Your Holy Spirit
There are many steps one must take during the process to become ordained as a pastor in the Presbyterian church. One of these is to prepare a statement of faith. Typically these contain one’s thoughts about God the Creator/Heavenly Parent, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, scripture, and the sacraments of communion and baptism. This faith statement is reviewed and questioned a few different times during the ordination process, the last of which takes place in front of a gathering of leaders from around 40 local churches.
Being examined in front of the presbytery, as they call that experience, is anxiety-provoking. Even though the candidate being examined has completed all the other steps to be ordained — including earning a Master’s of Divinity degree, completing an internship in a church and another as a chaplain, passing five challenging ordination exams, and being reviewed by committees — there’s still technically a chance you’ll be told “no, you can’t be ordained.” So candidates always strive to provide decent answers when being questioned.
I attended such a meeting recently during which a friend was examined, and one question asked of him was to clarify his thoughts on the Holy Spirit. I’ll share more about that later, but first I want to look at what today’s scripture passage says about the Holy Spirit.
The book of Acts picks up where Luke’s gospel concludes. Written by the same author, it fills in some of the gaps left in the final chapter of Luke. A lot takes place in this passage, but one thing we see is Jesus handing off leadership from himself to the Holy Spirit. His mission on earth would be continued by his followers, but not without continued divine influence. His disciples were to receive instructions through the Holy Spirit, they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit, and they would receive power through the Holy Spirit.
Biblical scholar Robert Wall describes the situation thus:
The Spirit and the apostles are both the appointed successors of God’s Messiah, and through their sacred partnership, divine and human, the promised salvation of God continues to be fulfilled in history. . . . In Acts, the Lord’s apostolic successors, and their successors in turn, are God’s Spirit-filled prophets, the principal interpreters of Scripture and of the course of salvation’s history scripted by biblical prophecy. (Wall, 27)
The apostles are named successors by Jesus, the son of God. This is a lofty designation, but not one that brings with it worldly power. As Wall writes, “The Spirit does not confer a political authority upon the apostles but rather new competencies that enable them to perform the tasks given them, whether through their inspired words, their miraculous works, or their leadership within the community’s common life.” (Wall, 30) We’ll see this work of the Holy Spirit play out as the book of Acts continues. Once empowered, the apostles can be seen engaging in public witness, performing miracles, and navigating the formation of the church.
I began this reflection by sharing about my friend’s examination at the presbytery meeting. To be honest, I struggle a bit with the candidate review process. I might even go so far as to say that writing a statement of faith and then having it questioned on multiple occasions no longer serves much purpose in preparing one for ordained ministry. I’ve never had someone from Intertwined ask me my theological definition of the Holy Spirit, or to share my faith statement. I think faith statements are a throwback to a time when different Christian denominations were trying to clearly delineate their beliefs from one another. Might it be time instead to focus on what we have in common?
The Presbyterian Church has a Book of Confessions, which contains several faith statements written by groups of people across multiple centuries. There’s a lot of coverage of the Holy Spirit in there, and I’ve attempted to create a summary of it here. If you review the Book of Confessions, you’ll read that the Holy Spirit was the conceiver of Jesus, creator of trust, anointer of Jesus, our governor, our teacher, uniter with God and Jesus, divine inhabitant of our bodies, mover in our hearts, Lord, inspiration for scriptures, agent of redemption, conquerer of sin and death, giver of life, renewer of life, and caller to ministry. According to the confessions, the Holy Spirit is also the source of all of the following: awakening, courage, faith, forgiveness, freedom, good thoughts, grace, guidance, ministry gifts, power, pure desires, and reconciliation.
With all that in hand, why do we need more faith statements?
I ask this a bit tongue in cheek. I think crafting a statement of faith is a useful exercise to sort out what you believe. And it’s reasonable to ask about the Holy Spirit when examining a candidate for ministry. But in the days since that meeting, I’ve been wondering what would make for an incorrect response. It seems that designating an answer as wrong plays into the practices of gatekeeping and certainty that have been driving people away from the church for decades.
I’m often asked theological questions by Intertwined sojourners and by other folks who know I’m a pastor, but I’m not asked for my faith statement or definition of the Holy Spirit. That said, if I ever were, I’d like to think instead of trying to share what I thought, I’d instead ask the questioner about their experience of the Holy Spirit. And if they wanted to explore more, I’d suggest taking a look at scripture together to see what’s revealed there.
The Spirit works different ways in different people, and is experienced in different ways in different settings. If the Spirit is associated with our vocations and service, then the Spirit’s influence is manifested in those varieties of ways. The Spirit is also present in different styles of worship services in different ways. For instance, my experience of the Spirit in many Presbyterian churches tends to be heady, while in the Pentecostal church I attended in college it was more embodied. You might also experience the Spirit in different types of music, including hymns or praise or gospel, or perhaps even in what is termed “secular” music.
So I hesitate to put limits around the definition of the Holy Spirit. If I were to expend energy limiting something, it would be on the gatekeeping and certainty so often present in organized religion.
By the way, in case you’re wondering how my friend fared at that meeting, the news is good. He was approved unanimously, and will be ordained later this month.
