The Wild Goose

John Buchanan, editor of “Christian Century,” was recently in South America. And it was there that he had a remarkable encounter with the Holy Spirit. Buchanan also serves as a seminary professor and it was in this role that he was asked to meet with a number of local pastors. The meeting was to be late one night (it had to be so because every one of the pastors wishing to meet with him were “tent-makers;’” that is, they, like St Paul, had full-time day jobs in addition to their church duties. Their seminary was in a small room. And it solely consisted of hundreds of tape-recorded sermons by senior pastors. These recordings were sent out to others pastors throughout the country (most of whom were illiterate). This was their seminary. The teaching they received was solely by the spoken word. This was the way there were being developed into competent shepherds of Christ’s flock. This was how they learned about God, how to lead a congregation, and preach God’s Word.


Buchanan remarked that all they had were these recordings (the spoken Word of God) and the Holy Spirit. It turned out that this was more than enough. Just like Jesus said, it is the Holy Spirit who will teach us after he leaves us (Jn 14:26) and it is his Spirit that will permit those of us who follow him to do “ever greater” things than he did (Jn 14:26).

These faithful pastors had no prayer book, no “rules and regulations,” nothing that we would call “expected and necessary order and discipline.” They just follower the biblical accounts and baptized new believers, taught and led them.

They had one big thing and it was enough – they had God’s Spirit!

Those of us in the orderly (and often spiritually vacant) Western branch of Christianity, would, of course, be shocked by what we would see as the inadequacy of such a system. But the reality of life in the world today outside of our little part of the world is that this IS the Church of Jesus and it is the Church that the early followers of Jesus developed. After all, it was this way for the first 400 years of the Way of Jesus. The fact is that it worked then and it still works today! And as long as we run from, avoid, and diminish the work of God’s Spirit in the world, we will remain far from the powerful work that the Spirit could do in our own lives and in our own church!

So what does this mean to us who worship and live in the “organized Church”? Is there any application of, or lesson regarding, what God is dynamically doing in South America, Asia and Africa?

I think it’s this. We are all too “orderly” regarding the message of God in Christ. In our culture we all deeply love and respect order, intellect, restraint, and emotional control. We are a rational people and the idea of a Holy Spirit is almost too much for us to ponder let alone experience!

The Spirit of God that permeates both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures is more like how the Celts described him/her: to them God’s Spirit was a “wild goose” not a gentle dove. God’s Spirit is wild, “blows where it will,” and does jaw-dropping, stunning miracles, and indelibly transforms lives. He/She is the creating, healing, teaching, strengthening, and resurrecting force of God in the world – something for which we need to reckon.

As you and I journey in faith, I pray that each one of us can come “nose to nose” with God’s Spirit – with that Wild Goose. It can happen. And it can dramatically change our lives. All we have to do is be open to this powerful possibility. Open to being touched, changed, and blessed by the God who reaches out. The God who is a wild Spirit. Go for it! Pray for it. Grasp it!