The second is the "E" word. Evangelism. Makes most self-respecting Presbyterians very nervous. We’ve seen it done so poorly by some – and perhaps you have been among its victims – so we don’t even want to hear about it, much less consider that it might be something each of us should be doing.

Then there is the "S" word. No, not that one; as I said, we’ve been talking about sex for years. Spirituality. And let me confess that until about the last decade I had never heard much talk about it among Presbyterians. We hear it more often now, as illustrated by the fact Pastor Drew’s sermon last week focused on it, though neither of us knew that you’d be getting two doses of it hand running. Even though we’re hearing more about it than we once did, I detect it is still a topic that makes a lot of Presbyterians uncomfortable.

From its inception, our Reformed tradition has been ambivalent about the place of emotional "experience" in religion – which is often implied by the notion of "spirituality." The problem is that our efforts to secure some special "spiritual" experience for ourselves often ends up in a form of idolatry – worshipping the experience, and the warm feelings it generates rather than learning to encounter God in the ordinary affairs of life. Perhaps you know people whose religious life consists of rushing from one spiritual "high" to another, seemingly focused on finding the next emotional "fix" to keep them going spiritually.

When people describe their relationship and experiences with God only in terms of being "wonderful" or "beautiful" – of always making them feel good – it is appropriate for the inquiring mind to wonder what "god" it is they have experienced? Is it really to God of Abraham and Moses, Ruth and Rebecca, Thomas and Paul? The God of apostles, prophets and martyrs? Or is it some other god?

As John Calvin put it, "Whenever the feeblest ray of the Divine glory burns upon us, we cannot avoid being harmed." Absent some genuine sense of awe and wonder, any supposed experience with God is in danger of being nothing more than the creating of an idol for ourselves – a God we can approach safely and treat like a pal. That is dangerous territory, reducing God to proportions we can manage and manipulate. If, as some bumper stickers say, "God is [your] co-pilot" you are in the wrong seat.

On the other hand, it is also appropriate for us to question our traditional Presbyterian distrust of emotion. It isn’t entirely unreasonable, you see, for people to refer to us now and then as "God’s frozen people." It’s a badge we may have earned.

In this regard, it helps to remind ourselves of those wonderful words for one of our confessions of faith, The Heidelberg Catechism. It asks the question, "What is true faith," and provides a very proper Presbyterian answers: "It is not only a certain knowledge by which I accept as true all that God has revealed to us … but also a wholehearted trust which the Holy Spirit creates in me through the gospel, that, not only to others but to me also, God has given the forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness and salvation, out of sheer grace solely for the sake of Christ’s saving work."

This focuses our understanding of spirituality in some very particular ways – with some specific characteristics that we value highly. (1) It is based on a "certain knowledge" as well as a feeling. You are not expected to check your brain at the door when you enter a spiritual relationship. (2) It is initiated by the Holy Spirit. It Is not something we do – conjure up for ourselves, or that someone else provides for us. It is a gift of grace. (3) It is not removed from the totality of our religious life, but is part and parcel of our experiences of forgiveness, salvation and liberation. (4) It is focused on what it enables us to do for God and others, not solely on what it does for us. Reformed spirituality always has an outward-directed, social dimension.

If the word "spirituality" suggest to you some sphere of life removed from the ordinary affairs of living, that is only a caricature of what spirituality is. Spirituality has to do with what Howard Rice calls "the pattern by which we shape our lives in response to our experience of God as a very real presence in and around us."

That, you see, is the root of our traditional queasiness in the first place – a suspicion of "other-worldliness." We believe that faith has to do with the whole of life – there is no real separation between private devotional practices and the effect of such practices in the world of family life, business or politics. Forms of piety which seem to reject these aspects – that encourage Christians to "withdraw" from the world instead of immersing ourselves in it – go against the grain of our Reformed understanding.

Philosophically, the founders of our faith – this John Calvin I keep talking about, and his cohorts – were humanist. When they read in Genesis that God created the world and called it "good", the took that very seriously. I do, too. That is one of the reasons it gets my dander up when I hear some Christian fundamentalists ranting against "humanists." That’s me, and my spiritual forebears they are talking about. Spirituality, in my view, is grounded in a healthy worldliness whose goal is not to remove us for the world, but to help forum us in the image of Christ so that we may live fully and completely in the world as people of faith and ambassadors for Christ. We do not find authentic life with God by rejecting life in this world.

