Today’s Readings: Psalm 69:1-36; Numbers 11:24-35; Luke 23:32-43; Ephesians 4:1-6
I’m in the process of reading a new book by Phyllis Tickle titled “The Great Emergence”. The book is an exploration of the changes going on in and around the church these days. While changes in faith communities occur all the time to small degrees, Tickle’s thesis is that the changes we are facing today aren’t superficial. Every 500 years the church goes through a process whereby it fundamentally redefines itself. We are living in just such a period of re-definition. Nearly everyone I’ve met who serves a local church these days would agree with Tickle’s thesis, for you can’t help but feel the seismic shifts beginning to take place. One of the areas in which I particularly feel this change taking place is in how we organize ourselves as churches. For most of the last 100 years, people in faith communities have organized themselves as if they were mechanistic institution. Pre-existing structures were set up and the primary way people related to each other was in terms of how they served the institution. If they served on a committee or task force, then individuals were more valued; if they didn’t, they were less valued. Today, faith communities are starting to move away from structures that exist simply to feed the mechanistic institution and toward organic structures that exist to spiritually feed individuals. In order to make it through this transition from the mechanistic to organic, more and more churches are working with the notion of spiritual gifts in order to help them better understand the individual and how to help the individual develop his or her spiritual gifts. Having said all of this, today’s passage from Numbers gives us important words of caution about how a person living in community receives the spiritual gifts of others. In the passage, Moses had taken 70 leaders away with him to a Tent. These 70 received the spiritual gift of prophesy during their time together. Two of the group, however, decided not to go with Moses; consequently, they received their spiritual gift in the midst of the people. The part that’s particularly interesting to me is how the people in the camp received this spiritual gift from the two individuals: they freaked out and tried to put an end to it. Why is that? I suppose there are lots of reasons for that. One reason was probably because – since they didn’t have that particular spiritual gift – they didn’t understand it; and one of the very first tendencies we human beings have is to try to stop those things we don’t understand. Another reason was lifted up by Moses himself: the others were jealous. Whatever the reason, today’s story gives us the opportunity to pause for a moment and ask ourself, “How do I receive spiritual gifts from those who have different gifts than I have? Am I prone to being threatened by those gifts and try to put an end to them, or do I open myself to learning (and experiencing) more about God through the gifts of others? Til next time…
I’m in the process of reading a new book by Phyllis Tickle titled “The Great Emergence”. The book is an exploration of the changes going on in and around the church these days. While changes in faith communities occur all the time to small degrees, Tickle’s thesis is that the changes we are facing today aren’t superficial. Every 500 years the church goes through a process whereby it fundamentally redefines itself. We are living in just such a period of re-definition. Nearly everyone I’ve met who serves a local church these days would agree with Tickle’s thesis, for you can’t help but feel the seismic shifts beginning to take place. One of the areas in which I particularly feel this change taking place is in how we organize ourselves as churches. For most of the last 100 years, people in faith communities have organized themselves as if they were mechanistic institution. Pre-existing structures were set up and the primary way people related to each other was in terms of how they served the institution. If they served on a committee or task force, then individuals were more valued; if they didn’t, they were less valued. Today, faith communities are starting to move away from structures that exist simply to feed the mechanistic institution and toward organic structures that exist to spiritually feed individuals. In order to make it through this transition from the mechanistic to organic, more and more churches are working with the notion of spiritual gifts in order to help them better understand the individual and how to help the individual develop his or her spiritual gifts. Having said all of this, today’s passage from Numbers gives us important words of caution about how a person living in community receives the spiritual gifts of others. In the passage, Moses had taken 70 leaders away with him to a Tent. These 70 received the spiritual gift of prophesy during their time together. Two of the group, however, decided not to go with Moses; consequently, they received their spiritual gift in the midst of the people. The part that’s particularly interesting to me is how the people in the camp received this spiritual gift from the two individuals: they freaked out and tried to put an end to it. Why is that? I suppose there are lots of reasons for that. One reason was probably because – since they didn’t have that particular spiritual gift – they didn’t understand it; and one of the very first tendencies we human beings have is to try to stop those things we don’t understand. Another reason was lifted up by Moses himself: the others were jealous. Whatever the reason, today’s story gives us the opportunity to pause for a moment and ask ourself, “How do I receive spiritual gifts from those who have different gifts than I have? Am I prone to being threatened by those gifts and try to put an end to them, or do I open myself to learning (and experiencing) more about God through the gifts of others? Til next time…
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