Pentecost: John’s Critique of Our Preoccupation With Sin
By The Rev. Rian Adams
Pentecost is the time of the church year where Christians celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit. However, over the years it’s also been a confusing time for me personally. Mostly because sermons tend to focus our attention on how the Spirit came (e.g. rushing mighty wind) or when the Spirit came (e.g. when the church was gathered in one mind… unity) instead of why.
The Gospel lesson for Pentecost Sunday gives us a good look at why. As you read the Gospel, look for the why.
The Lectionary Gospel: John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
Jesus said to his disciples, ”When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.
“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
The Holy Spirit teaches us the truth about sin.
The lesson says that the Holy Spirit’s role is to show the world it is wrong about sin. I find this fascinating because I think the church (and most Western religions for that matter) obsess over sin. In my denomination we rarely have a church service without the obsession. As Episcopalians we even tell God how bad we are: “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we… most grievously have committed,… against thy divine Majesty, provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.”
To sum up that liturgical prayer, our sins provoke God’s anger towards us. The funny thing is… I can’t find anywhere in the Gospels where Jesus told “sinners” to be afraid of his wrath… or to bow at his feet. I wonder if some of our liturgical prayers are remainders of a religious heritage from monarchal days when subjects groveled before kings.
I’m the father of an amazing eight year old. I never want him to be scared of violence when he makes a mistake. I’d rather create room in the relationship to talk honestly about problem. Further, I want him to know that I will advise him if he desires it. His mistakes are never reason for violence toward him.
Pentecost proves the world wrong about sin.
The Holy Spirit shows us graceful relationships.
That begs the question then, how has the world been wrong about “sin?” In Greek the word sin is hamartia. The root meaning is “missing the mark.” For me the “mark” is the way of Jesus shown in the Gospels… the mark is love, mercy, compassion, and grace!
Grace is far removed from a behavioral religion obsessed with sin. To take that one more step, grace is a long way from the notion that “sin” is actions of “manifold wickedness… provoking God’s indignation.”
Let me be upfront, I believe sin is a failure of consciousness, not a simple behavioral problem. Sin is a failure of psychological awareness. By the same token, sin is the willingness to live solely in the ego instead of living from the divine center – the mark – of mercy.
When we live from the center, the Holy Spirit can “lead us into truth” by showing us that sin never was about behavior. Rather, the Holy Spirit teaches us about graceful relationships.
The Holy Spirit brings depth, not judgement.
An immature form of spirituality reduces sin to a surface level… “good” and “bad.” That equation assumes that the Holy Spirit convicts followers of Jesus of various behaviors that God finds offensive. This is a surface approach to the work of the Spirit and lacks spiritual depth.
It’s ironic that entire Christian denominations are founded on Pentecost (I grew up in one) yet these denominations fail to give up the simplistic approach to sin as behavior. When the Christian Church understands sin in the same context as Pharisees did 2000 years ago we have… missed the mark.
A depth approach sees the Holy Spirit as “God’s operative” that helps us grow past egocentrism into a divine consciousness… a consciousness that realizes God “desires mercy and not sacrifices.” (Matthew 9:13). This spiritual consciousness recognizes the centricity of “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.” (Matthew 5:7).
So, the Holy Spirit teaches us the deep truth that Jesus is God’s example of how we should live. The Christ “gave his life for our sins… in order to rescue us from this world in which we live.” (Gal. 1:4). “This world” are the ones who remain unconscious of God’s call to follow the truth, the mark, of mercy.
The Spirit of mercy!
John’s Gospel illustrates this point when a woman, caught in adultery, is brought before Jesus. Religious law said to stone her because she broke God’s rules. Jesus took a deeper approach… a much more difficult approach. Jesus deployed MERCY… “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7).
Pentecost is a call to allow the Holy Spirit to deepen our minds and transform them into the mind of Christ, the merciful one. When that happens, behavior will fix itself without obsession or pathology. Patience and process are key here!
The Holy Spirit indwells the soul.
