From Visions to Vision...

 

“From Visions to Vision”

 

Acts 16:9-15
16:9 During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us."

16:10 When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

16:11 We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis,

16:12 and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days.

16:13 On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there.

16:14 A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.

16:15 When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home." And she prevailed upon us.

 

I don’t know about you, but I have not had many experiences I would call “visions” in my faith walk with Christ, unless you count my dreams. Oh, there was one dream where I was kidnapped by aliens and held captive at Walmart. To this day, I freak out at seeing those yellow “smiley” faces. Or a dream I had just the other night, wherein an unknown companion and I got into a “temporary” construction elevator and it went up, then turned upside down, and deposited us in a different time zone—actually a different TIME zone, as in a parallel reality. The rest of the dream was about trying to get back to our time/space, but given that we were using bicycles, we were not successful. Where is Einstein when you need him? On second thought, let’s NOT use my dreams as examples of “godly” visions…

 

Seriously, why do we not have vivid visions like Peter, Paul, and other apostles did back in the day? There are certainly a few charismatic Christians I have known who claimed they had visions, but when asked to describe them, they were either pretty pedestrian, or so outlandish they made my Walmart dream seem like a “What I did on my Summer vacation” story. In my young adult Christian experience, I remember a “vision” that was being circulated around the Christian community in my home town of Oil City, a town that had a bad habit of Winter flooding, due to ice jamming up at the confluence of Oil Creek and the Allegheny. A prominent member of a Catholic charismatic fellowship “had” the vision, and it alarmed people as it was spread like a bad rumor. In this “vision,” “God” was telling us that if the people of Oil City didn’t find God and quit their sin, the next Winter’s flood would have waters running as high as the old high school. Given that during this “boost phase” of the charismatic movement had people taking these visions pretty seriously, this particular chilling vision was spreading like a Santa Anna-bellowed wildfire. Of course the whole thing was absurd. First of all, the totality of the citizenry of Oil City was not going to “get saved” before Winter set in, and even if they did, I’m pretty sure sin would not cease all that quickly. But beyond that, there was science and reality. Had Oil City been “flooded” by God up to the level of the old high school, I’m pretty sure we would have lost most of the East Coast. Pittsburgh would have been “Sea World” for sure. So, let’s set aside THESE kinds of ecstatic visions for now.

 

Fact is, we mature in Christ, and God doesn’t have to “spoon feed” God’s people direction any more. After the Holy Spirit came upon the church, the “dreams and visions” began to subside, as now the Holy Spirit could give guidance. Other than the incredible series of “visions” that make up the Book of Revelation, what visions that remained were more like God’s GPS, sending people like Paul and Peter off to specific locales to minister and preach the Good News. 

 

The vision in today’s passage is a wonderful one, as it sends Paul off to Macedonia, where he and his little band “went outside the gate by the river…and spoke to the women who had gathered there.” How huge is this in the maturing and growth of the early church? Sharing the gospel witness with a group of women? This would have been pretty much as “taboo” in this context as it was when Jesus took the time to speak to a Samaritan woman at the well. Obviously, if Paul was compelled by this “vision” from God to go there, he most certainly also believed it was God compelling “them” to offer Christ to these women! Something wonderful was happening in the church, and while the full inclusion of women would later give Paul a few fits in Corinth, it was still a great wave of the Holy Spirit sweeping through ALL people, including women, who had long been marginalized in Palestine and the surrounding world. 

 

One of the women who responded to the gospel and was baptized was a “seller of purple” named Lydia. She became a leader in the church, and her name pops up from time to time in the New Testament. Paul comes to respect her, and some even suggest that she becomes a “financier” of missionary journeys in the early Christian ministry. This would make sense, as purple fabric and the dyes to make it were precious and expensive commodities at that time. Even as Peter was sent to the home of Cornelius, which led to a major outreach to Gentiles, so Paul may very well have been sent to Macedonia mostly to bring Lydia into the household of faith, helping feed the fertile ground that would be female leadership in the fledgling church.

