Weekly Reflection 6/9/19
REFLECTION
FEAST OF PENTECOST
June 8-9, 2019
Remarkable isn’t it, the role words play in the Creation and Uncreation stories found in Genesis. God uses no tool other than Spirit-filled words to draw all things out of primal chaos. In Genesis 3, the serpent uses clever words to lure humans away from their first love. In the wake of these words, the first couple was driven apart. You are familiar with the story. That original division spreads, until in Genesis 11, the people still misled by the serpent started to build a tower to reach the heavens-perhaps to seize the divine throne and power for themselves. God thwarted their plan by wrecking their communication system, confusing their language so they couldn’t understand one another and therefore couldn’t cooperate. Hostile, competitive, destructive language has remained the hallmark of human communication ever since.
Today we celebrate our loving God’s action to recreate. This time, God sends the Spirit to draw all people together by the Gospel preached to all. Thus the new creation begins. We are an important part of the new creation.
We’ve all had the painful experience of destructive words spoken and bonds of respect, love and communion broken. It happens everywhere. We have learned the hard way that verbal weapons of division, once spoken, can never be taken back. But with the advent of the Spirit, breathed out by Jesus on the cross, we can learn a new language of forgiveness, compassion and mercy. The most powerful speaker of this new language is Jesus, God’s own Word made flesh who spoke, lived, and wielded against human hurt God’s creative language of love. Receiving the Spirit, we are given the capacity to mend relationships our own Babels have broken apart. Let’s talk to one another using the language of the new creation. During this Pentecost week, let us commit to using this new language to mend at least one relationship in need of healing. Come, Holy Spirit, and renew the face of the Earth.
Beth Taneyhill