Fr Mark Schultz

Dear Friend,

In our Office Gospel from Luke today, we hear Jesus speak of the sending of the Spirit. He says, “See, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” There’s a lot we could dive into here, but one of the particularly beautiful riches of this passage is that word “stay.”

In the Greek, that word is a form of kathizo which, sure enough, can mean “stay”, but is more often translated "to sit.” Our Lord’s “stay here” could very well be translated, “sit tight.”

Now, for me, when someone tells me, “sit tight,” there are a couple ideas (beyond just sitting) that inform what’s being asked of me: there’s a sense of expectation, usually of some kind of return (“sit tight, I’ll be right back!”) or of an imminent something that’s about to transpire (“sit tight, it’s about to begin!”), but whatever it is—a return or an immanent something—the expected thing is a done deal. It’s happening. And with that sense of expectation of an imminent something, there’s also a sense of, “if you don’t sit tight, chances are you’ll miss whatever you’ve been expecting…so don’t wander off!” There’s an implicit request involved to abide, to stay, to be patient, to persist, to not change our minds, lose focus, or get off track.

There’s aspect to “sitting tight”, too. Whatever it is that’s happening, that’s inevitable, that you don’t want to miss, there’s nothing particularly heroic you need to do for it to happen…so you can relax! It’s taken care of! You’re taken care of! It’s covered! Sit down already!

So often, we can think that holiness, righteousness, faithfulness, all these good and wonderful things—all these good and wonderful ways of being in the world—are things for which we need to strive, things we need to seize, things at which we ought to grasp. But that’s not quite how Our Lord sees things. Our job, says Jesus, is to relax, to stop grasping, seizing, striving, and allow ourselves to receive the holiness, righteousness, faithfulness we desire…to allow the holiness, righteousness, faithfulness of the One who truly loves us to transform us into a holy, righteous and faithful people, a people who do holiness, righteousness, faithfulness, because they are being done in and through us.

The language our reading gives to talk about all this is, “being clothed with power from on high.” It’s a beautiful image of what’s going on: the clothes we wear not only can express to others who we are, but different clothes have a way of dictating behavior. We carry ourselves differently in a comfortable outfit than in something stiff or unyielding; we behave differently, move differently, in a set of clothes we love as opposed to things we’re not comfortable wearing. In the theater, I worked with many directors who always insisted on getting actors in costume (or some semblance thereof) as quickly as possible, knowing it would change how they moved, how they understood their character. The same ideas are at work here when Jesus speaks of us “being clothed with power from on high.”

“The work,” Jesus seems to be saying in our reading, “the Great Work of your redemption and sanctification, is already being accomplished. It’s a thing in which you’re already being caught up. Which us being woven around you, in you, through you. So sit tight! Relax! It’s already meant for you! You’re already part of it! Don’t lose focus and don’t go wandering off! Abide in my love. And the love in which you abide will clothe you with its splendor, will fill your lives with the very power of God, which is none other than the love of God and love’s glory, will transform you. All of this is a gift of my grace. You can’t seize it: it’ll escape your grasp; you can’t manufacture it yourself: nothing can compare to it. All you can do is receive it as the gift it is. So. Again: sit tight. Relax. Abide. Let me clothe you in my love.”

Dear beloved Friend, God is indeed clothing us in God’s own, divinity, majesty, grace, holiness, righteousness, faithfulness, love. How will we move in this new set of clothes? What new gestures of love will it free us to perform? How will our new clothes inspire us to dance in new ways with the circumstances of our lives and the world around us? Who will we become? Today, we’re being asked to sit tight (to abide in Christ, to remain steadfast in the Way) and find out!

Under the Mercy,
Fr Mark+