The Spirit Blows…

By Sylvia W. Crouter 10 1 2006

As I thought about what we mean when we use the word, spirit, and what the writers of scripture meant by spirit

 my mind was bombarded by images from both Hebrew and Christian testaments.

The first verses of Genesis describe how God created all that exists as “darkness covered the face of the deep,

while a wind (or breath or spirit) from God swept over the face of the waters.” The image is of the life force of God hovering over the chaos of primordial matter and bringing it into order.

Much later in the New Testament the gospel writers would use this hovering image to describe the spirit descending on Jesus at his baptism: “as the heavens were torn apart and the spirit descended like a dove upon him”.

Spirit is a common theme that runs through both the first and third readings today. Moses driven to the limits of his energy and patience by complainers as the people trekked towards the Promised Land whines and “poor me’s” to God about his burdens. So God directs him to choose seventy elders so that God can take some of Moses’ God-given spirit

and put it on a group that can share Moses’ leadership. Eldad and Medad, two of the seventy, remain in the camp

instead of coming out to the approved place to be breathed upon by God’s spirit. Much to the dismay of the conventional elder group Eldad and Medad receive the spirit just the same and begin prophesying in the camp.

Thus the issue of who is in and who is out     is introduced way back in Judeo-Christian history, only to repeated again in Jesus’ ministry when John complains that there in an “out” person healing people in Jesus’ name, and what can we do to stop him? Jesus replies, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us.” “A deed of power” is one way of saying ‘ an act that comes from the spirit’ and the spirit is the wind or breath of God that hovers over creation; the spirit is the force of life that works within Jesus, and if another person has been inspired by the work of Jesus let him do good with it; if he is for us he is not an adversary, says Jesus.

But what is “spirit”? We have described it as something that hovers, descends, inspires. It comes from God who is pure spirit.

I’m remembering a story Mary Back told on herself. Mary had been doing one of her chalk talks for children in which she set up an easel in front of the altar and drew a chalk picture that illustrated the day’s lesson. One Sunday she was tackling the idea of spirit, and no doubt illustrating the difficult concept in a way that would make sense to children. 

After that Sunday word came back from one parent who said that her child had reported that MaryBack says, “God is a gas!”

Humorous as this may be coming from a little child it is not so far off the mark. If spirit is something insubstantial…invisible…but powerful it is not so unlike an invisible gas that under the right conditions catches fire!

Think of the experience of Pentecost. The spirit descended on the risen Christ’s followers and seemed to crown their heads with fire.

Frederick Buechner points out that the Latin for spirit means breath, inspire, expire, the very stuff of what keeps us alive, and God is the power of life itself. Buechner describes Pentecost and the experience of the Holy Spirit

as “highly contagious…everybody thought they were drunk even though the sun wasn’t yet over the yard arm.”

The ministry of spiritual direction which is an interest of mine has everything to do with spirit and nothing to do with directing people or being bossy with people. A spiritual director or spiritual friend, a better title for this ministry,

is a person who meets with another person in a prayerful way, listens to that person in a quiet, non-directional way.

Actually, both persons open themselves to the spirit, asking for guidance from an invisible Presence.

It is not pastoral counseling. It is not therapy. Advice is rarely offered. The late Dr. Gerald May, describing the relationship of director to directee writes, “in spiritual direction one might say my prayers are for God’s will to be done in you and your constant deepening in God. During this time that we are together I give myself, my awareness

and attention and hopes and heart to God for you. I surrender myself to God for you.”

This is reminiscent of Lynn’s words last Sunday. He said, “ Have you ever thought about asking God to guide you

even more deeply into the unique creation that you are…seeking out the Christ in your life…living out the particular way Christ is embodied in you…?”

This is close to what Jesus was about, not all he was about but much of it.

When Jesus met with Nicodemus he said, “The wind blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it

but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit.”

In today’s reading, when Jesus tells John to let the non-disciple-healer continue his work in Jesus’ name,

he was testifying to the fact that the spirit blows where it does blow. When Joshua asks Moses to stop Eldad and Medad from freelance prophesying Moses refuses to restrict the spirit saying, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets

and the Lord put his spirit upon them!”

God’s spirit blows where it wills. No wall or religious institution can wall it in or out. You may know Robert Frost’s poem about walls. Frost had a neighbor who really wanted a good wall on his property line. The neighbor always said, “ Good fences make good neighbors.” But the poet asks himself, why is that?

The poem continues: “Before I built a wall I’d like to know what I was walling in or walling out…Something there is that doesn’t like a wall, that wants it down.”

Throughout history Christians have taken their turn at wall building, most recently, and I believe inadvertently, by a prominent Christian leader. In the aftermath of the worldwide outcry against Pope Benedict’s unhappy choice of words about the Prophet Muhammed we Christians would do well to consider how Islam truly began. Sohaib Sultan writes, “ Muhammed, a deeply reflective person, spent days in seclusion in the Cave of Hira. He received a call from God to receive God’s words from the Angel Gabriel.”

These spiritual experiences later became the Quran, the fruit of 23 years of Muhammed opening himself to the spirit.

Muslims accord Jesus high honor as well as Noah, Abraham and Moses, a fact we need to remember in these volatile times, times when walls are built between spiritual people of different faiths.

A Lutheran pastor writes, about Mark 9,  our gospel selection for today: “John appears to want to limit God’s saving work to authorized channels, as if grace were a commodity to distribute exclusively through franchise outlets…

God will recognize and reward every act of compassion that advances the reign of God regardless of who performs it.

The people of God should not be surprised when they see God’s purposes being accomplished outside the church.”

As the poet wrote: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, that wants it down.”

You and I might ask ourselves , what are my walls? Who is Eldad and Medad in my life? How can I be more open to God’s spirit and the freedom it inspires?

Amen