There’s a wisdom of why Trinity Sunday follows after Pentecost. Without experiencing the presence of the Holy Spirit within ourselves, it’s utterly impossible to experience the triune mystery of God. Note that this mystery is to experience first, not understand intellectually. The latter part of making sense of this divine mystery comes out of our personal and communal experience of God the Holy Trinity. Then what is this experience?
Today’s lesson from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans shows us where to begin to enter this experience. The keyword here is “a spirit of adoption” through Christ. This is to say that we look at ourselves as we set our eyes on Jesus of Nazareth. As much he is human, we are too human. This very humanness that both Jesus and we share in common is the very beginning to enter the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Where God the Son stands, we stand with the Son. This standing together is Christ. This state of standing together, which in other words is being in union with each other, simultaneously takes place as we notice the breath of God the Holy Spirit in our own breathing. As our focus is single-pointed to the very communal act of the Spirit and us, we are also one with the Spirit. In this imminent experience with the Spirit deeply breathed in us, we experience the transcendence of God the Father, meaning we go beyond ourselves. We’re out of ourselves, transcending ourselves which almost is felt like being gracefully consumed and unconditionally loved in the womb of God. I personally find naming the Holy Trinity as God the Transcendent, God the Wisdom, and God the Immanent more helpful than the traditional term, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit simply because the former captures our experience more accurately. (Sometimes traditional expressions are to be freshly compared with our experiences expressed in contemporary language.) This contemplative and mystical experience of God as the transcendent, the wisdom, and the immanent is what our baptismal experience is supposed to be like every day. Having briefly illustrated this experience of the Trinity, we might want to ask a practical question. Does this “holy” experience help me? If so, how? What does it do to me? Of course, we’re not talking about a guaranteed ticket to heaven. If we cannot experience the kingdom of God here and now, we probably won’t experience it even after we die. This question of how practical and beneficial this holy experience is to us is the reason why we believe what we believe. We all have some reasons to believe in this Christian faith. St. Paul points us to “life according to the flesh” which is governed by “a spirit of slavery.” His spiritual diagnosis of people in the world is that they’re living their lives according to the flesh. This life according to the flesh doesn’t merely mean that people are becoming more secular or less religious but the life enslaved by superficial, empty, and unsubstantial matters. When there is no serious question about life itself but only avoidance about finitude and mortality of everything that exists, we become far removed from the ultimate reality in which God reveals in us. This spirit of slavery keeps our focus away from our own mortality and falsely lures us to believe we can live forever. We are self-absorbed and self-attached that there’s no room to see others around us. The spirit of adoption, however, puts things in order that we’re not gods but children of God. How we realize ourselves as God’s children is through the contemplative experience with God the Trinity. So, yes the experience of the Trinity helps us by liberating us from the unreality and taking us back to the ultimate reality where we die and live in Christ between birth and death. It keeps us living in the present moment. Then again, this is not the end of it. When we’re living in the presence of the Trinity, we become radically selfless so that we become compassionate, kind, and loving. There is no reason to defend ourselves from others because in God we literally have nothing (or no self) to lose. Love is what’s left in us. This joining in God’s love in the eyes of the world is nothing but suffering. Thus, St. Paul says, “In fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” At this point, how can anyone argue whether our belief in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is simply an intellectual matter? It is real. It leads us to the cross. May this faith in the Triune God take us to the feet of Jesus of Nazareth. Amen. Pentecost B (Ezekiel 37:1-14; Romans 8:22-27; Psalm 104:25-35, 37; John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15)5/12/2021 On this Day of Pentecost, I want to raise a very uncommon question for us Episcopalians, “Have you received the Holy Spirit? Has the Holy Spirit descended on you? Has God put the Holy Spirit within you?” This is a yes or no question that is yet quite challenging to answer. Probably because we don’t know what it really means. This discussion of receiving the Holy Spirit has never been quite clear, especially in the Episcopal Church.
