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             In the collect for the votive Mass of the Holy Spirit we ask God for light, right judgment and guidance, and these are surely gifts of which we stand in need as we look ahead to next week’s meeting of Vestry. 
            But many passages of scripture suggest a more direct and immediate connection between the Spirit and new beginnings.  At the dawn of creation the Spirit was moving over the face of the waters (Genesis 1:1-2); the beginning of the church was marked by an outpouring of the Spirit (Acts 2:1-13); and as the holy city comes down out of heaven from God, the Spirit delivers to the seer the single word of invitation: “Come!” (Revelation 22:17). 
            The Spirit, then, would seem to have an archetypal connection with beginnings, especially with new and unexpected beginnings.  In such connections the Spirit reveals a side which contrasts with those Apollonian gifts of light, right judgment, and guidance.  When the Spirit came upon Saul after he had been anointed king over Israel by Samuel, he fell into a prophetic ecstasy, so that the people asked each other in amazement, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”  (1 Samuel 10:10-11).  The miracle of tongues that accompanied the first Pentecost was interpreted by some bystanders as the effect of alcoholic intoxication: “They are filled with new wine” (Acts 2:13). 
            There is, then, a Dionysian side to the Spirit, quite in contrast to its illuminative role.  The Spirit can be disruptive, ominous, and overwhelming.  Like the day of the Lord, the coming of the Spirit may be darkness and not light.  Indeed, the Spirit can be not only divine but demonic, and it is for this reason that institutional Christianity has generally taken a skeptical view of individual claims to possession of the Spirit, until they have been tested against the rule of faith, as revealed in scripture and the teaching of the Church. 
            Sometimes there is a rather fine line between testing every spirit and quenching the Spirit; the rivers of living water (John 7:38) have often flowed in vain, unable to penetrate the resistant crust of indifference or suspicion, and so unable to bring forth new life and growth within the community of believers. 
            How would we respond to those who, like Eldad and Medad, prophesy in the camp without having been duly accredited in the tent of meeting (Numbers 11:24-30)?  Yesterday’s Star carried the headline: ANGLICANS EYEING SAME-SEX BLESSING.
Whatever we may think about this particular issue, it reminds us that obedience to the autonomy of the Spirit means being ready, like Moses, to expect the unexpected. 

February 1, 2009

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