1. We need to reclaim the language of the Spirit and not be afraid to use it and
2. We need to think much more widely about what spiritual gifts are.

On the second point, using some of Lewis Hyde’s work on gift, I’ve argued that gift-exchange is actually the very fuel that runs the church, the inter-connect that is the fabric of our relationships. We don’t relate on a market-exchange plane, where the scales are balanced, but on a gift-exchange plane, where things are left unbalanced, and the relational potential is heightened in every transaction.

Furthermore, true gifts always operate in a circle of 3 or more, meaning that the relational cycle is never bi-polar but involves ‘the other’. In such a system I don’t necessarily receive from the person I gave to, leading to multiplex relational networks that operate on multiple levels. The circle of 3 of course hints at the trinity, which is the ultimate model of generous exchange and relationship.

So how does this work out in some practical ways?

Firstly, in terms of ‘worship’, or what we do when we gather, ideally this ought to be a space where gifts are exchanged. This was the original spirit of Vaux – though we rarely got it right. One of my key concerns about church is that when we look at worship we see only a couple of bland gifts at work. Unless you are an orator, can play guitar or sing, you’ve really got little chance of taking part. But worse than this, worship is far too often seen as consumption: I come to get, not I come to give. ‘That was a great time of worship, I really got a lot out of it.’

Who the hell are we to expect to get anything from worship?

Our attitude should be ‘what gift can I bring to worship?’ So, connectedly, our gatherings need to become places where people can exchange gifts – song, video, theatre, graphics, design, music, installation, dance… I’ve often wondered whether the reason God rejected Cain’s offering and accepted Abel’s was because Cain gave something that didn’t have integrity – wasn’t integral to him, wasn’t  a true gift. As we used to say at Vaux, it’s like he popped into the petrol station to grab some cheap flowers to give on the way. Costing him… nothing. And when we stand their singing stuff over and over and over, the same old songs… I just wonder if God is saying “come on, where’s something from you!” It’s in this area that I really think that the alt.worship movement has been really strong.

Secondly, it may be that some people simply don’t feel they have a creative gift to bring to a gathering. Well, first of all we need to make sure people are aware of what gifts they do have, and tools that I described in this post might be a help in doing that. But we also need to make sure that we are giving encouragement and credence to a much wider variety of gifts than simply the obvious creative ones. Indeed, it might be said that they are more important as they more clearly focus on ‘the other’, which is central to the whole idea anyway.

As I said in a previous post, I’m pretty certain that it’s not through a lack of power manifestations that people are not attracted to church. Far more likely to be because people don’t feel loved. Well what is love if it is not about caring for ‘the other’? Stepping outside of one’s own comfort and giving something of yourself to them, without receiving in return? Thinking along these definitions it’s not hard to see that the idea of grace and gift and love are completely connected. Which is why it should come as no surprise to see Paul putting his ‘ode to love’ smack bang in the middle of the chapters in 1 Cor about spiritual gifts and the body. Here’s my precis:

Chapter 12

“Don’t be ignorant about spiritual gifts. There are all sorts of different kinds.”

“The church is like a body: interconnected, emerging, growing. Gift exchange is the fabric of those interconnections. No one has got everything sorted. There is always an ‘other’ who needs our gift. And always an ‘other’ who has what we need.”

Chapter 13

“So love for ‘the other’ must be at the centre of all we do. Have faith, great. Keep hoping, nice. But for God’s sake love one another.”

Chapter 14

“And don’t let it degenerate into anarchy.”

Importantly, this concept of ‘the other’ must mean that the church opens its boundaries much more fully to the surrounding communities it serves. There must be real gift exchange into communities. Many churches are incredibly resource-rich: buildings, IT facilities, play-group stuff, spires to place wi-fi aerials… and these resources ought to be used generously, rather than as ways to subsidize the coffers so we can keep doing our own little thing without interruption. The relational potential left by generous acts will be ‘preaching the gospel, rendering words unnecessary.’

And finally, this concept of ‘the other’ must stretch globally. Church communities must take their ethical and environmental responsibilities seriously. Because creation is a gift, loaded with relational potential. And it’s our duty to pass it on.

When you let someone into traffic. When you hold a door open. When you pay for a stranger’s bus ticket. That feeling that somehow this is how life should be: generous, amicable, inclusive? It’s God. That’s the gift of the Spirit: taking us above the apes into humanity, into the realm of the gift. It’s not a ‘power manifestation.’ But we only need to read article’s such as this – thanks to Sanctus for the link – to see how powerful the gift is.

