I invite you to review the following passages of scripture as we embark on a new series loosely based on Bruce Epperly’s new book, Simplicity, Spirituality, and Service, which I hope will help us all not only stay more centered and grounded in 2024, but be greater advocates for shalom as well, modeling deep love and peace as we call for it everywhere, for everyone and everything. Before you read, take some deep breaths to allow yourself to calm down and become more fully present In this moment.
Genesis 1:1-5 NLT (final redacted version circa 400 BCE)
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.”
And evening passed and morning came, marking the first day.
Joel 2:28-29 NLT (circa 4th or 5th Century BCE)
I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your old men will dream dreams,
and your young men will see visions.
In those days I will pour out my Spirit
even on servants—men and women alike.
Mark 1:4-11 NLT (Recalling Jesus’ baptism, circa 30 CE)
This messenger was John the Baptist. He was in the wilderness and preached that people should be baptized to show that they had repented of their sins and turned to God to be forgiven. All of Judea, including all the people of Jerusalem, went out to see and hear John. And when they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River. His clothes were woven from coarse camel hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist. For food he ate locusts and wild honey.
John announced: “Someone is coming soon who is greater than I am—so much greater that I’m not even worthy to stoop down like a slave and untie the straps of his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit!”
One day Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. As Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens splitting apart and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.”
Acts 19:1-7 NLT (recalling Paul’s travels in 52 CE)
While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul traveled through the interior regions until he reached Ephesus, on the coast, where he found several believers. “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” he asked them.
“No,” they replied, “we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”
“Then what baptism did you experience?” he asked.
And they replied, “The baptism of John.”
Paul said, “John’s baptism called for repentance from sin. But John himself told the people to believe in the one who would come later, meaning Jesus.”
As soon as they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in other tongues and prophesied. There were about twelve men in all.
What strikes you about these scriptures? As I reflect on these passages, I am struck by the presence and role of the Holy Spirit and its critical importance in the faith of Jesus followers. If we are to fully appreciate Paul, our goal is not simply to become more and more convinced of our theological positions and keep up on our repentance, but to stride with and be led by the Spirit of God. Biblical study and theological clarity matter much: they both shape our paradigms of the nature of reality and the character of God. Yet without the essential role of the Spirit, there runs the risk of missing the whole thrust behind the Gospel of Jesus: we are loved and empowered by the ever-present work of God in our lives forever.
St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) was born into privilege. He was a well-loved socialite who enjoyed a good cocktail party as much as anyone and was known to be pretty good with the ladies. One day, however, he came across a man with leprosy, and, instead of avoiding him with revulsion, felt the nudge to embrace him instead. It was a liminal space moment when time stood still for him. It was his satori experience that set him in a completely new direction away from his wealth and into total devotion to simplicity, spirituality, and service. One day as he prayed in the dilapidated chapel at San Damiano, he sensed God telling him to “repair my church.” He took it literally at first, fixing up that chapel and two others before realizing that the call went beyond brick and mortar. He was called to be used of God to transform the Church. His co-laborer, Clare (1194-1253), experienced a similar calling, as did Bonaventure (1217-1274) a generation later. Each in their own way heard the call: “Repair the spirit of the church. It is in ruins and needs to be restored. By repairing the spirit of the church, you will repair your own life and experience the healing of purpose you need to find meaning and joy.”
What was the context in which Francis and Clare found themselves? Bruce Epperly notes, “While the church shaped the empire, the empire also shaped the church, hastening the movement within the church from experience to doctrine, relationship to authority, equality to hierarchy, and simplicity to affluence. The simplicity of the wandering Savior gave way to opulence among the elite and poverty among the majority... Francis, Clare, and Bonaventure inspire us to adventurous spirituality: to re-enchant and heal our spiritual practices and religious institutions and to reclaim our vocation as God’s companions in healing the world. God’s center is everywhere, and each moment can be a gateway to divinity. Spirit-filled and Spirit-inspired, we breathe life into the world, providing spiritual resuscitation to revive faith in the future and healing for the world” (Simplicity, Spirituality, and Service, 13, 14-15).
Do we need to heed the same call today? How has American/Western culture, with its radically individualistic capitalism shaped the Church, all whilst the Church has believed too much in its culture-influencing power? We need to hear and heed the call now as ever before.
