Recent magazine and newspaper headlines declare that there are spiritual stirrings in America today. They report that more and more people are reading books about spirituality, more and more people are joining groups that explore spirituality, and more and more people are going to churches. People all around us - neighbors and strangers, rich and poor, Communists and capitalists - want to know about God. They ask questions about meaning and purpose, about right and wrong, about heaven and hell.

There are spiritual stirrings in the land today.

Over the course of the next four or five weeks, I'm going to preach a series of sermons about spirituality. I'm going to use St. Mark's Gospel for our main resource, and I encourage you to read through the book. It's only 16 chapters long. And St. Mark is, in many respects, the basic text for Christian spirituality.

Spirituality is the attention we pay to our souls. It is the attention we bring to the invisible interior of our lives that forms the core of our identity. Spirituality, Eugene Peterson says, is the concern we have for the invisibility that exists within every visibility, for the interior that provides content to every exterior. ¹ Got it?

On page after page of the Gospel of Mark, you will hear things like this: The One coming after me will baptize you with the Holy Spirit...Come and follow me and I will make you fishers of men...Rise, take up your bed, and walk. As Jesus comes stepping into the public scene of his ministry, he appeals to the inner dimension of peoples' lives. Though they come to him in a variety of outward appearances and circumstances, Jesus breaks through to the invisible dimension underlying the visible symptom - the interior room hidden by those exterior walls. Jesus touches the unseen spirit - the unrealized purpose - the previously unknown inner resources. Jesus connects with what's inside people.

One of my favorite stories is about the family in which an adolescent boy received a new drum set for his birthday from his - I would call him "unthinking" - uncle. For days after the holiday, the boy pounded on those drums, and drove that family literally up a wall. They tried to convince him to stop, but he was convinced he was the next Ringo Starr. He pounded those drums in the morning, and at noon, and late into the nighttime hours. Finally, the boy's father solved the problem once and for all. One day, he handed the boy a jackknife and simply said, "Son, bet you don't know what's INSIDE those drums!"

Now, if you are the sort of person who wonders about what's inside stuff - what makes things tick - what causes things to behave as they do - you've experienced something akin to spirituality. But the focus of spirituality is not on what's inside drums, but rather what's inside you.

One of the theologians I really appreciate is Gabe Fackre at Andover Newton Theological Seminary. Dr. Fackre once wrote a book called "Christian Basics" and in it, he describes in very creative ways some of the deepest spiritual goings-on in our lives. One of my favorites is his account of the beginnings of our relationship with God.

"In the beginning", Dr. Fackre writes, "God had a dream. The world is bathed in the Divine light. Creation and Creator are one. There is joy and peace in Eden."

Then he goes on to say that we might picture this as a campfire scene. God is the roaring blaze. Humanity sits around the fire - arms linked, unafraid, warm, full, joyous, celebrating the divine Light that binds them together.

But then something happens. For some unexplained reason, people love the darkness more than the Light. All at once, the people circled around the fire spin around on their heels, drawn by the power of darkness. The about-face breaks the bond. Facing outward now, the people can't find each other anymore. Nor can they see the Light. Even nature takes on a fearsome look as the distorted shadows of the lonely people play on the forest round about. And with every step the people take, they are further separated from each other, and from the Light.

This is not what God wanted. As God's dream of perfect unity between people and Himself - and people with each other - begins to fade into the night, God resolves to not let the Dream die.

Suddenly a great wind of the Holy Spirit comes upon the fire, and a shower of sparks shoots into the night sky. Glowing embers of the fire fall upon the hearts of every person and are buried deep within so that, no matter how far from God they wander, there is always something reminding them of God's dream and calling them back to the Light.

This is why, you see, when you look up at the stars in the night sky, you can't help but wonder about God. This is why, when you truly measure your life, and think about where you've come from and consider where you're going, and what it all means, you wonder how you connect with God. This is why there are spiritual stirrings in the land today.

Now all this fascination with spirituality in our time might make you think that we are living in a period of great spiritual awakening, but I don't think that's necessarily so. I have a friend whose name is George. Every year George sends us a Christmas letter, and each year that letter contains more and more information about the various aches and pains and illnesses he's experienced over the past year. One Christmas, George wrote that the best thing about moving to a new condominium complex was the fact that's its right around the corner from his wife's heart doctor and just down the street from his urologist. I told Sandy that, if I ever mention my urologist in our Christmas letter, I hope she'll keep me from writing any more Christmas letters!

You see, the reason people talk about such things is not because everything is well, but because things are not well. If all your friends suddenly started talking about the state of their digestion - comparing symptoms, calling up for advice, swapping remedies - you probably wouldn't think of that as a hopeful sign!

And I suspect the same is true with our fascination with spirituality today.

