The Right Spirit

The scriptures referred to are Acts 2:1-21 and 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13.

I am old enough to remember Beatlemania. It wasn't just that people were saying, “Hey! These British guys write and sing well.” Nor was it simply that some young people got obsessed with their music. No, teenagers, especially girls, screamed and grabbed at them and sometimes fainted. The film A Hard Day's Night, which starred the Beatles, captures it perfectly. We see this today in how people regard Taylor Swift or other celebrities. Folks approach people with extraordinary talents with awe and a fervent devotion.

Author Jason Pargen says we treat celebrities as if they were magical or holy. He points to a study which showed that if people were told that a celebrity had worn a particular garment, they were willing to pay enormous amounts of money to own it. But if they were told that it had been laundered after the celebrity had worn it, people were not interested in the item. It was as if the magic had been washed away. This reminds me of how people wanted to touch Jesus or a part of his garment as he walked through a town. Later, during the Middle Ages, among churches and monasteries there arose a passion for collecting relics, things touched by a saint or even a piece of the saint's body. And in 1987, one celebrity tried to buy the remains of another earlier celebrity. Michael Jackson made formal bids to buy the skeleton of Joseph Merrick, the “Elephant Man.” Even celebrities treat celebrities as if they were magical or saints.

One problem is that saints don't get biographies so much as hagiographies, stories of their miracles and holy living. But that's impossible if you try to do that with a celebrity. The movie Michael does not touch on the later accusations made about the singer and children. Similarly the recent movie Elvis does not really touch on his penchant for underage girls (Priscilla was 14 when they started dating) or the depths of his drug addiction. The sole villain in that movie is his manager, Col. Tom Parker, who, to be fair, was a real huckster. But we all know deep down that celebrities are human beings who have flaws, often moral ones, which are exacerbated by their wealth and power. That explains the common arc of a celebrity's story, in which first fans and the media build them up and then, upon discovering they have feet of clay, tear them down.

The problem is that talent and moral integrity are two different things. As we see in the news almost daily, just because you are a good actor or singer or writer or politician, it does not follow that you are also a good person. And if you are not a good person, eventually that will damage your talent and your life and the lives of those around you.

What does this have to do with Pentecost? Pentecost is about the pouring out of the Spirit of God upon his people. And in the early church a lot of folks became more obsessed with the gifts of the Spirit than with his making them better people. That's the reason Paul was addressing the gifts of the Spirit in his first letter to the Corinthians. It seems that everyone in that church wanted the flashier, more impressive gifts. It's like they were chasing the admiration and celebrity of having these gifts, but missing the reason the Spirit gave them and the way they were intended to be used.

So first Paul points out that “No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Spirit.” This is essential because these gifts are not about exalting the person exercising them but about using them to serve Jesus our Lord. As Jesus said of the Spirit, “He will bring glory to me by taking what is mine and making it known to you.” (John 16:14) These gifts ultimately come from Jesus and we are to use them for his purposes. That is what the word “holy” means: something set apart for God's purposes. I don't drink my tea or Powerade from the communion chalice. It is set apart for God's purposes, not my own. The gifts of the Spirit are not for our personal uses or glory. Our attitude should not be, “Hey, look what I can do!” But “Hey! Look what God is doing!”

So Paul emphasizes that while there are varieties of gifts, services and activities, they all come from the same Spirit who is both Lord and God. And then he says, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” In other words, the Spirit's gifts are for building up the body of Christ and for helping the individual members be a part of what God is doing in the world. It's like a team. Individual members have different skills but they are to bring them together to accomplish their common purpose.

Notice how many names there are in the credits of modern films? That's because you need more than just actors and a camera to make a good movie. You need writers and lighting people and makeup artists and people who make the costumes and people who make the props and people who find the locations and people who wrangle the animals and people who provide the food for everyone and people who record the sound and people who add the sound effects and the gazillion people who do all the visual effects and the people who edit it all together into a coherent movie and the people who raise the money to make the film and a director who oversees it all. They all bring their special talents to the project of making a good film.

But sometimes you will hear about backstage drama. The stars are late or drunk or high or just difficult to work with. Or the director is a tyrant. Or there are artistic or creative differences between the cinematographer and the director or the director and the studio. Some films never get made for these reasons. Some get made but they are not as good as they should be. We have 2 versions of the Justice League film, one by the original director and one by the guy brought in to fix it. If you ask me, neither version is great.

