How to Tell If the Spirit is Nudging You with Psalm 87

How can you tell if the Holy Spirit is nudging you? In this episode along with a reading from the 87th Psalm, I'll tell the story of Nicodemus from the Book of John Chapter 3. This is one of my favorite scenes from the Bible, and it's one scene that brings to us the evidence that Jesus was a mystic and suggested that Nicodemus look at the holy teachings through a mystical lens. 

Books Mentioned in This Episode:
The Book of John

For more information about me and my work, please visit www.brianneturczynski.com or www.lovingtheimperfect.com

Transcript

 Hello and welcome to Loving the Imperfect.  I'm Brianne Terzinski, your host. This is a podcast for Christians and others of all beliefs and practices who are sick and tired of dogma and just want peace in the world across all religions and practices.  With each episode, I share a brief story and a reflection on how this can be possible. 

 Framed within every seventh psalm, each week I talk about the lessons we can glean from daily life and how to look at our beliefs and practices through a mystical lens. New episodes are uploaded every Thursday. I’m a published author, I am a historical journalist, a filmmaker, and a teacher. I teach ESL, English as a Second Language to adults. 

 So, today's psalm, we're going to be reading a psalm from the Sons of Korah. It is the 87th psalm. It's very short.

Here we go. 

Psalm 87. 
 He has founded his city on the holy mountain.
 2 The Lord loves the gates of Zion
     more than all the other dwellings of Jacob.

3 Glorious things are said of you,
     city of God:
 4 “I will record Rahab and Babylon
     among those who acknowledge me—
 Philistia too, and Tyre, along with Cush—
     and will say, ‘This one was born in Zion.’”
 5 Indeed, of Zion it will be said,
     “This one and that one were born in her,
     and the Most High himself will establish her.”
 6 The Lord will write in the register of the peoples:
     “This one was born in Zion.”

7 As they make music they will sing,
     “All my fountains are in you.”

Okay, this psalm is a reference to the New Jerusalem, the city of God on Mount Zion. The afterlife; it's heaven.
 
 It is mentioned again, this city of God, in revelations. All of chapter 21 describes this new Jerusalem in detail. It says, “nothing impure will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.”

When I read this part of Revelations, for some reason, I wanted to revisit one of my favorite scenes in the Book of John. It just popped into my head. This beautiful scene between Nicodemus and Jesus in the Gospel of John. And the Gospel of John is my favorite gospel. It is the most mystical of all the gospels.

 I just really like that the Book of John has a lot of details, a lot of stories that we didn't really hear in the other gospels. So, it's a little bit different. The perspective is different. And there are some theologians that say that the Book of John may have been written by women, like a group of women. I'm telling you that this suddenly popped into my head because that is how the Holy Spirit works. Most of the time I read the psalm and I think, okay, how can I speak at length about this? 

And each week I have a challenge ahead of me, which I love, but at the same time, it stresses me out.   I just want to do a good job, you know, and I'm afraid that I'll come to that writer's block situation where I won't be able to move forward, and I won't be able to think about anything good. 

And so I ask the Holy Spirit to help me with that. To give me the words to say. This is how the Spirit works. I'm only reading Revelations because the notes for Psalm 87 told me to reference Revelations. And when I read Revelations, then it popped into my head to look back on the book of John at Nicodemus.

 So I would say, follow these curious little  nudges that you have to discover something. I love the challenge ahead of me, and it is a small part of why I like doing this show. And this psalm being that it was so short was an even greater challenge.  
 
 So this beautiful scene in the book of John popped into my head. This quiet conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. It was, according to the book of John, in chronological order, it looked like it was probably at the beginning of Jesus's ministry. 

So Jesus had gone into the holy temple and merchants had turned it into a market. They were selling goods and exchanging money. And so Jesus got very mad and he started flipping over all of their tables. When the Pharisees came and questioned him about this, he said something like, you've turned my father's house into a market. 
 
 And the Pharisees, couldn't understand why Jesus would call God his father. And that was like blasphemy for them. They had never heard such talk some person who had elevated themselves to speak so casually about God and Nicodemus was in this group of Pharisees.