 

Again, the role of the Holy Spirit was to lead and empower. Visions and other “special effects” begin to subside as the church matured, and learned to “listen” to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. For United Methodist Christians in our age, this might be a good time to renew our understanding of a “tool” of Mr. Wesley’s he used and taught us to discern God’s will and receive wisdom and direction via the Holy Spirit of God. 

 

The late Albert Outler, a famous Wesleyan theologian and scholar, wrote about this “tool” under the collective name of the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral.” The Anglican Church, of which Mr. Wesley was a priest, had a “trinity” of guiding, illuminating “forces” they saw as being employed by the Holy Spirit: Scripture, Tradition, and Reason. Dr. Outler professed that, based on an analysis of the sermons of John Wesley, and his “track record” of ministry, Wesley added a fourth “tool” to this toolbox, that of Experience. Suspicions over “tradition” and “reason” set the Anglicans at odds with the Calvinists, who like the Lutherans, pretty much held to Sola Scriptura, or “scripture alone” as the source of God’s guidance and “message” to humanity. Pretty much everyone was suspicious of Wesley’s use of Experience as a valid guiding factor, and this persists to this day. In the current debate over “scriptural authority” that may lead to a schism within the United Methodist Church, those who hold to a doctrine that sounds a lot like “biblical inerrancy” don’t have a lot of time for Experience as a reliable teacher, or at least a desirable one. Some of these folk often blame reliance on “experience” for the habit of others to interpret the Bible differently than they do, based on what they “learn” from it. We could go on and on about this, so let’s not, and just look at the elements of the “Quadrilateral.”

 

Outler argues that the Wesleyan Quadrilateral is a hierarchy, with Scripture on the “top,” followed by Tradition, Experience, and Reason. Reason brings up the rear not necessarily because it is on the bottom of the “pile,” but because after “consulting” the three “sources” of wisdom for the Christian believer, it is the God-given, human MIND that sorts out this input, organizes it and makes sense of it, and draws conclusions that lead to direction, action, mission, and vision, both for the individual believer, and for the broader community of faith. 

 

It is the use of “tools” like this Quadrilateral, fed by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that helped make the transition from “Visions” to vision. “Visions” are supernatural images or “messages” that give “marching orders.” Discerning a Vision is a reason-driven, participatory process that brings together facts, history, and experience to set a course for a church and/or a person who is responding to God’s call. Of course, one prays that the Holy Spirit is both inspiring and “weaving together” this process such that the outcome is one that God desires, not merely a ”manmade” plan, but still, the mature corpus of Christianity is entrusted by God to “work the process” and “write the vision.” And then we work together to bring it to fruition.

 

Looking to Scripture first for God’s “guidance input” is a widely agreed upon priority. As mentioned earlier, Outler believed this was the “top of the pyramid” for John Wesley. Obviously, for Christian believers whose whole faith finds its origin, roots, and “story” in the Bible, this is the first place to look, when weighing the important questions of life. Paradoxically, the Bible does not address a wide range of contemporary challenges and issues, requiring serious “extrapolation” of its wisdom, or what we call “interpretation,” in exegetical parlance. This is one place where our “unity” over the primacy of scripture often breaks down—in the mode of interpretation. Seminary gives one a series of helpful “tools” to use in interpreting the Bible: text-critical factors—who wrote it and when, and syntax issues within the two major biblical languages, Hebrew and Greek; an understanding of historical contexts regarding when the texts were recorded; and “form” critical skills to understand the varying types of literature we find in the Bible—history, prophecy, wisdom literature, gospels, and epistles, for example. One may choose a more “literal” interpretation over these seminary-taught skills, which often leads to divergent views of what a text “means.” Another point of potential conflict for believers in the Wesleyan tradition is what John Wesley might have meant by “primacy of scripture,” related to the other elements of the “quadrilateral.” No one argues that John Wesley was a serious student of the Bible, but in reading the sermons of Wesley, it is also clear that he is much more the ”topical” preacher, and regularly engages in “proof-texting,” neither of which are strong evidence that he interpreted the Bible exceedingly “literally.” We mostly agree, though, that the Bible was “primary” for John Wesley, one way, or another, but it would be hard to assert that he engaged in sola scriptura, or “scripture alone.”

