Jesus In Our Daily Living

JESUS IN OUR DAILY LIVING: The Incarnational Tradition
Sermon by Judy Turner
John 1:14,18; I John 1:1-3

Separating Our Lives Into Compartments

We tend to separate our lives into compartments. There is our Christian life we live at church on Sunday morning and maybe even with our families or Christian friends throughout the day on Sunday. But then comes Monday morning, and it’s back to the “real world”. Or, maybe we have times in our day we set aside for God, maybe 15 minutes in the morning or over the lunch hour, or before bed – time to read the Bible and pray. And that’s a very good practice. But does that time set apart with God seem disconnected with the rest of the day? A Christian businessman said, “During my lunch hour, I shut the door on the ‘dog-eat-dog’ world for a few minutes to pray, before I have to face the world again.” Praying during his day is a good thing the businessman does. But how much better it would be if he could find Jesus, present and real in the midst of the dog-eat-dog world? How much better to experience Jesus working through him in the way he responds to challenges, the way he relates to people, Jesus guiding his goals and influencing everything he does. If the businessman discovered that his life as a Christian was the presence and activity of God throughout every hour of every day of his everyday life, he would discover the joy and power of what we call the Incarnational Stream.

The Incarnational Stream Means Living Every Day So God is Made Visible

Today and next Sunday we conclude our sermons on the 6 Streams of Living Water. We have learned how a prayer-filled life lays the foundation for both the virtuous life and the Spirit-empowered life, and how these in turn give us the ability to engage in social justice and the proclamation of the good news of the kingdom. The one element remaining is to understand how all of these components function in ordinary life, which is the task of the Incarnational stream. Incarnation is God coming to earth and taking human form and living the life we live in a body like ours. That’s what Jesus did when He was born of Mary, lived as a child and a teenager in a family, learned the work of a carpenter, enjoyed the pleasure of a good meal with friends, developed a deep, intimate relationship with His heavenly Father through the practice of spiritual disciplines, discerned His personal mission and unique calling. In fulfilling that calling He saw bodies healed, crowds fed, people set free from all kinds of bondage. Yet Jesus suffered every difficulty and pain that we suffer. Although He attended synagogue and observed the religious rituals of the Jewish faith, His life was not compartmentalized into the sacred and the secular. Every moment of every day was about making the Kingdom of God, the loving rule of God, real for people, so they could live the same life He was living. He described that life as abundant and eternal. Jesus talked about something invisible, the Kingdom of God, but He lived every day in such a way that the character and love of God were made visible and real for people.

The Text

John, the beloved disciple, begins his account of the life of Jesus by trying to put into words the wonder of the incarnation. John 1:14, 18 : “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.”
John also wrote letters to the followers of Jesus, instructing them on how to live in the love of Jesus. He establishes at the beginning of his First letter to the churches that he is not just talking about ethereal spiritual stuff that has nothing to do with our material lives. He wants to establish that Divine Love was made visible and tangible in Jesus, and can also be made visible and tangible in our lives:
I John 1:1-3: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and our hands have touched- this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared: we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.”
Just as Jesus, a person of the invisible God from all eternity, took on flesh in the incarnation and lived an everyday human life, so Jesus continues to live now in the bodily, everyday lives of His followers. And thus God remains visible in our world. Our job description as Christians is nothing less than making Jesus real and visible, devoting ourselves to Jesus living His life in our particular circumstances. In our marriage and family life the love of Jesus is made visible. In our daily activity, the character, the holiness and justice of God, is made visible.