But it doesn’t simply stop with the imitation of Christ. Carl Jung said, “One of the functions of religion is to protect us against religious experience.” In essence, what Jung says is that our religion can become so corporate that it loses the spirit upon which the institution sits. That foundation is the Christ of the Gospels, Mercy. The Holy Spirit isn’t simply an experience or a baptism… the Spirit is a spiritual and psychological awakening.
Here Fritz Kunkel offers some helpful insights. He says that the disciples would have been in a continual state of idolatry if Jesus had not left them and ascended to heaven. Kunkel thought idolatry occurred when the center (God) projects on to a human being. In other words…
They needed the Holy Spirit to lead them to the Christ in their souls. Christ leaving the disciples at the crucifixion and ascension was an essential part of their spiritual growth.
The world is wrong about sin, righteousness, and its judgmental approach to people because it assumes sin is action, or a state of being (e.g. original sin).
Jung said the Holy Spirit was “not about the imitation of Christ, but about the assimilation of the Christ image to the self.” Jung knew the work of the Spirit is related to a soul awakening to mercy.
Or, as Paul said, “Christ in you is your hope.” (Colossians 1:27). My poem pieces hints at this transformation. Don’t worry so much about sin… just let the Spirit transform your heart into a heart of mercy.
Love God, show mercy to yourself and others, and be filled with the Spirit of Jesus this Pentecost.
Peace,
Rian+
Unity: The Spirituality of Jesus’s High Priestly Prayer by Rian Adams
Unity.
We don’t know what it is, but we certainly know what it’s not. Unity is not connectivity. We have plenty of connections these days… Facebook, Twitter, Instagram… even connections at church. The list goes on and on. But are we any closer to real unity with God and one another? I think this week’s lectionary reading confronts a longing deep inside of us for a oneness of heart and soul.
Most agree, “sure we need unity.” But unity of what? Political convictions? Theological persuasion? No. We can’t be that naive because we will never have those things. I think unity is much deeper and more profound than theological creeds and political affiliations. What I propose is a unity in and of self and thus a unity with God by following the way of Jesus.
The lectionary Gospel reading is long and a bit convoluted with John’s mystical language but give it a read and listen for the themes of unity, oneness, wholeness, and consciousness.
The Lectionary Gospel: John 17:6-19, Seventh Sunday After Easter, Year B
(I have edited the reading for brevity’s sake) … They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them [the disciples], I do not pray for the world, but for those you have given me… they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.
I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
An Evolving Consciousness of God
Jesus opens the door to a new idea about God… relationally. He says that God is his father and then he go so far as to encourage his followers to call God “father.” This is a fundamental reimagining of the divine. The disciples, before Jesus changed their realities, probably held the same view as most of the Pharisees of the first century. For them, God was removed, transcendent, the man in the sky, as it were.
Then Jesus comes along and redefines God. God, for Jesus, is relationship. God is “Father.” This God, for Jesus, desires to be in a form of parental relationship with humanity.
Jesus enlarged the disciples consciousness on such a scale that God, to them, became a totally different entity. God moved from a collective mentality to a universal relational presence. It’s quite an evolution in theological thinking.
Christ prays for the conscious, not the unconscious
A theme we see often in John’s mystical language is what he terms “the world.” Do you find it strange that Christ does not pray for “the world” but just for his disciples? “I do not pray for the world but for those you have given me.”
It strikes me as odd. We would assume that Jesus, the Christ figure, would pray for everyone. However, this is not the case. Jesus seems to emphasize quality over quantity. He did not count his success in numbers but in the change in the consciousness of individuals. In other words, “the world” is those who remain unconscious of God’s relationally.
I think the point is that Jesus prays for his disciples who are developing a new consciousness. This new understanding and experience of the divine will be the unity that Jesus prays for. Union in relationship with God and union in relationship with one another, both are of spiritual importance.
A Welcome To The Whole
This is one of those lectionary readings that was cut too short. It stops at vs. 19 but vs. 20-21 is the crux of the passage. It says, “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you.”
St. Gregory of Nyssa, a man I would consider a theologian and early psychologist, mentioned this union of “…all be one.” For Gregory the soul of a person was a “populace of souls crowded together, each differing widely from the rest.” The psychoanalysts would agree given how the plurality of souls is reflected in our dreams and the multitude of characters that inhabit them.
