Readings
Romans
8:26-8
Likewise
the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray
as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for
words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of
the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to
the will of God.
We know that all things work together
for good for those who love God, who are called according to his
purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be
conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the
firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he
also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those
whom he justified he also glorified.
And from Matthew
13:
‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like
a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46on finding one pearl of great
value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.
Not good enough for Church?
I
met a character not so
long ago who has begun thinking about Christianity again after many
years away. His comments
to me were very telling in that he was wondering about going to
church, but that he didn't feel good enough. I
tried to explain to him that few Christians think they are good
enough, and that this perception of ourselves is a reminder of why we
follow this path in the first place. But
it came as an important reminder to me of how the world at large
often perceives us; as people who think they are holy. In
my experience the reality is a long way removed from this. Many of
the Christians I know still cannot get their heads around why God
would be concerned with them. In
fact it goes further than that; many Christians simply feel bad
enough about themselves to
the extent that they don't
ever dare ask God for something in prayer, simply because they can't
imagine how God could possibly love them given their knowledge of
themselves and the weaknesses they have.
And
into this psychospiritual space St. Paul writes:
'The
Spirit helps us in our weakness'.
This is what I want us to
explore because it is only in taking on board the gravity of
those words that we can begin to comprehend what Christianity is
about and why it's actually good news. Yet so many of our churches don't seem to appreciate this.
The
Spirit helps us in our weakness. Those
tears you shed when God feels so distant? The
Spirit helps us in our weakness. That
person that you find yourself always saying the wrong thing to? The
Spirit helps us in our weakness.
The
character at work or the neighbour at home that you cannot help arguing with? The
Spirit helps us in our weakness. The
habit you can't break? The
Spirit helps us in our weakness.
That,
unfortunately, is not the general perception within so many churches.
After generations of
leaders who have laid so much guilt on us, we find it very hard to
actually believe this. We
think, 'Why would God want
to help me? I don't deserve that'.
Over
and over again we get it wrong with what I call churchianity. We
allow or even make people feel guilty for not living up to a
particular standard and yet
it is St. Paul, no doubt
writing from a position of experience, who
writes that it is when we
are
in the midst of our weaknesses that we so closely encounter the
Spirit of God.
Take
hold of this, honour the words and let them take root within you, it
says that the Spirit helps
us in our weakness. It
emphatically does not
say that the Spirit won't
help us until we've conquered our weakness. This is what makes
Christianity so important. This
is why the teachings of Jesus are like a pearl of great price whose
value is beyond all possessions, because in it the knowledge that
whoever we are, wherever we are in our spiritual journey, however
vulnerable we feel, the
Spirit helps us in our weakness.
And
it's not just to do with the things that we do wrong. It's also to
do with the things that simply go wrong, because they do, all the
time. We greet each other
with smiles and 'How are you?' 'Oh I'm fine thank you, and
how are you?' and yet the reality is that most of us are carrying
some kind of burden, and some of those burdens are huge. And St.
Paul affirms that The
Spirit helps us in our weakness.
But
how? Well consider our own lives. Accidents may have happened that
have left us with a whole lifetime of difficulty. Abuse
or bullying can leave a distorted lens that we may view all of life
through. Our health may have deteriorated leaving us wondering how we are going to cope either
now or in the future, or
simply mourning
how things used to be when our body worked properly.
What
kind of help do you want when these things happen? Do
you want someone to explain it to you and why it had to be this way?
That's what we call theology.
Or do you want someone who puts her
arms around you and truly weeps with you from the depths of her belly
because She fully and completely understands? That's the Holy
Spirit.
I
had two responses seven
years ago to the death of my sister. One was the, 'It'll be OK,
she's in a better place now', kind of thing that left me wanting to
respond very angrily. The other response was simply to be held in
the midst of my grief by friends and family members who wept with me.
That's what I really needed, because
sometimes there are no words. You
see when life gets that bad we no longer have any words left to pray.
We don't know how to. We might be so angry at God at the events in
our lives, or we might have been rendered completely unable to say
anything. Not only does the
Spirit help us in our weakness, but
St. Paul goes on to say that She does so with sighs too deep for
words.
Yes,
rationally I may want
an answer as to why, why whatever you or
I have gone through has
happened. But in our deepest selves what we most want, what we
really need, is simply comfort; someone who is with us. Why
do you think men dying in the trenches called for their mothers?
They didn't want to know why the war was killing them – they just
wanted the one who had borne them to be there in their pain.
In
the midst of suffering our spirits run out of words, and the best
comforters don't try and talk us through our suffering, they just
weep with us with sighs too deep for words. And with the Spirit,
those sighs carry the depth and the profound loss and degradation of
our humanity right into the heart of God in ways that we cannot
imagine. Yes
I want to understand, but in the darkest places that we all inhabit
at times in our lives, we just don't want to be alone, and we're not,
because the
Spirit is with us, helping
us in our weakness and
sighing with us with wordless love that penetrates into the heart of
the Father.
In
the midst of this St. Paul seems to write something troubling, that
all things work together for good for those who love God. After
everything I've said so far that hardly seems likely - how can anything good come from our darkest encounters and experiences. Yet in
the midst of our pain, or grief, the Spirit of God entwined within
us, communicates that pain into the heart of the Father. God
truly knows and his
response is to work alongside us to bring something of
value out of what we have
been through. Please
recognise that I am not saying that God caused the pain, but that God
wishes to bring something out of what happened.
Again I know this from my
own experience. Nine years ago I would have focussed on the theology
of this passage, on trying to unpick predestination (because philosophically St. Paul is not actually making sense here...), but for those in the midst of
pain at the moment, that
wouldn't have helped.
What you've been through; what
our family went through, was never the direct will of God, but the
Spirit was with us in our weakness and She sighed and wept with us
into the heart of the Father, and through that experience each
of us came to appreciate
more what life is like for so many people, in order better to
understand and be present in
ways that help rather than
as people with nothing
more to offer than meaningless
platitudes. Something good was brought into existence.
The
last words belong with the poet Janet Morley who has captured this
divine encounter
beautifully:
Poem:
From “All Desires Known” by Janet Morley
…and I was nothing but letting go and being held
and there were no words and there
needed to be no words and we flowed…
and I was given up to the dark and
in the darkness I was not lost
and the wanting was like fullness and I could
hardly hold it and I was held and
you were dark and warm and without time and
without words and you held me.
I enjoyed this. The Poem by Janet Morley is amazing.
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