Contemporary Example

But who today is living that kind of life? Many followers of Jesus in this community and around the world are living every day in such a way that the character and love of God are made real and visible. And many of these disciples are ordinary people, living what they would consider ordinary life. But God-ness is just all over them and shines through them. John and I have some amazing neighbors. We watched their house being built, with the upstairs as the living space for the older couple and the downstairs for their adult daughter. When they moved in, we got to know them. The daughter readily tells about the transformation and healing Jesus has brought about in her life. She was a successful attorney, operating in a law firm with many unethical practices. She was aggressively devoted to whatever would make the most money. She worked long hours and was ruthless. And she did make lots of money. But it was at the expense of her soul and her health. She had a breakdown and sunk into a deep depression. In the darkness of that time, she really met Jesus and turned the control of her life over to him. Her daily life now is so different than before she came to Christ. She delights in God’s creation and cares for her little corner of it. Then she goes to work in the motel her family owns in Eureka Springs. It’s called a motel, but I call it a Kingdom Hospitality Station. I have never seen strangers welcomed in such a way as this woman and her mother welcome. They pray continually that the love of Jesus will flow from them to the guests. They go out of their way to provide what will make their guests comfortable. Guests often come to the office and just talk. And often the conversation turns to questions of faith. These two women are bold in sharing the Love and Truth of Jesus, even as they listen with compassion to the stories of their guests. The dad is a new Christian, and he participates in this ministry as he maintains everything well at the motel, so it will be a good environment for the guests. His love for God and people is expressed as he does his maintenance work. Their hospitality continues after their working hours. We see a steady stream of cars and motorcycles at our neighbors’ house, and people of every description coming in and out of their home. Can you believe that those are guests from the motel? They have invited these people to their home so they can share the love of God some more. Who does anything like that? Only people who are powerfully experiencing the love of God and are compelled to share it. In seeing the welcoming of strangers that they do, I see the compassion and outreaching love of God. The invisible God becomes visible as I see the lives of my neighbors.
How We Live the Life of Jesus
So, let’s get down to how Jesus lives out his life in our circumstances, with our family and friends, with our jobs and recreating, and how Jesus makes the Reality of His love and truth visible through us. Ultimately, that is something Jesus does and not us. We can’t make ourselves into Jesus. And what we’re talking about is not just trying to be a nicer person. We’re not just talking about a worm pasting on wings and saying, “Now I’m a butterfly.” We’re talking metanoia, transformation, change at the very core of our being. That’s something only God can do. But we have a part to play in Jesus incarnating in our lives. What is our part?

1. Ask for the desire to more fully live the life of Jesus
We have to want the transformation. God does not force anything. We often have to start with asking for the desire, because truthfully, we’re not sure we want transformation. We’d prefer to say, “Jesus, you can have my Sundays and maybe my Wednesday nights, but my work life, how I enjoy myself when I’m not working, that’s mine.” Or, “You can influence how I am with people at work and when I’m out in the community”, but how I am at home, well, I have to be selfish sometime.” Selfishness is a basic human right, isn’t it? Often, what God has to change first is our desire. We may be pretty satisfied with our lives just as they are. We may not want to let go of whatever needs to change in our lives. But just maybe there is a nagging feeling that there just might be more, and we may be missing something really important or even really wonderful. So we start by asking for the desire to fully live the life of Jesus.
“Where the heart is willing it will find a thousand ways, but where it is unwilling, it will find a thousand excuses.” We have to want it.

2. Decide to make changes
Then we decide to do what it takes to start living more fully the life of Jesus. I know a couple who want to live closer to God and to each other and their children. They made a decision this week to turn off the tv in the evenings, to help the kids with homework, then to have a Bible study together. That’s a decision that will move them forward in their discipleship and help fulfill their desire to live the life of Jesus more fully.

3. Devote our Work to God
“Work” is what we do to produce good in our world. Your work right now may be your studies. Your work may be your job, your work may be what you do with your retirement years. In my growing up years in the church, I heard the phrase “Full time Christian service”, and those called into “full time Christian service” were the pastors. They were a different level of Christian than the rest of us. But, “full time Christian service is not just a clergy vocation, but any vocation. As Richard Foster says, “The really crucial decision comes, not when we decide to be a pastor rather than a biologist, (or a priest rather than a plumber, or a chaplain rather than a computer technician) but when we decide to allow our entire life to be a channel of divine love. “ You may have heard that the great composer Johann Sebastian Bach penned at the beginning of his compositions the initials JJ, representing the Latin words, “Jesu Juva, Jesus, help!” and at the end, SDG, which represent the Latin words “Soli Deo Gloria, to the glory of God alone. “ When we undertake any work, we ask for Jesus to help us, guide us, direct us, empower us. At the end of the day, or the end of the project, we rejoice in whatever good has come into the world through the effort, and we say, “May this work enhance your reputation, God. May more people come to know how great and loving and good and just you are. It’s not about me. It’s all about you, God.”