My friends, I can assure you that you can say “yes” to the question. You might have some hesitation or a second thought about whether you really did experience the Holy Spirit just because you haven’t experienced the Holy Spirit in the ways you or others think you should. This second thought is actually not that beneficial because the coming of the Holy Spirit is not up to us or does not depend on our subjective experiences or theories about it. The Holy Spirit has already happened. It’s just that we might not have recognized it yet. So how do we know we’ve already received the Holy Spirit? Let’s start with “dry bones” in the valley where the Spirit of God takes Ezekiel and identify ourselves and our world with them. This is not one of the most beautiful images that one would associate with but is indeed a hopeful one. As we can see and acknowledge we’re like dry bones, we’re accepting our spiritual thirst, hunger, and void in us and in the world. This spiritual lack becomes our motivation to be filled with the Spirit. So the prophecy of Ezekiel is the good news for us dry bones: “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:4-6) The key in this prophecy is breath. The breath of God, ruah in Hebrew or pneuma in Greek, which is the Holy Spirit, is breathed into our being. Then, our own breath becomes the very entry to sense the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. We too often take our ability to breathe for granted but this is the very evidence of life. It’s also something we’ve never learned how to. We simply do. But what if we imagine that it is God who is breathing into our very existence from moment to moment? If that one human activity that we have never stopped doing ever since we were born is this act of breathing, can we say God has never stopped breathing into us? If this is not grace, what is? Then the focus of our spiritual practice is simple. Be attentive and aware of our own breathing first. Every time we’re mindful of our breathing in and out, we realize that our lives are not our own but are sustained by the very breath of God. With this great thanksgiving, we open ourselves to God, others, and the world. This awareness of God’s breathing in our own breathing is to connect, communicate, commune with ourselves, our neighbors, our environments, and God. When we’re able to see ourselves and the world around us that we experience, perceive, and construct by connecting physically and spiritually through breathing, we become one with one another. This is how God lays sinews on us, causes flesh to come upon us, and covers us with skin as described in the prophecy of Ezekiel, which is the forming of God’s beloved community. Our own breath, which is the breath of God the Spirit is what Jesus leaves behind in today’s gospel lesson. Also, let’s not forget that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, aleitheia in Greek whose literal meaning is unforgetfulness or awakening. We then need to work on raising our awareness and awakening to the divine breath. Now, the question is not about whether we received the Holy Spirit or not but how aware and awake we are of the Holy Spirit through our own breathing. I leave us with another question, “Who’s breathing in you?” “When the spiritual teacher and his disciples began their evening meditation, the cat who lived in the monastery made such noise that it distracted them. So the teacher ordered that the cat be tied up during the evening practice. Years later, when the teacher died, the cat continued to be tied up during the meditation session. And when the cat eventually died, another cat was brought to the monastery and tied up. Centuries later, learned descendants of the spiritual teacher wrote scholarly treatises about the religious significance of tying up a cat for meditation practice.” (users.rider.edu/~suler/zenstory/ritualcat.html)
Doctrines lose their fundamental meanings when practitioners or believers stop asking a critical question of why. The Jewish ritual of circumcision for male converts is a public symbol and promise agreed within its faith community to enter into the covenant of and with God who has first initiated to reach out to people. The key here is not the ritual itself but God who cannot stop loving God’s own. In today’s lesson, the Holy Spirit is that critical question itself that exposes the fundamental meaning of what it means to be circumcised and baptized. The Holy Spirit also is the answer to that question that it is God who is the reason for ritual circumcision and baptism. In other words, why it is even possible for them to enter into God’s covenant is by God, from God, and with God. St John would say, “We love because God first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) When we forget or stop to ask why we do what we do, all our Christian practices become like the cat tied up at the monastery. This seems to be what’s happening in the lesson. The cat is the doctrine that only the circumcised can be baptized. The meaning of ritualistic circumcision is lost that its sole goal is to acknowledge and commit oneself to the covenant of and with God. It shouldn’t be used as a dogmatic means to filter who is worthy to be baptized or not. For this reason, today’s lesson may be one of the most dangerous texts for Christians who like the way things have been for them that no change is absolutely necessary because it’s about change and more importantly, God is all about change. The Holy Spirit descends upon the gentiles, meaning God is available, present, and known to all regardless of one’s religious, ethnic, economic, and gender statuses. God doesn’t care at all what the circumcised believers or we, in general, think about how God should act or to whom God should be present. This is not to say God basically does whatever God wills. Perhaps God can but there’s no one who has any idea about God’s doing until we see its fruits. It’s much wiser to be silent on God’s act unless we become a part of that divine action in the world. So the point of the story is not about when or how God acts. It simply is that God is available, present, and