​THE SPIRITUAL FORMATION
OF ANOINTED PREACHERS

The world needs anointed preachers, not just because there is some biblical basis to support this idea, but because full response to the will of God is impossible apart from that anointing. It was so in Jesus⁷ time and so it is today.

We all know, from the account given in the fourth chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, that Jesus encountered a world that was almost never ready to receive the acceptable year of the Lord. We realize too that some benefits we enjoy now are so dear to us that we aren’t willing to accept God’s invitation for a new arrangement. If Jesus hadn’t been an anointed preacher, prophet, Son of God, do you think he could have been faithful to his responsibility on the occasion of his first sermon? Luke makes it clear that the enterprise about which Jesus was concerned was always caught up in the conflictual dynamics of one kingdom over another. And the consequences of rocking the boat, or of calling into question the final authority of the earthly kingdom, was a speedy ouster from the congregations of the status quo.

The world today is just like that. If we dare to preach the gospel of the kingdom; dare to make plain the social, economic, and political, as well as the traditionally defined spiritual consequences of pursuing that kingdom, we should expect conflict. If, in addition to making God’s truth plain, we show concrete implications of the gospel, ​we would dare rise up and move programmatically toward dismantling the claims of the dominion of death, dismantling the claims of the earth’s kingdom, boldly proclaiming that the reign of God’s life has been established in our midst - if we do that, each of us might expect resistance on many fronts.

Only by the anointing of the Spirit does the vision of God’s kingdom become so etched in the mind and heart that action must flow from it. Only through anointed preachers will death and its structure of oppression be exposed for what they really are. Then guardians of that dominion can be set free from their self-strangulation and be brought to the fresh air of the wind of the Spirit. Only anointed preaching will make plain the truth, which makes transformation of life possible for both the oppressor and the oppressed.

I am not just talking about stirring up preachers with “hallelujahs.” I am not trying simply to urge certain groups to raise the temperature of their preaching, though I admit that would have been my purpose a few years ago.

This discussion attempts to delve deeper than that. Our agenda must be more serious than that if what we have considered in the previous chapters is true. Our ministry must truly be about “raising the dead.” Our ministry must be about overthrowing the power of death in all of the forms in which it is manifested. If our nation is to be raised from the dead, and if we are to be raised from the dead, and if our institutions (ecclesiastical, social, and political) are to be raised from the dead, we need anointed preachers of the gospel.

While we realize that God already has broken the dominion of death, we also should recognize that if the good news is not delivered, powers prevail that allow death to prop itself up and indefinitely postpone the glorious liberty of the sons and daughters of light and life. Then, the gospel story, with all of its truth about God’s resurrection power, would be dormant. It would be as if the eighth verse of Mark’s Gospel account of the Resurrection were the last verse. Without the proclamation ​of the good news, those added words in the sixteenth chapter, verses nine through twenty, would never have been appended to the Gospel account.

Here is the passage from Mark: “And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

Think about that. This could happen in pulpits all across the nation. “They said nothing, for they were afraid.” God forbid.

As we read these verses in the Revised Standard Version, we notice several blank lines separating verses eight and nine. This indicates that the verses which follow may have been a later addition. But an anointed reading takes seriously even the spaces between the lines.

Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not belive it.

After this he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.

Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they sat at table; and he upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. And he said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation.”

This text reminds me of a century ago, when the missionary movement was strong on campuses around the nation. Students were expected literally to “preach the gospel to the whole creation.”

He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. ​And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.

So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. (Mark 16:16-19)

And the twentieth verse gets back to the same point. It notes that as Jesus apparently is seated at the right hand of God, the disciples “went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it.” And then the author adds “Amen.”

The Gospel story could have ended at verse eight: “And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” But thanks be to God, there had already been indications, even in the first verses, that something else was likely to follow. I do not know what happened to Mark during this writing. Perhaps the Spirit brought a fresh anointing on the writer, saying, “There is more, but stop here, so that a little space will be left,” leaving people to wonder what happened in that little space.

