Sunday May 23rd, thoughts going in...

What’s going on here?
This Sunday is a Major Festival of the Church, the Feast of Pentecost. It’s also Confirmation Sunday. Regardless, both themes are a celebration of the creative power of the Holy Spirit—a power that is always at work to create faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Many people today claim to be ‘spiritual,’ but true spirituality is more than just a personal trait; true spirituality responds to The Holy Spirit.

From Romans chapter 8, we read:
14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
15 So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” 16 For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. 17 And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

--Verse 14 in the NLT & most other modern translations uses the term “children” of God. The term in the Greek is “uioi,” which literally means “sons.” The modern translations want rightly to point out that there is gender inclusivity in the adoptive relationship we share with God. By grace through faith in the saving work of Christ, God adopts both men and women. As one commentator pointed out, however, the strength of the word son/uios is a bit watered down in the modern translations, when one takes into account that up to this point the only ‘uios’ of God that had been mentioned was Jesus himself—and now St. Paul is talking about many sons/uioi of God. His point concerns what used to be referred to colloquially as the ‘red-headed step kid.’ THERE AREN’T any in the family of God. To be ‘adopted’ into the family of God is to have the same SONSHIP STATUS as none other than Jesus himself.

--Verse 15 talks about a former status of being “fearful slaves,” or slaves to fear as other translations put it. You have not received “a spirit of slavery again into fear…” is a close literal translation. Regardless, what does it mean? This is a letter of Paul to people in Rome. The HBO series “Rome” does a pretty good job of pointing out what the status of slavery was like. I’m not exactly sure if this is where Paul is going or not, but one of the things that the tv show makes very clear is that the status of a slave is entirely dependant on the capricious will of his/her master. Even a beloved trusted family servant could be whipped for no reason—or if the master was in a bad mood. Service to the master was done largely out of fear of the consequences of not serving. In contrast, Paul is displaying God’s love for us as shown in adoption, which in turn engenders our reciprocal love for him.

--Vss 16-17 seem to be talking about what the church calls a “blessed end.” It’s all about ‘assurance;’ assurance that come what may—suffering, yes, if that’s where the Spirit leads, God will bring us with Christ into his glorious presence.

The Proper Hymn of the Day is Veni Creator Spiritus—the first line being loosely translated into English as “Come Holy Ghost Creator blest…” As all of the readings of the day indicate, when the Spirit comes he is the CREATIVE Spirit—and in this passage from Romans, specifically we find him creating faithful disciples of Jesus.

cheers,

TM