Spirit of Practical Wisdom

I wish we could know how close to us is the Spirit of the Lord --- in Him we live and move and have our very being, according to the Scriptures.  We fail to call upon Him until we are desperate, until we have tried everything we know.  But all the while, He is waiting for our call.  We tend to think that God is "too busy" with world affairs to pay attention to our "little" affairs.  But our lives are made up of small moments, moments that are important to our peace and joy and confidence.

I know that Christians are being persecuted at this very moment, and that my small moments are nothing in comparison to the great trials they are facing.  But for the Holy Spirit, there is no job too small to warrant His attention, if we but call upon His help.  One of the names for the Holy Spirit is The Helper, the same word God used to create Eve as a "help" to Adam: One who surrounds and protects, who succors and assists.  

We tend to read the Old Testament as events that happened "way back then," but that have no practical application to our lives today.  In the book of Exodus (31), we read that the Lord had chosen Bazalel and "...filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability, and knowledge in all kinds of crafts --to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver, and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship....Also I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded you: the Tent of Meeting, the ark of the Testimony....and all the other furnishings of the tent." (See also Ex. 35 and 36.)  One of my favorite translations of these passages says that the Lord had filled these workers with "the Spirit of practical wisdom."

Now we know for sure that what God DID, God DOES.  He is not a God of the past, but of the present.  We need to allow Him to be present, to be our Helper in day-to-day living.  He wants the same union with us as Eve had with Adam -- a "helper suitable to him."  The more we allow Him to share the most minute affairs of our daily lives, the closer we grow in union with Him, the more grateful we grow for His constant help, and the more confidence we have in His companionship (His "help" with us.  How many of us would call upon the Holy Spirit for practical wisdom in our daily lives--to help us in arts and crafts, in dietary planning, in finding the right shoes or dress for a special occasion, in figuring out how to construct a project?   

Years ago, when my children were small, both of my girls were allergic to milk, and I was buying powdered goat's milk for them.  The small cans were rather expensive for our budget at the time, and the price seemed to increase all the time.  I remember thinking about the expense one day as I was preparing a fresh batch of milk.  At the time, I had just started reading the Bible, and it was all very unfamiliar to me.  I had no idea of what was in it or where things were.  If I read something one day, I could not find it the next.  Now, I cannot recall whether I prayed about what was on my mind or not, but what I do remember is being in the shower and feeling the Lord directing me to open my Bible when I got out.  Not being even sure that it was the Lord, or just my own direction, I sat down and opened the Bible at random.  Immediately, my eye went directly to the passage that said, You will have plenty of goats' milk to feed you and your family and to nourish your servant girls.  I could not believe, first of all, that such a passage even existed (Ps. 27:27), and secondly, that I had opened the Bible to that very passage.  I began to believe that day that the Spirit of God was "closer than a brother" to my very thoughts.

Was that a "little thing?" Not to me at the time; it was a cause of concern, but God lifted my concern with His word at just the right time.  Never again did I worry about the expense of buying goat's milk.  Of course, it has taken years and years and constant reassurance to lift my worry about other kinds of expenses. It is clear that Jesus does not want us to live in worry and fear; it is not so clear how we should avoid worry and fear.  But if we rely on The Helper, we eventually learn that God is our help; the Lord is the One Who sustains us (Ps. 54).  "Sustains" means on a day-to-day basis, not just in the large, crisis, moments.

As I grow older, my allergies seem to increase to the point that I often have trouble finding something to eat, especially at night when I don't cook.  The main meal is easy to plan -- often meat and vegetables -- but at night, I just need something more like a snack.  For me, that is the difficult part: no dairy, no wheat, no chocolate, no nuts, no sandwich or other "easy" fix.  Mostly, my evening meals have come down to a salad, which I often don't want, especially in the winter, or just oatmeal.  I wander into the kitchen saying, "What can I eat?"  Look in the pantry, in the refrigerator, in the freezer, and then fix oatmeal once again.

