Pentecost, the day tradition has as the start of the Church but in reality it is the start of a movement rather than the Church. It is much easier if we perceive this time as just that the beginnings of a movement because organised "church" as we know it today did not start until much later. During the period as in any period when the Spirit strikes there is an awful lot of renewed and new speculation, thinking, development, theology and dare I say it philosophy. It is this latter which has to a certain extent influenced our later understanding of our common faith background and all the very many different people, faith groups, denominations that are in the world today. During this last week we have consistently prayed for Christian unity but what is interesting about Pentecost is the multitudes of people who were in Jerusalem at the time from all over the Roman Empire. Many will have had connection to the Jewish faith, however, it is more than likely that many of them will have been from differing faith groups of the time, including the Imperial faith of the Empire.
This is what makes the coming of the Spirit so interesting as it bypasses and overshadows a particular faith. Each time that the Spirit has moved it has done so in a manner that has upset the established understanding of Church or rather our established understanding of Church. It is perhaps significant for us that our understanding is but a small drop in knowledge formulated by ourselves about something that is incomprehensible. The movement of the Spirit in the world collapses our philosophical and deeply thought theological positions on the nature of God as it did in the first Pentecost. We can only contain God within our own paradigms and from what we can deduce. Unfortunately, for us, the fact that we cannot know God means that those paradigms, like any model, are just that but we treat what we think is God as God and then the Spirit comes along and demolishes our understanding by showing God in a new light and a new way. This then takes of in a new form that becomes the way or our way or some such which everyone thinks is how God wants us to be.
This is the foolishness of our own thinking and does not reveal God, only the Spirit the advocate as John calls the coming Spirit (Jn. 14:26). If we see the Spirit showing us a multitude of different things each time that the Spirit's work is seen in the world is it not about time that we paid attention to what the Spirit is saying? From the start when the Spirit descended on the disciples they were in the midst of a diversity that was overwhelming from all corners of the earth and it is to them that the Spirit spoke (Acts 2:8-11), not just to the Jewish faith. There is an assumption that we take away from reading the passage in Acts (and what we presume to be the reason for so many to be in Jerusalem at the time) that they were all part of and /or connected to the faith an assumption. It may be highly likely but we cannot guarantee its truth. If the Spirit speaks to all people and this is the advocate who speaks the truth then what does this say to us who do not accept others? God's truth is love, the Spirit of God in all its forms conveys that love to those that listen. We however only accept one truth and cannot comprehend all truths. We latch on to one thing ignoring the fact that in another time and place the Spirit has said something totally different. The disparity of the Spirit's voice is as disparate as the monastic movement and the charismatic movement. Both were driven by the Spirit both display the truth and yet they are so far apart that it is almost impossible to believe they are the same Spirit of God giving us the truth.
If we are to believe that the Spirit is the purveyor of truth (Jn. 16:13) then both ends of the spectrum are the truth. Just as the dichotomy of particle and wave are present in light so the dichotomy that we appear to see in the Christian faith is representative of the wholeness of God and no one aspect is THE truth. The only truth that the Spirit brings is the truth of God's love in all its varied and glorious forms. We cannot single out one or the other it is both and for God's love is revealed in many varied ways so that we can be accepted for who we are within the spectrum of God's grace and love that is never ending.
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