The Holy Spirit isn’t the only topic covered in the scripture passage. There we find the disciples in a transitional phase, but Biblical scholar Willie James Jennings writes that
first Luke shows us signs of the old, the old identity of the disciples: After the command of Jesus, the disciples ask the crucial question: ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ This is an understandable question, yet it is still an astonishing and tragic question. It is understandable because Jesus is now, without doubt, the One with power over death; the One who has overcome violence; and the One with all power in his hands. (Jennings, 16–17)
But Jesus replies, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” So power would be received and exerted, but not in the fashion the powerful of this world understand it, which is through active and proxy violence. Instead their power would be exercised through their witness.
As Jennings writes, “witness [is] in conflict with nationalist desire, and against the fantasy of any people for global influence or world domination. The disciples will be formed by the Spirit as witnesses. They will be turned out to the world not as representatives of empires but those who will announce a revolution, the revolution of the intimate, God calling to the world.” (Jennings, 18) A plan is unfolding, but it is not for us to know exactly when and how; anyone purporting to possess such knowledge could justifiably be named a false prophet.
The work ahead of the disciples was not to yearn for the restoration of a worldly kingdom. No, because as Wall describes it,
the God of Acts has a redemptive purpose to accomplish and a plan already worked out according to the promises of Scripture. The missionary vocation of the apostles, and by implication of the community they lead, is a task-centered one: The community will be enabled by God’s Spirit to witness to God’s Messiah — to preach persuasively and teach boldly, to interpret Scripture after the mind of God, and to perform miracles to awaken people to the benevolence of God’s rule. (Wall, 35)
Preaching and teaching. Interpreting scripture. Healing. This is how the power brought by the Holy Spirit would be manifested. Not by brute force and violence, but by witnessing. And who better to do the witnessing than those who witnessed Jesus at work? Soon they would “speak of when they walked with Jesus, drawing from fragile memories the fragments of sights, sounds, and the words of the man from Galilee.” Jennings refers to the apostles as “an irrefutable presence.” (Jennings, 18)
Acts tells us of the early days of that witnessing, of how the Holy Spirit provided the spark that filled the souls of the apostles with fire. It’s a fire that has stayed aflame among Jesus-followers for almost 2,000 years.
As modern-day followers of Jesus, what witness do we have to offer? What does preaching, teaching, scripture interpretation, and healing in the tradition of the apostles look like in our context? Robert Wall posits a similar question (and reply), asking
What are the marks of Spirit-filled prophets today? Surely those, whether well known or anonymous, who help the community experience God’s love, know God’s Word, and discern God’s will are the successors of the earliest believers. At times their activities may be grand events; more often, leadership is exercised in the everyday faith and practice of the community. (Wall, 27)
I think of Intertwined sojourner Ben, who recently began coordinating Friday evening to-go meals from Market Square Church in Harrisburg. With a small band of volunteers, he’s been preparing about 80 dinners every week to fill a need in the city. I think of the folks who attend our Bible Study, eager to discuss and interpret scripture and apply it to their lives. I think of those who gather for Peace Out(doors), who push back against the drive to earn and spend and instead allocate their time toward communion with the divine, fellowship with their siblings in Christ, and recognition of our place in creation.
Even after witnessing the ministry of Jesus, the apostles yearned for an exercise of worldly power. We as humans seem to have a built-in desire to put our perceived needs first, perhaps by any means possible when we can justify it in our minds. As Willie James Jennings writes, “no people have ever resisted the tempter’s snare to make use of violence in order to have their way in the world and to secure their future.” (Jennings, 17) So despite centuries of lessons against violence, we still commit mistakes like the War on Terror, which has killed over 432,000 civilians, cost our government over eight trillion dollars (Brown), and created generations of resentment toward our country. We see Israel’s government making similar mistakes, countering reprehensible violence and killing with government-sanctioned, large-scale terrorism.
How does one witness in the face of such division and suffering? I have trouble finding an answer in most of the divisive, money-driven coverage I typically hear. And that’s one reason that our faith communities are so important. Considering today’s scripture passage, Jennings writes that it reminds “us of the dynamic of collective life that the triune God is drawing [us] toward — a people who receives peoples, welcoming the stranger, and thereby expending their identity without loss or violent assimilation.” (Jennings, 21) By gathering together to consider a kin-dom view of the world, we can adopt a countercultural manner of thinking based on ancient wisdom and the movement of the Holy Spirit. We can speak out against violence and injustice regardless of the aggressor, and offer teaching and healing in our communities.
Sisters, brothers, siblings in Christ: How are you different by knowing Jesus? How have you experienced the Holy Spirit? Share your story. Offer your witness. Because — now as much as ever — the world is in need of some good news.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Works Referenced
“Costs of War,” Brown University Watson Institute of International & Public Affairs, accessed May 11, 2024, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/.
Jennings, Willie James. Acts. (BELIEF: A Theological Commentary on the Bible). Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017.
Office of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Part I: Book of Confessions. Louisville, Kentucky: Office of the General Assembly, 2016.
Wall, Robert W. “The Acts of the Apostles.” In New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2015.
