MOST OF OUR gospel readings in May move through sections in John’s gospel commonly referred to as the “farewell discourse.” In this long goodbye, Jesus and his disciples have finished eating their last supper together. Judas has departed to betray his friend. Now it’s time for Jesus’ final words to the remaining 11. Or, at least, it’s time for him to say goodbye from the perspective of who they’ve known him to be thus far. He’s preparing them for who he is becoming, as well as how he’ll continue to be among them — and, by extension, among us. There’s a lot that Jesus wants to accomplish without fully tipping his hand. So, his speech is at times confusing!
Unsurprisingly, a sense of longing permeates the whole address. These friends are saying goodbye to each other while also scrambling for ways to stay together. Jesus is grieving that goodbye, while also anticipating a joyful return to his Abba in heaven. As he speaks, then, Jesus tells of a fluid, swirling kind of love that permeates and connects God, himself, and his followers all to each other. This fluid love is the Holy Spirit that Jesus will “breathe” upon his followers (John 20:22) — the Holy Spirit who lingers among us still.
Our celebrations at Pentecost tend to focus on the wild descent of fiery tongues upon the early Jesus community — as they should. But in this lectionary cycle, the New Testament readings don’t focus on wind, fire, or tongues. Instead, they have us abide in these less dramatic, more subtle, ambiguous, and mysterious moments. This year, Pentecost calls us to abide in and with a love that often doesn’t make sense, but that always must be shared.
May 7
Our Visceral Faith
Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14
THE 11TH-CENTURY theologian Anselm of Canterbury is (in)famous for being the first to theorize atonement through the lenses of “satisfaction” and “substitution.” Echoing how crime dishonored a king in the feudal system at the time in which Anselm lived, he argued that sin dishonors God. Just as a penalty must be paid to the offended monarch, so too must one be paid to God for sin. Because humans can’t afford the penalty, God-in-Christ pays it for us.
A system that risks aligning God with an all-too-easily offended king can feel alienating in a democratic, seemingly more egalitarian North American context. Anselm’s lesser-known devotional writings, however, are suffused with an eager, intimate desire for the Divine. Let me, he begs, “taste by love that which I taste by knowledge; to perceive by affection what I perceive by understanding.” For Anselm, logic and emotion, and sacrifice and intimacy lived side by side. We can get a little overwhelmed when we mix different ways of understanding our relationship with God. Like Anselm’s theology, this week’s epistle is permeated with these differences. Peter tells us that we are “precious in God’s sight” (1 Peter 2:4) while simultaneously warning that disobedience — a sin we perform daily — can make us stumble and trip on Christ (verse 8). This tension between love and threat makes it feel all too easy to get wrong.
But, like Anselm, Peter wasn’t necessarily trying to get it right. Before all else, Peter’s list of ways to know God begins with the injunction to taste “that the Lord is good” (verse 3). Faith, for Peter and Anselm, is visceral. Faith is intimate. And because of this, all our theological searching isn’t just “faith seeking understanding” (a definition for which Anselm is also famous) but, more so, it’s faith seeking connection.
May 14
A Post-Secular World
Acts 17:22-31; Psalm 66:8-20; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21
WHENEVER I READ about Paul’s tour of Athens in Acts 17, I picture him walking in my own city of Toronto to discern the “objects of [our] worship” (verse 23). I see him “deeply distressed to see that the city [is] full of idols” (verse 16). And I wonder which altar he’d think we have dedicated “to an unknown god” (verse 23). It’s possible that the Athenians maintained their altar to an unknown god simply to cover all their bases. Hera, Athena, Ares: We can check family, wisdom, and war off our list of concerns. But what about any of life’s needs that we’ve missed? That’s when the Athenians could expect their unknown god to step into the cleanup spot.
Toronto is known not only as a post-religious city, but a post-secular one too. “Spiritual-but-not-religious” (SBNR) is probably our dominant identification. While I often hear SBNR folks mocked for having a New Agey, overly subjective approach to faith, I’ve actually learned a lot from my friends who identify this way. There’s a humility to their search that I want to emulate — that together we’re not searching for an unknown god but for one who is unknowable.
Too often I try to get everything figured out about faith. But the kind of knowing that comes from humility is the kind of knowing God wants from us. My SBNR friends have taught me not to be too quick to fill their unknowable space with the content of Christ but, rather, to dwell there with them for a time — to seek the unknowable God who wants to find me. To be patient for God’s self-revelation.
May 21
Up, Up, and Away
Acts 1:6-14; Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35; 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11; John 17:1-11
IN THE CLOSING scene to the 1999 movie The Matrix, the main character Neo — who’s been trying to figure out if he’s “The One” — shoots upward into the sky. Possibly the most famous pop culture Christ figure of the ’90s, it took embracing the fullness of his powers for him to defeat death and, it seems, learn how to fly. Jesus’ ascension at the opening of the book of Acts makes me think of this scene. Following a chat with his disciples, Jesus doesn’t simply head home but gets lifted up into the sky (Acts 1:9). It’s a weird story! I mean, what’s the cosmology? Is heaven actually above us? Can Jesus now fly? When I’m made fully in his image, will I be able to fly too? (Spoiler: This is what The Matrix character Trinity is able to do in Resurrections, the 2021 reboot — yep, I saw it. Don’t hate.) So, are we to interpret the ascension of Jesus literally, metaphorically, or some other way altogether?
However we choose to interpret this strange story, here’s what I think matters: Jesus spent the 40 days between his resurrection and ascension convincing his followers that he’d returned. Perhaps the ascension had to be strange enough for them to be convinced that he’d really, once again, left. The idea that God came and went — and came again — and then went and is coming back again is one of the strangest mysteries of faith. But God’s incarnate self must leave for God’s Spirit to stay (see John 16:7). So “lift up a song to him who rides upon the clouds,” as Psalm 68 instructs, “whose power is in the skies,” because God is the one who “gives power and strength to the people. Blessed be God!”
May 28
An Everyday Holy Spirit
Numbers 11:24-30; Psalm 104:24-35; 1 Corinthians 12:3-13; John 20:19-23
MOST OF THE liturgical calendar’s high points — Christmas, Good Friday, Easter — draw our attention to God’s mighty acts. Pentecost, though, reminds us that God calls us to mighty acts too. The New Testament readings for Pentecost this year don’t include the quintessential scene from Acts 2. Instead, they tour the more subtle biblical moments that surround those flames descending. In Numbers 11, God comes down from the cloud to share the Spirit already given to Moses with Moses’ 70 gathered elders (verse 25). Psalm 104 reminds us that all things are created through God’s Spirit (verse 30). 1 Corinthians 12 outlines the Spirit’s gifts (verse 8-10), reminding us that they’re to be used for the “common good” (verse 7). In John’s post-resurrection gospel reading, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit upon his disciples to forever bind them in unity (verse 22). The Holy Spirit, as each of these texts reveal, is a gift who is given so that we can share that gift with others. Christians all understand how to share that gift differently, of course. But the one thing we typically all agree on is that God’s Spirit must be shared.
I don’t know if our annual Pentecost celebration is to remind us that the Holy Spirit has come to equip us for good works or if it’s actually the day when the Holy Spirit descends again to refill us for the works in the year ahead. I’m not sure it matters. I like to believe both. Still, these readings remind us that as we recall and receive the Holy Spirit this Pentecost, we should seek her not just in the flames and tongues, but also in the more subtle stuff and fluid love of everyday life.
Natalie Wigg-Stevenson, curator of the online resource “Transgressive Devotional” and author of Transgressive Devotion: Theology as Performance Art, teaches at Emmanuel College in Toronto.
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!
