Flashlights, Spotlight, Spirit-light ~ Romans 8:1-11

 

I have been a part of many different styles of churches with diverse theologies about the Spirit. I have been a part of conservative churches which talked very little about the Holy Spirit and argued that I needed to work real hard to live the Christian life. Sure, I was saved by grace but now I needed to put in the work which very much felt like this hand crank flashlight, leaving me the source of my power and struggling to keep up. I’ve also been a part of charismatic churches which focused a lot on the Holy Spirit, big miracles, emotionally loud worship, and displays of power. Sure, Jesus spoke about dying to self but I needed to focus on how to be this Spirit-filled, power conduit which felt a lot like a spotlight, leaving me to be some Spirit-filled performer. Both understandings had good things and bad things and I would like to come to Paul in Romans 8 to sort and sift the role of Jesus and the Spirit in our own personal transformation. Prior to Romans chapter 8, Paul has mentioned the Spirit only three times. In chapter 8, however, arguably one of his more famous discussions, he will mention the Spirit nineteen times. And I want to focus on Paul’s “now” in vs. 1 with respect to the Spirit, Paul’s phrases “according to the flesh” and “according to the Spirit,” and Paul’s thoughts about what the Spirit “will” do in the future.

First, “There is now . . .” It’s quite a list:

·       No condemnation

·       Freedom

·       Condemnation of sin

“There is now” in vs. 1 is Paul’s invitation to what God has done (past tense) in and through Jesus. This is the liberating message of the gospel – “what God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin” (vs. 3). Through Jesus’ Spirit-filled life, death and resurrection, God has secured our righteousness and freed us from the “law of sin and death.”  It’s done – now – in Jesus. And through the Spirit, God empowers us to live a new life as the result of God’s love manifested through the Spirit. I want to confess an uncomfortableness with the timetable a little because there’s still so much struggle in my Christian life. But the Apostle Paul doesn’t seem to share my concern. Whatever reasons I might contrive for the challenges of the present moment, Paul wants to anchor me in the “now” and say, “Now you are no longer condemned. Now you are free. Now sin’s power is broken.” And you know – he’s right on two fronts. The Christian life is recognizing that we have been freed “now” in Jesus and that we have the promise “now” to becoming free by the Spirit. It’s a declaration first, that all the conditions for what needs to happen for salvation have been met in Jesus. Before you do or believe anything, salvation has been won, shame has been cancelled, even death defeated by God for you. The second front, is that you can move toward becoming free now even when you fail and struggle.  You can talk about confidently even though you know you will fail at times. Even when I fail my wife, lose my temper or don’t do something I said I would, I still have no problem stating that I love her “now” and not in some distant future. I have no problem saying that my desire is to please her now, to care for her now, to understand her now, even when I don’t do so all the time. I live with her and for her “now” even when I fail. So it is with those who say “yes” to Jesus and are empowered by God’s Spirit. God has condemned sin through Jesus and by the power of the Spirit given to you – which means that sin is not the most important thing about you. The Spirit testifies that "now," in Jesus, all the necessary conditions have been met for you to be free.

Second, “According to . . .” what?

Paul will go one to contrast to ways of “walking” or living by two ways of life: kata sarka and kata pneuma, often translated “according to the flesh” and “according to the Spirit.” And here we need a little Greek of the week.

“kata sarka” or according to the flesh is not a comment about your body, the Greek word soma, which appears vss. 10-11. Rather, it refers to the self as dominated by culturally and psychologically ingrained values of an enslaving system (kosmos) by which we have sought to maintain the illusions of control and mastery of the world. It’s the self composed of clinging and comparing. Kata sarka is our desire to secure our life by our own power. So, it’s not about lustful desires specifically. In fact, Paul himself will speak of even asceticism and self-denial as “fleshly” (Col. 2:20-23). Everything an alienated person does is infected by alienation, even the quest for God. So the flesh is way of imagining the world with ourselves at the center which becomes dominated by fear of death and hostility both to God and from God. So this is not some dualism whereby we are to assume that our bodies are bad and some other part, soul or spirit, is good. No, our bodies are the very site of redemption, the war which God has already won. Our bodies will be redeemed and remain the place where the Spirit dwells. Kata sarka is not something that you have to fight. It’s something for you to let go of.