A promise had been made to the disciples. “Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you” (Mark 16:7). And earlier, in the fourteenth verse, there is an indication that afterwards, in Galilee, more things would happen.

Years ago, I would have said that in the little space between verse eight and verse nine, the Lord had anointed the disciples. But because we have said the anointing of the Holy Spirit is that process by which we come to a fundamental awareness of God’s appointment, empowerment, and guidance in our calling to the work of the kingdom, it becomes inappropriate to assume what happened in this brief space was the “complete” anointing ​of the disciples for the work of ministry. It is more appropriate and more consistent with our definition of anointing to say that in that little space, there likely was a continuation of the process of anointing, or additional dimensions of the anointing occurred so that the disciples were then made ready to go forth in the power of the Spirit, as their Lord had done. Who would discount all that went on before that little space in the Gospel and what was to occur later? The anointing already was at work in the disciples as they believed Jesus when he said they were special and every hair on their heads was numbered.

Jesus told the disciples, “You are the salt of the earth.…You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:13-14). He assured them that they were more important than the grass of the field, which is alive today, but tomorrow is thrown into the oven.

Therefore, we should avoid understandings of the anointing that begin with discounting the significance and affirmation of the individual. No, Jesus wasn’t about that. Jesus nurtured his disciples. He taught them theory with an added practicum. Again, nurture was a central aspect of Jesus’ ministry with the disciples.

Jesus called the disciples to readiness! This was a continual call from the beginning of the disciples’ ministry to the event at Calvary. Jesus would say, “Come, let us go over to the other side.” He became disappointed at times at how little they seemed to master and comprehend - at how inadequate their preparation seemed to be for the test that life would be sure to issue. They kept flunking out, even in the most elementary aspects of their responsibilities.

Jesus worked with them. He helped them to experience divine approval and gave them signs. God is with you, he would say. He wanted them to know when walking on the water, in the middle of the night - even when they thought they were alone - God was with them. So he encouraged them to believe.

I understand how difficult it must have been for the Gospel writers to record their stories. They wrote to tell ​us of miracles of how Peter walked on the water, how the dead were resurrected, accounts of how fish were multiplied, and how the sick received their healing. I understand how they must have been baffled by these facts. It may not have been difficult for them to include these incidents in their world view, but it must have been problematic for them to understand how these miracles were performed. It seemed Jesus was constantly showing the disciples there was more power available to them than they realized.

Consider Jesus and the disciples experiencing wilderness periods when they are left alone. Enemies attacked them and challenged them because of their rebellious proclivities. Still, Jesus urged them to bear witness to the truth, even when the threats of others tended to intimidate the disciples into silence. Peter, usually ready to speak out, denied the Lord when his loyalty would have seemed most important.

I understand we cannot discount all of those experiences that the disciples shared with Jesus when we talk about the anointing of the Spirit. So between verses eight and nine and those that follow, it is all right to identify things that happened that “rounded out” the anointing -that added dimensions to it. It seems sometimes we need a booster shot to retain what already has begun to take form

Picture the disciples “at table.” When this expression is used, some people may visualize the communion table without realizing the element of the anointing that is taking place in connection with the communion. When we pray, “Lord, bless these elements: this bread, this wine, this cup,” do you think the Spirit comes like the four winds and bypasses the broken pieces of humanity to bless and touch the bread and cup and then leave? Oh no!

We remember that Jesus often stopped en route to his destination because what he encountered on the way also needed his touch. So it is at the table, when we pray for the blessing of the elements, the Spirit doesn’t ignore the pains deep in the human heart. The Spirit comes prepared ​to bless everything that is broken. Our acceptance of the invitation to the table is a call to blessing. Our openness should result in the application of a healing balm for our many afflictions. Just as Jesus met them, he also meets us at table.

