St. Luke’s Legacy, Part II: Turning the World Upside Down
In my last post, we discussed living out the mission of Luke-Acts in today’s world and ended with a quote from Robert Heaney, “Mission is, in fact, not defined by us. Mission is defined by God.”
Spirit-filled Cosmos
But to live in a way that somehow looks like God’s mission, we must consider the “spirit-filled cosmos” that Amos Yong (missiologist and professor at Fuller Seminary) describes. And we must think about that in terms of our home, church, and community. We must understand that we have a real place in this vibrant, unseen spiritual universe (and according to C.S. Lewis, one more real than the world we can see). That might have a powerful impact on our encounters with, as Lewis also said, “no mere mortals.”
Think about it this way. Can we pray into the call to participate into what Paul described today as the “ministry of the Spirit which comes in glory” (cf. 1 Cor. 3:18b) without returning to the good and bad stories that came out of charismatic renewal a generation ago? Because many of us would still say, “We are not one of them.” Can we pray into what it means to live in this spiritually alive, conflicted planet where God has placed us? Can we not pray into the call to this gospel mission, empowered by the Spirit, without feeling like we need to return to seminars on how to develop one’s prayer language or how you, too, can be slain in the Spirit?
Charismatic renewal did much to call The Episcopal Church to recapture what had been lost for many: a vital, personal, intimate relationship with God that was life-changing, even miraculous. However, its downfall was limiting renewal to personal spiritual experience. If you had the experience I thought made you authentic, you were in. If you didn’t have that experience, well, I’m sorry, but where’s your faith?
Empowerment for Ministry
American Charismatic renewal, as opposed to global Pentecostalism, had little missionary vision. But in Luke-Acts, empowerment for ministry included saying yes to the flow of God’s activity: God’s definition of God’s mission. Seeing the world as a planet packed with angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven.
You see, empowerment for ministry isn’t limited to spiritual experiences. Instead, it’s saying yes to being God’s servant and allowing him to flow through you as he chooses, not as you would like.
So long as I understand the empowerment of the Holy Spirit as something I get to define, that’s not servanthood, but picking and choosing what I want from God. And while God may be gracious enough to accommodate our wishes, we may be the real losers even when he grants our request.
Challenging Issues
Can we think a little bigger than that to the issues that challenge the church? Take the huge issue of racism. The fruit of sinful human prejudice is evidenced in often-false assumptions about personhood and social patterns of relating. But as a church, can we not only challenge those sinful assumptions but intentionally live out a pattern of relating and hiring that would allow us to look more like the Kingdom – every tribe, tongue, people, language, and nation – rather than a club for people who look like we do?
We also see those patterns as the work of demonic principalities and powers. And so we step into this place of reconciliation with prayer and fasting for the breaking of those powers and the birth of new life.
When it comes to dealing with particular issues, we are quick to borrow political rhetoric rather than thinking theologically. We often do this when we consider financial and ecological stewardship, particularly as an antidote to sinful human greed. But our financial commitments could wind up being a prayerful assault on the devil, who insists that the glory of the kingdom of this world is his.
Can our stewardship campaigns be flavored by the understanding that when we give to God’s work, those tithes and offerings are our stake in the ground, our declaration that by them, we are saying no to this devil who would tempt us to spend all our money on our own pursuits, and that God’s work is greater than my own selfish desire for financial security?
Changing Me, Changing My World
In other words, to live a life empowered by the Spirit of God is not to try to duplicate some personal heightened spiritual experience that causes me to feel better about myself. That’s both truncated and untrue to the Luke-Acts reading, where people empowered by the Spirit of God formed communities, gave up what they had, laid down their life for the mission of God, and caused even pagans to say, “These [are] people [who] have been turning the world upside down” (Acts 17:6).
So long as my understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit allows me merely to do a better job of fitting into my own preconceived parameters, I’m missing the boat. I’m saying yes to idols that would love to keep me in their sway, even as I sing “Jesus Is Lord.”
As I’ve been wrestling with this, I’m asking God to change me. It will cause me to have conversations about how my wife and I spend our money. It will cause me to think differently about what it means to be an apostolic bishop.
I can’t do anything else.
What’s the spiritual condition in your community, your parish? Ask God to show you the ways he sees it, to work in you and your parish such great mercies that the love and healing power of his Son would in fact be manifested.
Why? That Jesus might be glorified, always. And that the world might believe.
How has the message of Luke-Acts changed you? And how are you changing the world? Share this blog and your comments on Twitter. Please include my username, @revgregbrewer.
(This post is an adaption of Bishop Brewer’s sermon on October 18, 2016, at the Clergy Conference Eucharist, St. Augustine Chapel, Canterbury Retreat and Conference Center, Oviedo, Florida.)
Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.