Energy of the Spirit

Surprising as it may seem when I was young I used to stumble over long abstract words. It is difficult to work the word “antidisestablishmentarianism” into everyday conversation. I also find that long abstract words can mean different things to different people. That’s why misunderstandings arise in conversations.

Fortunately for us, the medieval English Franciscan, William of Ockham, pleaded for the “KISS” principle – “Keep It Simple, Stupid” – slashing his razor through complicated hypotheses.

By the time you read this, we will have moved into the season of Pentecost which includes celebration of the Trinity. I was about to quote what our Lectionary says about it but have found the words complicated. Sigh!

I even have problems with the word “Spirituality” – again, that is a long word that can mean different things to different people. Remember the Beatles abandoning their suits and hairstyles of the 1960s for exotic dress seeking out new gurus to find themselves. They called this “Spirituality”.

Thankfully, this word wasn’t around my scene when I was young. The word that did influence me was “spirit”, mentioned frequently, I found, in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Jesus spoke about “spirit” throughout John’s Gospel, for instance. His conversation with the woman of Samaria centres around God being “a spirit”, not some one confined to a mere place.

When Jesus later spoke to his disciples about leaving them, he reassured them (and us too along the way) that while he would be physically away from them, he would always be with them (and with us) in spirit. Jesus’ use of the word “spirit” is what has stayed with me over the years.

Pentecost celebrates the coming of the Spirit. Not that God has ever been absent in spirit, but that with Jesus absent in the flesh, we still depend upon that assurance that God is within us and among us in spirit. I still imagine God hovering over us in spirit just as he was in the dawn of creation before we were even stardust. Even when we feel very alone we are never really alone.

I once had some doubts about the relevance of the Trinity. Was this too complicated? Funny, it took a little reflecting upon high school general science to reinforce this. Science was supposed to sabotage faith not underline it.  However, a simple sentence was at the heart of science – “Matter and energy can neither be created or destroyed”. How would this help?

In the person of Jesus of Nazareth, God became “matter” for us. John’s Gospel describes this as “the Word made flesh”. In my young days, the word was “incarnation” or as Charles Wesley put it “incomprehensibly made man”. God became matter.

The Gospels describe the traumatic tragedy of the Word made flesh destroyed on Good Friday. John’s Gospel particularly describes Jesus reassuring his disciples that he (matter) would go away but return to them in spirit (energy).

We learned in science that matter can become energy. We learn from our New Testament that God became matter for us and resumed becoming energy for us when this matter was taken away.

Excuse my bias, but I prefer the word “energy” as explaining “spirit” more than “spirituality”. In this season of Pentecost, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church (including us) celebrates and enacts the energy that God gives us from the energy that God is.

Live out the energy of the spirit!