Several years ago I read
an article about a man who had taken his teen-aged daughter to a
crowded movie theatre. They had arrived early, and were sitting in
their seats, engaging in a bit of father-daughter bonding, when a
young man in his twenties stopped and stood in the aisle next to
them. Apparently the lights in the theater had not yet been dimmed.
So, it was fairly obvious to them that the young man was
developmentally delayed.
After looking around, the
young man noticed a group seated one row in front of where he was
standing. An attractive young woman was seated there with a group of
young people. Spotting the group, the young man called out.
"Hey, do you mind if
I sit next to you?" No one said a word. The young girl
hesitated, looked at her friends, and noticed that every eye in the
theater was on them. Trapped by the awkwardness of the moment, she
whispered,
"No, I don't mind."
Not having heard her, the young man said,
"WHAT?"
Obviously embarrassed, she whispered again,
"Uh, no,... I don't
mind."
The young man jumped over
the seats, plopped down next to her, and began talking and asking her
questions in a loud voice.
"Are you married?
You're very pretty, do you have a boyfriend?"
The
man exchanged glances with his daughter, and knew that the same
thought was going through both their minds. Probably it was the same
thought that was going through the minds of just about everyone in
that theater at that moment.
"Thank goodness,
he didn't sit next to us."
They felt sorry for the
embarrassed young girl. They felt sorry for this mentally challenged
young man. But neither of them made a move to do anything about the
situation. Apparently no one else there did so either.
Later,
the man wrote, "I left the movie deeply disturbed. Why hadn't I
helped that poor... young man? Why hadn't I invited him to sit next
to me? Why didn't I strike up a conversation with him after the
movie? In other words, why didn't I show that young man more love and
compassion? To be more direct, why didn't I act more like a
Christian? Why didn't I do what I know Jesus most certainly would
have done? I couldn't. I just sat there, powerless to do anything."
"The Spirit you
received was not one to enslave you to fear again; you received the
Spirit of adoption...."
writes Paul in the Book of
Romans.
Those of us who have met and accepted this Jesus as Our Lord have
been touched by that Spirit of adoption. You and I have, through the
gracious work of that Spirit, become God's children. Consequently, we
have available to us, a source of magnificent power for the living of
our lives as disciples of Jesus Christ.
"But you will
receive power when the Holy Spirit comes to you and you will be my
witnesses",
says Jesus in Acts
1. You
and I are called, and
enabled
to
witness to the world-- by our words and our deeds-- to the reality
and the grace of our God. We are witnesses and adopted children of
the Living God.
And
yet, how many of us would have had the spiritual power to publicly
show some simple compassion and care to that mentally challenged
young man in that movie theater that day? I hope
that I would. I pray
that I would. I’d like
to think
that I
would. But, in all honesty, I can't say for sure that I would have
done anything other than what everyone else in the theater did-- just
sit there and feel sorry for everyone involved-- myself included.
How many times have you
or I heard ministers, lay speakers, bishops, TV preachers, Sunday
School teachers talk about the power of God? How many times have I
preached it? How many times have we heard how the power of God can be
experienced in answered prayers, in miraculous healings, in spiritual
gifts? How many times?
And yet, how many times
have you or I felt powerless to reach out? How many times in our
lives have we been caught unaware and felt paralyzed, unable to offer
a little Christian love, afraid to offer a little common human caring
to a stranger in confusion, or need, or loneliness?
Maybe, just maybe, we're
misunderstanding the power of the Holy Spirit. We've gotten the idea
that the Spirit's power is solely reserved for big, showy, flashy
miracles-- like converting thousands of people in a day, like
speaking and praying in tongues and being understood, like performing
miraculous healings, like preaching with an eloquence that fills our
empty churches with people. We tend to think that the Spirit's power
is reserved for the spectacular, instead of being revealed in the
mundane.
Somehow or other, we've gotten the misconception that our God is
more interested in the big things, instead of choosing to be present
in the small, everyday things. We’ve come to think that God's power
is limited to the few-- the especially holy or particularly blessed--
instead of being available for all believers. We have the mistaken
idea that God's power is manifested in strength, instead of being
revealed in weakness.
