When God is on the loose!
“The herdsmen fled to the nearby town and the surrounding
countryside, spreading the news as they ran. People rushed out to see what had
happened. A crowd soon gathered around Jesus, and they saw the man who had been
possessed by the legion of demons. He was sitting there fully clothed and
perfectly sane, and they were all afraid. Then those who had seen what happened
told the others about the demon-possessed man and the pigs. And the crowd began
pleading with Jesus to go away and leave them alone.”
Mark 5:14-17 NLT
“Church is a community of people animated by the wild,
unpredictable spirit of God unleashed to bless the world through love, healing,
joy, repentance, and reconciliation.”
— Sean Palmer In Unarmed Empire
At the time of this writing, Asbury university is experiencing a unique movement of God where its students are experiencing the presence of God’s Spirit. Social media is flooded with eyewitness testimonies of the experience of awe and wonder accompanied with repentance and renewal. Social media is also filled with numerous voices, critical and suspicious of the authenticity of the same experiences. My natural tendency is to be suspicious of “revivals”. I grew up in a charismatic tradition that frequently hosted programmed “revivals” that had fantastic music, energetic preaching, ecstatic experiences but lacked lasting effects. This is not to minimize or diminish the need for personal renewal and re-energizing. Part of the maturation process of being a follower of Jesus is understanding and participating in the divinely ordered rhythm of rest and work, ending and renewal. However, God moves to reflect God’s character. God spoke about God’s activity in the world through the prophet Jeremiah:
“The LORD proclaims: the learned should not boast of their knowledge, nor warriors boast of their might, nor the rich boast of their wealth. No, those who boast should boast in this: that they understand and know me. I am the LORD who acts with kindness, justice, and righteousness in the world, and I delight in these things, declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 9:23-24 CEB)
The Lord acts with kindness, justice and righteousness. This means that events initiated by and carried out through the Holy Spirit will be marked with loving kindness (hesed), justice (mishpat), and righteousness (tsedekah). These are all relational words. In other words, the Lord acts to transform souls in order to transform relationships.
I have always struggled with respecting “revivals” in racially hostile areas where there is no change or transformation within or between people. For example, is it possible for a person who has a racist worldview and regularly diminishes the image of God in others who are ethnically different, to have a personal encounter with the God who describes Godself as loving, just, and righteous; and remain racist and continue to comply and promote hateful, unjust, and cruel activities?
Made plain: Are racism, sexism and any other “ism” and cruelty exempt from the cleansing and liberating work of God? Perhaps they are just too strong for the Holy Spirit? Maybe these are sins that God says, “These are good people who just grew up not knowing any better.” Anyone who has ever studied the history of the early church recognizes that these are simply excuses for the absence of God's activity in our lives and communities.
It's interesting to me that the great Azusa street revival in Los Angeles was in a place that was not the hotbed of faith, among people who were not supposed to be together (Inter-racial gatherings were unheard of at that time) with manifestations that were not supposed to exist anymore (Spiritual gifts). It ended when a religious leaders demanded that participants “act respectable” and return to racial segregation. While people do not have the power to initiate a revival, we are able to resist the outpouring of grace when we seek to co-op the experience for anything that seeks to conform to a Jesus of our own making. In Azusa, the religious people of the day literally did not recognize a movement of the Holy Spirit because they were not familiar with Jesus, who was not in their own image nor subject to their control.
In the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition (Methodists, Pentecostal, Holiness, Nazarenes), sanctification is a process that occurs upon having a salvific relationship with Jesus. Sanctification is a transformational process, under the power of the Holy Spirit, where Christians are made more like Jesus. Sanctification is not reforming, or conforming, but transforming. Literally, being changed in essence, not simply in identity or activity. Roman Catholic Theologian and Spiritual Director David Benner states:
“Far too often we confuse our own spiritual self-improvement
tinkerings with the much more radical agenda of the Spirit of God.”
— David G. Benner in Spirituality And The Awakening Self
The process occurs through God’s grace which is a gift where we are enabled to cooperate and encourage God’s spirit in its transformational work in us to reflect Jesus, for the sake of others. The role of sanctification is important to understand in order to appreciate why there are revivals and great awakenings. The goal of these unpredictable and unexpected outpouring of God’s presence and power, often in the most unlikely places, is the transformation of people to be more like Jesus.
In the 5th chapter of Mark, the evangelist tells the story of Jesus healing a demon-possessed man. The man is described in some of the most terrifying language possible. He lived among the dead and was pushed to the margins of the community because his behavior was literally uncontrollable. He was “demonized” in the truest sense, where he was condemned based upon his behavior and his identity. No doubt, the demon possessed man had been subject to the medical, spiritual, and legal remedies of his day, but without success. The text describes the man as howling and cutting himself, demonstrating the ongoing agony and suffering.
Jesus appears on the scene suddenly. He was not particularly invited, expected, or welcomed to the area. In Mark’s gospel, Jesus is a person of action and using language of urgency like “immediately” and “suddenly”. Theologian Cornelius Platinga describes Jesus as “God on the loose”
“When Mark gets his Gospel going, what he really wants to say is that in Jesus Christ God is on the loose. God is on the loose, and we’re never safe from God’s liberating power. It’s as if Mark says to us: “Friends, believe the good news. In Jesus Christ, God is after you.”” — Cornelius Platinga in Under The Wings of God
God comes to this little village in an unexpected way and interacts
with the most unlikely person. The
result of Jesus’ interaction with the suffering man is not only improbable but
thought to be impossible. The people of
the village see the two separate effects of Jesus’s interaction with the
formerly demon-possessed man. First, the
man has his demon exorcised and is a living witness of the presence of power of
God, which no one else in the village had ever seen, experienced or expected. When God moves outside of our man-made
religious traditions and customs, we immediately experience fear. Often the
religious narratives in which we place confidence in, are shaken. Secondly, a huge herd of pigs is drowned. Undoubtedly, a significant source of revenue
to the villagers has been destroyed, but as a direct consequence of one its
member experiencing the liberation of a massive demonic oppression. The most common argument against the abolition
of slavery in the nineteenth century was the effect of the economy and the
destruction of personal wealth. The fact is confirmed when you realize that the
United States reimbursed slave owners for “lost property” at the conclusion of
the civil war. All to say, that the villagers, like the people of Ephesus 30
years later (Acts 19). , were more concerned about the lost of income than the
liberation of a soul.
So, the villagers demand that Jesus leave their area. The opportunity for continued blessings, to encounter God on the loose, to see God do the impossible, the improbable, and the unlikely, resisted due to fear. If there was a Judah Daily Press (and there was not) the headlines would have read:
Demon Possessed
Man, With The Help Of A Wizard kills Entire Herd With His Demon Powers.
Owners demand restitution
This brings me back to Asbury. Many, including myself, are naturally suspicious of “revivals”, mostly because we have seen events described as a revival where there is no transformation and sometimes even doubling down on behavior that is antithetical of Jesus.
But
Methodist Bishop William Willimon reminds us:
“We are reminded that our God is not beyond this world, this life, this time, but enmeshed in time, making possible that which would otherwise be impossible.”
— William Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas in The Truth About God
Let us consider that at Asbury, God is on the loose!
Comments
Post a Comment