The Slow Work of the Spirit: Pentecost Sunday
Acts 2:1-11
Psalm 104
1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13/Galatians 5:16-25
I am eight months pregnant. This is obviously not something very unique, as millions of millions of women through time have at one point been in the same position. But I've been struggling with the waiting, trying to find ways to keep my mind and body busy with things that seem mostly quite trivial to me, while swinging from moments of energy to long bouts of lethargy. But at mass yesterday I was convicted of my impatience and self-pity, and prayed that the Spirit would give me strength to follow his lead in the things that I am called to, to be a good steward of the skills that he's given me for the growth of the Kingdom. I didn't at that point realize that today was Pentecost, and how appropriate my prayer was.
In our first reading in Acts, the drama of the scene and the speed of the action hits you in the face. The Spirit comes down with the sound of a strong driving wind, and then tongues of fire, and then the chaos of many languages all at once "speaking of the mighty acts of God (2:11). I think of how quickly all of this must have unfolded, how shocking and compelling it must have been.
I get in my head about euphoric experiences of God that people sometimes talk about. I am not one who has been comfortable in worshipful spaces where people speak in tongues, or healings happen. It's just that I know I'm good at fooling myself- I would really love to have a concrete feeling of the Spirit, mostly just to calm my inner anxieties. But I know other people are more personally sincere than I am, and that, of course, the Spirit gifts us all differently (1 Cor 12:4).
But I also feel that what we see most of the Spirit today is not so much a direct reflection of the swift, loud wind and tongues of fire that we read about in Acts, but rather a macrocosm of it- that story, but stretched out through time. The Spirit's work in us is often a slow and gentle stoking of the fire he's put there; the testifying to the mighty acts of God often comes in the quiet acts of goodness he brings us to, the things we may often think of as "trivial". The fruits of the Spirit take time and care.
By comparison, interestingly, it seems the fruits of the flesh are things that do not take their time in us as individuals. Lust, jealousy, outbursts of fury-- these are all things that overtake us in an instant in real time. They can be subtle in their smallness, but they are much more concrete and dramatic.
I've been reading Wendell Berry's The World-Ending Fire lately. He writes on topics like sustainable agriculture and the undoing of the American culture and economy. He often says that the work of changing a culture of exploitation has to begin within ourselves, with the choices we make as individuals. As a proud entrepreneur, I find his words personally convicting. "The standard of the exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care. The exploiter's goal is money, profit; the nurturer's goal is health--his land's health, his own, his family's, his community's, his country's...The exploiter wishes to earn as much as possible by as little work as possible; the nurturer expects, certainly, to have a decent living from his work, but his characteristic wish is to work as well as possible" ("The Unsettling of America").
This is perhaps a specific work the Spirit has to do in me-- to reorient my values around an economy of care, rather than maximization of benefit as I tend to understand it; to crucify my flesh with its passions and desires, again and again (Gal 5:24). That is going to be slow, prayerful work, harder and much less glamorous than I'd like. Part of it is going to be recognizing the "trivial" things that I do as God's work, which they truly are, and not sullying them with the ungratefulness that lies in thinking they are somehow not enough-- not productive, progressive, impressive enough.
When I think of the precious, pains-taking work of changing a culture by first changing oneself, the idea of "renewing the face of the earth" from our Psalm seems especially relevant (Ps 104:30). Renewing the face of the earth must be slow, careful work--it doesn't come in the waves of social media uproar or sound and fury, but in the Spirit's "still, small voice" (1 Kgs 19:11-13), leading each of us in the growth of our gifts for this very purpose. We must accept the slow, difficult, daily work, and we each have a part to play; we cannot stand still and wait for a driving wind. "If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit" (Gal 5:25).
Psalm 104
1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13/Galatians 5:16-25
I am eight months pregnant. This is obviously not something very unique, as millions of millions of women through time have at one point been in the same position. But I've been struggling with the waiting, trying to find ways to keep my mind and body busy with things that seem mostly quite trivial to me, while swinging from moments of energy to long bouts of lethargy. But at mass yesterday I was convicted of my impatience and self-pity, and prayed that the Spirit would give me strength to follow his lead in the things that I am called to, to be a good steward of the skills that he's given me for the growth of the Kingdom. I didn't at that point realize that today was Pentecost, and how appropriate my prayer was.
 |
| Pentecost Jean Restout (1732) |
In our first reading in Acts, the drama of the scene and the speed of the action hits you in the face. The Spirit comes down with the sound of a strong driving wind, and then tongues of fire, and then the chaos of many languages all at once "speaking of the mighty acts of God (2:11). I think of how quickly all of this must have unfolded, how shocking and compelling it must have been.
I get in my head about euphoric experiences of God that people sometimes talk about. I am not one who has been comfortable in worshipful spaces where people speak in tongues, or healings happen. It's just that I know I'm good at fooling myself- I would really love to have a concrete feeling of the Spirit, mostly just to calm my inner anxieties. But I know other people are more personally sincere than I am, and that, of course, the Spirit gifts us all differently (1 Cor 12:4).
But I also feel that what we see most of the Spirit today is not so much a direct reflection of the swift, loud wind and tongues of fire that we read about in Acts, but rather a macrocosm of it- that story, but stretched out through time. The Spirit's work in us is often a slow and gentle stoking of the fire he's put there; the testifying to the mighty acts of God often comes in the quiet acts of goodness he brings us to, the things we may often think of as "trivial". The fruits of the Spirit take time and care.
By comparison, interestingly, it seems the fruits of the flesh are things that do not take their time in us as individuals. Lust, jealousy, outbursts of fury-- these are all things that overtake us in an instant in real time. They can be subtle in their smallness, but they are much more concrete and dramatic.
I've been reading Wendell Berry's The World-Ending Fire lately. He writes on topics like sustainable agriculture and the undoing of the American culture and economy. He often says that the work of changing a culture of exploitation has to begin within ourselves, with the choices we make as individuals. As a proud entrepreneur, I find his words personally convicting. "The standard of the exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care. The exploiter's goal is money, profit; the nurturer's goal is health--his land's health, his own, his family's, his community's, his country's...The exploiter wishes to earn as much as possible by as little work as possible; the nurturer expects, certainly, to have a decent living from his work, but his characteristic wish is to work as well as possible" ("The Unsettling of America").
This is perhaps a specific work the Spirit has to do in me-- to reorient my values around an economy of care, rather than maximization of benefit as I tend to understand it; to crucify my flesh with its passions and desires, again and again (Gal 5:24). That is going to be slow, prayerful work, harder and much less glamorous than I'd like. Part of it is going to be recognizing the "trivial" things that I do as God's work, which they truly are, and not sullying them with the ungratefulness that lies in thinking they are somehow not enough-- not productive, progressive, impressive enough.
 |
| Scene from the life of St. Bernard Jorg Breu (1500) |
When I think of the precious, pains-taking work of changing a culture by first changing oneself, the idea of "renewing the face of the earth" from our Psalm seems especially relevant (Ps 104:30). Renewing the face of the earth must be slow, careful work--it doesn't come in the waves of social media uproar or sound and fury, but in the Spirit's "still, small voice" (1 Kgs 19:11-13), leading each of us in the growth of our gifts for this very purpose. We must accept the slow, difficult, daily work, and we each have a part to play; we cannot stand still and wait for a driving wind. "If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit" (Gal 5:25).
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