Monday 12 November 2007

I find this to be an interesting distinction between the "son of Man" (or Human Being) and the Holy Spirit - from Walter Wink.




The Human Being pursues the will of God through trial and error and consequently is bound to make mistakes. Therefore the Human Being may be "spoken against," (Luke 12:10) even corrected or condemned.

The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, is the divine immanence urging us toward our full humanity. In this text, specifically, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is consciously calling good evil. Sin is the opposite: calling evil good. Everyone does the latter, Say Elizabeth Howes, and this passage assures us that all such sins are forgiven. But to consciously recognize the good and to damn it as evil do devastates the moral sense that one may never recover. The architects of Nazism possessed a moral sense so atrophied that most of them later were unable to repent. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit must be extremely rare. In blasphemy, one cuts off the possibility of forgiveness, because forgiveness flows from an interaction with the Source: blasphemy is calling the Source itself evil.



We will stumble in our actions and in our inactivity. We will also stumble as we point at one another and "speak evil" against them. And yet, we are nothing more than fallible beings who have as a way of our lives - stumbling...and falling...and missing the mark. To speak against others or have others speak against us is part of the process. It is part of what brings all of us into a new light so that we can see ourselves change and mature and come to new bits of growth. But when we take the step that begins to label the fullness of God's Reign - its Breath - its Spirit of Life, as less than it is, we claim to be above that creative and sustaining power. We make what has no evil into something that it is evil - or less than it is - or not at all true. I'm drawn to Wink's final words in this quote: blasphemy is calling the Source evil. Just in saying it out loud helps me hear the difference between what is sin and what is blasphemy...and then, I'm able to see how the Human Being (son of Man) is something quite different from the Spirit. The Spirit is the wholeness of life that draws us there into its embrace. Everything else along the way is blessed...but it is also life in the making with all of its flaws and shortcomings.



Connection: Forgiveness of others almost seems like a simple little daily exercise for all of us. We are free to exercise it because we are all on the journey and stumbling along together.



We pray, O God, that we will be shaped by your breath and sustained by your Spirit who is always lifting us up into the vision of your Reign. When we fall short, it is by your grace that we are able to get up and move again with your Spirit into an ever expanding fullness of your Reign. Amen.