The Holy Spirit, and the Heavens, the Earth, the Seas

(a homily)

Does our vision, our way of life, have an advocate? Do we rightly see that the heavens and the earth are God's, that the Lord made them, that we are on the earth as a gift? We have being because of the overflowing love of a Creator God, who is so full of love that perfect union is known in a community of Three, a God who is not only transcendent and above the creation, but also immanent, present, desiring dwell in the lives of those who keep the word of love in Christ. This love, this presence, this union is manifested among us by the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, our Teacher, our lens. Do we allow the Advocate to re-mind us of Jesus words, to make our minds new, to dwell in our thoughts, our hearts, our hands, our eyes, our own words?

Vision is easily skewed. We may see the work of God before our very eyes, but attribute the deed to a false god, a god in our own image. Our world struggles today with the affects of the philosophical turn that made humans the image of divinity, the bearers of power in the earth. We wrongly think that the earth and the sea and all that is in them, even the heavens, belong to us.

Now, it is not wrong for us to see that our fate is the fate of the world, but it is misleading for us to believe we control that fate. Humans seeing themselves as masters of the earth has led to the earth's destruction, and the earth's destruction in turn leads to humanity's misery. The creation groans in pain; we too must learn to weep with it. The source of our tears, the source of living water that wells up in our innermost beings, is the Holy Spirit, the Liberator of the creation, the giver of New Life, the presence of God. It is this Spirit that makes holy that which we do in the love of Christ, by the direction of the Word. The Spirit makes us holy, makes us advocates of the creation, gives us vision to see the image of God in others and the work of God in all that is.

May all we do serve to remind us of Christ's words, that we may hear anew the promise of being made the dwelling of God. Let us listen to the teaching of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, listen to the breeze through the grasses and trees, and go forth knowing that the God who heals, who can help us to see aright, is the God who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them.

(Acts 14:5-18; Psalm 115; John 14:21-26)