It should be easy for us to experience the Spirit, to say “yes” and receive. But what if we do not sense such a divine visitation? Does that mean the Spirit is not present? No, this is not something based on our feelings. It is at times when we aren’t sure of the Spirit’s presence that we should remind ourselves of the faithfulness of God and even if we don’t feel anything, we understand the power that enlivens us at table when we say the words of Jesus, “This is my body, broken for you. This is my blood, poured out.” And while we may wish we could feel it then, until we do sense the undergirding, we can still live in the truth that our brokenness is healed. And so, in my tradition, although transubstantiation has not been our focus at table, we do claim an experience of the living Christ.

So we can say that in that period between the verses, something happened. Additional dimensions of the anointing were given to the disciples and if we look at the Johannine concept from John’s Gospel account we find there was also a kind of empowerment from beyond. This empowerment from beyond involves the capacity of Jesus to stand in their midst in that room and breathe upon them. Ruah, the holy wind, gets around in so many different forms. And Jesus told them to receive the Holy Spirit and the authority that went with it.

I consider it a joy that every tradition need not be measured by the modality of emotional expression of another. I am so happy that God respects our various temperaments. For those of us who can better receive the breathing of the Holy Spirit, a more vigorous form of visitation may not be appropriate. At any rate, God meets us where we are. Thank God we have overcome in our ecumenical conversations our former preoccupations with modes. We now are able to give room to the many different ways by which the Spirit comes to us.

​In my tradition and experience, the breathing of the Spirit is more personal. Yet for some it may be difficult to think of anything breathing upon us. Rather than getting bogged down over specific manifestations, we should focus on how we can be empowered as a result of receiving the Spirit.

The anointing is that dimension which continuously provides the oxygen by which all the works of the Spirit are ignited - set on fire to provide energy for activity. So, breathing begins and there’s a little flame in the heart. The Spirit fans it, not much, but some. So a little flame begins through the breathing of the Spirit where perhaps too vigorous a visitation could cause it to be extinguished. We preach and lecture and trust that the word of God will fan the flame.

Jesus disclosed to the disciples all of the things he had been trying to share in a summarization at the end of a three-year training course.

Did we hear him say, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel?” “That’s what I want you to do.” And this day Jesus says to us, “this moment is a time for my resurrection story to become real for you.” That I, Jim Forbes, speak the words, knowing precisely where to direct them isn’t important. I do not know whether you have been called to this responsibility. But may this be the time when if I say, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel,” those to whom God is speaking will hear a direct message. It may be that the Spirit will ring in hearts and minds this day and we will never again doubt it is the word which has come to us. So it can be for us as it was for the disciples when Jesus sat down. They who had been breathed upon went forth and preached everywhere.

Still, there are other dimensions of the anointing for those who can stand the vigor of wind and fire. In Acts, we learn there are additional dimensions to the Spirit’s anointing. For some who do not know how to yield to more vigorous expressions, the still, small voice comes. Understanding the various ways the Spirit comes helps us to appreciate how the various traditions, ecumenically ​speaking, begin to understand that on a particular day, God may come to us in a totally new and different way. We may be reinvigorated and reinspired by expressions of another tradition.

Why must we limit ourselves to a particular pattern of expectation? It is possible to get sick and tired of all fuss and no quiet, or all quiet and no fuss. Why do we lock ourselves into one mode of expression, insisting God must be revealed in a particular form or time? Instead, we should show more concern over whether the signs follow us as believers… are we casting out demons, etc.?

I am grateful for Walter Wink’s work, Naming the Powers, so that moderns, who are always a little afraid of demons, will understand that demons may represent an alien spirit in institutional arrangements that war against the message of God to the church. Demons can rage in nations not with tails and pitchforks, but in manifestations that oppose the kingdom. We who are called upon to be preachers would like to be used by God. One way to do that is to identify the demons that are prowling the streets of our city. In institutions - ecclesiastical, political, and social - the demons play havoc with the peace that has been promised to the people of God. This makes it urgent for us to preach under the anointing so that we can point to and be the signs that do follow. We are to cast out demons. We who live in institutional arrangements where demonic activity is the order of the day can, through the preaching of the word, observe the moaning and groaning of demons as they depart, because that which is greater than the demonic is present in us. Our preaching can evoke that power and be a catalyst for the Spirit to burst in and cast out demons.

