This week dovetails some key aspects of Pentecost, when Jesus’ followers experienced the presence of God as the Holy Spirit, along with Jesus’ teaching on loving our enemies. In the Western world, we “think” the life out of everything, including God. The Spirit of God as a concept/person/subject can be studied, but that’s hardly the point. The Spirit is the living, active presence of God to be experienced. The “Windy Scripture Meditation” is meant to foster a thoughtful yet experiential encounter with God. Note: I took a little creative liberty with some of the verses to accentuate the core meaning being articulated related to today’s theme.
The teaching from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount regarding loving our enemies requires more than study – it requires the work of the Spirit to shape our hearts and eyes. Is the Holy Spirit simply for our enjoyment, or to move us deeper into the experience of shalom and lead us to foster more shalom in the world? I encourage you to read what Jesus said about loving enemies as well as the other quotes. Take a few minutes to let the Kansas song, Dust in the Wind, remind you of the brevity of life. Do you want to waste time and energy on hate that destroys? Or love that builds up? One of those ways is aligned with the Spirit of God and leads to greater abundance of life.
The responsive reading is a penetrating prayer that helps reframe enemies in a unique way. After you sit with all of this for a beat, I encourage you to listen to the classic hymn, Take My Life and Let it Be, and let it be your song. Enjoy!
Songs:
Holy Spirit You Are Welcome Here
Do you believe the Wind still blows?
Do you believe the Spirit still moves?
Here? Now? For whom? For what?
Holy Spirit you are welcome here.
Rest on us. Enliven us. Lead us.
Jewish Creation Poem:
When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God’s wind swept over the waters. – Genesis 1:1-2 CEB
Jewish Exodus Reed Sea Crossing:
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The LORD pushed the sea back by a strong east wind all night, turning the sea into dry land. The waters were split into two. The Israelites walked into the sea on dry ground. The waters formed a wall for them on their right hand and on their left. - Exodus 14:21-22 CEB
Elijah Swept to Heaven:
They were walking along, talking, when suddenly a fiery chariot and fiery horses appeared and separated the two of them. Then Elijah went to heaven in a windstorm. – 2 Kings 2:11 CEB
Ezekiel’s Vision of Revived People:
Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to the winds, son of man. Speak a prophetic message and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come, O breath, from the four winds! Breathe into these dead bodies so they may live again.’”
So, I spoke the message as he commanded me, and breath came into their bodies. They all came to life and stood up on their feet—a great army. – Ezekiel 37:9-10 NLT
God Calls Jonah to Preach to Enemies:
“Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. On my behalf, warn them how their actions are catching up with them. But it’s not too late for my grace.”
Filled with hatred for his enemies, Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the LORD. He went down to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought a ticket and went on board, hoping to escape from the LORD by sailing to far-away Tarshish.
But the LORD hurled a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to break the ship apart. – Jonah 1:2-4 (NLT)
Jesus on Life with God:
Unless a person submits to this original creation – the ‘wind-hovering-over-the-water’ creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life – it’s not possible live in God’s kin-dom now. When you look at a baby, it’s just that:
a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can’t see and touch—the Spirit—and becomes a living spirit.
So don’t be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be ‘born from above’—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it’s headed next. That’s the way it is with everyone ‘born from above’ by the wind of God, the Spirit of God.” – John 3:5-8 MSG
Pentecost, 33 CE:
When the Feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force—no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks, and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them. – Acts 2:1-4 MSG
Jesus teaching on loving enemies:
You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the supple moves of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.
In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you. – Matthew 5:43-48 MSG
Martin Luther King, Jr.:
Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, this command is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. Yes, it is love that will save our world and our civilization, love even for enemies... Within the bet of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good... Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude... hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe... Hate distorts the hater... Love has within it a redemptive power that eventually transforms individuals... There is something about love that build up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies. –Following the Call, (142-144)
Theologian Helmut Thielicke:
Ralf Luther once expressed it this way: “To love one’s enemy does not mean to love the mire in which the pearl lies, but to love the pearl that lies in the mire.” So love for one’s enemy is not based on an act of will, a kind of “self-control” by which I try to suppress all feelings of hatred (this would only lead to complexes and false and forced actions), but rather upon a gift, a gift of grace that gives me new eyes, so that with these new eyes I can see something divine in others.… When the people who were looked upon with the eyes of Jesus realized that those eyes recognized in them their lost and buried sonship, they were suddenly changed and then were able to recover. The eyes of Jesus and the eyes of a disciple not only see the pearl but also “release” it, help to bring out the sonship of God in the other person...
Jesus, who stands over there amongst our enviers and haters, is asking that we take our stand with him and discover the terribly ravaged sonship within our brothers and sisters and with love woo it from its grave. Don’t you see? This is the gospel – with all its difficult and strange talk of loving one’s enemies. That’s what it is. This world which is choking and dying of hate and revenge is waiting for the new and renewing eyes of his disciples. It is waiting for the eyes that see man’s sonship and therefore also see the bridge that leads to the neighbor’s heart and even to the enemy’s heart. That neighbor of yours who gets on your nerves – he is waiting for that look. That fellow worker with whom you are at odds, that son of yours who is breaking your heart and whom you hardly know what to do with, that husband who has changed so sadly and disappointed you so bitterly, and all the others who bring tension and discord into your life. All of them are waiting for you to discover in them what Jesus saw in them and what gave him the strength to die for them. All of them, friends and enemies, the good and the bad, are beloved, straying, erring children of the Father in heaven who is seeking them in pain and agony. – Following the Call, (146-147)
Song:
“Bless My Enemies” - Nikolaj Velimirovic, Serbian Orthodox Bishop and Saint
BLESS MY ENEMIES, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Enemies have driven me into your embrace more than friends have. Friends have bound me to earth; enemies have loosed me from earth and have demolished all my aspirations in the world.
Enemies have made me a stranger in worldly realms and an extraneous inhabitant of the world.
Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter than an unhunted animal does, so have I, persecuted by enemies, found the safest sanctuary, having ensconced myself beneath your tabernacle, where neither friends nor enemies can slay my soul.
Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
They, rather than I, have confessed my sins before the world.
They have punished me, whenever I have hesitated to punish myself.
They have tormented me, whenever I have tried to flee torments.
They have scolded me, whenever I have flattered myself.
They have spat upon me, whenever I have filled myself with arrogance.
Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Whenever I have made myself wise, they have called me foolish.
Whenever I have made myself mighty, they have mocked me as though I were a dwarf.
Whenever I have wanted to lead people, they have shoved me into the background.
Whenever I have rushed to enrich myself, they have prevented me with an iron hand.
Whenever I thought that I would sleep peacefully, they have wakened me from sleep.
Whenever I have tried to build a home for a long and tranquil life, they have demolished it and driven me out. Truly, enemies have cut me loose from the world and have stretched out my hands to the hem of your garment.
Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
– Following the Call, (147-148)
Song: