Is the gift of the Holy Spirit dependent on my actions?
Gospel Reading: John 14:15-21
For Sunday, May 29 , 2011: Year A - Easter 6
I'm confused. You know, about this whole Holy Spirit thing. The heading in my study Bible calls this pericope “The promise of the Holy Spirit.” I guess I'm wondering what the exact nature of this promise is. It seems to be conditional:
If you love me you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father to send another Advocate (later identified as the Spirit of truth and the Holy Spirit) to be with you forever.
Now, the world cannot receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But I can receive him because he abides with me and he will be in me?
I’m Not So Sure
A couple of things here: I am not so sure about the dividing line between me and the world. Secondly, I’m not so sure that the way I understand my ability to love (both God and my neighbor—which are the commandments John is talking about here) is always as a gift from God.
The world in the Johannine writings seems to act as short hand for the death-giving-power-structures-that run-the-world, or the system-of-the-kingdom-of –this-world. So, I can understand that world being unable to see, hear or receive the presence of the spirit of God.
What in the World?
It is a no-thing, it has no eyes or ears or soul. But John also tells the reader that Jesus came to save the world, that it might have life. Did Jesus fail or give up? I sure hope not, because living out the machinations of the world-system is where I spend most of my time. It is hard not to, I am surrounded by it, held in it, have internalized it.
Furthermore, if love is not simply a feeling or intellectual assent, but looks more like doing, then I am not loving Jesus and keeping his commandments, like a lot of the time. Does the Holy Spirit depart and then reappear depending on my actions of love?
Important, but Confusing
Theologically that does not make any sense to me. Are there parts of me the Spirit is always with? Does the Advocate translate my actions into love before the throne of God? Is the world, on this side of the resurrection, saved? All this seems important, but confusing. Makes a fella want to preach on the Psalm.
The Hardest Question
Is the gift of the Holy Spirit dependent on my actions?
Russell Rathbun is a preacher at House of Mercy in St. Paul, Minnesota, the author of Midrash on the Juanitos (Cathedral Hill Press, 2010) and the curator of The Hardest Question.
