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DonateMay 13, 2007 |
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Acts 16:9–15
Psalm 67
Revelation 21:10, 22–22:5
John 14:23–29
Acts 16:9–15
Paul’s night vision of the man from Macedonia, and the resultant beginning of the mission to Europe, must be read in the context of the three verses immediately preceding the assigned reading: “They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.” We today tend to think of the Spirit as the Empowerer and Encourager, so to read these verses about the Spirit “forbidding” and “not allowing” Paul to preach in certain places might seem a bit strange. Yet they help us to understand Paul’s eager response to the dream of the Macedonian: having been frustrated in one area of mission, Paul is more than ready to move on to where the opportunity is open. This passage therefore is a locus classicus the aphorism, “When God closes one door, God opens another”; or, we might say in process terms, God provides initial aims for new possibilities even in situations where novelty seems blocked or thwarted. This passage also shows us the theme of the social nature of the Spirit’s work, as we have seen in other Acts readings this Easter season: not only does God move Paul to take the mission to Macedonia, but the Lord also opens Lydia’s heart to listen to Paul’s message, so much so that Lydia offers her house as a base of operations for Paul and his companions. Since Lydia is a “dealer in purple cloth,” and the purple dye in use at the time was very expensive, we can surmise that Lydia was a wealthy woman, and her house would have been large enough to serve as a meeting place for the congregation-in-formation. Thus, as with Paul’s conversion and Peter’s opening to the Gentiles, we can see that the Spirit is at work through many agents, coordinating many individual personal activities, to create the church and spread the Good News. It often comes as a surprise to people to learn that the Spirit has been at work in the social milieu to bring them together long before they themselves became aware of it. The preacher might explore what doors the Spirit might be closing and opening in the life of the congregation, or what partners-in-mission the Spirit might be drawing together in the local community.
Psalm 67
Perhaps originally a harvest thanksgiving, this psalm celebrates the coming-together of all nations in the peace and justice of God. God’s “ways” of “judging with equity” can be known “among all nations” and “guide all the nations upon earth”; the knowledge of God is not meant to be the private province of one people—nor of one church—but is meant to bring “saving health” to all. This universal blessing is experienced as an increased harvest brought forth from the earth, feeding the needs of the whole human family. It is therefore the vocation of believers to see that all nations can “be glad and sing for joy” because of the blessings of God.
Revelation 21:10, 22–22:5
The theme of God’s “saving health” known among all nations is echoed in John’s vision of the river of life flowing from the New Jerusalem, along whose banks grows the tree of life, with leaves “for the healing of the nations.” The image of the new city which “nothing unclean will enter, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood” could be taken in two ways, either exclusively or inclusively: either in the sense that the “unclean” will be banished, or in the sense that there will no longer be any “unclean” because they have been healed and declared clean (as in Peter’s vision in last Sunday’s readings) by God’s grace. The river flowing from the city into the world would tend to support the latter interpretation. The new city thus represents a hope for the full inclusion of all people into a community of justice and peace, enlightened by the living presence of the divine. That hope, far from being a mere pie-in-the-sky image, can animate and empower our active work for justice in our actual worlds.
John 14:23–29
In this passage Jesus makes three promises to his disciples: that the One he calls Father will come to them and make a home with them; that the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will teach them everything; and that his peace, his distinctive peace, will be given to them. I think we can take these three promises as different aspects or different ways of expressing the same core reality. And this is the more true if we overlay the biblical notion of peace, shalom, with Whitehead’s particular philosophical notion of peace. Whitehead explicated peace as the “Harmony of Harmonies which calms destructive turbullence [sic]” and which “preserves the springs of energy, and at the same time masters them for the avoidance of paralyzing distractions”(Adventures of Ideas 285). Peace in this sense is not mere calm; it is the opposite of “anaesthesia”; it is a dynamic and active holding-together of diverse energies and experiences in patterns of mutual adaptation and intensification. Peace in this sense is not merely the absence of conflict, but is the positive presence of richness of experience. Whitehead’s idea of peace is thus close to the biblical notion of shalom, or wholeness and fulfillment of life. The peace which Jesus gives to his disciples is a creative power for sharing a deeper, more intense, more abundant life—and for sharing that life with others in ministry and justice. Thus that peace is one and the same with the indwelling of the Creator and the advocacy of the Spirit: it is the living and active presence of divine suasion toward becoming fully alive. Preaching on this text can ask how we in the church today live out that peace, that indwelling of God, that advocacy of the Spirit in the personal, communal, and social contexts in which we live.
Paul S. Nancarrow is rector of St. George's Episcopal Church in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. and canon theologian of the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota. He is a co-author of The Call of the Spirit: Process Spirituality in a Relational World.
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