Our ecumenical discussion of the anointing can have us speak in new tongues. Now the mention of this gift could cause some to feel uneasy. I myself had trouble receiving the gift of speaking in tongues. But I recall what Carlyle Marney used to say to me, “Jim, no man amounts to much until he learns to bless his own origins.” So, thank God, since then, I have experienced this gift. Indeed, many outside of the Pentecostal denomination ​have come to appreciate this expression as one of the most significant insights of the Pentecostal tradition. However, I am not prepared to say that speaking in tongues is to be totally contained within a particular doctrinal framework.

Indeed, I think that using this experience as the only way of distinguishing those who have been anointed or baptized in the Spirit from those who have not goes beyond the biblical claim. We must respect the freedom and sovereignty of the Spirit and not bind the Spirit to our traditional understandings. I do not stand with those who say, “You didn’t speak in tongues; therefore, you don’t know anything about the Spirit. You haven’t been anointed, or you haven’t been baptized.” I cannot join in that argument.

I do know that speaking in tongues gets us on our knees to acknowledge things that often need to be said. “I may have no rational capacity to understand all that ought to be said as my expression to God, or to understand all that God is trying to say to me. Speaking in tongues is a way to communicate through the mouth what is in our spirit when we may not have the cognitive resources to do it. It may be that those of you who are sophisticated enough can do it in Latin…but that might leave some of us out. So, speaking in tongues becomes a way of acknowledging there may be something on our hearts, though we don’t know how to articulate it.”

The issue is broader than linguistics though. It is being able to communicate without pretension of adequate understanding. This is a significant breakthrough for many because if we had to completely understand the matters of the Spirit before we could pray, many of us would be cut off from communicating with the Lord. My message is not to insist that everyone must speak in tongues; however, I will say this: ecumenically the church will lose an opportunity for growth toward the broader frontiers of faith if we forbid the use of this gift. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, if the Spirit gives me the opportunity to speak in tongues, I am glad to affirm it without insisting that everybody else wear it as a badge ​to be included in the body of Christ.

This gift of tongues is one of the ways we maintain spiritual vitality since the inspired utterance may be more important than that which I am able to articulate out of my own understanding. Furthermore, in terms of communities of faith where the experience of tongues takes place, it is necessary also to have the ability to discern and to have the interpretation of tongues.

Speaking in tongues is only one manifestation of the Spirit’s presence, albeit an edifying one. But there are other important dimensions. In this battle, we will have to be able to pick up serpents - not like snake handlers in Appalachia. Our serpents are in the institutions in which we live, work, and serve. Whether the institutions are academic or ecclesiastical, there are serpents there. There is poison there. There is no way to live in our communities without experiencing the bite of the serpent. Let no one fool you. All of the scholars are not saints. All of the bishops are not saints, and all of the ecclesiastical leaders are not necessarily saints. No, there are sinners, serpents, and poison in all of these institutions.

If we seek a situation where there is no poison, where there are no snakes, we have a long journey before us. We require the ability to stand and serve in situations where values are compromised. We need to be able to stand the poison, not taken intentionally, but absorbed just by living in the community, and still not be hurt morally or spiritually.

With the Spirit in our ministry, there will be a laying on of hands so that the sick will recover. When preaching is anointed, people will be healed in the process. This doesn’t require a special prayer line. The preached word is sufficient. I am grateful I have had at least one experience in which healing took place during the preaching process.

At the 1974 World Conference on the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem, Kathryn Kuhlman ministered healing. Almost two hundred people claimed their healing in one night. Before the healing service, I had preached the sermon of the evening. Since time was limited, I had to ​preach quickly. After I finished, Kuhlman ministered healing to others. She told us, “I’m not the healer. It is God who is doing the healing.” I was deeply moved by the power of her ministry.