“kata pneuma” or according to the Spirit involves the recognition that in and through Jesus, God’s Spirit oikeins (“dwells”, “houses” literally derived from the word oikos or house) within you and by you Paul means your actual body apart from you having done anything more than saying “yes” to being “in Jesus”. Your job is not so much to NOT live “kata sarka” but to open your life to the one who will dwell in you and handle that for you. In 1 Corinthians 6:19, Paul will ask, “Do you not know that your body (soma) is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?” God is not far, not out there, not distant, even when you feel it. Your transformation is not earned, grasped, or grunted but “dwells” within you. God is the very ground of your being and the very source of your freedom.

A few comments from my own Spirit-neglected & Spirit-filled journey: 1) The difference between kata sarka and kata pneuma in the present is not an either/or but a both/and. Transformation doesn’t turn on a dime but is both a process of being freed and becoming free. In Jesus you have been made free – “there is now no condemnation” but you will have to avail yourself to unlearning those things that keep you in chains. Freedom, at times, can feel scary and demands, Jesus taught us, a dying to self. The Apostle Paul will wrestle with Spirit-filled people who are, even performing miracles, in 1 Cor. 13 and not living according to the Spirit. And here’s the thing, the Spirit will use your own failings, your own weakness, your own kata sarka, even at times, to help you. I once had a powerful spiritual encounter in a charismatic church where I asked God for the miraculous power to heal others. I asked with a certain sincerity and certain self-centeredness of both kata sarka and kata pneuma and I will never forget what happened. I had an experience of standing before Jesus with hands outstretched asking to be given this power and as I reached out he slid his hands over mine leaving enormous, ragged, crucifixion wounds on my hands. I literally cried out, “No!” in church. Friends, that vision, which was nothing more than Jesus showing me his actual words of dying to self and taking up my cross has defined for me what it means to walk by the Spirit, leaning into humility, honesty, woundedness as the means by which I am a conduit of the Spirit, not relying on myself, as an agent for healing but on the Spirit who I lean on because I recognize I can’t do it on my own. It’s why my divorce, for example, may be one of the more healing elements of my ministry. 2) Your body is spiritual. Our spirituality must shift from “doing” toward a surrendering to God’s freedom, intimacy and inner dwelling. Our bodies must be included. In C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, a young demon-in-training, Wormwood, is instructed by his experienced uncle, Screwtape, on the important of keeping humans ignorant of the role of the body in prayer. “My Dear Wormood, . . . At the very least, they [humans] can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls.” The geography of prayer must always include an inner dimension. You will need to consider posture, breathing, and the importance of having the experience of prayer in your body where the Spirit dwells. 3). Solitude and silence are the go to ancient Christian practices for dying to self, inhabiting a body, and becoming free. To live and pray “kata pneuma” according to the Christian tradition, of which there are many rich resources, I want to restate the critical nature of solitude and silence which help move prayer from communication to one of communion and union. The earliest Christians understood that solitude and the practice of silence oriented one’s self to the deep Christian truth that one human being cannot fix another, nor can we fix or fill ourselves. It is a place where only God will do.

“Life will come. I guarantee it.”

The “now” of God’s Spirit should never fully eclipse the not yet. Yes, now we are Spirit filled. We are Spirit-filled, beautiful, fragile things. We are a dollop of the Spirit housed in a thin bubble – who die. We surrender to the now and patiently wait for the next. In vs. 11, Paul will acknowledge that while much can had now – we will still die – but, he says, the Spirit that is now living in you, which raised Christ Jesus from the dead, will – will – also “give life to your mortal bodies” by which he means resurrection – which one again is a whole life, a full life, a heavenly life IN a “mortal” body. And in Ephesians, Paul speaks of the Spirit as a guarantee or down-payment of what is to come. Ephesians 1:13b-14 says, “When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴ who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.” The Greek word used is arrabon, which in modern Greek means an engagement ring, a sign in the present of what is to come in the future. And our inheritance, he declares, is resurrection. And we see that in our Romans passage as well where it is acknowledged that even those in the Spirit are subject to death but the Spirit will also, in the future, give life to our mortal bodies “because his spirit lives in you.” God’s indwelling determines our future. And that inheritance and guarantee is not disembodied heaven nor even small renovation of your house, your body, but a refurbishing of all creation.

