on a quantum level.  I know and have known for much of my life that natural laws do not apply to how God operates in the spiritual lives of people and indeed the world.  This is described in the Gospel of John 3:8 “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

However, it came as something of a surprize when I realized I had not thought of spiritual things in terms of spiritual laws.  As a Spiritual Director you would think that this is obvious.   I do know that God is working in my life and in the lives of everyone in many different ways whether we are aware of it or not.  However, I just never thought of it in terms of laws that govern how the spirit works which can be codified and set down – and on reflection that is probably not the way to understand spiritual laws.   After all it does seem hard to pin down even identify when the spirit is actually present and how it is working in us.  As the Gospel says, “you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”   Sometimes we can be blind to what is right before our eyes.  I take comfort in the obtuseness of the disciples who often didn’t see what was right before their eyes. 

There is much in the Christian Bible and other wisdom writings that point to what can be called spiritual laws.  I am thinking particularly about the beatitudes - the sermon of Jesus which tells us that we are blessed if we live our lives in a spiritual way:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

So, here we have eight rules that can be considered spiritual laws telling us how we can be blessed in our lives.  However, I don’t believe that it would be a good idea to try and set down a comprehensive list of rules and regulations which would define what the spiritual laws are.  That would be applying the rules of natural law to the operation of spiritual law.  I don’t believe that the action of spiritual laws can be weighed and measured and cannot be seen under an electron microscope. 

One of the great mistakes that we make in this modern age is to do just that – try and apply natural laws to spiritual things.  We treat the bible as an historical and a scientific document.  I recently watched for the first time the silent movie classic Metropolis which is available on You Tube.  The theme of the movie addresses just this challenge, “The mediator of the head and the hands must be the heart.”  The heart is not rational and neither is Spiritual Law.  To love your enemy is not rational. 

Another recent blog by Ryan Dueck sums the challenge of not codifying spiritual things as natural law up very well:

It’s not that I all of a sudden have no use for logic or arguments or philosophy or theology or anything like that. No one who reads what I write or listens to what I say would ever come to that conclusion. But like Smith, I think I have come to a point in my life where I am deeply aware of the limits of these endeavours. God is not a logic proof. The life of faith is not an argument or a solution to a rational problem. The gospel is not the “system” that we so often and eagerly reduce it to, but a story and a song. And you and I are not data machines in need of the right inputs. We are lovers who need to be loved into remembering. We are dreamers who need more expansive imaginations. We are a ragged choir in need of a better song. https://ryandueck.com/2021/03/02/wonder-shining-in-my-eyes/

Blessings on your spiritual journey