Last week I said that the phrase “joy and justice of the gospel” is my way of overcoming the false divide between ‘evangelism’ and ‘social justice.’ Let me express why that is such a passion for me, with reference to my religious upbringing. As you may have heard me say on occasion (okay, on many occasions), I was raised in the Pentecostal Holiness tradition. We put a lot of emphasis on the baptism of the Holy Spirit as well as, in my humble opinion, too much emphasis on the phenomenon of speaking in tongues. Ironically, I think when many Presbyterians think about “those whacky Pentecostals,” they also put too much emphasis on the phenomenon of speaking in tongues and overlook the whole matter of what it means to be “baptized with the Holy Spirit.” By the way, it was John the Baptist who popularized that term initially, not Pentecostal folk.
Being “baptized with the Holy Spirit” is a biblical thing. I’m not saying that every depiction of what that phrase means is a biblical thing, but the idea that God’s Spirit of holiness can become part of our faith journey is absolutely a biblical thing. And how we imagine that being part of our own faith journey may help bring the phrase “joy and justice of the gospel” to life.
In the tradition of my childhood, the power of the Holy Spirit was always presented with enthusiasm, as an exhilarating experience that brought joy, sometimes even laughter, and was incredibly uplifting. Sometimes that exhilaration was expressed in some really odd ways, but the point is that it was a bubbling of joy that filled the heart and had a lasting effect on one’s life. It was true that one who might be feeling ecstatic on Sunday evening during a prayer meeting would turn around and go to work as usual on Monday morning, but they would do so as a changed person. It was an “experience” with all of the passing temporality of human experience, but it was a real experience. That kind of enthusiastic joy was what I was taught to expect as the result of being “baptized in the Holy Spirit.”
However, what is missing from this perspective of the Holy Spirit is the kind of vision that is part of our gospel reading for Sunday, Luke 4:18-19, where Jesus says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because she has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. She has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (My translation. The word for “spirit” in Greek, Πνεῦμα, is a feminine noun.) This depiction of what the Spirit does in and through us is not at all about our personal feelings of joy, but about doing liberative work through the power of this Spirit. It is about justice. And I can honestly say that I never recall hearing any sermon about our call to do justice when I was growing up. It wasn’t a thing, even though the justice that comes through the Holy Spirit is a biblical thing.
I should add that too often in the Presbyterian Church I think we have the exact converse problem, with lots of talk about justice and lots of suspicion about the kind of joy that seems to lie behind other biblical expressions of the Spirit, like speaking in tongues. We in the “justice” camp would do well to welcome joy, one of the “fruit of the Spirit” according to Paul’s letter to the Galatians. I think it is part of our tradition’s preference of the mind over the emotions, which sounds like a control issue to me. Maybe we can deal with that later.
In the end, despite our churchy struggles over joy or justice, there’s a Spirit moving among us that empowers joy and justice. That is what our good news is all about.
Mark of St. Mark
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