Pushed by the Same Wind--January 16, 2017
"...with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all." [Ephesians 4:2-6]
This is going to sound like I am shamelessly riffing off of the first verse of the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," but... picture yourself on a boat on a river.
Well, make it a boat leaving harbor on the ocean, or large lake. Picture yourself on a sailboat leaving port, and several other sailboats putting out to sea at about the same time. You know your destination, and each of the other boats around you is headed to a different destination, as well. From close up, it may well look like each boat is entirely unconnected and separate from the others--some are headed more north, and others more toward the south, and some are pointed due east. And if you were to zoom in even closer, just to the crew on board your little craft, you might think it was even more disorganized. There's someone up at the front of the boat, and there's someone at the back, each facing opposite directions! How can they be working together, right?
All of this is to say that, to an untrained observer looking very close up, you might think you were watching chaos unfolding. Even a single boat's crew is a flurry of action in different directions, and when you look across the bow of your boat to see someone else's boat headed on a different course from yours, you might think you have nothing to do with them.
And you would be wrong.
Zoom out one level further, and if you could visualize the wind somehow, you would see there is a common thread across every ship headed out to sea and every member of every crew. The same wind has a hold of them. Each boat is tapping into the same energy, the same source of direction, the same power of moving air. They are all getting their motion from the same wind, even if they have aimed their sails in different directions to take them on different headings. This, of course, is the difficult work of operating a sail-boat as opposed to a motorboat or jet-ski--you are, in a very real sense, at the mercy of the wind, in both its strength and its direction. And then it is your skill that allows you to harness that wind to move in a particular direction within that broad, sweeping motion--say, to nudge your boat northeast even when the wind is blowing due east. But all the boats in our little imaginary scene are being driven by the same energy, pushed by the same wind.
Now hold that thought.
When you see the word "Spirit" in the Bible, think "wind." Think "moving air." Even think "breath." That's literally true, because in both Hebrew and Greek, the two primary languages of our Bible, the word "Spirit" doubles as the word for "breath" or "air" or "wind." It is the "wind from God"/"Spirit of God" that stirs over the waters of chaos at Creation. It is the "breath of God"/"Spirit of God" that gives life to the lump of clay that becomes a human being. It is the "rush of a mighty wind" that signals the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Again and again, the writers of the Bible feel the force of wind and hear the sound of breath when they think of the Spirit of God.
Now picture that as the letter to the Ephesians talks about how we live with one another as followers of Jesus who all belong to the same movement. There is one "body" of people, even though we have an awful lot of differences between us, and there is one "Spirit," that, is one common wind filling all of our sails. That idea is key to making sense of how each of us may be following Jesus but how it looks different in each of our lives. One person on our boat is manning the rudder or steering at the helm, and another is attending to the sails, and maybe yet another is up at the front looking ahead. All doing different jobs, jobs which might at first seem unrelated and pointed in different directions, but all are really doing their own work in the bigger project of getting the boat to its destination. Zoom out a bit further and that helps us make sense of the way that our boat here might be doing something slightly different than your boat over there--we are all powered and directed by the same wind, but we are each harnessing it for different purposes. You are going fishing. We are transporting something to the other side of the lake. Someone else's boat is just going on a sight-seeing tour. But we are all tapped into, and pushed onward by, the same wind.
It can be difficult for us as the followers of Jesus to deal with difference. After all, the world around us wants to put everything into neat and tidy categories, and if you don't already fit into one, it will force you into one. But taking Jesus seriously means allowing that the Spirit he sends is going to be stubbornly like the wind--giving us all direction and energy, but also allowing us each to move on slightly different courses even though it is the same wind in each of our sails. Sometimes it happens in churches looking across the waters at one another--why don't we have screens and a rock band like they have? Why don't we have Gothic stone columns and a gigantic organ like they do? Why don't others pray or sing like we do? Why don't we have a food pantry like them, or they have an after-school program like us? We have this tendency to want to judge who is "winning" at church by comparing ourselves to one another. But maybe that misses the point.
In fact, I'll just come out and say it--that misses the point.
Let's assume for a moment that the Spirit of God is at least as smart as you are (a safe assumption, no?). You can see how different boats all pushed by the same wind might each go in seemingly different directions to accomplish different purposes, even though they are all propelled by the same east-blowing air currents. You can see how each might tap into the wind in different ways to do what they are supposed to do. And beyond that, you can see how each person on board any given boat might be doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing even if they are pointed in the opposite direction of someone on their very own boat.
Well, if we can see how that might be true with sailboats in the wind, could we allow that the Spirit of God might just be clever enough to be doing many things at once through you... and the person who sits across from you in church whose life and attitudes often look very different from yours... and also be working through the congregation down the street that does things very differently from yours... as well as the congregation half a world away? Could we allow that the same wind--the same Spirit--could be powering each of us, while reserving the right not to make us all identical?
We can be so bent on uniformity that we forget that God could be smart enough to be juggling a lot of chainsaws at the same time--and even though it is true that one is headed upward while another is headed down, they are really all part of the same motion. We can forget that God reserves the right for the Spirit's motion to include people praying with candles and hymnals over here... AND people welcoming the outcast, who still has wounds from being told they are unacceptable, with arms wide open over here... AND people throwing themselves in harm's way out of Christ-like love over there... AND on and on and on. A god of our own invention--and idol--will only be able to handle the level of complexity that our own brains can process. But the real and living God is clever enough to be using the same Spirit's breath to move you in your world today... and me in mine... even if the actions we take today by the Spirit's prompting look very different if we held them up side by side.