Finally, I asked the Holy Spirit what I could eat in the evening.  This morning, as I got ready for prayer time,  I suddenly found myself getting up and going to the cookbooks.  There I found a vegetarian cookbook I had forgotten about; I've had it about 20 years or so.  The cover promises recipes that can all be prepared "in 15 minutes or less" -- and as I browsed through the book, I saw multiple dishes that I love and that can be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated.  The authors believe that we should not be consuming dairy and wheat, so everything in the book is tailored to my condition.  I had not been thinking at the moment about the prayer I had said a few days before, so, like the goats' milk episode, once again, I am blown away by the closeness of The Helper.  Better than a diet advisor, He knows exactly what I need and what I need to avoid!  Who knew when I bought this book so many years ago, that it would one day be exactly what I needed?

We say that God loves us, but we often fail to give Him the opportunity to show us how close He is to us-- closer than our breath and our thoughts.  And our faith is weak because we do not ask--You have not because you ask not! (James).  If we do not ask, He cannot answer, and we continue to doubt.  As we read about the exquisite details of the Tabernacle in the wilderness, let us call on the same "Spirit of Practical Wisdom" to guide our daily lives.  We can never ask too much of the Helper!

How Does This Happen?

...By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.  So by their fruits you will know them (Matthew 7:15-20).

Reading this passage in Matthew's Gospel struck me with a bit of incongruity.  I saw Matthew sitting at his tax-collector's table in the public market -- shamelessly cheating and overcharging people on their taxes, oppressing the poor for his own gain.  And I immediately thought of the rotten tree bearing bad fruit.  And yet, that is not the tree Jesus saw when he passed by.  He saw a tree that could be pruned and fertilized, a tree that could yet bear good fruit.

How does this happen, that someone producing evil fruit in this world can be born again as a good tree bearing good fruit, for it seems that's what it would take.  Jesus said to His disciples:  You did not choose Me, but I chose you to go and bear fruit-- fruit that will last.  And the way we bear fruit is to remain in Him, for His Word continually works in us to cleanse us from our own evil works:  You are already clean because of the Word I have spoken in you (Jn. 15:3).

We tend to think of Jesus' washing His disciples feet as purely symbolic, as an example of how we need to treat one another.  But the symbol conveys the reality that as we remain in Jesus, His Word constantly works in us to cleanse and purify us.  He is always washing our feet -- and our heads, hands, and souls.

I used to wonder what "fruit" I was producing -- sometimes I see very little at all.  And yet, Paul in the book of Galatians tells us what the fruit of the Spirit is:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Actually, though we cannot see these fruits, they are the very ones that will change the world around us.  I believe that these spiritual fruits will even make a difference in the physical environment around us.

In the 1940's, there was a Russian experiment to increase productivity on farms.  By adding perlite to the soil to retain moisture, they hoped that a greater yield of wheat would be the result.  The first trial indeed produced a significantly greater yield, but the second trial a year later, with a different group of scientists, produced no results at all.  The third year, the original team was sent to repeat their experiment, with the same results as the original trial.  The conclusion seemed to be that it was the people involved, not the perlite, the produced the results.  Indeed, gardeners do know the difference between a 'green thumb" and a "black" one seems to lie within the soul.

If this is true of the garden, how much more so of the spiritual environment in the home and workplace.  Perhaps the fruit of the spirit flowing out of those who remain in Christ changes the atmosphere in the world around us.  The good news is that we ourselves do not have to "produce" the fruit -- for who among us can actually produce peace, or love, or joy in ourselves?  If we could, we certainly would -- despite the claims of the meditation gurus who want us to lock ourselves in a closet and hum.

It is the Spirit of Jesus in us -- even in Matthew and those like him -- that produces the good fruit.  Mark 4 tells us that the farmer does not know how the seed produces fruit -- all by itself, he says, the soil produces grain, even while the farmer is sleeping.

Matthew walked with Jesus for 3 years, leaving behind his tax table and his own pursuits.  At the end of that time, he was baptized in the Holy Spirit, and his life yielded much fruit for the kingdom of heaven.  I wonder if we could leave behind our selfish pursuits and set out to dwell in the tent of the Lord for 3, 5, 15 years until He produces in us fruit for the kingdom of heaven.

How Grateful I Am!

I have a friend who cannot understand how it is that Abraham is the father of three world religions.  In her words, "Abraham was a shit."  He married his sister; he sold his wife/sister into bondage to Pharoah; and he was willing to sacrifice his only son. When we look at Abraham this way, we just have to laugh; the truth is that we could go through the entire bible and look at every major player in the same way, excepting Mary and Jesus, of course.  I cannot think of one person, except Job, whose life is delineated in any detail who we would not describe as a "shit," in my friend's words.  Some, such as Job, Noah, Josiah, and Joseph, were described as "just men," but if we had more information and could look more deeply, we might find major flaws -- as indeed we do with Noah after the flood.

Fast forward to the 12 apostles, the "chosen."  "Have I not chosen all of you, and yet one of you is a devil!" said Jesus.  Only one was a 'devil," and yet all were sinners.  If we look at Peter, we might have described him as a "shit" too.  And yet, how loveable a shit!  How grateful I am for St. Peter -- yes, today, he is referred to as "Saint Peter."  And if we could meet him today, how humble he would be to be called "Saint," for he knows well his sin and his betrayal of the Son of God who loved him beyond all measure.

In Israel, there is a church/shrine with a rooster on top -- the church of the "cock crows," built over the courtyard of Peter's denial.  There you can find the original steps where Jesus walked after leaving the spot where he was questioned by Caiaphas, the high priest that year.  Within the walls of that shrine, there is a mural depicting Peter's sorrow -- even anguish after his denial.  Peter has fled to the wilderness; there is a cave in the background, where he can be alone in his grief.  And he is tormented by his denial of the One he loves so wildly.  He cannot forgive his weakness and cowardice, and he cannot forget the look on the Jesus' face as He gazed on Peter at that moment.

At the last supper, Jesus had said to Peter: Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat.  But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.  And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.  When we read this statement closely, it reveals more than it seems to at first.  For one thing, the phrase "sift you" is in the plural form.  In the south, Jesus would have said, "sift y'all."  Wow!  Thinking about that over the ages of the church is very significant.  It explains a lot, from the Protestant Reformation to the clerical abuse of the 20th-21st century, along with every age of the church--every heresy, every disagreement over doctrine and practice, every split along the way. Satan has asked to sift the church, the believers, the ones for whom Jesus prayed the night before his death would "be one, even as the Father and I are one."  The very prayer closest to the heart of Jesus is the place where Satan has directed his attack.

But I have prayed for you, Simon, …... in the singular. "I have prayed for the one who, when he has turned back, will strengthen his brothers."  It was necessary that Peter experience his own weakness and sin and agonize over it in deepest grief if he was to be fully equipped to "strengthen his brothers."  The reason that Peter is the head of the church is that he was the chiefest of sinners -- of all the disciples, he was the one who denied Jesus, his friend and savior.  He was one of the three closest to Jesus, one that had witnessed the transfiguration and the one who had received the revelation that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God.  He was supposed to be the strongest and now had proved himself to be the weakest.  He could not stand at the foot of the cross, as did John and Mary; he was hidden in the cave crying over his sin and betrayal of Love.  In other words, he was a first class "shit."

How grateful I am for Peter!  When I know myself to be a first-class "shit," I remember the mural of Peter in grief and agony over his sin.  In fact, I bought a copy of the mural and it sits beside my desk.  In the years to come, Peter, as head of the church, would have to deal with many who betrayed their original fervor of faith in the face of Roman persecution and threat of torture.  In fact, historically, there would be a great controversy over those, even bishops, who abandoned their faith and betrayed their fellow Christians in fear of torture and death.  In the age of Augustine (who died in 410), the Donatists were maintaining that those who betrayed the faith could not be re-admitted to the church because they were "shits."  Those who had been consecrated by such bishops were not really consecrated and could not be recognized as legitimate, in the view of the Donatists.

But Peter, in the person of the popes who followed him as head of the church, did not forget his own fear and cowardice in time of persecution.  Nor did he forget Jesus' total forgiveness and re-admission into His own company and the company of the apostles:  "Peter, do you love Me?  Feed my sheep."  Three times, Jesus repeated and re-established Peter's authority and mission -- Feed my sheep.