Too
often, one of the reasons you and I don't really
take the Holy Spirit, the power of God seriously, is because frankly,
we don't think that we're candidates for it. We just can’t really
believe that we
have been adopted as real live sons and daughters of the Living God.
At least, not in the fullest possible sense.
Sure, the power of God,
or the Holy Spirit, or the charismatic gifts are available to us for
little
things-- like speaking in tongues, or preaching and healing. But can
we believe that same power, that those spiritual gifts are also
available to us for the big
things? Like for instance:
The power to care for and
reach out to someone in need—
even a stranger in a
crowded theater,
The power to say no to
television and movies that offend our values,
The power to choose
inconvenience over self-indulgence,
The power to ask those
I've wronged for forgiveness,
The power to forgive
those who wrong me-- even if they never ask,
The power to read and
study more, especially the Scriptures,
The power to humble
myself, and honestly pray,
The power to stick it out
in a situation that I may not like--
if I feel that I am
supposed to be there,
The power to work on my
relationships with others,
The power to work on
myself,
The power to cut other
people some slack,
The power to recognize
all the slack that others cut for me,
The power to avoid
starting an argument,
The power to make up
after an argument,
The power to walk away
from an argument,
The power to control my
temper,
The power to control my
tongue,
The power to accept and
affirm and celebrate others often,
The power to accept
myself—warts and shortcomings and all,
The power to admit my
shortcomings and my failures,
The power to transcend my
failures and sin,
The power to get over all
my past failures, and get on with my life,
The power to accept and
really believe that my sins are forgiven,
The power to accept
responsibility for my actions,
The power to listen,
rather than to judge,
The power to say “no”
to the demands of job when they conflict
with the needs of my
family,
The power to say “no”
to those material things that require so much time that they keep
me from spending time on what is truly important in my life,
The power to say “no”
to idleness and meaningless activity,
The power to say “yes”--
to my family-- to my integrity-- to my ministry-- to my God,
The power to say "I
love you" to my spouse and children,
The power to say "I
love you" to other people-- and mean it,
The power to love, even
when we don't like,
The power to live with
not being liked,
The power to discern what
is right and what is wrong,
The power to find courage
to do what I am afraid to do,
when I know it is
right,
The people to ignore
“what
people will say”— after
all, they’re going to talk about you anyway,
The power to ask and know
what Jesus would do,
The power to follow my
Savior, wherever He leads me.
Well. I'll admit. It's
not as glamorous or as spectacular a list as speaking in tongues,
interpreting tongues, prophesying, healing, teaching, governing, and
evangelizing-- which is one version of Paul’s several different
lists of the so-called "spiritual gifts". I'll also admit
that the power of God, or at least the gifts that I've listed make
the power of God sound kind of everyday and wishy-washy. At least,
compared to the
"charisms" that
Paul lists.
And I'll admit that
living your life practicing the living out of these more simple,
everyday gifts, won't get your mug on TV, preaching as a big-name
evangelist or faith healer. And I'll admit, that this more mundane
list isn't really found in the Bible. But on the other hand, Paul did
say elsewhere that "the
Realm of God is not a matter of talk, but of power."
Hmmmm. Do you suppose
that Paul is suggesting that if you and I worked harder at practicing
the power of God in our everyday lives and relationships that we
might find ourselves to be more comfortable and less self-conscious
and able to reach out in simple compassion to a needy stranger on the
street-- or in the movie theater? Do you suppose that the Apostle is
telling us that if we really
begin
trying to pray for and work on perfecting those mundane, small gifts
of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we might be enabled to fill our
empty churches by the simple power of your and my everyday witness in
the world?
Do you suppose that Paul
is telling us that if we were each to just make more of an effort to
practice these unspectacular gifts of the Spirit of Adoption in our
everyday-ness of our lives, that speaking in tongues, and miraculous
healings, and prophecies would pale into insignificance in comparison
to the "marvelous
sight of the sons and daughters of God coming into their own"?
The gifts are
there for us. The Spirit
is
there
for us. We've already
received the Spirit in fact. You and I need never fear or be
embarrassed to reach out in compassion, or fear to witness, or share
again. Paul says so.
"The Spirit you
received was not one to enslave you to fear again... The very Spirit
of God joins with our spirit to testify that we are God's children."
Amen.
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