That happens when the people making the film don't have the same vision of what they are making or are not doing it in the proper spirit. The same is true of the church. If people have a different vision of what the church is or who the Spirit is that the church should manifest and reflect, you get a bad version of the church.

Paul uses the metaphor of a body. It is made up of different parts which look different and have different functions but they all belong to the same body and serve the health and vital activities of the body. We are all individual parts of the body of Christ, each with our own gifts. And just like in a human body, you don't want all the parts to be the same but you do want them to work together. Unity does not require uniformity.

There are disorders in which the parts of a human body do not act together. A gene that shouldn't be turned on or off can cause disease. A mutant cell can develop into cancer. An autoimmune disease can turn the immune system against parts of the body. But when the parts of the body work together for the good of the whole, the result is health.

How do we keep the body of Christ healthy? Paul's discussion of spiritual gifts in chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians leads right into his glorious peon to love in chapter 13. He prefaces it by saying that, while not everyone has the same gifts, “I will show you a still more excellent way.”

First he says that none of these spiritual gifts means anything if a person does not have love. This love is patient and kind. It is not envious, nor does it brag, nor is the person who has it full of himself. It is not rude or self-serving or easily angered or resentful. It is not happy with injustice but rejoices in the truth. According to the Phillips translation, “Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:7-8)

Of course, Paul is not talking about ordinary human love. He is talking about divine love. But where can we find such love? As he says in Romans 5:5, “...the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” As Christians, baptized into the body of Christ, we have access to the Spirit who pours out God's love. But we must be careful not to quench the Spirit, refusing to let him work in us. (1 Thessalonians 5:19) One major problem that we see in the church is that people are quenching the Spirit and consequently the love that he pours into our hearts.

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul contrasts the qualities that the Spirit produces with the things that unredeemed human nature, which he calls the flesh, produces. “Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, depravity, idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions, envying, murder, drunkenness, carousing, and similar things. I am warning you, as I had warned you before: Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:19-21) I'm sure you can think of a number of famous people who make a regular practice of such things but nevertheless call themselves Christians.

Paul continues, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23) Because there is no punctuation in the Greek you could translate this as “...the fruit of the Spirit is love: joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” In other words, these are all qualities of the love the Spirit gives us. Certainly they are qualities a loving person should regularly exhibit. They are, as we say today, prosocial. If members of the body of Christ speak and act in these ways, it promotes the health of the church and shows the world what a spiritually healthy community is like.

In Acts 2 we observe the fruit of the Spirit in action. It says, “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” (Acts 2:44-45) Consequently, we are told later, “There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.” (Acts 4:34-35) This was the Spirit of God at work, activating those who had the gift of giving to do so generously, taking care of those in need. (Romans 12:8)

There's a lot of talk of the antichrist these days. The term is only used in 1 and 2 John, and it is not confined to one person. We read, “...you have heard that the antichrist is coming; even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us but they did not really belong to us.” (1 John 2:18-19) Notice not only are there many antichrists but they come out of the church. They are former church members displaying “the spirit of antichrist.” Belief-wise, they deny that Jesus is the incarnate Christ, sent from the Father. (1 John 2:22, 4:3; 2 John 7) Behavior-wise, they do not show the love that the Spirit pours into the hearts of Christians. 1 John says, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” (1 John 3:16-18) 

But how is this evidence that the person is not a Christian? We read, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8) If the Holy Spirit pours the love of God into the hearts of those who are in Christ, those lacking such love do not know the God who is love and who is revealed in Jesus. After all, what is radical about Christianity is Jesus' command to love everyone, even our enemies, and to demonstrate that love by what we do. Over and over, we are told to love one another, not only by Jesus but throughout the New Testament. (John 13:34-35. John 15:12, 17; Romans 13:8, 1 Thessalonians 3:12, 4:9; 1 John 3:11, 4:7,11; 2 John 1:5; 1 Peter 1:22) If someone is not at least growing in love for others, how can they say that they are a Christian? Or as it says in 1 John, “If anyone says, 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” (1 John 4:19-20)

Paul and Peter called the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9; 1 Peter 1:11), because the Spirit filled Jesus (Luke 4:1, 14) and he enables us to follow Jesus. And the evidence of this is love of God and love of all those created in his image. As Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment—to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35) People are not stupid. They know that talk is cheap. We must love not only with our lips but with our lives, using our gifts, not to aggrandize ourselves, but for the good of all. That's how everyone will know that we really have the Spirit of Christ within us, and not the spirit of antichrist.