Richard Foster describes a Christian spirituality of work: “We have a sense of calling, a God-given ability to do a job linked with a God-given enjoyment in doing it. We have a sense of responsibility to do something in our own time that has value. We have a sense of freedom from the burden of the workaholic, for we are not asked to do more than we can. We have a sense of creativity that enables us to place the autograph of our souls on the work of our hands. We have a sense of dignity, for we value people over efficiency. We have a sense of community, for we know that our life together is more important than the end product. We have a sense of solidarity with the poor to empower them to do what they cannot do by themselves. And we have a sense of meaning and purpose, for we know that we are working in cooperation with God to bring the world one step closer to completion. “

4. Ask for opportunities to make the love of God real for the people around us.
I was really struck last Sunday when Teresa came for the first time and participated in the Christian Basics Sunday School class. I was so glad she felt at home enough to participate. And then there was something she said which I’ve continued to think about through this week. Teresa said, “Just drive around Berryville on Sunday morning. Look at all the cars in the church parking lots. If all those people just influenced the people around them, this would be a transformed community!” A year ago in this congregation we started our small group conversations, prayerfully seeking God’s vision for the future of this church. It became apparent that as we looked at the needs of this community- the low incomes and high stress people live with, the forces that tear families apart, the numbers of children being raised by single parents, the unemployment – this is a community that needs hope! We stated our mission as “Building a Community of Hope Through Jesus Christ, drawing people to Jesus, becoming more like Jesus, doing the work of Jesus.” We envision making an impact on the Berryville area and the whole of Carroll County by addressing the needs of families (parents, children, youth) and encouraging local, community-based economic development with job creation and income enhancement. I find that vision so exciting, but it’s big. And this little group of people are stretched and tired. So, how in the world are we going to become God’s force for transforming our community? But maybe I’m trying to make it harder than it is. Maybe the way is for each of us to pray every day that we can make the love of Jesus real for the people around us, in our homes, at school, at work, at Wal Mart, wherever we are. We can make the invisible Jesus real and visible to the people in our circle of influence. What a difference it would it make if just the people whose cars are parked outside FCC and are sitting in this sanctuary devoted ourselves to influencing our circle with the love of Jesus!

5. Trust God for the transformation
Stuart Briscoe tells of his own experience of coming to Christ, as he heard the message of grace and forgiveness of sins. At first he thought, “This is easy.” Then, as he found that being Jesus’ follower meant living the life of Jesus each day, he thought, “This is difficult.” Then, when he found that he couldn’t follow perfectly even in one day, he thought, “This is impossible.” Then, when he discovered what Christ could do in him, he said, “This is exciting!”
A father once made footprints in the snow with wide strides and challenged his children to walk in them. They couldn’t do it. Then he took the littlest child, and put the child’s feet on his. He held the child’s hands and together they did it!

New Bible Study for Adults on Wednesday Nights

"Believing God", taught by Beth Moore on DVD, discussion led by Judy Turner
Starting on Wednesday, Sept. 1, 6:00-7:00 PM, in the Youth Room, and continuing weekly for 10 weeks

Through studying the lives of Abraham, Moses and others from Hebrews 11 as examples of people who believed God, this study encourages us to develop our own trust in God and receive a fresh word from Him.
Beth Moore says in the introduction to this study, "God is so much more than we have yet acknowledged and experienced. Hie is capable of tremendously more than we have witnessed. I have beome utterly convinced that we see so little primarily because we believe Him for so little. Here's the great news: God wants to change all that!"

Workbooks will be available, and participants will gain most from the study by doing the "homework". However, much can be gained just by coming on Wednesday nights and interacting with the DVD session for the week.

Okra

Abelmoscus Esculentus

We've done pretty well with Abelmoscus Esculentus this year. In other words, we're got okra coming out of our ears!

To tell you the truth, we grow okra in the community garden because it is nice to look at. Otherwise, it seems like a pretty limited vegetable. Sure, you can put it into gumbo, but otherwise, it’s just a slimy green thing. What can we do with all that Okra?

Here in the South, there are lots of things to do with okra. I pass along this personally tested recipe, in case you need a recipe:

One and a half cups of yellow cornmeal

A bit of salt

A bit of black pepper and a bit of red pepper

One HALF cup of milk

One large egg

Three cups of chopped (one inch slices) okra

Cooking spray

Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees. Combine the cornmeal and the salt and peppers in a shallow dish. Set aside.

Combine the egg and the milk in a large bowl, and mix it up! Add the okra and toss to coat. Let the okra stand (rest?) in the bowl for three minutes.

Dredge the okra in the cornmeal mixture and place it on a cookie sheet covered with the cooking spray. Lightly spray the okra with the cooking spray and bake for 40 minutes, turning once. It serves eight at your house, and four at my house.

Good luck!