The main message is that we are personally united in a unity comprised of diversity. Spiritual unity, then, should blend and harmonize the parts that seem mutually opposed. This is how the self becomes a whole, or as Jesus called it, “one.”
We find this oneness in the many parts of a rose window. Rose windows adorn churches and cathedrals. They are a symbol of many parts that make up a whole. In the rose window from All Saint’s Chapel, Sewanee, TN, the Holy Grail is the center. The Grail represents the highest spiritual consciousness: the union of spirit with matter. In the Grail, so says the Christian myth, God becomes the matter that enters the human being. We see this in the symbol of the wine becoming the blood of Christ. Nature and spirit yearn for one another and the union is realized in the Grail.
The Rose Window and the Mandala
Mandalas fascinated Carl Jung. For him they represented the integration of the soul into a whole. There are many parts and pieces that make up the whole mandala or rose window. This unity of parts is the real secret to a union of the whole. He comments on this gospel passage in Letters. He suggests that the secret to understanding the passage is “in the integration of all those parts of yourself into a whole.”
In John’s Gospel, wholeness and unity does not simply refer to the individual but to the faith community as well. There is a call to be unified in Christ… in the way of Christ. Compassion, mercy, and love. That is spiritual wholeness for John.
We no longer have to constantly fight the parts of the self we do not like. The struggle can diminish under the weight of true unity of all parts into one self. This is why so many people struggle for life balance, they only have room for what Hillman would describe as “one part of the self that is informed by religious morality.”
Relationship With Others
Here the German psychiatrist Fritz Kunkel is probably closer to John’s Gospel than Jung. For Kunkel, reality was not simply in us but between us as well. To paraphrase, unity is not found in an isolated unit but in a person who is purposefully in a relative and conscious relationship with others.
For me, unity is both, and. Unity is a fusion with what God loves (love, compassion, and mercy, expressed in our relationships to one another) and a conscious acceptance of all the parts of the self. So we should, as Jung said, integrate the contraries.
It’s hard spiritual work but no regrets will come from it. Finally, my poem Journey touches on the subject. If it can be useful to you, find it here.
Love God, love yourself, and love your neighbor,
–Rian
Soul: Finding Identity by W. Rian Adams
Lectionary Reading: John 15:9-17, Sixth Sunday After Easter, Year B.
Soul identity is confusing. It’s also often faked in light of a desired persona. Listen carefully to this week’s lectionary Gospel and you will hear a call to find the soul’s true identity in God. It is often the challenge of true spirituality to find the true self as rooted in the compassionate Christ. Jesus confronted this in the Pharisees and warned his disciples of the dangers of the false self.
The Gospel:
Jesus said to his disciples, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”
Jung on Soul Identity
I am reminded of what the great Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, once said about identity. He suggested that “we cannot change ourselves until we accept ourselves. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.” When there is a refusal to see ourselves (and others) through God’s eyes of compassion, we oppress our soul’s identity. Oppression has been a theological buzz word for a few decades. Normally we use it in conjunction to liberation theology and we apply it as a stance toward the poor. However, I wonder what happens when we apply the theological idea to a personal spirituality rooted in self-compassion…
After all, good spirituality finds its root in identity.
It’s easy to identify with personal belongings, or the desire to attain them. I’ve heard, and probably preached, many sermons that reminded people not to become possessed by possessions. Sure, that’s a great starting point. The problem is we’ve heard it so much that it no longer resonates.
I suggest a different approach. I think it is helpful to hear the words of Jesus, abide in me as I abide in God, in light of our identity in God. His words are a call to accept our relationship with the divine.
But it doesn’t stop there. We are not simply connected to God but we are identified with God.
The English Christian mystic, Julian of Norwich, said “We are not simply from God, but we are part of God.” Julian knew that we are intimately intertwined with the divine. We know we are in and of God when the person of Christ comes out in action. Mercy and compassion were his hallmarks. The soul’s identity is the compassion of Christ. Not sacrifice, not condemnation, but mercy.
One of my favorite quotes is by John Sanford who said, “If we judge others, it is because we are judging something in ourselves of which we are unaware.”
-Rian