+WOULD THAT THE LORD MIGHT BESTOW HIS SPIRIT ON THEM ALL
These words of Moses capture this Sunday’s theme of Holy Spirit’s free movement among the people of God. They express it seems to me what the coming Synod this October, seeks to express as it gathers representatives of many Nations to carefully listen to one another so as to discern the workings of the Holy Spirit in our own time.
Our gospel tells of someone driving out demons in Christ’s name and John trying to stop him because he was not following them. One is reminded of those words in the third chapter of John’s gospel where Jesus tell Nicodemus: “The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Jesus then goes on to tell of those forces working against the Holy Spirit in those who cause God’s little ones to sin. If our hands, our feet, our eyes cause us to sin, it would be better to cut them off or gauge them out, rather than to be thrown into Gehenna where there is unquenchable fire.
Along the same line, St James warns us against the dangers of riches and wealth, the accumulation of gold and silver that become corroded so that they devour our flesh like a fire. In just the last few days, this was brought home to us in the News about how the Mayor of New York let himself become fascinated by a misuse of wealth and power. One cannot help wondering just how much the wars going on in our world today are motivated by interest in wealth and power.
Jesus would take us into an entirely different direction. “Anyone,” he tells us: “who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.” We all have many opportunities to do this very thing if we let ourselves be aware of Christ’s presence in all of those with whom we live, work, and pray all day long. As monks we stand together in choir seven times a day to recite or sing together the psalms. If we pray in harmony with one another, refuse to get into any kind of competition, our hearts are enlarged and we begin to realize already on earth what the kingdom of heaven is like. It is a blending of hearts and minds in the song of the Spirit that not only gives glory to God but fills our hearts with a love that never ends.
What our Lord said to Moses from the Book of Numbers that heard, is to come to fulfillment not only in our community but in families everywhere and wherever Nations interact with one another. We are told that some of the spirit that was on Moses, the Lord bestowed on seventy elders. God’s freedom in this sharing became even more manifest as this spirit came upon Eldan and Medad far away from the others on whom it had fallen, so that they all prophesied. When Moses’ aide Joshua wanted to stop these two from prophesying, Moses told him “would that all the people of the Lord were prophets.”
Isn’t this what is being hoped for in the coming Synod where those gathered will all speak their minds freely so that that the whole Church may discern the movement of the Holy Spirit? Where there is a growing sense of this synodal consciousness, the whole Body of Christ the Church is enriched and enabled to live in a loving service of one another.
Is this not the meaning of the Eucharist we are about to celebrate at this Altar. Here, the bread made of many grains of ground wheat, the wine formed of many pressed grapes are consecrated by the working of the Holy Spirit. As we receive Christ’s Body and Blood may we become more and more living members of his Body that gives life to our world today! Amen
Num 11:25-29; James 5:1-6; Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48