Experiencing the Charismatic Tradition and the Spirit-Empowered Life: Wisdom for Unity

Isaiah 11:1-9; Ephesians 4:1-7; 1 Corinthians 12:1-13

We are in our tenth of twelve weeks of looking at the Six Streams of Living Water, the various traditions of Christian spirituality that have periodically renewed the church through the ages. We have looked at the Contemplative, the Evangelical, the Holiness, and the Social Justice traditions; we are in the midst of looking at the Charismatic tradition, and, in the next two weeks, we will look at the Incarnational tradition. If you have missed some of the sermons, or have let your mind wander or doze, as happens to all of us at times, all the sermons appear on this blog, just keep scrolling and clicking your way back until you can review all of them. One of the most important concepts to keep in mind is that the negative stereotypes associated with some of these traditions came about after they were split off from and isolated from other parts of the body of Christ that could have helped keep them in productive balance. Many of these splits took place in the mid-19^th through the early 20th centuries, and those splits have weakened the church ever since. We need to recover the wholeness of the church and the wholeness of Christian spirituality.

Last week, in examining the Charismatic tradition we looked at a wide array of essential works that the Holy Spirit does in and for the church. Today our focus is narrower, on a part of the work of the Holy Spirit that is often overlooked, his giving wisdom to his church to find the path of unity in fellowship and vitality in mission.

A. In Isaiah 11, the prophet gives six characteristics of the Spirit-Filled Royal Son, the Messiah King: supernatural wisdom, understanding, and counsel are practically synonyms; and backed by supernatural might, knowledge, and the fear (or reverent awe) of the Lord, they provide the foundations for the peaceable kingdom. It is hard to avoid seeing that God’s wisdom imparted to his Royal Son is the core of the matter. The good news is that this same wisdom is available to us as we believe in Jesus and claim the promised Holy Spirit, so that we may view matters with the mind of God. Some people always act based on their heart. Some people always act based on their head. Some people always act based on tradition. Some people always act in rebellion against tradition. Some people always act based on their woundedness, trying to find comfort or consolation for what hurts. Some people always act on the basis of fear or anger or greed or ambition. None of those bases for action lead consistently to good results. Some of them lead pretty consistently to bad results. For our long run good, for the good of people around us, for the good of the fellowship and mission of Christ’s church, we need to get beyond our human habits, beyond what Paul calls setting our minds on the flesh, and, instead, we need to act on the basis of God’s wisdom, what Paul calls setting our mind on the Spirit. We need to take time to hear from God who always offers us the best approach for the long run. God doesn’t promise that his way will always be painless; there are costs to the fact that we live in a sinful world, and sometimes the sin comes against us not only from outside, but also from inside, and complicates our best efforts to hear and follow God’s wisdom. Sometimes, perhaps usually, because of the human complications, sacrifice is required. Nevertheless, God’s way will always be good, God’s way will always make us better, and God’s way will always give those around us opportunities to get better too. God’s wisdom is not worldly wisdom about how to get ahead and win, but God’s wisdom is always focused on opening up opportunities for redeeming and healing all that is broken. I am not saying that God’s wisdom leaves us as pushovers for every manipulative sad story that a human weasel or a human leech can dream up. Not at all. God’s wisdom can be tough and demanding. God’s wisdom can and does set boundaries. But God’s wisdom aims at offering real new beginnings for all who are truly open to them. Among all who share the focus of God’s wisdom, there is an opportunity for the work of peacemaking to be effective. Where God’s righteous faithful, redeeming, and reconciling wisdom is not the focus, unity is harder to come by. If our energies are organized around the wrong causes, God may not even desire unity for us until we get our priorities straightened out. There is no use in uniting around human folly. So, Isaiah’s point is that real peace is based on divine wisdom that comes from the Holy Spirit.

B. In his Letter to the Ephesians Paul shows two more ways that the Spirit brings peace: (1) giving us spiritual fruit and (2) anchoring us in gospel truth. Let’s look at those in turn:

(1) Giving us spiritual fruit. Paul specifically mentions humility, gentleness, patience and loving forbearance. When qualities such as these are increasing in our lives, it is a sign that the Spirit of God is at work within us. Sinful human beings are not naturally like that. Elsewhere Paul lists some examples of the fruit of the Spirit as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. He contrasts these to the works of the flesh, that is, the products of sinful human thinking. The works of the sinful human thinking include moral faults, spiritual faults, relational faults, and other behaviors that are harmful to ourselves and to others. The Holy Spirit leads us away from destructive behavior and into constructive behavior.