He was a Pharisee. And he's listening to all this, he's listening to Jesus, and later, under the cover of night, he went to Jesus to learn more about who he was as a person. He wanted to ask him some questions, and he didn't want his fellow Pharisees to hear, because that would then point the suspicion to Nicodemus, to himself, and so he had to do this in secret. So not only was it very dangerous for him to go see Jesus, but it also took a tremendous amount of humility for Nicodemus to do this. Here, Nicodemus is a teacher of the Holy Law, visiting another teacher, asking to be taught. And I just think that's so beautiful.

I kind of imagined that they were whispering back and forth or talking very quietly, alone under the cover of night. It took a lot of humility for Nicodemus to approach Jesus, to question him, to get to know him, to seek truth.

And that is how the Holy Spirit works.  Anytime your is piqued to seek truth. That is the Holy Spirit. And that's what tapped Nicodemus on the shoulder that night and said, go see Jesus. So he did, he was listening.

That was the beginning of his transformation. And in this conversation, they talk about being born again. And so Nicodemus is something very difficult.  Jesus is talking about baptism, but when he's talking about the Spirit, that goes a little deeper. He says, “no one can see the kingdom of God, unless they are born again.”

Nicodemus, this is in chapter three of the Book of John. Nicodemus says, “how can someone be born when they are old? Surely, they cannot enter a second time into their mother's womb to be born.”  And Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying you must be born again. The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” And so they go back and forth and Nicodemus says, how can this be?

It demonstrates how much the Pharisees were still looking at all of the Holy Laws, from a very literal perspective, very black and white, very dualistic.

Jesus is asking Nicodemus to see things from a mystical perspective, and this makes an impression on him after defending Jesus in front of the high council, he helps to prepare Jesus's body with myrrh and aloes after his death.

He was prompted by the Holy Spirit to visit Jesus that night. Just like I was prompted to look back on this passage. This is how the Holy Spirit works. It piques your curiosity for discovering truth.  This was the beginning of Nicodemus's journey of rebirth

He followed his curiosity to discover truth. And that is how you can be reborn. If you follow your curiosity for truth with a capital T. That is how you can be reborn in the spirit. 

And isn't it beautiful that we are witnessing this rebirth of the Spirit in this passage chapter 3 of the Book of John. Isn't it genius that John or whoever wrote these passages thought to capture this story? 
 
 This is an example of when Jesus comes into the picture in the New Testament, the sense of humor that now is incorporated into Holy Text. We have Nicodemus coming to Jesus saying, how can I be born again? What does this mean? What does it mean to be born again?

I don't understand. And as he's asking these questions, he is demonstrating exactly what Jesus means this is how the Holy Spirit works. You know, this is, I don't want to say magical, but this is the mysticism of Jesus.

It's just hilarious to me because it is so beautiful. It makes so much sense. Nicodemus is just demonstrating at that moment exactly what Jesus means to be born again. And I just think that's so amazing and hilarious and beautiful.  And so I get a kick out of some of these passages that I just think are funny we don't always picture the Bible being funny. When I was a little girl, I never thought that Jesus ever smiled. Because the way it's taught to us is without a sense of humor. And I think Jesus had a tremendous sense of humor.

I think he was always winking at us, like always had a trick up his sleeve, like a message up his sleeve that would like the coin a magician takes from behind your ear. You don't have any money?

Well, it's behind your ear the whole time.  And it's funny; it's just light and beautiful at the same time and profound and to me that's why I like to study this stuff. That's why I like to read it because I love it.  I discover something new every time I approach these passages and that's why I'm communicating this stuff to you so that you can see what I see and then maybe even go beyond what I see and see something that really speaks to you and to your spirit and moves you in a different direction. To be reborn in the spirit.

There are many people out there that claim to be born again Christians because a pastor laid his hands on them and said they were born again. They usually come away with a twisted view, a usually very dualistic view, a my way or the highway view, and a just insatiable hunger to save everyone they come across. And this is usually built around the motive of them not going to hell for their past sins. They're so afraid that they are just more anxious to be saved and that more anxious to save others, usually either by brute force or bullying people or putting a lot of fear on them.

And they use this new birth to discriminate against others for their reluctance to join them.