Actually, I was a bit jealous. I felt that being a professor and a preacher was insignificant compared with her extraordinary gifts. Then Kathryn Kuhlman turned around and said to us pastors, “Pastors, you can be healers too if you let the power of God work through you.”

I heard her, but to myself I said, “Um hum, sure.”

As the benediction was given, a woman and her husband came to the stage. Before I could leave, she said to me, “The Lord led us to come and say something to you. My husband was here, hoping to be touched by Kathryn Kuhlman because he had a hearing problem. He was completely deaf in one ear. You preached,” she said, “from the Gospel according to Mark where it says, ‘Jesus said, to the man whose ears were closed, “Ephphatha”.’

“When you preached and said that word, my husband was waiting for Kathryn so he could be healed. He wanted you to hurry and get out of the way, so he could receive his healing. Then when you said that word, ‘Ephphatha,’ his ear was opened! The Lord wanted us to come and let you know that even through the preaching of the word, healing can take place.”

That was an extraordinary lesson for me. While we may not always have such dramatic experiences, we may find we can be instruments of healing for someone with broken relationships. Perhaps the healing will come to our own hearts when the bitterness that has built up in our lives is cast out. It is my faith that whenever the anointed preaching of the gospel occurs, healing takes place.

Edwin Dargan, in History of Preaching, emphasizes that while almost every age had special preachers, the general quality of preaching rarely rose above the spiritual state of the culture at the time. What a keen insight!

There are times when the power of a culture sets limits on what can be imagined and even appropriated. So if we live in a time of death, it is natural to expect death to be ​present in the preaching. Therefore, in this time and culture so infused with death, how much death there is in preaching. The culture is working to set limits on the possibilities of spiritual transformation.

I am concerned that we who talk about spiritual development often are oblivious to what’s going on in our culture.

There is death in the culture that will not help us. But there is also life and signs of life. There are persons in our culture, often unheeded, unheard, and unsung, who provide remnants of life in the midst of an otherwise dead reality. There are writers, painters, musicians, prophets, and poets who may not be members of a church. These holders of the remnants are given eyes to see and skills to speak in words filled with life. They may seem to be speaking in tongues, but something in our hearts responds and says, “Yes, that’s it.” Musicians can be found who discern what is in the hearts and minds of those who are dead in the valley of dry bones. Writers, painters, and humble workers who have no claim to fame are able to speak words of life.

The angels hear and ask, “May we not use these secular voices and thereby lift them to the sacred as Dante tried to do?” In this way, those who unknowingly are used by God may be given a place, if not in the church, at least in the vestibule, where we entering must pass them. There is a sense in which even a dead culture has voices that may speak truth and stir new life.

An important element in our search for anointed preaching is the church. The seminaries who train the preachers and congregations who spawn them are equally responsible for nurturing the called to a level of grace where others recognize they are anointed. The anointing of prophets and preachers for this age requires seminaries and congregations to work together. Both seminaries and congregations must say, “What we want is anointed preachers, so whatever we can do to be a part of the process, we’ll do it. When our energy fails, we will encourage and support those who are able to carry on the work.”

When I first started to talk about the work of the ​preacher in the congregation I referred to it as the ministry of raising the dead. In that sense, seminary is the place where we prepare people to raise the dead. However, much of the groundwork preparation for this should take place in the students’ congregations before they get to these seminaries. Therefore, the preparation is a joint effort of congregation and seminary. If we are going to be a part of the formation of anointed ministers of the word, we must stop quenching the Spirit. We must not stop the Spirit’s work just because it challenges our current understanding of ourselves. We encumber the Spirit when we who are supposed to be partners in the business of kingdom, steadily fight what the Spirit tries to move us to do.