The Who, the What, the All Y'all: Jesus & the Holy Spirit ~ John 15:26-16:15

 

My wife Marianne has a peculiar memory. She can remember words and what people say with often utter clarity but struggles a bit with an ability to remember physical details or features of people. On more than one occasion, we’ve had a conversation that went something like this: Don’t forget that you’re meeting with Andrew today. Okay, I say, what does Andrew look like. How will I recognize him? Is he tall? No, I don’t think so. Does he have any distinguishing features? Not that I can recall. How does he dress? Average, I think. And then I find myself talking to a guy who’s 6’4’’, full-beard, and dressed immaculately in a suit. If you’re a robber – you want Marianne to witness it. She will remember nothing. This series that we are embarking on is about the Holy Spirit. And today we will have Jesus describe a little about the Spirit – the who and the what which also tells us about ourselves. There is both specificity and vagueness, metaphor and detail, and we need to honor both.

The Who: The Holy Spirit is a blowing, flying, birthing, advocating, life-giving, truth-telling, chain-breaking, adoption-making, transformational power source, resurrected presence of Jesus sent from the Father for you.

Friends, there’s also a lot in the Bible about the Holy Spirit that is strange and hard to understand. Whole denominations have begun or split based almost solely on this third person of the Trinity, much to the Trinity’s dismay. Can I suggest something to you? Let’s keep the Holy Spirit weird. There’s much in our passage that isn’t exactly easy to figure out. The danger is not that we don’t fully understand the Spirit. The danger often is that we make the Spirit mundane, tame, or imagine that we know too much. That’s not to suggest that we shouldn’t use our brains, mustn’t practice discernment. I’m not telling YOU to be weird. But let’s never imagine that our language, our theology, is utterly capable of capturing all who God is. That Jesus often leans toward metaphor is significant and shouldn’t be quickly dismissed. The power of metaphor is that it expresses and identifies without making something too simple or caricatured. He’s not giving us a detailed Wanted Poster but a character sketch, a personality profile. God is always mysterious. That word “mystery” is so important in Christianity. It doesn’t mean puzzle or problem, which can be solved; rather, the word defines God as being endlessly understandable. If our theology and depiction of God allows for weirdness, strangeness, quirkiness, then we are more likely going to be humble.

With that understanding, who is this One we are being told by Jesus will come? Which is essentially asking, “Is God trustworthy?” Well, Jesus says, “God is a Paraclete, an advocate.” The word parakletos literally means One who calls or talks alongside. In the ancient world it meant a lawyer in court but also 'one who consoles' (cf. Job 16:2).  Jesus describes the Holy Sprit as an Advocate sent by the Jesus and the Father, “to help you and be with you forever” (John 14:16); a truth-teller who will testify about Jesus (16:13), who will challenge the world (16:8), and glorify Jesus (16:14).

In John 14:16, part of the same long speech that chapters 15 and 16 are a part of, Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever.” Jesus calls the Spirit another advocate. Who, then, is the first Advocate? 1 John 2:1 speaks of Jesus as an “advocate.” So Jesus is the first advocate and the Spirit is the second. If you want to understand who the Spirit is you need to understand the first advocate – Jesus. Like Jesus, the Spirit is continuing to walk beside us, to be for us, to be with us like Jesus was. The Spirit is God’s definitive answer to the question, “Can I trust God?” Because Jesus isn’t saying that God is a lawyer. He’s saying God is YOUR lawyer. He’s utterly and always for you. One of my favorite shows is the The Office. It’s about a quirky paper company led by it utterly inappropriate and bumbling manager, Michael Scott. In one episode, Michael’s jokes about women create a hostile work environment necessitating a confrontation with the Vice-President and a potential law suit. She arrives with the company attorney only to have Michael introduce another lawyer, a cheap, personal-injury lawyer, as his attorney.  The Vice-President is aghast and says, “Michael, our corporate attorney Mr. O’Malley, IS your attorney – here to help you avoid a lawsuit.” Friends, don’t be like Michael Scott and hire a cheap attorney to defend you from God. God’s corporate attorney, God’s own self, is YOUR attorney. The Spirit as an advocate is the Spirit for you.