(2) Anchoring us in gospel truth: one God, one Lord, one Spirit, one faith, one hope, one baptism, one body (the church). A church cannot be united unless it knows what holds it together. If we think that it is our church culture and traditions that hold us together, how we do things, then we will always be fighting for control with people who have different ideas of how we do things or of how we ought to do things, but if what holds us together is a living faith in one God, one Lord, one Spirit, one faith, one baptism, one church, and might we add, one mission of representing the redeeming and reconciling love of Jesus Christ offering hope for new beginnings to the people of the world, then there is a chance that we might get our minds on things that count, things that actually make a difference in the world and in the lives of people around us, things that make a difference for Jesus and his mission, and we might not care so much about who wins the preference contests. In fact, the preference contests might just disappear because we will be too busy trying to make positive differences in the lives of people to focus on trivia that has very little to do with Jesus.

So, while Isaiah speaks of divine wisdom, Paul speaks of spiritual fruit and solid faith, all from the Holy Spirit.

C. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul gives us two tests for discerning whether the spirits that offer to move us are from the Holy Spirit: (1) Is it consistent with the fact the Jesus the crucified is reigning Lord? (2) Does it help build up the church with love and mutuality in both fellowship and mission? Let’s read:

1 Corinthians 12:1 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. 2 You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. 3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.

4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

Paul begins by saying that we do not have to be Christians to have strong spiritual experiences. Non-Christians have what they take to be ecstatic experiences, revelatory experiences, miraculous experiences, and so forth. Spiritual experiences prove nothing. Paul believes that there are deceptive spirits at work in the world capable of encouraging much counterfeit spirituality, of pulling the wool over the eyes of the naive. Paul implies that going through the motions of joining a Christian church does not free us from being influenced by demonic forces in the world. Even church members need methods of discerning the difference between the work of the Holy Spirit and the work of the Deceiver.

Method One: Paul asserts that a person who truly believes and professes that Jesus the crucified is Lord of the universe is, at least that far, led by the Holy Spirit. No one can truly believe and profess that Jesus the crucified is the Lord of the universe unless the Holy Spirit helps him or her come to that conclusion. The best evidence that the Christian faith is true is that nothing about its central foundational events—the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ--appeals to a merely human mind-frame. If God through the Holy Spirit did not help us believe that, we simply would not, could not, believe it. Of course, we could just accept it because some trusted authority figure told us that it was true--a parent, a grandparent, a brother or sister, a teacher, a preacher, a friend, a celebrity—but that is not really believing it ourselves. Until we have faced with full force the questions raised by the dead, mutilated body of Jesus being taken down from the cross and have come to the foundational mind-blowing conviction that God reigns even over suffering, shame, and death, we are not yet Christian because we have not yet believed with our hearts that Jesus died for our sins and that God raised him from the dead. We are not yet Christian without that faith, because we have not yet seen that Jesus has defeated every evil power and principality that could otherwise influence us. We are not yet Christian without that faith because, until we believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, we are driven by our own worldly convictions about what power is, our worldly desires, our worldly fears, our worldly securities, but, if Jesus has overcome the world and we know it, then we are free to be children of God living for the praise of his glory. Paul tells us that only the Holy Spirit can help us make that transition, to begin the process of setting us free from worldly thinking. And since the Holy Spirit is the only one who can convince is that a crucified man is the most powerful figure in the universe, and who can enable us to live in that conviction, becoming people of self-giving love in a way that only a person who believes in resurrection power can, then if we hold and live that faith, it is evidence that the Holy Spirit is indeed at work in us.

Method Two: Paul asserts that a person who truly has the Holy Spirit will show humble love within the fellowship of faith, will respect and participate in the mutuality of spiritual giftings that characterize the body of Christ, and will seek to build up the church in love. The Holy Spirit is not about ambition, self-importance, status games. The Holy Spirit is not about winning every contest. The Holy Spirit is about strengthening the church, its mission, its fellowship. Just one chapter over from today’s sermon text, right in the middle of three chapters about spiritual gifts and spiritual discernment, that Paul says, 13:4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. Please be clear. Paul is not a romantic or a sentimentalist. The love he is talking about is the steadfast covenant love of God, a love that is committed, a love that gives of itself for the well-being of present and potential children of God. That foundational commitment to self-giving love in action marks the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives. When that kind of love genuinely exists, the Holy Spirit is present, because that kind of love is not a natural product of unredeemed humanity.

So hen we are talking about the charismatic tradition, these are the things we most want to see: 1. God’s own wisdom that results in peace and unity, 2. solid, foundational faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, 3. spiritual fruit, especially self-giving, upbuilding love for Christ’s church and its mission of redeeming outreach to the world, 4. Christians being guided and empowered for redeeming missions that bring new hope for children of God and for would-be children of God. Those things cannot be without the Holy Spirit. Where those things are happening, the charismatic tradition is accomplishing its reason for being. May it be so among us!

