Week Twenty-onenull

Implanted Hope
Sunday, May 19, 2019

God for us, we call you Father.
God alongside us, we call you Jesus.
God within us, we call you Holy Spirit.
You are the eternal mystery that enables, enfolds, and enlivens all things,
Even us and even me.
Every name falls short of your goodness and greatness.
We can only see who you are in what is.
We ask for such perfect seeing—
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.
Amen.

In the Divine Spirit—God within us, already promised, often with different words, by the Hebrew prophets, as in Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Isaiah 11:2—God takes on an indwelling character. The unnamable I AM becomes writ large on our hearts, revealing the “down and in” divine characteristic present since the beginning of time. Let’s call the Holy Spirit Implanted Hope. 

Theologian Jack Levison points out that there are many meanings for the Hebrew word ruach and the Greek pneuma: “The original Hebrew and Greek words for ‘spirit’ were used to convey concepts as diverse as a breath, a breeze, a powerful gale, an angel, a demon, the heart and soul of a human being, and the divine presence itself.” [1] For me, what seems most significant is that Spirit is the divine indwelling in creation. As God promises Ezekiel, “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.” (See Ezekiel 37:9-14.) 

Without God as Holy Spirit, there’s no inner momentum, élan vital, or aliveness to heal our wounds. When the Spirit is alive in people, they wake upfrom their mechanical thinking and enter the realm of co-creative power. As in Ezekiel’s vision, the water flows from ankles to knees to waist to neck as the New Earth is hydrated. (See Ezekiel 47:1-12.) Like Pinocchio, we move from wooden to real. We transform from hurt people hurting other people to wounded healers healing others. Not just as individuals but as shapers of history that keeps moving forward through the Spirit’s power.

The Indwelling Spirit is this ability of humanity to keep going, to keep recovering from its wounds, to keep hoping. One thing we love so much about young children is their indomitable hope, curiosity, and desire to grow. They fall down, and soon they’re all grins again. Another generation is going to try again to live life to the fullest. But all too often, by the time they’re sixty they don’t smile so much, and we ask, “What happened between six and sixty?” I see it as loss of Spirit, because if you trust that the Holy Spirit is alive within you, you will keep on, despite every setback.

The Age of Spirit
Monday, May 20, 2019

The Holy Spirit is sent to the entire universe and since creation has been transforming [the universe], carrying it toward the final resurrection. . . . The same Spirit renews humanity. . . . This new humanity must move all nations, each in accordance with its diversity. The Spirit unites without imposing uniformity. —José Comblin [1]

From medieval times to the Great Awakening and other periods of religious revival, Christians have eagerly anticipated an age of the Spirit. But I believe all of history has been the age of the Spirit. Creation just keeps unfolding (see Romans 8:19-25). The evolution of stars, species, and consciousness has never stopped since the very beginning. In fact, we now know that the universe is still expanding. But our hierarchical, masculine-without-feminine, and static notion of God did not allow many to see this.

History keeps moving forward with ever-new creativity. Admittedly, this movement is accompanied by much push back. Just look at what’s happened in the last century! The immense advances in consciousness, science, technology, and awareness are astounding, despite all the horrible wars and injustice, both personal and systemic. While I don’t want to diminish how much we still have to do to create an equitable world, it’s become almost impossible for privileged folks to deny the ongoing marginalization of people of color, gender diverse individuals, the poor, and those with disabilities.

Theologian Jürgen Moltmann (b. 1926) writes:

In the experience of the Spirit a new community of rich and poor, the educated and the uneducated comes into being. The Spirit of God is no respecter of social distinctions; it puts an end to them. All Spirit-impelled revival movements in the history of Christianity have taken note of these social revolutionary elements in the experience of the Spirit and have spread them. They became a danger to the patriarchy, the men’s church and the slave-owners. [2]

The Holy Spirit never gives up on us. Scripture’s arc reveals the salvation of history and all creation, and not merely of individuals. Divine covenants are with the people collectively—the “house” and the future. Individuals like Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, David, and Esther are only the instruments and the mediators. Each individual is caught up in the salvific sweep of history, almost in spite of herself or himself, as YHWH shows mercy to Israel and their descendants forever (see, for example, Genesis 13:15; Exodus 32:13).

The Spirit is like a homing device put inside of us, and all creation, too. For all of our ignorance and mistakes, there is in everything this deep, internal dignity convinced of its own value. This divine indwelling keeps insisting, “I am what I am seeking!” This is surely what Jesus means when he says that all true prayers are already assured of their answer (see Matthew 7:7-8 and 1 John 5:14-15).

It’s God in you that loves God; it’s God through you that recognizes God elsewhere; it’s God for you that assures you that you are finally and forever okay.  This is Trinitarian spirituality, which buttresses you on every side. This is what it means to live inside the Trinitarian flow. And it is all now, and not just later. You are already home free!

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