 

In keeping with his Anglican roots, John Wesley looked next to Tradition. In this context, “tradition” was the collection of practices, discovery, and teachings of the Christian church throughout its history, filtered through the “local” traditions of one’s own sect or denomination. Liturgical and sacramental practices, worship rubrics or “styles,” polity, rules governing the ordained ministry, and theological views specific to a given religious group would be examples of Tradition. While one’s religious tradition may also color how one views the Bible, for Wesley, this element of the “Quadrilateral” helped him narrow his search for divine guidance to what would make sense in his adopted faith context. In some cases, his religious tradition—especially its codified doctrines or social principles—offered direct answers, ones that were already “tested” against Scripture. United Methodists have our Book of Disciplinethat brings together our doctrinal statements, social principles, and polity into a single volume. A second collection of political and social legislation passed by General Conferences down through the years is found in the Book of Resolutions, which is actually a series of volumes with indices. 

 

John Wesley’s unique addition to the Scripture, Tradition, and Reason of his Anglican heritage was that of Experience. The good news is that our own history may well be helpful in our quest to discern God’s “voice” in life. The “bad news” is that personal experience may be “tainted” by our own prejudices or values with which we were raised, or that we have acquired on our own. Life certainly educates, but it may also cause us to get “dirty” by responding negatively, ill-advisedly, or even sinfully to its challenges, events, or temptations. These may also leave “track records” or “ruts” that are hard to erase. Still, Experience is a valuable piece of the “Quadrilateral” framework. As one works one’s way through these helpful elements of guidance and discernment, caution is in order as we descend the “hierarchy.” As we look to our personal Experience, we are wise to screen out ones that lead too quickly to a rash decision, whether it be in the affirmative or the negative. And if the experiences reviewed cause us to change directions from what we had started focusing on after consulting Scripture and Tradition, it may also be wise to retreat to a fresh look at them, too. 

 

So, how do we govern our use of the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” so it is more helpful than confusing to our situation? And what aids us in arbitrating between the “steps” of it? That would be the fourth element—Reason. In short, God gave us a brain for a reason! Or should we say, TO Reason. The well-tempered human mind, inspired by one’s faith and the Spirit of God, is a powerful tool in the process of discernment. Critical thinking is one of the most important things any of us can learn and employ. If there is a shortage of anything in our world today—and in the church—it is the quality of critical thinking. Becoming adept at carefully weighing all the information and options before us, and drawing logical conclusions or building on the foundations of life philosophies, theological insights, and Spirit-led “vocation,” can certainly enhance our own lives, as well as be edifying and “enlightening” to the broader community of faith. It is troubling that in our current time, learnings and information that may lead to more astute critical thinking and reasoning, are being viewed at the least skeptically, and at most, are actually being outlawed! Smart people should never fear new knowledge, especially when it may call into question long-held prejudices or assumptions. Years ago, a TV commercial for the United Negro College Fund asserted, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” This is doubly true in our time! Reason is a powerful gift from our Creator!

 

The “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” is a powerful tool, as we have tried to illustrate, but it doesn’t come with an instruction book. It also benefits from practice, and works best when eventually and seamlessly “woven” into one’s entire discerning and thinking processes. Also, for those who hold John Wesley as a sacrosanct figure, please be reminded that the “Quadrilateral” is a construct of Dr. Outler, based on his own study of Mr. Wesley. If in meeting John Wesley in heaven you ask him about the “Quadrilateral,” you will get crickets.

 

With the frequency of supernatural visions and dreams fading, and the importance of “casting vision” growing in importance, the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” can certainly help illuminate the way forward. In today’s passage, Paul’s vision leads to the whole new experience of inclusion of women into the leadership circle of the infant church. In our time, may the visions we cast, as inspired by the resident Holy Spirit, similarly open new vistas for the church. And may we promote processes like the “Quadrilateral” that lead to sharper critical thinking, which may mean we must oppose forces in the society that seek to limit the free flow of information. Amen!