Garden Update, August

Costata Romanesca Zucchini*

The plants sown in our church garden this spring and early summer are on their last legs. There are still some tomatoes and okra growing, and the basil, oregano, and lemon balm remains vital, but everything else is pretty well tuckered out. This is probably the last week we'll have flowers and peppers; the tomatoes will be done in the next ten days or so.

Our water bill for the past 30 days broke two hundred bucks ($200). This is a shocking amount and is evidence that 1) it has been really hot, and 2) we need to discover and then implement ideas that will help us more effectively conserve the precious water we use. The drip system we installed earlier in the year (with Dave Stice's great help) made a dramatic contribution to reducing gardener labor, but it also seemed to waste some water as well: every place one pipe or value connects to another pipe or value leaks at least fractionally, and sometimes more. We'll have to come up with a solution.

As you know, we are interested in the garden's economic performance in addition to its other contributions to our mission of Building a Community of Hope. For example, the current value of the remaining produce and flowers isn't equal to the cost of water so your gardeners have stopped watering all annual plants. Perennial plants, like the blueberries and apple trees, will continue to be watered because our investment in them is "long term" and the fruits of our labor will appear only after year three or so.

How will our garden pay for itself? Two cost-benefit strategies seem best suited to meet our obligation to operate an at least cost neutral garden. First, we'll need to plant higher value produce. To that end, we'll thinking about putting in a hundred or so asparagus plants. The draw back is that we'll need to wait a couple of years before the plants are mature enough to eat. But, asparagus is expensive and we think the pay off will be worth it. We'll also plant more flowers since they have been a "hit" and everyone seems to like and enjoy them.

Secondly, and perhaps counter intuitively, we need to expand the garden and plant more intensively than we have. Due to the inexperience of one of our gardeners, for example, we planted varieties of squash that simply took over space and crowded out other plants: we won't do that again. We'll also plant garlic, Swiss card, spinach, kale, and turnips this year as soon as it turns cooler; that way the garden will be productive at least nine months of the year.

We're also thinking about a much expanded Children's Garden located in the large sunny patch behind His House and the storage shed at the back of the lot. If we use the same "bed & tread" technique used in the main garden, the Children's Garden can be equally productive--and fun for the kids because there won't be a lot of weeding required after the first year. Preparation for next spring begins--of course--now.

Your Community Gardeners thank the members for their support of the church garden, and we thank God for His genius in creating such a lovely place.


*Photo by Therese Warmus, a gardener in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota where zucchinis grow by the bushel and have nary a foe standing in the way of explosive growth.

Discovering the Charismatic Tradition and the Spirit-Filled Life: Finding the Balance

Joel 2:28-29; Luke 11:9-13; Acts 2: 32-41

The conclusion to Peter’s Pentecost sermon goes like this: Acts 2: 32 This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. 33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. 34 For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, 35 until I make your enemies your footstool.’ 36 Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” 37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” 40 And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” 41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

Thus began the church of Jesus Christ. The compelling sign of their divine calling, the assuring promise for their lives and mission, was the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Today, in our study of the Six Streams of Living Water, we address the Charismatic Tradition. The words charisma and charismatic have to do with giftedness. When used in connection with the Holy Spirit, they have to do with being gifted with and by the Holy Spirit. They are biblical words, good words, but they have picked up some negative baggage in the last couple of centuries.

Let me most emphatically assert that I do not want any part of a lot of things that call themselves Charismatic or Pentecostal. I don’t want a focus on the spectacular and the sensational because it does not promote Christian maturity. I don’t want unchecked freedom for the operation of self-appointed prophets and healers which almost inevitably leads to spiritual deception and spiritual abuse. I don’t want to be part of identifying the Spirit’s activity with spontaneous, emotional, manipulative preaching that is not solidly grounded in the Bible. I never want to imply that, if people just had enough faith, they would not be experiencing the problems they are facing; this is cruelly damaging. I will never teach that all we need to do in order to get the result we want in life is to “name it and claim it”; this is a set-up for failing to question our unconverted desires or, worse, for losing our faith when the formulas no longer work. I don’t want any part of any of those things. But, if I get carried away in over-reaction to the abuses of the Charismatic Tradition, I will miss its essential forward action of the Holy Spirit, and my Christian life will stagnate and become impotent.