With what charity and love did Peter take up his role as head of the church!  With what humility, never forgetting his own grief, was he able to forgive those who acted the way he had in the face of suffering!  He was equipped for ministry by his own failure and the strengthening of Jesus Christ.  Never again would he rely on his own strength!  He was not called to be a great "leader," the way the Greeks and the Romans saw their leaders -- a great intellect or a great soldier.  He was called to love and strengthen sinners.  He was called to be a shepherd, feeding the sheep who wandered away and got lost -- those who fell into the ravines and strayed from the flock.

How grateful I am for Peter, for Abraham, for those who failed and turned back.  They are my "peeps," the ones who know there is nothing praiseworthy in themselves.  My copy of the mural of Peter's betrayal comforts me when I have been a "shit" and don't know how to fix it.  And I think of Jesus saying to me, "Gayle, do you love me?"  Strengthen those like yourself who don't know their right hands from their left.  Feed my sheep.

Creating Space

Our lives have little room for the Divine Presence.  It is hard to make room for the invisible, the intangible, the unknowable  -- and it is hard for us to believe that when we do reach out, or reach up, that we have really made contact with a Divine Person.

We cannot "go up" to God.  He must "come down" to us -- and this He has done in the Incarnation. In the words of John, He had "pitched His tent and dwelt among us."  He has taken on flesh, that we might touch Him with our hands, see Him with our eyes, and speak with Him face to face, as a man with his friend.

Ancient religions, and even some modern ones, could only delineate man's relationship to the Divine as slave and servant.  But this is not the relationship God desires; it is not what He created us for.  He created sons and daughters, men and women in His Image -- those with whom He could walk in the garden and speak in the cool of the evening.  He wanted men like David, "a man after [His] own heart."

Our religion, whatever denomination or species, is supposed to create the space in our lives where we come face to face with the Father, with the Son, and with the Holy Spirit.  The practice of religion is not to make us feel righteous (for doing the works of the law, for example), but rather to turn us from everyday tasks and routines -- to make space for a conversation, for a relationship.

The word "Sabbath" means "stopping."  We cannot continue to gather manna on the Sabbath; it is rather a day to stop and enjoy what we have gathered the day before -- to feast, to reflect, to praise, to laugh, to renew relationships with God and with those we love.

As I grow older, I look back on all the things in my life I wish I had done differently -- and one of my biggest regrets is that I was so busy every day that I did not make space for love and laughter.  On Saturday, I caught up on cooking and cleaning; on Sunday, I graded papers and prepared lessons for the week ahead.  I was a good teacher, because I put reflection time into it; I was not such a good mother because I failed to create space for enjoying my children: for picnics, for walks, for fun and relaxation together.  I realize now that "family" does not just happen because people live in the same house and eat the same meals.  We need to make space for one another in our hearts and minds; we need to be "friends" as well as family.

The same is true of "religion."  It is not enough to "do the right things" -- going to church, obeying the laws, etc., if these things do not allow us to create space to enjoy the Presence and Person of God.  We need to relax in God's Presence, as well as go to church.  We need to know God 'face to face,' as a man knows his friend.  We need to know the heart of God, as well as His mind -- and that means spending time with Him.

James tells us, "Draw close to God, and He will draw close to you."  One of the ways I have learned to do this is to picture the image of the Most Holy Trinity painted by Rublev:

I have written before about this image, so I will skip the description for now.  But I imagine myself as accepting the invitation to "sit down at the Table of the Lord."  There I can freely enter into conversation with the Father, with the Son, and with the Holy Spirit.  There, since the Holy Trinity has created space for me, I can create space for the Divine Persons.  Despite my sinfulness, I know myself to be accepted as daughter of the Father, as "friend and companion" of the Son, and as spouse of the Holy Spirit, as was Mary.  He is free to create in me all that the Father and the Son desire of beauty and worthiness.  He is free to re-arrange the furniture of my heart and mind to make space for the Divine Presence.  He is free to open my eyes and ears to the things of God and to turn me away from the business and busyness of earthly things.

Religion is supposed to prepare us to enjoy the eternal relationships of heaven -- fellowship with the Divine Persons and with one another.  But on earth, we need to create the space for these relationships if we are to enjoy them forever in heaven.  And our Sabbaths are a great place to begin to learn love and laughter.