Today, let us dare to allow the possibility that the Spirit of God is doing a lot of things at once--and instead of criticizing the people in the fishing boat for not getting all the way to the other shore (when that is not their purpose in the first place), what if we simply put our own hands to the tasks we have been given on the ship where we have been placed, and leave it to the wisdom and power of the Spirit to get us each to the place we are meant to be....
Lord Jesus, humble me and embolden me enough today to see how you can be moving in my life and world in one way and in a different way in someone else's world... and yet be the same one Lord over and with us all.
All of this is to say that, to an untrained observer looking very close up, you might think you were watching chaos unfolding. Even a single boat's crew is a flurry of action in different directions, and when you look across the bow of your boat to see someone else's boat headed on a different course from yours, you might think you have nothing to do with them.
And you would be wrong.
Zoom out one level further, and if you could visualize the wind somehow, you would see there is a common thread across every ship headed out to sea and every member of every crew. The same wind has a hold of them. Each boat is tapping into the same energy, the same source of direction, the same power of moving air. They are all getting their motion from the same wind, even if they have aimed their sails in different directions to take them on different headings. This, of course, is the difficult work of operating a sail-boat as opposed to a motorboat or jet-ski--you are, in a very real sense, at the mercy of the wind, in both its strength and its direction. And then it is your skill that allows you to harness that wind to move in a particular direction within that broad, sweeping motion--say, to nudge your boat northeast even when the wind is blowing due east. But all the boats in our little imaginary scene are being driven by the same energy, pushed by the same wind.
Now hold that thought.
When you see the word "Spirit" in the Bible, think "wind." Think "moving air." Even think "breath." That's literally true, because in both Hebrew and Greek, the two primary languages of our Bible, the word "Spirit" doubles as the word for "breath" or "air" or "wind." It is the "wind from God"/"Spirit of God" that stirs over the waters of chaos at Creation. It is the "breath of God"/"Spirit of God" that gives life to the lump of clay that becomes a human being. It is the "rush of a mighty wind" that signals the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Again and again, the writers of the Bible feel the force of wind and hear the sound of breath when they think of the Spirit of God.
Now picture that as the letter to the Ephesians talks about how we live with one another as followers of Jesus who all belong to the same movement. There is one "body" of people, even though we have an awful lot of differences between us, and there is one "Spirit," that, is one common wind filling all of our sails. That idea is key to making sense of how each of us may be following Jesus but how it looks different in each of our lives. One person on our boat is manning the rudder or steering at the helm, and another is attending to the sails, and maybe yet another is up at the front looking ahead. All doing different jobs, jobs which might at first seem unrelated and pointed in different directions, but all are really doing their own work in the bigger project of getting the boat to its destination. Zoom out a bit further and that helps us make sense of the way that our boat here might be doing something slightly different than your boat over there--we are all powered and directed by the same wind, but we are each harnessing it for different purposes. You are going fishing. We are transporting something to the other side of the lake. Someone else's boat is just going on a sight-seeing tour. But we are all tapped into, and pushed onward by, the same wind.
It can be difficult for us as the followers of Jesus to deal with difference. After all, the world around us wants to put everything into neat and tidy categories, and if you don't already fit into one, it will force you into one. But taking Jesus seriously means allowing that the Spirit he sends is going to be stubbornly like the wind--giving us all direction and energy, but also allowing us each to move on slightly different courses even though it is the same wind in each of our sails. Sometimes it happens in churches looking across the waters at one another--why don't we have screens and a rock band like they have? Why don't we have Gothic stone columns and a gigantic organ like they do? Why don't others pray or sing like we do? Why don't we have a food pantry like them, or they have an after-school program like us? We have this tendency to want to judge who is "winning" at church by comparing ourselves to one another. But maybe that misses the point.
In fact, I'll just come out and say it--that misses the point.
Let's assume for a moment that the Spirit of God is at least as smart as you are (a safe assumption, no?). You can see how different boats all pushed by the same wind might each go in seemingly different directions to accomplish different purposes, even though they are all propelled by the same east-blowing air currents. You can see how each might tap into the wind in different ways to do what they are supposed to do. And beyond that, you can see how each person on board any given boat might be doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing even if they are pointed in the opposite direction of someone on their very own boat.
Well, if we can see how that might be true with sailboats in the wind, could we allow that the Spirit of God might just be clever enough to be doing many things at once through you... and the person who sits across from you in church whose life and attitudes often look very different from yours... and also be working through the congregation down the street that does things very differently from yours... as well as the congregation half a world away? Could we allow that the same wind--the same Spirit--could be powering each of us, while reserving the right not to make us all identical?
We can be so bent on uniformity that we forget that God could be smart enough to be juggling a lot of chainsaws at the same time--and even though it is true that one is headed upward while another is headed down, they are really all part of the same motion. We can forget that God reserves the right for the Spirit's motion to include people praying with candles and hymnals over here... AND people welcoming the outcast, who still has wounds from being told they are unacceptable, with arms wide open over here... AND people throwing themselves in harm's way out of Christ-like love over there... AND on and on and on. A god of our own invention--and idol--will only be able to handle the level of complexity that our own brains can process. But the real and living God is clever enough to be using the same Spirit's breath to move you in your world today... and me in mine... even if the actions we take today by the Spirit's prompting look very different if we held them up side by side.
Today, let us dare to allow the possibility that the Spirit of God is doing a lot of things at once--and instead of criticizing the people in the fishing boat for not getting all the way to the other shore (when that is not their purpose in the first place), what if we simply put our own hands to the tasks we have been given on the ship where we have been placed, and leave it to the wisdom and power of the Spirit to get us each to the place we are meant to be....
Lord Jesus, humble me and embolden me enough today to see how you can be moving in my life and world in one way and in a different way in someone else's world... and yet be the same one Lord over and with us all.
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