I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with being a born again Christian or trying to save people, but there is an element, I think, of wrong to it when someone is bullying someone or discriminating they may have the enthusiasm and I'm sure that they think that what they're doing is genuine,    but many of these people lack truth with a capital T, which is what my college professor always used to say. And I liked it. So, I'm using it to, truth with a capital T means justice, inclusivity, compassion, mercy, humility, balance, and anything else that is good. 

Many of these people have not applied these qualities to their faith, to their religion, to their new birth.  And so, they have a very shallow obedience. And by shallow, I don't mean that it's disingenuous, but that it doesn't go very deep. A lot of Christian nationalists come out of this kind of thinking.
 
 I was speaking once to a man on the phone, and he was a very nice man. We were having a great conversation, but then he told me that he had just been saved. And in the same breath, he said that all homosexuals are going to hell.

So, it’s like what I'm talking about. They have this very dualistic view. They just shouldn't be discriminating. It's not. What Jesus would have stood for. Jesus was all about inclusivity. 

Another time when I was with my husband, my husband and I used to live around at least three World War II vets. It was amazing. We learned so much from them. It was just so beautiful, the memories I have of these guys and the stories that we heard. But one of them took us to his church to see a play.

Because I expressed my love for theater and A Christmas Carol was playing and I wanted to see it, he took us to his church to see this play. When the play was over, the doors remained closed. And the pastor was suddenly on-stage selling Jesus to us. And asking who wanted to come up on stage to be saved and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

So, I got up to leave, because I didn't want to be a part of that. But the church had locked us into the theater and refused anyone who wanted to exit. And I just couldn't believe it. When I got there, there was a man standing in front of the door. Like he wouldn't let me leave.

So, I was so shocked by this. I don't know. I just went and sat back down. And I had to listen to their sales pitch and witness what I felt was a phony display.

And this wasn't love. I just didn't feel like it was love. I didn't feel like it was genuine.

I don't know, there was something wrong with it. Our veteran neighbor afterward apologized. He said that he had no idea they were going to do that.  He felt very bad.  Which is another mark against these pastors to not have that full disclosure with their congregation.

It's another mark against their technique. And they really bring their point home when they do these sales pitch things, because they always mention hell and dangle that above your head, the threat of it above everyone's head. And if your motive to live a better life is only so you won't go to hell, then you're not going about any of this the right way. Forget what happens when you die.  Don't even really think about it if you can help it. 

I personally don't believe in hell. Except for the one that people make for themselves in this life. That is the only hell I believe in. I don't believe God would punish unbelievers in a pit of fire. If there were such a God, I would not believe in him or her.

I would not want to be a part of an afterlife, a new Jerusalem, that discriminates. I would rather be buried in the dirt and forgotten.
 
 So, there is no such God that hurts and punishes for all eternity. I'm sorry, but there is not. We have been taught wrong. We have been taught by dualistic theologians. And who are we to say that even the New Testament is the end all be all? 

We had something that changed the Old Testament, and now it's the Old Testament. Now we have the New Testament. We know that Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, but who's to say that there isn't something coming down the line centuries from now, maybe some buried document somewhere from long ago that will be discovered. 

Another piece like the Dead Sea Scrolls. 

Who's to say that there isn't something thousands and thousands of years from now that will come and totally change how we think of the New Testament? I think we must remain open to that.

I think it's okay to question some of the stuff that's in the Bible.  It's okay to argue against it, as long as your arguing is built on love and inclusivity and truth with a capital T.

Nicodemus went to Jesus because he was open to the possibility that he and all of his fellow Pharisees could possibly be wrong. I think that we need to be open to that too, 

I just wanted to share a little bit of that, and I hope that you will about your week remaining open to the nudges of the Holy Spirit or just the spirit, whatever you want to call it. Those nudges that come from a curiosity to discover truth. That is the Holy Spirit or just the spirit, and I hope that you follow those nudges wherever they take you. And see what you discover this week doing that. I hope that you do discover new things and new possibilities and experience your own rebirth. in the spirit   I'll leave you with that. Thank you so much for joining me again.

From all over the world. Next week we are reading Psalm 94, which is humongous. It's very long. It’s 23 verses. I think we've hit 23 before, so it won't be that big of a deal. I hope that you'll join me then. Please consider sharing and subscribing.

Have a great week. Bye bye.