A Reflection for Saturday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Unusual Time
Find today’s readings here.
“After they take you before synagogues and before rulers and authorities,
don’t worry about how or what your defense will likely be or about what you’re to say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you must say.” (Lk 12:11)
Among the words of Jesus feel true and right and fitting. A few of them, less so. Today’s Gospel is one example of the latter.
Jesus says to his disciples:
“After they take you before synagogues and before rulers and authorities,
don’t worry about how or what your defense will likely be or about what you’re to say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you must say.”
Oh, really? Because I even have been in this case, kind of. And I can assure you, no pearls of wisdom spilled from my lips. No clearly inspired defense sprang forth from my mouth, and nil people were transformed on the spot by my spiritually incisive answers.
Jesus says it’s going to occur, and yet it doesn’t. Why not? Was he lying? Am I doing it improper? Did he mean other people, but not me?
Here’s why this passage doesn’t trouble me anymore: I used to be reading something that wasn’t actually there, and expecting something that wasn’t actually promised.
As someone who speaks and writes in regards to the faith for a living, I’m called upon more often than some to defend the Gospel. People ask me questions on doctrine, and once I ensure that they know I don’t have any particular training, I do try to reply them. More importantly, if one in all my children comes up against some dilemma or mental stumbling block in regards to the faith I’m attempting to foster in them, I do my best to assist them around it. I ask the Holy Spirit for help, after which I’m going ahead.
And I don’t expect some miraculously articulate, perfectly apt, spectacularly appropriate words to seem in my mouth, and I don’t expect the questioner to go away amazed and satisfied by my answers.
Because—and that is somewhat strange to appreciate—the Holy Spirit is a terrific respecter of individuals.
All of my experiences are what the Holy Spirit draws on to assist me make a solution, once I willingly and earnestly try to defend the Lord.
I’m who I’m. I even have the experience I even have actually lived. I even have read the books and articles I even have read; I’m within the mind-set created by the life I’m living today. I even have opened myself as much as the songs and sights and concepts and circumstances that I even have chosen to open myself as much as. And all of these items are what the Holy Spirit draws on to assist me make a solution, once I willingly and earnestly try to defend the Lord.
And the identical is true for the people listening.
They, too, are who they’re, and the Holy Spirit also respects their free will and the lives they’ve chosen to live. He uses who they’re, and the life they’ve lived, and the things which are of their hearts and minds and memories, to assist them be receptive to the things they should hear, in the event that they are willing.
You possibly can see that there may be quite a lot of variability here! Plenty of subtleties, quite a lot of layers and quite a lot of unknowns. What this adds as much as is that the person giving the reply might be never going to know what effect their words have on the listener—not on this life, at the very least. It’s pretty rare for one person to ask an issue about God, and for a Christian to reply, “I do know the reply!” and for that answer to hit the mark perfectly, and for each of them to walk away completely happy and gratified.
It does work that way sometimes. Nevertheless it’s far more common for the reality to take root more slowly, more steadily, invisibly, in stages, underground, out of sight, like a seed.
Like a mustard seed.
Less spectacular, more respectful of who the people involved actually are. When Jesus says “the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you must say,” he doesn’t add, “…and everybody will get up and clap.” No, you remind the Holy Spirit that that is his gig, you do your best with what you’ve gotten and with who you’re, and then you definitely move along.
And truly, this ought to be a relief. It’s not about you. The opposite person’s soul is the Holy Spirit’s responsibility. Do your best, trust him and be at peace.