I want to come back to this idea of generous action later. But before I do that, I want to examine why Hyde is keen to point out that there is a further level of complexity in true gift exchange. According to him, a true gift must go ‘out of sight’ before it is received and passed on.

Two salient examples: first, we wrap presents. Why? Because at the point of giving they are invisible. To give it straight would impoverish the gift. Secondly, you cannot have a ‘gift cycle’ of two people. Connecting back to presents, don’t you just hate that thing around Christmas where you feel an obligation to give someone a card or a present simply because they gave you one? That’s not gift. It’s what we used to call at Vaux ‘Petrol Station Flowers’. Hyde notes a Hindu legend about two Brahmin women who decided to get round their alms-giving obligation by simply giving back and forth to one-another. And they ‘became a well of such bitter water that no one could drink there.’ Gift cycles need to go out beyond our sight, beyond our full understanding.

He cites a Maori hunting ritual as a good example. The bird-hunters go to the forest to catch birds. When they return, they give a portion of the caught birds to the priests, who in turn cook the birds on a sacred fire. The priests then eat some of the birds and prepare the rest into a gift which they offer back to the forest. Thus the gift of the birds goes from forest to hunter to priests to forest.

The importance of this third person in the cycle is that it breaks the ‘give and take.’ As Hyde notes, “With simple give and take, the hunters may begin to think of the forest as a place to turn a profit. But with the priests involved, the gift must leave the hunters’ sight before it returns to the woods.” The gift the priests give enters the realm of mystery: it invokes ‘the other’, that which is beyond the rational…

So a true gift disappears before we see it return to enrich us. It is part of a cycle of 3+ to ensure that there is ‘other’ involved, not selfish profit. Note any strangely trinitarian resonances? Precisely. God is three because God is gift. And in the ultimate act of giving to us, God was incarnated (disappeared into Mary’s womb), disappeared again into death before being resurrected, and disappeared again before the ‘gift of the Spirit.’

So what are we to make of pentecost in the light of this? And ‘baptism in the Spirit’? Well, ever been in love with someone for ages, but come to a particular point where you’ve had to admit it to yourself? A wonderful feeling. A release. It’s always been there, but now it’s even more there…

In the next post I want to look further at the trinitarian aspect of gift, and connect it a little more practically to our communal practice. But to conclude thus far: be generous. It’s godly. Not just praying or healing or speaking. Widen your gift circle and see how life-affirming it is. Practice enough random acts of kindness, and one will eventually come back to you. From out of sight. From where you didn’t expect it. Out of silence. Out of advent. A gift from the East.

Indeed, in the book I try to argue, using Lewis Hyde’s fabulous work on art, that the Church needs to re-evaluate not just the language of gift in relation to the Holy Spirit, but also in relation to its entire existence. My conclusion is that in a world drowning in the market economy of needs, desires, advertising, cash for questions and touch-the-screen salvations, the Emergent church will be a place where the gift economy rules. Churches ought to be places of gift-exchange; they are often places where gift and market confusions abound, creating a jarring experience for those exploring…

As those who’ve heard me speak on this or read the book will know, I think the best way to illustrate the difference between the market and gift economies is by looking at food. When you go to a restaurant or the supermarket you are exchanging money for food. The scales are balanced, and because of this there is no residual relational potential. You don’t invite the chef round for dinner at your place to thank her/him. There’s no need – that’s what the money sorts out. But when you go to someone’s house for dinner the food is a gift. It would be incredibly rude to offer to pay for it. The scales are left un-balanced (though it is usually polite to bring a gift of wine/flowers or something anyway) and thus there is a residual relational potential. You have received a gift, and now feel that you ought to reciprocate somehow. The relationships are enhanced. People feel better.*

This is the beauty of the gift economy: transactions within it actually affirm and build relationships. In giving them we are taken out of ourselves to think of ‘the other’, and are not immediately re-paid. So there is always an ‘empty place’ in a community – or beyond it – to which the gift needs to move. The market is always trying to pool resources. The gift is always seeking emptiness.

I will deal with some of the complexities of the ‘gift cycle’ that Hyde is keen to point out in the next post, but now want to reflect on what the above might mean in terms of spiritual gifts.

Using the concept of gift outlined, we could say that a ‘spiritual gift’ is something received from God that is given away, and in doing so builds up the relational potential of the church or community. As gifts are exchanged, both between the members of the church and crossing the boundaries into those outside of it, we see the mutual reciprocity actually building and strengthening the body… and this is why I believe Paul follows his words in 1 Cor 12 about gifts with his metaphor of the body and its many parts.