When I began to discuss the Evangelical Tradition, I began with a list of historical figures such as Nicolas Von Zinzendorf, John and Charles Wesley, and Barton Stone. These names carried over to the Holiness Tradition and to the Social Justice Tradition. They also carry over to the Charismatic Tradition. The ministries of these leaders and many others like them (such as Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney, whom my American history professor at the University of Chicago, labeled as the two most influential Americans in our history) were Spirit-led and Spirit-empowered. In each case these leaders came to prominence through powerful movements of the Holy Spirit. Zinzendorf’s Moravians, the Wesley brother’s Anglicans and Methodists, and the combination of Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists at the Stone-led 1802 Cane Ridge, Kentucky, Revival all can trace their formative moment to extraordinary activity directed by the Holy Spirit. Stone’s Christians of our own Stone-Campbell heritage would not exist without such an outbreak.

The way the groups I am describing differ from some modern Pentecostal and Charismatic churches is that they did not attempt to re-create sensational spiritual experiences on a weekly or even frequent basis and did not let such experiences become the measure of their life of faith or the mark of their identity. They saw the outbreaks of the Spirit as periodic awakenings to stimulate (1) conversion, (2) zeal in sharing the gospel, (3) seriousness about personal transformation into Christlikeness, (4) deepening of compassion for hurting people, and (5) ongoing awareness of the Holy Spirit’s leading and empowerment. They measured the benefits of the Spirit’s work by the Christlike character that emerged in the lives of the participants.

What happened to bring their balanced approach to an end? The mid-nineteenth century emergence of settled, complacent, middle-class respectability in congregations was followed by ministers who had been educated in ways that weakened their faith in the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit, and the congregations lacked both the biblical literacy and spiritual hunger to demand more than the cream of wheat mush they were being fed as a substitute for the real Christian, spiritual meat of their Christian heritage. The church became spiritually malnourished. When there were spiritual outbreaks in congregations, there was no mature leadership for them, and the official lay and clergy leadership of the church, whose sense of social respectability was disturbed by the uncorrected excesses of the unguided enthusiasts, rather than merely correcting the excesses, often invited the enthusiasts out of their congregations. Wrong action.

Those who found themselves on the outside were often less educated, less affluent, and less socially comfortable than their former fellow church members. These discontents began to form holiness churches and then, when the holiness churches also clamped down on manifestations of the Spirit, Pentecostal churches. But they were often undereducated, sometimes pridefully ignorant, and they reacted with a wounded, defensive, counterattack. Wrong reaction. The old mainline denominations scorned them and avoided anything that might be associated with them, largely based on their own social status snobbery. Equally wrong reaction. Two kinds of pride warred against each other and greatly weakened the body of Christ. Sad result. Satan celebrates.

The picture in the second half of the twentieth century became more complex. There was a somewhat healthier charismatic renewal movement in the 1960’s, 1970’s, and early 1980’s that started in the Roman Catholic and Episcopalian churches and spread through the old mainline churches, sometimes divisively and sometimes not, but for the most part fading like a fad by the 1990’s. Some results of that renewal are still around, one of the clearest local examples being John Michael Talbot and the Little Portion Monastery, which is now more focused on the contemplative tradition, without rejecting their charismatic roots. As a point of interest, Little Portion also bought their retreat center from the local Episcopalian branch of the charismatic renewal movement, many of whom remain in the area.

Personally, I think that Zinzendorf, the Wesleys, and Stone had it right, welcoming the work of the Holy Spirit, never quenching the true, scriptural manifestations of the Spirit, but not seeking to repeat over and over again the spectacular signs of the Holy Spirit, and always keeping the charismatic dimensions of their faith in balance with other Christian spiritual traditions. In short, I want to be connected to the Charismatic Stream of Living Water when it is kept in balance and in perspective by the other five streams.

Having said all that, it simply is not an option for Bible-believing Christians to oppose or to ignore the work of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul, despite warning against spiritual abuses, specifically commands us not to quench the Holy Spirit, but to discerningly welcome the true work of the Spirit. The New Testament is clear that, if we have not received the Holy Spirit into our lives and are not allowing Him to work in and through us, we have not yet entered full Christian life. Even the more rationalist Campbell wing of our Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement taught the basics of the Christian faith through the Five-Finger Exercise that culminates with the Gift of the Holy Spirit on the fifth finger.

Why is it so important that we make room for the Holy Spirit? There are a lot of things that need to happen in our lives that only the Holy Spirit can do, including making all of the first four fingers real.

Finger One, Faith: Paul said that no one can truly say that Jesus Christ is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Christian faith involves having a God-perspective that only the Holy Spirit can provide.

