The spirit in which it is given

Pastor Jay Petrella
Graceham Moravian Church

(5/1) A few weeks ago, I was rereading a non-canonical text from the early church period called The Shepherd of Hermas. It’s named that because an angel, appearing in the form of a shepherd, visits a man named Hermas and delivers teachings and commands from God meant for him. This book seems to have been fairly popular somewhere around the late first century and into the fourth century. There’s even record of some early church leaders and theologians advocating for its inclusion in the Bible, though it ultimately didn’t make the cut—for reasons I don’t need to get into here. But just because it doesn’t rise to the level of sacred scripture doesn’t mean it lacks insight or depth. Sometimes non-canonical works can give us a window into how early Christians understood their faith, the nature of God, and what it meant to live a faithful life. Sometimes, their perspective on things still rings true today and is therefore worthy of our reflection in these our modern times.

Case in point. There is a section of text that talks about how God has placed within us a spirit of truth. The writer argues this spirit of truth is on loan to us from God. Because it is on loan we need to treat it as respectfully as one might treat anyone else’s property. Even more so because this is God’s property. Therefore, the angelic shepherd teaches that we (Hermas) need to go to great lengths to not pollute that spirit of truth with lies and other falsehoods. We must keep it as pure as when it was first given to us. Otherwise, when we enter the throne room of Heaven at the end of our lives and return to God that spirit of truth that was on loan to us, we’ll be handing over a broken, abused spirit of truth, now polluted by our lies and misuse of it. The text of course urges Hermas to avoid that scenario entirely. Because we possess the spirit of truth we ought to commit ourselves to speaking the truth in small things, and great, out of respect for God and the truth entrusted to us.

The text then builds on this theme of Divine loans and the proper stewardship of all God has given to us. The Shepherd argues all we possess in fact has been given to us by God. And God has given us all that we possess not for the purposes of enriching ourselves personally but as a means to do God’s work here on earth. If that sounds familiar it means you were paying attention last month as Paul talked about how Jesus was God but did not consider it a means to enrich himself. Instead Jesus took the form of a servant and used his godliness to teach, heal, help, feed and save all of us. As Jesus' disciples we are called to live by the same standard.

So God gives us a spirit of truth so that we can know the truth and speak the truth. But if we use that spirit of truth to work against the truth, or just outright disregard the truth, that is a corruption of God’s original gift to us. The same idea applies to all God has given to us.

Let’s say you have a car for instance. One can extrapolate from the Shepherd of Hermas, that God has given you a car along with the means to pay for it and operate it. Not for the purpose of your own enjoyment because you’re such a great person. It is on loan from God as a tool to be used to be a blessing to others. Perhaps to help see to it someone can get to work who doesn’t have a reliable means of transportation. Or to help them get to the doctor’s office, or the grocery store, or the bank.

It’s kind of like being given a company car. It’s not technically yours. You are loaned a company car to enable you to do company work more quickly and efficiently. But if you take the the company car on cross country road trips with your family, to the drag strip on weekends, and affix a tow hitch to haul your junk and yard waste to the dump on your days off, you’re probably not going to have the company car for very long, or a job for that matter.

According to the Shepherd of Hermas, if God has given you money, that money is not intended to be hoarded like a dragon on a pile of gold. The money is merely a tool entrusted to you, God’s faithful servant, to be used for the building of God’s kingdom, sharing the gospel and helping the poor.

If we take seriously what the Bible says about being ambassadors for Christ, about the greatest commandments being to love God and love others, about humanity bearing the image of a gracious, loving, kind, forgiving, and selfless God—then we can reasonably argue that our possessions, wealth, experiences, and circumstances have been loaned to us for the express purpose of loving God and each other.

For those who follow the church calendar, we are now beyond the season of Lent. Still, it’s always good to reflect throughout the year on our choices. Lent may be over, but the call to examine ourselves never really ends. The questions remain:

What have we done with the time God has given us? What have we done with the wealth God has entrusted to us? What have we done with the opportunities—both welcomed and unwanted—that have come our way? What have we done with the trials and temptations that have tested us? Do we live in harmony with creation as Adam and Eve initially did back in the Garden, or do we loot and pillage creation for all it’s worth for our own personal gain and comfort? Have we been faithful stewards of these and other divine loans?

So again, the Shepherd of Hermas is not a text from our scriptures. In part I think that’s because it has an air of gnosticism about it. But it is nevertheless a text that many of our forebears in the faith nearly two thousand years ago would have read. And like them, we even in our modern age might benefit from reflecting upon this particular lesson. All we have is given to us from God. So the question is, what will we do with the wealth, power, and the time that is given to us? Will we use it to enrich ourselves and disregard/harm others or will we use God’s blessings for God’s purposes? To welcome, to heal, to forgive and love?