Howard Rice puts it this way: "The task of an authentic spirituality is to integrate disciplines of the Spirit with life of the whole people of God in the world." The Christian faith is not simply a matter of trusting Christ and expecting to have everything work out as we want it to. It is filled with ambiguities and complexities. It may be true, as some like to say, that "Christ is the answer," but that doesn’t mean that our questions are unimportant, or that Christians are or ought to be exempt from pain, suffering, perplexities and doubt. John Calvin again: "For whomever the Lord has adopted and deemed worthy of his fellowship ought to prepare themselves for a hard, toilsome and unquiet life, crammed with many and various forms of evil."

T. S. Eliot put Christ’s invitation this way: "I am the Way. Follow me through the land of unlikeness. You will meet strange beats, and have unique adventures." There have been times in my life when I think I’ve seen whole congregations of those "strange beasts" – present company excepted, of course!

How, then, is it possible to live in the world and still be faithful t God? That is the primary question of authentic Christian spirituality, and the answer is not and never has been easy. One key is to take a realistic look at the actual gifts God has given you. Your particular gifts are not something esoteric and strange you have to go searching for, removed from the rest of your life. Your gifts are those things you do well, enjoy doing and are challenged by. They are the keys to unlocking your own spirituality. It isn’t necessary, or sufficient, that we become absorbed with what we cannot do. After all, our lives are shaped not so much by the things we can’t do as by the things we can – and therein lies the key to identifying your own spiritual gifts.

Of course, there are some fairly common means of developing our spirituality. We can read the Bible, and the church provides some guides to help you do that. The publication, THESE DAYS, is an excellent guide and is available in the narthex. We can pray – though some of us may have to be convinced of that. Briefly put, prayer doesn’t have to be the big deal many people try to make of it. There are no magic words. God knows who you are talking to, is on duty 24/7, and understands plain English.

Public worship is an essential part of private spirituality. You can’t grow in the faith by yourself. That is what the rest of us are here for, and it is a good part of what this little gathering is all about each week. The regular pattern of examining our lives with others in the household of faith is a significant aspect of spiritual development. Public worship includes regular participation in the sacraments. There is a reason what they are called "a means of grace." Every time we baptize, part of the liturgy invites us to renew the promises made in our own baptism. The Lord’s Supper is a primary means by which we are renewed and sustained for faithfulness, by a sense of the Divine presence given to us in the breaking of bread and the pouring of win.

In fact, my own spirituality is rooted and grounded precisely here: in liturgy and worship. The literature calls it "liturgical spirituality." Spiritual strength and inspiration are drawn from the historic liturgical practices of the faith, with a particular emphasis on the Sacraments – and strongly centered in the celebration of Communion. For a time, Sara and I attended a church where the pastor was not sensitive to historic liturgical practice – apparently even thought his ad libbed truncation of the Words of Institution were better than those of Jesus. The result was that I was slowly starving to death spiritually.

Yet another common discipline that contributes to spiritual maturity is the act of giving. Deliberate acts by which we ourselves become means of God’s grace for others. When we give away something we value – whether it is time, energy, empathy or possessions – we discover that grace is always present in such an act. When we are willing to let go of something of ourselves – what we often call "the offerings of our life and labor" – we make ourselves vulnerable to God’s grace. We gain some renewed sense of clarity about what is important to us, and why. In that sense, if you want to discover what are your truest and most deeply held values, you need look only at your personal calendar (how your spend your time) and your checkbook (how you spend your money.)

Growing in grace is an often difficult process, and there is a part of each of us that will want to "go it alone" – to maintain control and keep a tight reign. But God knows us better than we know ourselves, so pretending will not work: we need one another along this journey, and we already have the assured presence of God’s Holy Spirit. They key to developing our spiritual side is to accept those as givens and use them for all they are worth.

In the end, the journey of the Spirit is an adventure of faith. "I am the Way. Follow Me through the land of unlikeness. You will meet strange beasts, and have unique adventures."

[COPYRIGHT 2006, John C. Bush]

{I want to acknowledge my reliance on insights of Howard L. Rice in his book REFORMED SPIRITUALITY: An Introduction for Believers in developing this sermon.]

NOW TO GOD BE GLORY
AND HONOR AND POWER,
AND TO GOD’S NAME BE PRAISE
THIS DAY AND FOREVER. AMEN.