Finger Two, Repentance: The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and gives us the desire and courage to turn toward a new pattern for our lives.

Finger Three, Baptism: We are baptized into Christ, his death, his resurrection, his ongoing reign, his church, his mission, by the one and only Holy Spirit, who alone can give the full newness of life to which baptism points.

Finger Four, Forgiveness of Sins: Only Spirit-inspired Scripture and the Holy Spirit himself can give us full assurance of our forgiveness.

Finger Five in the ongoing Gift of the Holy Spirit in person, God living in us.

Beyond that, we have:

6. Illumination: The Holy Spirit is the divine author of Scripture, and is the one who shows us how Scripture applies to our lives. As we sang earlier in the service, “Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit Divine.”

7. Transformation, Sanctification, and the Fruit of the Spirit: The Holy Spirit gradually transforms believers into the likeness of Christ, growing the fruit of the Spirit in their lives, qualities such as joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. Basic Christian hope, faithfulness, and love are also included in this fruit.

8. Guidance and Empowerment for Mission and the Gifts of the Spirit: The Holy Spirit speaks to our human spirits, guiding us into meaningful mission for Jesus and giving us the spiritual gifts to carry out mission. The spiritual gifts are many. I begin the list with prophecy. In popular usage, prophecy is associated with foretelling the future, and much of the abuses of this gift through the years come from people who try to build their self-esteem, reputations, and sometimes incomes through declarations that are a bit hard to tell from E.S. P. or fortunetelling or wild speculations rooted in social or political prejudices. This popular usage is much different from the meaning of prophecy in the Bible; in the Bible, prophecy is the ability to hear the direct, immediate guidance of God, and, as appropriate, to share that word with those who need to hear it. Also closely related to prophecy are gifts of divine wisdom, supernatural knowledge, and spiritual discernment. Then there are gifts such as the working of miracles, healing, and intercession, things that supernaturally change the world, sometimes suddenly and spectacularly in order to demonstrate the reign of God, sometimes gradually and quietly in order to deepen our faith and endurance. I strongly question whether flashy televangelists and tent ministry showmen are genuine, but this does not mean that God will not use them on occasion for the benefit of a faithful person in need. There are gifts of church leadership such as teaching, preaching, administering, evangelizing, shepherding, and the art of leadership itself. Finally, there are the no less important gifts of supporting the church and its missions through giving, serving, and assisting. The most important spiritual gifts are extraordinary endowments of faith, hope, and love, love being the greatest of all. The spiritual gift of love is not a feeling, but a God-given power to give sacrificially of oneself for the well-being of others. All true spiritual gifts are essential parts of the mission and ministries of Jesus Christ and his church. They are not natural human abilities, but are things that are given, awakened, and directed by the Holy Spirit.

9. Spiritual Armor: The Holy Spirit equips us with spiritual armor in Jesus Christ, enabling us to stand strong against the lies of the enemy and freeing us to live powerfully for Jesus.

10. Christian Unity: The Holy Spirit shows us how to find unity with fellow believers by correctly discerning and employing the leading, fruit, gifts, and armor of the Spirit.

In short, there is not much worthwhile in Christian life in which the Holy Spirit does not play a leading role.

Let me conclude with my Three Laws of Spiritual Momentum, loosely based on Isaac Newton’s Three Laws of Motion. I am not a great physics student. In fact, the closest I came to taking a physics course was, “The Physical Sciences for Social Science Majors,” which was better known as “Dum-Dum Physics,” or “Bonehead Phy-Sci.” So be gracious to me.

First Law of Spiritual Momentum: Every church at rest or with slowing momentum will continue to decline in power until acted upon by the compelling force of the Holy Spirit.

Second Law of Spiritual Momentum: The rate of growth in strength and momentum of a church is directly proportional to their discerning welcoming of the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit in their midst.

Third Law of Spiritual Momentum: To every wrong spiritual action in a church there is an opposite and equally wrong reaction that must be avoided if the possibility of forward momentum is to be preserved. The best way to avoid wrong reactions is to keep all Six Streams of Living Water operating healthily together.

Bottom line: We had better know the Holy Spirit, welcome the Holy Spirit, and seek the Holy Spirit’s wisdom about how to stay spiritually healthy and moving forward with well-rounded faith. It is time for us to stop living our lives with such fear of what could go wrong that we cannot enjoy what could go right. It is time for us to stop living so much in reaction to things we do not like that we have no Christian forward action at all. It is time for us to claim the numerous scriptural promises of what the Holy Spirit can do in our lives. It is time for us to surrender our prideful control and to let God run our lives.