How we heed what we hear matters. In a time of great division flamed by information and misinformation overload, how can we speak the Good News Jesus lived and taught? Like the one we claim to follow, ours is a task that embraces thoughtfulness, but absolutely requires mindfulness to ensure that the Spirit is driving us and not just our personal passion. Richard Rohr notes that too often modern-day-prophets simply vocalize their anger, which only makes everyone more angry! I know I have certainly been guilty of that at times. It was not healing even though it may have been cathartic. Rohr does not discount the reason for our anger – injustice is infuriating in light of God’s shalom! Yet that anger is not, as he notes, the full message. I need to hear and heed Rohr’s invitation and Francis’ example of resting in God, allowing God to calm me down, remind me that I’m loved, reset my thinking so that I can actually be of some help.
Epperly invites readers into a spiritual practice that some indigenous spiritual seekers describe as “crying for a vision.” Pray for guidance to experience God’s path for your life. Gaze upon Christ and be open to his guidance. Pray for the patience to listen and respond to God’s call within the events of your life. Then listen to the voice of God in nature, synchronous encounters, personal intuitions, and spiritual visions. What we hear may not be clear and obvious, but it will enable us to go forward one step at a time” (Simplicity, Spirituality, and Service, 17).
Julian of Norwich committed her life to this practice. An English anchoress who received a vision in 1373, she wrote about her experience in “Showings or Revelations of Divine Love” — the earliest surviving book by a woman in the English language. Here’s an excerpt, laid out as a poem for your reading pleasure:
And in this he showed me a little thing
the quantity of a hazelnut,
lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed.
And it was as round as any ball.
I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding,
and thought, ‘What may this be?’
And it was answered generally thus,
“It is all that is made.”
I marveled how it might last,
for I thought it might
suddenly have fallen to nothing
for littleness.
And I was answered in my understanding:
It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it.
And so have all things their beginning
by the love of God.
In this little thing I saw three properties.
The first is that God made it.
The second that God loves it.
And the third, that God keeps it.
How might we encounter the communion elements similarly? How might we pause with the bread and cup and simply appreciate the depth of meaning the elements themselves convey – far beyond the metaphor of substitutionary atonement? Perhaps we should look at the bread and cup with its grains and juice from ripe grapes and hear from God, as Julian did: “It is all that is made.” Where does that take us?
As we begin again this first Sunday of 2024, may we avail ourselves to Epperly’s “Fresh Prayer” (Simplicity, Spirituality, and Service, 17):
Loving Creator, give me wisdom for the living of these days.
Help me to maintain hope for the future.
In listening, let me find a path forward where I perceive no way ahead.
Let me find guidance and companionship with Francis, Clare, and Bonaventure.
Let me see your face in all creation, especially in the least of those in the human and nonhuman worlds.
Let my listening inspire action to repair my community, church, and world.
In the name of the Healer Jesus.
Amen.
As we draw this year’s meditations on The Prophetic Path to a close, Richard Rohr reminds us of the loving heart of the prophets:
We need the wisdom of a “full prophet,” one who can love and yet criticize, one who can speak their words of correction out of an experience of gratitude, not anger. We have to pray to God to teach us that. I don’t know how else we learn it. We can’t learn it in our minds rationally. God has to soothe our angry hearts and spirits. God has to allow us to come to a place of freedom, a place of peace, and a place of fullness before we can speak as a prophet.
A prophet must hold on to the truth of their anger, especially as it is directed toward injustice—but the danger of the anger is that when we let it control us, we’re not a help anymore. That’s why we have so many false prophets in America and in the world today. They are so angry. I want to sit there and say, “I agree with you. That situation deserves anger, but you’re not a good messenger because you’re only making me more angry. You’re feeding your anger by letting it become your ego.” Of course, in my early life that was me. I think what we see in the Hebrew prophets is autobiographical. My early social justice sermons at New Jerusalem just edged people out of the room. I’m sure many of them thought, “I don’t think we want to hear Richard today. He’s on one of his tirades.” They saw me at my angriest when I had just come back from Latin America and Africa. Anger is usually a necessary starting place, but it is never the full message.
That’s why I always go back to prayer. It’s the only way for me. I rest in God, let God massage my heart for a while, cool me down and say, “I love you. You don’t have to save the world, Richard. You don’t have to ‘play’ the prophet and you don’t have to do anything except what I tell you to do.” The more I rest there with God, the next time the words come out so differently.
We’ve got to learn how to discern the Spirit. We have to listen to our own hearts and discern where the voices are coming from. Are they harsh, angry, hurtful, resentful, cynical voices telling us we’ve got to go out and do some righteous thing? Or are they coming from a place of freedom and a place of peace?
The prophet is the one who can be a faithful lover, who is truly seeking the whole and seeking the good, and not just seeking the self. We can tell after a while the difference between someone who is operating out of their own anger and compulsions, and someone who is operating out of the heart of God.