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Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 26, 2019: three-legged stool

 

Jesus tells the disciples in the gospel that he is going away, but the Holy Spirit will come and teach you everything. He uses the term ADVOCATE to describe the Holy Spirit. I like that.

It says that the Holy Spirit is to support us, be our cheerleader, be our sponsor. Now remember that this is the SAME spirit that the disciples received. We don’t receive a copy, or an imitation. NO, it is the same spirit.

 

So how does the spirit come?   Well I believe that the spirit comes to us in three ways, and each are equally important. Just like this stool [show a 3-legged stool]. All three legs are important. If one is missing, the stool will topple over. Just as all three ways for the spirit to come to us are equally important.

 

Or another way of looking at this, is how faith is received. That is, in three ways and each equal.

Here are the three:

 

  1. Scripture. That makes sense. Scripture is God’s word to us. Get your nose in it. We just finished a bible study series. I hope that we will offer another one this fall. Plan to join us.

But more so, think of it as God’s message for you. Especially the New Testament. The Old Testament is good also, but we read it through New Testament glasses (so that things come better into focus). If you don’t know where to start, well start where the Church is at . . . this entire year we are focusing on Luke’s Gospel (although today’s gospel was from John).

 

And remember it is NOT how much you read, but that you let God’s word seep into you. And if you are reading some verse and you think, “Wow, so-and-so needs to hear this.” Then you are reading it wrong. The message is for you, not someone else. So don’t clobber someone with a bible quote.

 

  1. Tradition (sacraments and doctrine). This is the 2,000 year old wisdom of the Church. It includes all the rules and regulations. But remember, just as the early Church went through expansion and tension (i.e. whether or not Gentiles who became Christian needed to be circumcised).

 

The first reading said “there arose no LITTLE dissension and debate” meaning it was a huge conflict!   But the two sides ultimately trusted the Holy Spirit, hence Jews and Gentiles who became Christian learned to live peacefully. Oh by the way, not circumcising was decided).

 

But the issue is that the church has ALWAYS been evolving. There has never been a time when the church hasn’t trusted the Holy Spirit and made adjustments . . . for example about slavery, or whether the world is flat or capital punishment.

 

Still, it doesn’t mean that we can simply do whatever we want (because it might change anyway).   NO. We still need to listen to the instructions of the Catechism, the teachings of Vatican II Council, the wisdom of our Pope. This is especially true as all the parishes in the St. Cloud Diocese are being group circled together. This won’t really affect us here at Christ Our Light because we already went through this 9 years ago when we merged the two parishes of St. Pius and St. Edward. And remember, we always said, “We have to trust the Holy Spirit working through the leadership of the Diocese.”

 

Trust the depth and power . . . of the sacraments, the rituals, the doctrines. All are “good stuff.”

 

  1. Your own experience. This is the one that is hardest to comprehend, for it’s easier to assume that God talks to those important people like St. Joan of Arc, or Mother Theresa or the Pope . . . but we ask, “Whom I am that God would talk to me?”

 

So how does God talk to you? Most often it is through your own thoughts. This is what incarnation of Jesus is all about . . . that is, God coming to us. For example, St. Joan of Arc lived in the 1400’s. Her feast day is this coming Thursday, May 30. She heard God’s voice that told her to lead the French army, which she did. But afterwards, as a judge accused her of being a victim of her own imagination, she replied, “How else would God speak to me?”

 

Many of us are trained NOT to trust the God voice. Here’s how to discern, if you hear a message that is harsh, shaming or diminishing of yourself or others . . . it is NOT God’s voice,   As Fr. Richard Rohr writes in his recent book THE UNIVERSAL CHRIST (page 88),

“If something comes toward you with grace and can pass through you

and toward others with grace, you can trust it as the voice of God.

 

We must listen to what is supporting us.

We must listen to what is encouraging us.

We must listen to what is urging us.

We must listen to what is alive in us. “

 

When God talks to you, it will feel like a calm and humble ability to quietly “trust yourself and trust God at the same time.”

 

All three legs of the spirit coming to us are equal. Without the three, you will fall over [take one leg off the stole] just as this stool will fall over. And we can’t just rely on ONE leg only.

With only scripture . . . we can take things out of content and take things literally.

With only the rules . . . we can become rigid and resent any changes in the church.

With only a personal experience . . . we can get goofy notions like, “Jesus told me to kill this person.”  

 

All three are needed. So when you are facing a decision, or need some awareness, seek the Holy Spirit to come to you, consult all three . . . through God’s word, through the sacraments/traditions and through God’s inner voice in you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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