I am so excited I can hardly stand myself. I’ve just got to stop, to tell myself to stop, every now and then. Just stop. Slow down there, sparky. Take it easy. Just breathe. Just ... breathe. Funny how that’s the way we calm down, or help people calm down. Just breathe. In and out, breathe deep, take it in, hold it, and out, Ahhh.
Wow, thanks, that helped. Funny, no, ironic that breathing is what we do to calm down. Ironic because the source of my excitement this morning is that we begin our worship series on the Holy Spirit this weekend. I’ve been waiting for this one. Getting more excited as it drew near. It was postponed from earlier in the year for a variety of reasons. And it turns out one of those reasons was that I picked the wrong book. Last fall I took my annual planning retreat and decided that we needed a series on the Holy Spirit, and found a book titled The Forgotten God all about the third person of the Trinity. It was a good book and I want to recommend it. But I wasn’t blown away by it (heh, see what I did there?)
So, earlier as we discovered changes I didn’t foresee underway, and I had to rearrange the plan I had worked out, another book came to my attention. Published by Paraclete Press (!), written by Jack Levison, it is titled Fresh Air: The Holy Spirit for an Inspired Life. And I was caught up in it right away. Spirited away you might say. Blown away, maybe. So, I began to invite the whole congregation to read this book, we ordered a couple of cases of the book and got them into people’s hands. If you are not a part of Aldersgate (or even if you are but haven’t purchased your book) let me recommend it. Read along with us over these next few weeks, you won’t be sorry. Trust me.
Each chapter takes a dimension of the activity of Holy Spirit from a biblical point of view. The author’s goal is to help us understand and claim that activity in our own lives. To help us live an inspired life, hence the subtitle of the book.
In the introduction, Levison points out that both the Greek and the Hebrew words for spirit are multilayered and sometimes with meanings hard to nail down. The Hebrew word is ruach and the Greek word is pneuma. Both words translate as spirit, but also as wind and as breath. And you can’t tell, even from context whether, the ruach or the pneuma refers to God or the human spirit, the natural wind or the winds of the spirit, the breath we breathe or the breath of life. And Levison argues that this confusion is by design. All are woven together, all are part of the whole. That the spirit of God is a part of our spirit, a part of our breath. That the wind we feel when we walk in the world, is not just the movement of air but the very presence of God pressing against our skin. We are surrounded by the spirit, a part of the spirit, made alive by the spirit, with every breath.
Confused yet? I know I am. Just breathe. For a moment. Just breathe. We’ll make this journey together. Understanding will be a process. After we follow the leading of the spirit we might be able to look back with an “aha” kind of experience. Or maybe not. But understanding isn’t that important. Living into it is more important. Breathing it is more important. Being alive to it is more important. Being alive is more important. Breathe. Just breathe. Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10). Breathe. Live.
Understanding may come later. Breath comes first. So, let’s walk this path together over the next couple of months. We begin with Job. Wait, what? We begin with Job? No one begins with Job. Especially when we want to talk about the life of the Spirit. The spirit is about ... enthusiasm. Right? About passion, about energy. That’s what we’re trying to do here aren’t we? Trying to get folks enthused about their faith again? Isn’t this just an eight week revival that you’re running here? Can’t fool us. We know this spirit stuff. We’re sitting here with arms crossed, daring you to get us to jump around, to speak in tongues or whatever other wild and crazy stuff you think we are supposed to be doing. I mean, really, what’s wrong with the faith we have? We keep it in check, use it when we need it, let it be background to our daily lives, it’s there. I mean, come on, we don’t want to go crazy here, we don’t want to be these fanatics, Jesus people, who are really into God. We like God at arm’s length, we like a little distance. We like to pick and choose, keep faith on a back burner, in a closet somewhere and only let it out when things get desperate. Which doesn’t happen all that often. Thankfully. But that’s how we like it. You’re trying to get us all hyped up. Trying to turn us into something we aren’t. And we don’t like it! We won’t stand for it!!
Breathe. Just take a breath. In and then out. Deep breaths, calming breaths. It will be OK. Really. The spirit filled life never takes away our will, our ability to choose. So, relax. Breathe. Better? So, Job. Not really the place we go to find the joy of living a life of faith. Not really the mountain top experience that we usually associate with life in the spirit. And maybe that’s exactly why Levison decided to start there.
Because we don’t live on mountain tops. Oh, they’re fun to climb once in a while and we can live in the memory of one for really long time. But our everyday isn’t like that. In fact, if we were honest, our everyday seems as far from that as could be. A struggle. A depth. A breath taken in pain and doubt and fear more often than not. When we feel like victims, subject to the winds of fate., blown here and there like a leaf in the fall breeze. So, Job, whose life was the opposite of a mountain top. To say the least. But what could he tell us about the life of the spirit? What indeed? Take a quick look.
Job 27:1-6 NRS Job again took up his discourse and said: 2 "As God lives, who has taken away my right, and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter, 3 as long as my breath is in me and the spirit of God is in my nostrils, 4 my lips will not speak falsehood, and my tongue will not utter deceit. 5 Far be it from me to say that you are right; until I die I will not put away my integrity from me. 6 I hold fast my righteousness, and will not let it go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days.
He took up his discourse. Job had to refute his “comforters” who wanted him to see a simple cause and effect in his suffering. To admit the fault that brought him down. To confess that he had been far from God. Job didn’t understand why what had happened to him happened. But he knew something. He knew that he was not far from God. Even in the midst of the personal pain, he was not far from God. Even in the midst of economic collapse, he was not far from God. Even in the midst of the most profound grief any could imagine, he was not far from God. Even, and this is the tricky one, in his uncertainty and doubt, in his feeling wronged, he was not far from God.
And what was even more stunning, is that he knew, he knew you understand, that God was not far from him. He knew even though his experience screamed the opposite. He knew even though everyone told him the opposite. He knew that God was as close as God has ever been in his whole life. From the moment he saw light, from the moment he drew breath. Even though at this moment in his life he had reason to regret that inhalation. Even though, he knew. Not just hoped. He knew. “As long as my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils.” Ruach. Both words. Both. The translator could have had Job say, as long as my spirit is in me and the breath of God is in my nostrils.
How did he know? In the face of all that he endured, how did he know? He was still breathing. Every breath was a ragged one, searing pain as he moved his body to let air in and then, aching, his muscles moved again to let it out. He was still breathing. That’s how he knew God was still close. Job knew, somehow, held on somehow, to the notion that God was breath, and breath was Spirit, and spirit was wind that blew across his fevered brow. He knew.
How did he know? How do we know? We breathe. All the time, without thinking, we breathe. It’s just air, right, just a function of this body. We breathe. Again, and then again. We breathe, take in .. air, spirit, breath. Every breath you take is a prayer. It is communion with God. Every breath is saying yes to life, and an opportunity to say yes to a life in the spirit. Just breathe. Every breath you take. Keep breathing. God is close. That close. Breathe.
Shalom,
Derek
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