If we are going to have anointed ministers of the word, congregations and seminaries will have to commit themselves to the legitimization of the spiritual quest. This may sound obvious to you, but religious institutions are sometimes better at putting on the brakes than accelerating towards the quest for religious depth. If we move too far, we are considered outside of the parameters of the institution’s control. When this happens, the institutions will say, “far enough.”

Our goal is that institutions and students of ministry will gather these insights that will enable them to discern between what is of the Spirit and what is not of the Spirit. Once the signs of the Spirit are understood, the institution can legitimize the growth of its people. Let it be a cardinal sin worthy of condemnation for preachers, professors, or religious leaders to stop folks from growing spiritually simply because their growth pattern is beyond their limits of control. A good example of what a congregation should be like is Antioch. I love that church at Antioch. If I ever have the privilege of naming a church, I will name it Antioch, even Antioch Episcopal Church. And if the church lived up to its name, it would be a church that believed in the Spirit. That congregation had a Christ-oriented Spirit. The style of their living and worship demonstrated that the Spirit was real in their church. They recognized the gifts the Spirit gave the people. They encouraged one another. They laid hands ​on all who needed healing. They had a teaching ministry. Love and generosity flourished in that community. They were open to the voice of God as it came through clergy, or the equivalent of clergy in that time, and laity alike. Prophecy was accepted there. They were mature enough to let people speak freely since in the mouth of two or three witnesses will every word be established. Yes, Antioch represents the kind of congregation we need. Even seminaries should be like Antioch in their acknowledgment of the Spirit as present and active.

Both seminaries and congregations must deliberately seek liberation from servitude to the culture and life that is not governed by the Spirit. For our culture is skillful at co-opting all who would be beguiled into serving the world system in the name of the Lord. We must not provide a dwelling place for them. Without caution, churches and seminaries become only the safety valves for the culture. That’s why some people whose allegiances are to earthly kingdoms sometimes fund us. They fund churches and seminaries because “y’all keep the natives happy and siphon off creative discontent.”

Seminaries and churches are viewed by certain elements of the culture as essential in helping keep obscure and removed to a plane of mysticism the differences in values, power, and resources that exist between groups in the culture. Seminaries and churches that are weak in the Spirit do that. Developing anointed preachers and being the safety valve for society cannot be done at the same time by a congregation or seminary. Therefore, churches and seminaries must pray for liberation from being co-opted into servitude. They must prevent the stifling of prophetic imagination in preachers whom God has called to be in ministry, called to raise the dead.

We must offer ourselves as agents for the cultivation of a renewed spirit in our sacred vocations as pastors. How sinful it would be for a church or seminary to tamper with the Holy Spirit’s effort to bring forth a new person for a vocation of ministry. This would be true even if the shape of the person’s vocation is different from the one we imagine for ourselves.

​If I were to tamper with the Spirit’s desire, and try to bend a Christian education teacher into a professional preacher, I would be in error. If a student is called to a ministry of social work and I try to remold the student into my ecclesiastical scheme, I am wrong. I may want all of the bright students to pursue my field, but if I lure them to it solely to get credit for producing great students, I may be interfering with the Spirit who is trying to develop this person for the vocation that God intends.

To be a catalyst in the development of anointed ministers, we must have deep respect for the many expressions of the Spirit’s work. Sometimes through a kind of es-chatological epistemology, a kind of knowing that is not produced by our rational faculties, we must dare to tilt toward the kingdom, even at risk of institutional inconvenience.

We need, in churches and seminaries, to recover the tension between institutional necessity and the demands of the kingdom. If we break the tension, we shirk our responsibility and deny our sacred trust. We must live and move within the tension.

We may even have to consent to a worldwide clergy factory recall. All Christian clergy: Pentecostals, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and all the rest may need to be recalled. Something has fallen into disrepair in too many of us, which we will not recover until we go back to the factory, back to the altar of grace. We need not ask, “What’s wrong with me?” My carburetor may be clogged and my brakes may be defective. But whatever is needed to pull the church together, to empower our clergy, and address the needs of our time, must be done. We must move with the Spirit’s effort to anoint us, and call us again and again to reaffirmation.

