The vision proposed to us in the readings today is, as we might say, really something else. It is not just a question of a morality or a philosophy to place alongside other proposals of that kind. It is a cosmic, we can even say a metaphysical, vision, of Christ, a man, who is the Son of God, the head of the Church, which is his body, and the fullness of him who himself fills the whole creation.
The gospel reading adds to that along the same lines. Besides the Son who fills all creation there is the Spirit who gives the disciples the words they will need when they are being persecuted.
There is a lot in the readings on the moral level, on human behaviour. As is the usual pattern in Paul's letters, he begins by praising the Ephesians for their faith, love and hope. These are the essential content of the Christian life, the practices in which that life expresses itself. But they are not human achievements, things we can generate from the depths of our souls if only we try hard enough. They are gifts of God, the work in us of the Spirit of wisdom, enlightenment and love. We see the power of the Spirit in what he has done for Christ, raising him from the dead and exalting him to the right hand of the Father. The Church, the body of Christ in human history, is the work of the Spirit who is the power operating in Christ as the head of the Church, as head of humanity, and as the fulness of all creation.
Which is why one can say this vision is really something else.
The gospel reading might also be taken in a moralistic way - do not blaspheme against the Holy Spirit for that is an unforgivable sin. That would be to cut off the branch on which you are sitting. That would be to explode the foundation. on which your house is built. That would be to insult the power which establishes in you these gifts of faith, hope and charity.
In this brief passage the gospel of Luke records a teaching of Jesus - about the Spirit, about truth, about love - which he will develop at much greater length in his discourses at the Last Supper recorded in the gospel of John. This is the deepest reach of the teaching of Jesus about his work and the letter to the Ephesians is anohter development of that teaching. Of course there is a way of living that comes with Christ and his teaching. But that way of living is made possible by a new way of being. To be one who has received the Spirit is to be a person of faith, hope and charity. It is to be a person of wisdom and perception. It is to be what Paul elsewhere calls a 'new creation', a new reality, a new being.
To blaspheme against the Holy Spirit would mean rejecting all that. Let us instead pray for a fresh outpouring of the Spirit on ourselves, on the Church, on the world, that we might allow God to shape us into all that God wants us to be.
Saint Ignatius of Antioch, whose memory we keep today, asked the Romans not to do anything to prevent his martyrdom. 'Only when I am with God', he says, 'will I be truly a human being.' The same is true even for those of us who are not martyrs: only with God are we truly human.
No comments:
Post a Comment