Using this definition, we might say that we see evidence of the Holy Spirit at work whenever gifts are exchanged. What, even when non-Christians do it? Well… I’m thinking yes. Why? Well, in a recent post I described how scientists have shown that apes don’t have an altruistic bone in their bodies. In other words, our ‘closest relatives’ in the animal kingdom have no concept of gift. And Genesis suggests that our humanity is bestowed with God’s breathing his Spirit into us. Is it possible that there is a radical link here? That the uniquely human virtue of ‘gift’ is a sign of God’s breath in us? Even if we don’t acknowledge it? A sign of God’s generosity perhaps?

So in terms of the Emerging Church, I would want to disagree with Simmons, who concludes that the lack of power manifestations shows a lack of the use of Spiritual gifts, and thus a lack of the Holy Spirit at work. Instead, by seeing any true gift exchange as the very mark of the Spirit at work, I would argue that the Spirit is very much in evidence in the Emerging Church. Indeed, by modeling itself, as I have argued, as a self-organising, distributed leadership, complex network it is relying far more heavily on gift-exchange and thus far more on the Spirit than a full-time-fully-paid-fully-staffed church of worship leaders, administrators, carers etc.

That’s probably enough for now…

* Clearly, this is why communion is so – literally – vital. It is a gift of food, distributed and offered free. Sadly, this gift it is too often thrown into confusion by the passing round of a collection plate immediately after, carrying with it the suggestion that we ought to cough up for what we’ve just had.

Any visit to my parents’ house requires the customary penance to be done: reading all the Christian press that they subscribe to. October’s Christianity carried an article which questioned whether the Emerging Church was lacking the Spirit. Their much-used stock graphic of an arid desert pretty much summarized the tone that Chris Simmons – a Vineyard pastor from Brighton – took. It’s a depressing read.

Jason Clark has helpfully posted a PDF of the article, written a reply to Christianity, and looks like he is also hosting a conference around the issues this Saturday. All of which has catalyzed me to get some thoughts down about this vital issue over the course of a few posts….

Chris’ article worries me on a number of levels. Firstly, he writes that “it was frightening and horrifying to see that Jesus was much bigger and more powerful that I had thought” and goes on to criticize the other speakers at the event he was at who “spoke eloquently but then just left the platform”. He then describes how he sees power manifestations – healings, exorcisms etc. as not only central to his ‘conversion’, but a required part of normal Christian life.

His argument appears to run like this: power manifestations are evidence of the Spirit; without the manifestations the Spirit is not there.

I find this not only deeply troubling as an argument, but deeply insulting too. In what power and in whose name does Chris think Christians in the Emerging Church are working? If he really thinks it is being done outside of the Spirit this is a very serious indictment indeed… One that would appear, in what I am assuming to be the fairly standard Vineyard theology, to condemn us to a very unfortunate fate.

Confusingly, he ends his piece by saying:

“In the UK church let’s keep loving the church in all its diversity… Let’s pray that we can identify with our converts in the UK as the apostle Paul did with his 2000 years ago with the words, ‘Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?’”

I totally agree with the diversity angle – but don’t really see it reflected in his argument, which appears to present a very one-dimensional view of the Spirit. Not a wrong dimension necessarily. But only affirming one.

Secondly, Chris seems to be equating observation of the law with “mental ascent, a journey of faith with more questions than answers” – in other words, doubt, questioning and uncertainty. We should simply ‘believe what we hear’, a conclusion that deeply troubles me when connected back to his opening statements about how he as a pastor is constantly being hassled “by people with some new idea, usually to do with something called emergent.” A precis of the piece thus seems to read:

Power manifestations are the true test of whether something is ‘of the Spirit.’ If you are going to doubt this, you are falling into ‘observing the law.’ The right thing to do? Just believe what you hear from me.

I have to feel sorry for those in his church who have come up to him with these new ideas. I hope they have not really been re-buffed in this way, and don’t doubt that he would have been pastorally sensitive. What worries me is the underlying message that the leader is right and there is no other way.

So what should we do? If we are not experiencing power manifestations is the journey we are exploring not ‘of God’? Ought we simply ‘believe what we’ve heard’?

I want to propose that we need to radically re-imagine our language of the Spirit. It is unfortunate that the charismatic wing of the Church have hijacked the concept of the Spirit and taken it hostage to the power-evangelism agenda… It seems that one cannot talk about the gifts of the Spirit without it being taken as meaning healing, speaking in tongues, prophecy etc.

This, I believe is a real shame, for the concept of gift, as I’ve explored in the book, is an incredible rich one. And it’s this I want to explore in the next post.