We need to pray, “Lord, you anointed me, and I want reinvestitures.” As we discover where our weaknesses lie, let us come before the Lord and say, “Lord, you did something for me years ago that helped me to rise above my preoccupation with my own interests. Do that again.”

For all of us to be revitalized in our time, we are going ​to have to find a way to get light from dark corners. We must point to the light others carry and say, “There! That’s what I’m talking about! Look over there, too. There is light!” We must cultivate an appreciation for more than our own way. The Lord hears the prayers that have been prayed for unity. Jesus said, “Lord, make them one.”

I can imagine a conversation between an angel and the Lord.

“I have a suggestion for how your churches might be one,” says the angel.

“What is your suggestion, angel?”

The angel replies, “If we can determine which spiritual aspect is lacking in a particular tradition, and plant that element in an opposite tradition, even if it is a tradition the other tradition disagrees with, the one lacking will develop a hunger for the additional dimension and cry out, ‘Oh God, give me that additional dimension.’”

“Then we will be able to take the message to the first tradition, and say, ‘The Lord hath heard your prayer and says what you have requested has been granted. When they ask where the blessing is to be found, we can say, ‘In that group you detest the most. To that crowd you so often believe holds no truth at all.’”

Such a conversation would point to the irony and beauty of a pluralistic society. All of us need to understand there are some things God is not going to give directly to white people. There are some things black folk have that white folk desperately need. There are some things that white folk have that black folk need to pursue their fulfillment. Men and women of whatever color need the gifts and perspectives of each other. So it is that you cannot be fulfilled without me and I cannot be fulfilled without you.

We, as committed members of the clergy and laity, must therefore find a way to confess our debt. We must cry out to God for light. We must get on the path of obedience, regardless of whether we feel that any strange palpitations of heart have taken place. We must seek confirmation and encouragement - pray without ceasing ​and serve without fainting, even in hard times. And if anybody wants the blessing of additional dimensions of growth, it can be found in the experience of Holy Spirit anointing.

When I talk about the anointing, I am talking about appropriating what is offered to us. I am calling us to claim it, live by it, and dare to express to God, “It’s a part of my heritage as a member of Christ’s body. Please don’t deny me, Lord. I want all of those things that are necessary for me to be faithful.”

I see signs that the Holy Spirit is now at work. The churches and institutions where we serve have the opportunity to serve at a deeper level. Are we ready to be used by the Spirit to revitalize the body? Will we assist in promoting the anointing, through God’s Spirit, of the world, so that the society can overcome death and come to life again? Each seminary and each congregation has to answer for itself.

When we finally say “no” to the death within us and around us and cry out to God, “Lord, we cannot be content until revitalization, a Jubilee, comes to us,” I believe it will happen.

Let me share this true story about when I was trying to decide what I should do vocationally. I had a dream where I went to a church meeting and met my friends. As they were going out of the church, my friends passed me, not recognizing who I was.

I said, “Where are you guys going?”

They answered, “We are going to Jim Forbe’s funeral.”

“He has died?” I asked in disbelief. Then I said, “Let me go with you.”

I traveled with them and saw the church with all the people gathered for my funeral. As they were filing by, looking at Jim Forbes, some would say, “He doesn’t look too bad for his age. Look at him lying there in the coffin.” And I too went toward the coffin and sadly looked at him. With a strange distant feeling, I returned to my seat.

Then the minister said rather abruptly, “These services are over. The interment will be right here.” The mortician then came forward and started to lower the lid of the ​coffin, which began to turn into my bed. I shouted at the top of my voice, “I object! I object! I object!”

Brothers and sisters, there’s death in the land. There’s death in ourselves, in our preaching, and in our institutions. But through the anointing power of the Holy Spirit, we must object and cry out to God, “Renew your people now!”​