More than representing a time of heightened faith, I believe it represents our acknowledgement of a deepening need. We live in a time of great spiritual hunger. And this is important for you as a Christian to know not only so that you will understand what makes you tick, but also so you will understand what's going on in the interior life of your children and grandchildren, and friends and strangers.

And it's important to understand why people are so spiritually hungry.

I think there are two reasons. The first is that secular culture has failed us. And it's failed us precisely because it is secular - it reduces everything to thing and function. People in our society expect to find happiness in acquiring pleasing possessions, whether they be houses, automobiles, electronic gizmos, money, or whatever. When we look at the images of success portrayed in the media, we stare into the face of blatant materialism. And right alongside the things of success are the functions of success - for instance, the career track that many believe holds the key to the meaning of their lives, or the achievement that will provide the ultimate thrill, or even the retirement that represents the fruit of our labors.

And yet, though we are the wealthiest and most accomplished generation in the history of the world - at least on the exterior - there is another reality taking place in the interior dimension of our lives. We are lonely. And bored. Because neither things nor functions can provide us with the two basic ingredients people need to be whole - intimacy and transcendence. We need to experience human love, and trust, and joy. And we need to experience divine love, and trust, and joy.

These are the needs of your soul.

And secular culture can't provide those needs. That's one reason there's so much spiritual hunger in our time. The second reason is that God is always at work, fanning that flame within you. Calling you to the Light. Can you feel it warmly glowing inside you today?

I want to invite you in these days of the New Year to step with me into the amazing world of spirituality. We'll have more specifics to say about this in the weeks to come, but today let me offer you several simple points of guidance as we begin the journey:

First, turn to the Scriptures, and immerse yourself in the spirituality of God's people from the beginning of time. Just a short while ago, I was reading an article by Will Willimon, the Dean of the Chapel at Duke University, in which he noted that, just a few years ago, a bestselling book was The Celestine Prophecy. Millions of people read the book by James Redfield in search of deeper meaning. Many found it very appealing. Not so Will Willimon. He writes, "Aside from reservations about its bad grammar and syntax, one might also wonder why this saccharine spirituality should be so greedily received now. Its part of the avalanche of New Age affirmation. We are good. We are making progress. We mean well. We are doing the best we can. Meditate. Marinate in a hot tub. Unleash the good, and the god within you!"

And then Dean Willimon goes on to say that only a century of people who have brought about two world wars, Hiroshima, the Holocaust, and more violence than any other century in history could produce such a false spirituality that lies to itself and that believes the lie that we are getting better all the time.

I agree. There are false spiritualities all around us that appeal not to the divine spark, but to our fallen nature. Seeming to feel right, they lead far away from the God revealed in Jesus Christ. And I've come to believe very strongly that St. Mark, or St Paul or Isaiah or any of the Biblical writes have a lot more to offer us on the subject of spirituality than a James Redfield or any of the other contemporary writers. The scripture is where we begin. Spirituality that is not continuously and prayerfully soaked in the biblical revelation soon either hardens into self-righteousness or dissolves into pop psychology. So turn to the Scriptures and examine them closely as you begin this journey into your spirituality.

Second, shun spirituality that doesn't require any real commitment. Personal commitment to the God personally revealed in Jesus Christ is at the heart of spirituality. You have to be prepared to believe, to follow, and to endure. Its interesting to me that, throughout the course of history, those whose spirituality we most admire are those who, at some moment of their lives, made a personal commitment to God. Before Moses ever delivered the Hebrews from Egypt, he had to take a leap of faith and choose to follow God. Before Saul ever became St. Paul, he had to make the painful decision to leave his old life behind and become a follower of the Christ he had hated for so long. Commitment is the not the result of, but rather the doorway to spiritual discovery. So make a decision. Renew your commitment to Christ, and follow him.

And finally, seek a spirituality that loves not only God, but others. In the early days of responding to what I believed was God's calling me into the ministry, I immersed myself in the Bible, in prayer, and most especially in reading everything I could get my hands on about the second coming of Christ. I was fascinated by the topic, and got to the point that I could rattle off the prophecies and identify all the signs of the times going on in the world around me, indicating that the time was getting near.

I knew all that stuff with an uncanny kind of precision. But I didn't even have a clue as to how to care for a hurting person, or how to feed the hungry, or how to forgive someone who hurt me, or how to seek forgiveness from someone I'd hurt. I had no idea how to lead someone to Christ, or how to support a dying person, or how to find a stranger in the crowd and try to make him a friend.

I guess I had a personal spirituality. Which - when you think about it - is really no spirituality at all. In our faith, we are called to love God and to love others. And it's often in loving others, that we discover the deepest parts of spirituality. How often those in our church who give of themselves to others through our many mission projects report that, in giving, something happens inside! And it does! The spark is stirred! So focus yourself on serving others.

The very first words of the very first Gospel are these: The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Dear friends, I invite you to begin a journey of the Spirit.