A PRAYER TO START
On the morning of Pentecost, a mountain top tempest consumed the room where the disciples hid. With the intense wind came tongues of fire that rested on them even as everything else in the room was swept up in a tornadic experience. These flames marked the presence of the Helper promised by Jesus just days before. The one whose presence would empower them to know, to do and to speak in the kingdom now and still coming. And these disciples would do just that. Will we? Pray this prayer from the liturgy of Pentecost today as we are enlivened by the presence of the same Spirit today…
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful.
And kindle in them the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created.
And you will renew the face of the earth.
Lord,
by the light of the Holy Spirit
you have taught the hearts of your faithful.
In the same Spirit
help us to relish what is right
and always rejoice in your consolation.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
GETTING THOUGHTFUL
It’s 7:30 am and Deedra has just left with the twins to school. The house is the quietest it will be all day. I can hear the scratching of dried leaves as they fight to overtake my back porch. The earlier-than-usual winter wind whips through the rotting seals of the back door, and as a slight shiver moves me, I think aloud: “Coffee. I need coffee!” What better means to get to work than a fresh cup of coffee on a morning like this?
Now this will be no instant cup, no quick gratification to my desire. The water begins to pop in the kettle as I ready my Blue Bottle pour over. The aroma of freshly ground beans fills my nostrils as I measure out the precise weight of the roasted goodness. As I pour the heated water slowly counter clockwise over the grounds releasing that nutty fragrance of the medium roast, the pace of drips quickens and their thuds deepen. Six minutes or so after starting, I let the steam from my favorite mug waft across my face, take the first delicious sip and settle down at my desk.
There are an unusual amount of emails and Slack notifications to respond to this morning. I jump in. One of the emails reminds me of a project I need to finish up, another of a phone call I need to make. Before I realize it, an hour or more has passed, all the while the delight of my morning’s labor sits six inches away. Finally, a moment to pause and instinctively I grab my mug and take a cautious sip, remembering how hot the fresh coffee was. Shockingly the liquid that crosses my lips is sour, bittered by the equalizing of temperatures. I grimace in disgust. These are good beans and a well-crafted cup if I do say so myself. What happened to my delicious creation that it should be so dissatisfying? My coffee had become lukewarm, room temperature, and all I wanted to do was get the taste of it out of my mouth.
I am sure you have had a similar reaction to a favorite beverage, whether hot or cold, sometime in your life. Taking a sip or swig and making a “bitter face” all because your beverage lacked conviction. At room temperature, passion normalizes, there is neither heat (love) nor cold (hate). What you taste is apathy.
It is the indifference towards God which draws chides from Jesus for the faith family of Laodicea in Revelation 3:14-22. Their way of life together was “neither cold nor hot” and “because you are lukewarm”, Jesus says, “I will spit you out of my mouth” like a bitter cup of coffee. That tendency for our diligence to normalize to the air of our time and place is why Paul exhorts the body of Christ in Romans 12:11 to “not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit [or in the Spirit], serve the Lord.”
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REFLECTION
Our current climate, like that of the Laodicians, is the ideal conditions for neither hating the ways of God or zealously pursuing them. We live in the San Diego of spiritual environments. What is there to hate when I can have most of everything I want with or without him? What is there to love when I can have most of everything I want with or without him? God is not forgotten, just not needed expect in those extreme moments. God is not unacknowledged, just only in passing with the always fluctuating feelings of gratitude or emptiness.
Paul exhorts us to not be lazy in our zealousness. He assumes that passions are not controlled by hormones or circumstances, but are cultivated through diligently stoking the flame of the Spirit in service to Christ. Several commentators note that the idea “serve the Lord” at the end of verse 11 is the picture of one purposely seizing the opportunity directly before her, “meeting the demands of the hour” that he is now living. Would that our temperature match that of the Kingdom and not that of the age.
Use the questions below to help you prayerfully reflect individually and/or discuss as a DNA group.
How would you describe your spiritual temperature? Why?
Read Revelation 3:14-22.
What causes the church of Laodicea’s temperature to normalize?
How does Jesus say their zeal can be sparked (see vs. 19)?
Why (see vs. 20)?
In light of Jesus’ words in Revelation and Paul’s exhortation to “serve the Lord” in Romans 12, what do you need to do this week to be “fervent”, impassioned in the Spirit this week?
REVERBERATIONS
The room temperature of this age is set to make comfortable emotions about anything, everything, except God. We have grown up in the atmosphere of apathy towards God and thus our expectations of zeal for Christ are often extreme examples which we feel we cannot live up, or desire not to; rather than seizing the moment we are given in the Spirit. Might we who have ears, let us hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Let these words reflect off the walls of your mind, the chamber of your heart, and the actions of your hands this week.
Indeed, it would take firm form heaven to consume [the disciples’] faulty concepts and a wild wind to blow away the ashes of their assumptions.
(Virginia Stem Owens)