known to every single creature. This universal, thus catholic truth would be radically provocative to those who set their rules to police who can join their club and who God can admit. Jesus’s good news is about God’s reign or the kingdom of God in a traditional term, dwelling within everyone. His ministry is not to permit God to be encountered with everyone in his name but to awaken the loving and compassionate presence of God in everyone’s hearts. Don’t look outside to find God. Don’t expect religious people or clergy will give us God. God is already within us. So asks Peter, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” Those who recognize and experience God’s presence in all living things themselves are the new song (Psalm 98:1) that the early Church sings. What about us? Are we somehow making the same mistake that Peter and the circumcised believers did in the lesson that our understanding of baptism has become the cat tied up? Somehow thinking the Holy Spirit is only available and present to the baptized and there’s nothing we ought to do to deepen our spiritual maturity since we’re already baptized and spiritually set for the rest of our lives? I believe not! My friends, I invite all of us to continue to allow the Holy Spirit to deconstruct our fixated belief systems and reconstruct or resurrect our love for God so that we can practice God’s compassion in the world. May it be so. Amen. The Ethiopian eunuch is someone who may be physically deprived, whether willingly or not, yet has social stability and political power as a court official in charge of the Ethiopian Queen’s entire treasury. (In the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition, he’s called Simeon Buchos or Simeon the Black.) This social and political capital would be for some people exactly what they desire if they care more about materials and power. For this Ethiopian eunuch, it doesn’t seem like all these worldly power and wealth satisfy him. There’s a sense of void in his heart. It's a spiritual void that nothing in the world can satisfy.
How do we know that? Simeon is on his way back home from Jerusalem where he considers a place of worship and is meditating on the Book of Isaiah. That he worships and reads Scriptures demonstrates there’s something he’s missing in his life. He knows there’s something deeper and more meaningful than the life he has as a court official. Even though he can’t probably become a Jewish convert due to his physical condition, he still seeks God. Scholars consider him as a God-fearer instead of a convert or a proselyte. Whether he is allowed to be into a religious circle or not, he persists his search for God who can only fill his void. With all the information that St. Luke provides us in the lesson, we can at least diagnose Simeon’s spiritual condition: He’s spiritually healthy enough to sense that he’s spiritually missing something. He’s trying to find the way to be more intimately connected to God’s presence. He’s looking for God’s direction to live his life according to the will of God despite all the socio-political power and wealth he can certainly enjoy. I say he’s spiritually healthy because he sees through what can persuasively and falsely appear as the most valuable things in life and cuts through them. Whatever social prejudice he is projected on and whatever political power he can nourish, he longs for God. Because he’s spiritually ready and mature to follow the way of the cross, St. Philip is to respond to God’s call for Simeon. He is told to go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza where he is to meet Simeon. We can imagine how both Simeon and Philip are spiritually connected to be on the same journey. Their vacations are ignited when they encounter each other. A true vocation is never self-serving but always without any exception is self-giving and others-receiving which leads to community-forming. As Philip helps Simeon understand who the sacrificial lamb is, meaning whose life and footstep Simeon is to follow, notice it is Simeon who initiates to be baptized first, not Philip. The Isaiah reading on the sacrificial lamb does not depict a very optimistically hopeful vision, which is why it’s more shocking from our modern perspective that Simeon still wants to be baptized. To be baptized is to let go of one’s own ego, to empty oneself to contain others in oneself, which is to dedicate one’s life for the betterment of others. As this pandemic crisis continues, we spend more time alone than with others. For some, this spending time alone can be isolating and can manifest a great sense of void, emptiness, or even despair that we were not aware of before. For others, it may come as solitude in which they find solace, hope, and peace as they handle this alone time rather meditatively. I think Simeon turns what’s deprived in him as a spiritual source to seek something deeper and greater to fill in. He begins with praying (worshipping) and meditating on Scriptures. As he delves into his practice of contemplation, his desire for God completes and fulfills what’s lacking in his life. His longing for God in and of itself is a gift from God because that holy desire eventually leads him closer to God, particularly to the life of loving kindness and compassion for others. This longing is the living flame of love in his heart. It’s incredibly difficult to face our own depravity, our mistakes or regrets and to sense a spiritual void in our hearts. This recognition automatically doesn’t fill up what’s missing which is why we want to avoid courageously encountering it. If we try to compensate with worldly things, the void will become greater. This void can be filled only when we face and go through. There, we find God that whatever we feel as incomplete, incompetent, and imperfect about ourselves is nothing but an illusion that we have fabricated. That’s when we can finally see ourselves in God’s eyes that there’s nothing I lack but we can hear “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9) |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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