The What: the Spirit’s work is to speak and act Jesus in the world.

Not surprisingly, it’s easy to think of the Holy Spirit as someone that is for me alone – and we’ve already seen that there is some truth to that. But it’s also important to remember that the “me” in our passage today is not you and always Jesus. The Holy Spirit cares deeply, powerfully, passionately for that me. The Spirit, Jesus says, only speaks what he hears from me, will glorify me, receives from me, and testifies about me. Vss. 8-9 reflect the heart of the Spirit’s work according to Jesus in proving the world wrong and it’s an utterly surprising work. Did you notice? It’s purely Jesus-work.  For the Spirit challenges the world’s understanding of what sin, justice and judgment are but not how you might expect. The Spirit’s work with sin is to point people to Jesus and to “prove” that the troublesome sin is not believing in Jesus – his word and his work. The world wants to make sin a moral problem. The Spirit wants us to understand that the real problem isn’t our moral failings but our failure to see and know God. The moral contemporaries of Jesus were looking for the coming of the just king who would condemn sinners and vindicate the righteous. Jesus announced the presence of God’s kingdom by justifying sinners and calling out the righteous. On justice, the world says, “you’d better stand on the right issue.” But the Spirit says you should stand with the right person - Jesus. The world wants to talk about issues. Jesus is always more interested in people. The Spirit’s work with justice is to vindicate the absence of Jesus by continuing Jesus connecting with people so that they love God and love one another. Third, the world wants to say that you are responsible for making your own way, conquering your own demons or that politics is where we win. The Spirit’s work of judgment is to tell us that the darkness is already defeated – conquered by Jesus.

The Spirit’s work then is much like a Jesus floodlight. If you walk by a house at night and it’s lit up, you say, “Look at that beautiful house.” You don’t say, “What a gorgeous flood light.” The floodlight’s job is not to show you itself but to illuminate something else. All the Spirit wants to do is shine the light on Jesus and empower us to live like Jesus.

The All Y’all: the Spirit empowers us and leads us requiring us to be aware and surrender.

Here's the thing: the role of the Spirit is not set upon making you a better human being, conjuring a supernatural magic show, or asking you to be solely responsible for your spiritual work. The role of the Spirit is to help us transform our lives so that we might join with him/her in pointing to Jesus and doing what Jesus does. The role of the Spirit is to transform our brokenness into a new community that speaks Jesus and there is an element of consent that’s necessary on our part.

The “you” is always y’all in our passage. Jesus will speak of the work of the Advocate for us and then will say, “And y’all also . . .” in vs. 27. There is never a sense that you are something controlled by the Spirit, some sort of Spirit empowered Jesus robot. And yet, neither is there a notion that this is an equal partnership. It is not said that the Spirit will help the disciple bear witness. That would make the actions of the disciples primary and that of the Spirit auxiliary. What is said is that the Spirit will bear witness and that – secondarily – the disciples are witnesses, with the help of the Spirit, also. Jesus doesn’t ask us to find truth but tells us that the Spirit will “guide” us to the truth. Jesus doesn’t ask us to so much scrunch our will power together and know and glorify Jesus but to let the Spirit make him known and glorify him. The element that powers this enterprise is the Spirit and not yourself.

In that context, two postures of consent are necessary “awareness” and “surrender.” Awareness is the recognition of who I am and what I am asked to do and what the Spirit is doing. Surrender is the reality of submitting to God being the most important actor in the transformation of the world and our lives. Both of these are cultivated in prayer. The Holy Spirit is God’s revelation and transformation in real time.  That’s what’s freeing about the Spirit. You can’t blow wind into your own sails and you aren’t a solitary boat. So let the wind of the Spirit do its thing and let go of always blowing real hard trying to make something happen. You can look for the wind, prepare your sails, and point yourself in the right direction, but let God be the active agent who moves you by the power of the Spirit and never imagine that you do it alone. Let this old sea shanty be the blessing for you this series. Take it to heart, make it your prayer, it will be your freedom because God is your lawyer, who’s all about Jesus, and filling us all.

Come all ye young hearties, who follow the sea. Blow, blow the man down. The wind that’s a blowin’ will soon set you free. Give me some time to blow the man down.