Dear Friends,

All week, I have pondered the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that were referenced last Sunday in the inspiring sermon delivered by our guest preacher, Prof. Sam Adams:

“I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way the world is made. I didn’t make it that way, but this is the interrelated structure of reality.”

These words have shaped the way I have approached the gospel reading from Luke assigned for this coming Sunday. Luke tells us that when Jesus returns from the wilderness to his hometown synagogue in Galilee, he is filled with the power of the Spirit. Jesus doesn't claim to be filled with the power of the Spirit; he simply is. As I’ve thought about this, it occurs to me that sometimes we spend more time making claims about ourselves than just being ourselves. We can claim to be not enough for what is needed now, or we can claim to be the best gift the world has recently seen; either way we miss the mark. Jesus proclaims himself neither a nobody nor a God-sent miracle-worker. He is just himself, filled with Spirit, back in his hometown synagogue reading the scripture.

We are told that Jesus reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, words which echo his own growing sense of call. As I picture the scene, I imagine Jesus hearing these words more clearly himself: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He 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.” Note that Jesus does not self-select a scripture to fit the calling he wants to have; he reads what he is given to read, just as he responds to it in the way he is given to respond. Being filled with the power of the Spirit means he listens as though for the first time, open to what new message he hears now, in this time and place. Not in order to be more like Isaiah, but to become more and more himself.

What this says to me is that being filled with the power of the Spirit doesn’t mean mimicking the works of others or living up to expectations or presenting ourselves in the worst or best light possible. It means simply listening and making space for Spirit to be and do more, or less, than we could imagine being or doing. In the words of one of my favorite bloggers, “To claim that we are Spirit empowered, all filled up with God, doesn’t really give us or others anything. But oh, how the world waits for a people committed to acts of mercy, befriending the vulnerable, learning day by day to listen anew to the Spirit that falls upon us and dwells within us. To start taking this beyond-us-working-through-us power more seriously, and to humbly follow its guidance, would be to relax and respond with confidence.”

Or as MLK would say it, “You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”

In Christ,

Amelie+