Easter 6
Devotional
Streams of Living Water
Lectionary Devotional for Cycle B
Acts 10:44-48
Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?
-- Acts 10:47
Acts relentlessly pushes the boundaries of the community of faith by telling in rapid succession how those who previously were considered unacceptable have received the Holy Spirit. Following the Pentecost experience of the Spirit drawing the people of all nations together and filling the disciples with boldness, this same Spirit gets out ahead of the disciples. The Holy Spirit sees the unacceptable as acceptable. First there was the man with physical deformities, which excluded him from the temple and forced him to be a beggar outside the gate. Then there was the Ethiopian eunuch whose sexual orientation made him unacceptable. Now there is a group of Gentiles who are filled with the Spirit. In the first case, Peter saw faith in one banned from the temple. In the second, Philip discovered a faith already growing in one who either by nature or environment had been in a lifestyle that was unacceptable. Now the Spirit bursts the bonds that exclude Gentiles.
The conclusion begins to emerge that the Holy Spirit does not understand religious propriety. It is so obvious that only the most hard of heart could deny that God was doing a new thing. In Christ, the unacceptable was being made acceptable and the outsider was being made the insider. "The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles ..." (v. 45).
Why is it, after all this time, that even we, the Gentiles who are received into this community of faith against all tradition and understanding of scripture, still resist the movement of the Spirit in the lives of those who tradition have found unacceptable?
Psalm 98
Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing together for joy at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth.
-- Psalm 98:8-9a
This picture of nature joining the entire human race in singing praises to God reflects the intricate web of relationships within God's creation. As humans, we sometimes think that the rest of the world, both animate and inanimate, is simply the neutral stage on which we operate. In our arrogance, we assume that we are both the only victims of sin and the ones that God cares about. We forget the words of Paul in Romans 8:19: "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God."
With poetic grace we see in the psalmist's words the victory celebration of God over all that has frustrated God's purpose. The intimacy of the Garden of Eden is again reestablished and the liberated creation joins humanity in singing God's victory song. The ecological crisis that now faces our world is as much a reflection of the sin of the world as the wars and violence that threaten the relationship that God intends for all people. "He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity" (v. 9). For those who seek to discern signs of the in-breaking of the kingdom of God, they will need a new humility and a new appreciation of the importance of all of nature to the fulfilling of God's purpose. We are all part of an intricate web of God's creation. If any part of that creation is touched by sin, the whole web reacts.
1 John 5:1-6
This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood.
-- 1 John 5:6a
While these words may seem strange at first, they carry a curious relevance to our modern age. The early Christians were locked in a theological battle with the gnostics. The gnostics thought that the material world was evil and that the key to salvation was to escape the world. Christian gnostics saw Jesus as the Savior from this evil world; but since the material world was evil, the Savior could not be part of this evil world. They, therefore, believed that the Spirit of Christ had entered into the body of Jesus but the Spirit was in fact separate from his material body. In a sense, Christ was masquerading as a human but in fact was purely spirit according to the gnostics. John insists that Jesus came not only by water, which was indicated by his baptism, but also by blood, which was indicated by his physical birth. To believe that Jesus was the Son of God was to believe in both his spiritual and physical dimensions.
We have a strange sort of gnosticism in our own time. There are multitudes of people who proclaim that they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior; but like the gnostics of old, they want nothing to do with the physical manifestation of Christ in the body of Christ or the church. They want to accept the Spirit of Christ because that seems to be a safe abstraction. The physical reality of the church seems to be too filled with "evil" to be found acceptable to them. John would not let the church off so easily. "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child" (v. 1). But lest we become too abstract in that love, John continues, "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments" (v. 2).
To love the child of God is to love the children of God. Jesus' disciples, with full recognition of all their weaknesses and shortcomings, became the foundation of the church. The commandments of God, as 1 John makes clear, cannot be obeyed in the abstract while ignoring the concrete realities of the human species. The church, as reflected in the first disciples but continued with the rest of us, is a necessary physical reality of living our response to Christ as Lord and Savior.
John 15:9-17
I have said these things that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
-- John 15:11
Notice the contrast between this phrase and the attitude of our frightened, lonely, loveless society. We yearn for relationships and view them in sexual terms. Underneath our behavior is nearly a mirror-opposite of Jesus' statement. Our desire is to dress right or drive the right car so that "your joy may be in me and that my joy may be complete." We too often view relationships in terms of conquest and possession. Our insecurity and loneliness cause us to seek relationships to fill our void. Jesus said, "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love" (v. 9). Jesus does not act from a position of starvation for love. Rather, his void was filled by God's love, so he did not need to fill his void by conquering another. Since he was already filled with God's love, he was free to seek to fill others. His love for others was made visible in his ability to sacrifice on their behalf.
Imagine the freedom that we would have as people if we had no need to protect our image or worry about whether we were attractive to others. "I do not call you servants ... but I have called you friends ..." (v. 15). One can obey one's master out of fear or even self-interest. To do something for a friend requires a different attitude. Jesus asks us to love one another as friend to friend. You ask a friend to do something because you believe they will benefit from it. Jesus finds a deep inner joy in loving us and wants us to experience that joy, as well. Your joy is experienced as you see your freely given love enabling others to be healed of their woundedness and share out of their overflowing love with still others.
Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?
-- Acts 10:47
Acts relentlessly pushes the boundaries of the community of faith by telling in rapid succession how those who previously were considered unacceptable have received the Holy Spirit. Following the Pentecost experience of the Spirit drawing the people of all nations together and filling the disciples with boldness, this same Spirit gets out ahead of the disciples. The Holy Spirit sees the unacceptable as acceptable. First there was the man with physical deformities, which excluded him from the temple and forced him to be a beggar outside the gate. Then there was the Ethiopian eunuch whose sexual orientation made him unacceptable. Now there is a group of Gentiles who are filled with the Spirit. In the first case, Peter saw faith in one banned from the temple. In the second, Philip discovered a faith already growing in one who either by nature or environment had been in a lifestyle that was unacceptable. Now the Spirit bursts the bonds that exclude Gentiles.
The conclusion begins to emerge that the Holy Spirit does not understand religious propriety. It is so obvious that only the most hard of heart could deny that God was doing a new thing. In Christ, the unacceptable was being made acceptable and the outsider was being made the insider. "The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles ..." (v. 45).
Why is it, after all this time, that even we, the Gentiles who are received into this community of faith against all tradition and understanding of scripture, still resist the movement of the Spirit in the lives of those who tradition have found unacceptable?
Psalm 98
Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing together for joy at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth.
-- Psalm 98:8-9a
This picture of nature joining the entire human race in singing praises to God reflects the intricate web of relationships within God's creation. As humans, we sometimes think that the rest of the world, both animate and inanimate, is simply the neutral stage on which we operate. In our arrogance, we assume that we are both the only victims of sin and the ones that God cares about. We forget the words of Paul in Romans 8:19: "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God."
With poetic grace we see in the psalmist's words the victory celebration of God over all that has frustrated God's purpose. The intimacy of the Garden of Eden is again reestablished and the liberated creation joins humanity in singing God's victory song. The ecological crisis that now faces our world is as much a reflection of the sin of the world as the wars and violence that threaten the relationship that God intends for all people. "He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity" (v. 9). For those who seek to discern signs of the in-breaking of the kingdom of God, they will need a new humility and a new appreciation of the importance of all of nature to the fulfilling of God's purpose. We are all part of an intricate web of God's creation. If any part of that creation is touched by sin, the whole web reacts.
1 John 5:1-6
This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood.
-- 1 John 5:6a
While these words may seem strange at first, they carry a curious relevance to our modern age. The early Christians were locked in a theological battle with the gnostics. The gnostics thought that the material world was evil and that the key to salvation was to escape the world. Christian gnostics saw Jesus as the Savior from this evil world; but since the material world was evil, the Savior could not be part of this evil world. They, therefore, believed that the Spirit of Christ had entered into the body of Jesus but the Spirit was in fact separate from his material body. In a sense, Christ was masquerading as a human but in fact was purely spirit according to the gnostics. John insists that Jesus came not only by water, which was indicated by his baptism, but also by blood, which was indicated by his physical birth. To believe that Jesus was the Son of God was to believe in both his spiritual and physical dimensions.
We have a strange sort of gnosticism in our own time. There are multitudes of people who proclaim that they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior; but like the gnostics of old, they want nothing to do with the physical manifestation of Christ in the body of Christ or the church. They want to accept the Spirit of Christ because that seems to be a safe abstraction. The physical reality of the church seems to be too filled with "evil" to be found acceptable to them. John would not let the church off so easily. "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child" (v. 1). But lest we become too abstract in that love, John continues, "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments" (v. 2).
To love the child of God is to love the children of God. Jesus' disciples, with full recognition of all their weaknesses and shortcomings, became the foundation of the church. The commandments of God, as 1 John makes clear, cannot be obeyed in the abstract while ignoring the concrete realities of the human species. The church, as reflected in the first disciples but continued with the rest of us, is a necessary physical reality of living our response to Christ as Lord and Savior.
John 15:9-17
I have said these things that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
-- John 15:11
Notice the contrast between this phrase and the attitude of our frightened, lonely, loveless society. We yearn for relationships and view them in sexual terms. Underneath our behavior is nearly a mirror-opposite of Jesus' statement. Our desire is to dress right or drive the right car so that "your joy may be in me and that my joy may be complete." We too often view relationships in terms of conquest and possession. Our insecurity and loneliness cause us to seek relationships to fill our void. Jesus said, "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love" (v. 9). Jesus does not act from a position of starvation for love. Rather, his void was filled by God's love, so he did not need to fill his void by conquering another. Since he was already filled with God's love, he was free to seek to fill others. His love for others was made visible in his ability to sacrifice on their behalf.
Imagine the freedom that we would have as people if we had no need to protect our image or worry about whether we were attractive to others. "I do not call you servants ... but I have called you friends ..." (v. 15). One can obey one's master out of fear or even self-interest. To do something for a friend requires a different attitude. Jesus asks us to love one another as friend to friend. You ask a friend to do something because you believe they will benefit from it. Jesus finds a deep inner joy in loving us and wants us to experience that joy, as well. Your joy is experienced as you see your freely given love enabling others to be healed of their woundedness and share out of their overflowing love with still others.
