Karen Hollis | June 11, 2023
Spirituality 1
First Reading: Exodus 3:1-5
Second Reading: Acts 16:25-34
Exodus 3:1-5 Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.’ When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then he said, ‘Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’
Acts 16:25-34 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, ‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.’ The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They answered, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be reflections of your word to us today, in Christ’s name we pray. Amen
Fr. Pedro Arupe, who was a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuit), wrote about spirituality as being in love with God. He says:
Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything.[1] Relationship with God is the starting place . . . in life, in ministry, in community. It’s deeply personal and individual. Spirituality is different from religion; it’s more foundational. I think of religion as the framework in which we engage our spirituality, our relationship with God. Not everyone would agree with me on this. For some people, religion and spirituality are so tightly bound that they are indistinguishable. Neither way of viewing it is right or wrong. I think we get a broader perspective when we differentiate between them. It is an ongoing journey with twists, turns, surprises, lulls.
When I was in seminary, a fellow student was going through a period of feeling disconnected from God. He felt kind of dull in his faith, indifferent. He shared his lukewarm feelings about God with Glaucia, our professor of liturgy. Glaucia was a brilliant Brazilian theologian, both nurturing in a grandmotherly kind of way, and burning with a fiery passion. When she heard her student’s concerns about his faith, she looked at him dead in the eye and said, “take off your shoes; you are standing on holy ground.” (pause) She didn’t need to say any more than that. He stood there a little stunned, but with a deep realization that God had continued to be God this whole time . . . and he was the one who had become indifferent, who had stopped showing up in the relationship. When we take off our shoes, there is no buffer between us and the ground, our feet are bare before God. Taking off our shoes is a response to God’s initiating presence . . . We’re invited to be a bit vulnerable, intimate . . . it’s a way for us to express in response, I’m here to engage this relationship.
When Moses encounters the burning bush at Mount Horeb, he doesn’t go for religious reasons. He’s just pasturing his sheep and he has an experience of God . . . in fact, God introduces God’s self and establishes the relationship. God needs Moses’ help . . . in the midst of their interaction, God calls Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery. And in Moses’ willingness to accept this call, his deeper identity is revealed as one who is sent by God. Moses’ spiritual path – or his ongoing relationship with God – leads to the liberation of the Israelites and a process of developing for them a religious framework and practice. In this case, spirituality precedes and shapes religion. The day my heart knew I would go to seminary, I was leading a retreat for the middle school youth and their parents. I was overstimulated from the activities of the morning, so I sat quietly at lunch, vaguely listening to the conversation around me. I happened to turn my head slightly, and I caught a glimpse of my left shoulder out of the corner of my eye. In that moment, the strangest thing happened: I became aware of myself as a spirit in a body. My spirit looked out through my eyes and saw the body I inhabit . . . and I could suddenly identify specifically with my spirit as distinct from my body. I wasn’t scared, but God sure had my attention. I was awake in a way I hadn’t been before. I knew in that moment my spirit comes from somewhere else and belongs to something greater than this physical world. And yet, spirit, my own and the Great Spirit, is deeply invested in this physical world. I remained in the awe of the experience for months, at this experience of being awake. Eventually I began to look to my Christian faith to make meaning of the event. It must have been the Holy Spirit laying a hand on me . . . helping me to see my connection with God a little more deeply . . . and make crystal clear the call that had been whispering to me over the previous few years and months. It was the Holy Spirit.
Many people have had a mystical experience. They are perfectly normal and can be surprising, unsettling, awe inspiring, frightening. It is also perfectly normal if you haven’t had one; God has many ways to speak to us and many doors to open into relationship.
In our reading this morning, the Jailer’s doorway into spirituality appears when he witness something that resonates with his own internal struggle. In his life, he is participating in the unjust and cruel prison system of the Roman empire. A system that allowed Paul and Silas to be beaten and thrown into prison without tending to their wounds is probably dehumanizing on both sides of the bars. When the jailer sees the prison doors wide open, he assumes the prisoners have escaped and panics, because he’s in serious trouble with his superiors . . . trouble enough to believe killing himself is the answer. Imagine his stunned response when he sees they are still in their cells. Why are they still here? The prisoners are free with or without chains . . . while he walks wherever he wants, but with an internal prison. How can he live a life that is truly free?
The Jailer comes trembling to Paul and Silas, and asks how he might become that free. Their answer is relationship with God through Jesus. While before, he gave power and authority over his life to the Roman Empire, the Jailer makes a conscious choice to give that power to the love of God so that he might truly live.
God will use any means available to offer their love and be in relationship with us. I’m excited about leaning into this love relationship with God, here at Comox United and look forward to seeing how it may continue to shape our lives and our ministry together. We’ll continue next week with an exploration of spiritual practices as ways of engaging and tending our love relationships with God.
[1] From Finding God in All Things: A Marquette Prayer Book © 2009 Marquette University.
