Pentecost 19/05/2013
I remember once reading that “what God wants from us is spiritual fruits not religious nuts”
That fruit ‘n’ nut observation has particular relevance on this Pentecost weekend. It’s the Mystery of Spiritual fruits on which we reflect to-day and not the ‘challenge’! of religious nuts! The promise of God’s Spirit is something that’s real and not just a fancy or pious notion with which to kid ourselves.
The real fruits of that Spirit have to be lived in the real (and sometimes challenging) circumstances which often ‘put it up to us’, as to what should be the right thing to do or the right thing to say – not always easy to get it right either – is it?!
The Spirit spoken of God is the Spirit of Truth, promised to those who believe. It’s worth reminding ourselves too that those who seek after the promptings of God’s Spirit are promised unity of purpose, not necessarily uniformity of practice.
In any given set of circumstances you can easily find people who hold fast to their conviction of the same Spirit, but who, at the same time, hold very different approaches to similar or same circumstances. A sincere Christian, hopefully, has the wisdom to recognize that just because someone believes he/she is right doesn’t necessarily mean that a varied view automatically has to be completely wrong!
Surely though, what is essentially right/wrong doesn’t depend either on the result of an opinion poll, or on convenience or on expediency. Nor indeed by slavishly following laws or rules just because they happen to be on a statute book. God’s Spirit certainly doesn’t present that way! What a pity that so many would like to pretend that it should; most notably the Pharisees of the Old Testament or the Zealots of more recent times!
Despite the Church’s horrendous disparity between principle and practice of which we are all aware, not only in recent times, but at other times too throughout its entire history – the ideal of Love that the Church continues to try to proclaim and to ensure, hasn’t changed one whit!
The Law of Love for Christians always surpasses the Love of Law. That’s why we hold fast to the principle in this abortion debate that ‘a moral wrong can never be a civil right’! That said, we mustn’t forget either that the Law of Love also embraces compassion and understanding for the faults of human frailty. Christ Himself exemplified that as we read so often in the Gospels; the Spirit of the Law at times is a far more important reality than the letter of the law can be.
The foundation on which all Church teaching is based is that same law of love. It would be nice to hear a reasoned and respectful exchange between those who believe that love would be more fully expressed by holding a position at variance with that! On this weekend we pray for a deeper experience of the guidance of God’s Spirit of Love on so many different fronts at this time.
A.O’N