Preparing for the Holy
Spirit
(based on John 14:23-29)
It is a growing trend that Americans are becoming more and more
preoccupied with their homes. Some
people claim that we have gone from simply cocooning in our homes to burrowing
into them, and thus shutting out the world far more successfully. No longer is our home just our castle; it has
become our fortress, the walled sanctuary in our communities to shut out the
rest of the world.
Here’s some of the evidence.
When we have a choice, we don’t venture out as much as we used to, we
stay home. It’s at home that we now have
our feasting and fun, our games and celebrations. The home entertainment center and all the
Internet options now consume much of the time once taken by the city park, the
private club, the neighborhood bar and grille. Our world consists mainly of two distinct
halves, like an apple split by a knife: the one side is work or school or
whatever it is we must do; the other side is what we’re free to do, and
increasingly we choose to do that at home.
Americans take far fewer vacations away from home than they did even ten
years ago.
Consider what this means for business, both locally and nationally.
Business-wise, it’s better to invest in video options such as Netflix, Hulu, Redbox,
etc…, rather than in video stores and movie theaters; in carry-out food
franchises – such as Blue Apron, Home Chef, Hello Fresh and Dinnerly, not
restaurants; in mail order operations such as Amazon, Walmart, and WayFair, not
shopping malls.
The message bombards us from every direction. Decorate your home! Equip your home! Maintain your home! Enjoy your home! Worry about your home! Your home reveals who you are, and who you
want to be. First, make your home in
your image, and then let it return the favor: you are made over in the image of
your home. You own it; and it, most
definitely, owns you. A decade or so ago,
the term “house-poor” was forged out of the idea that we spend more money on
our homes than on anything else in our lives, sometimes to the detriment of not
having enough money to cover other important parts of our lives, sometimes even
food.
Having a home is the beginning point for all this. And there is certainly nothing inherently wrong
with any of the above. However, there’s
more to life than home ownership. I’d
like to suggest a different angle. What about becoming a home?
Our home is not only the four walls around us. There is also a home inside each of us. We may be aware of this inside home and
comfortable with it, or we may neglect this home, remain absent from it, keep
moving away from it, as though driven from our deepest selves. What about the home we already are? The
condition of our inside home is at least as important as that of our outside
one. We need to be as concerned about
who occupies this interior residence as we are about the occupant or occupants
of our outer fortress that we’ve paid so much attention to.
One reason our inside home is so important is that it is here God
desires to be our guest. Remember a
promise Jesus makes at the Last Supper that appears in today’s Gospel. “If
(anyone) loves me, that person will keep my word. My Father will love them, and we will come to them,
and make our home with them.”
God the Father and God the Son will come, but with them also comes
God, the Holy Spirit. The Trinity God,
whom we worship each Sunday wants to dwell inside each of us. Are we making our interior homes available for
them, or do we leave the Trinity no space in our lives?
Our inside home may be filled from floor to ceiling, cluttered by
all manner of stuff that has collected there: preoccupations and attachments
and resentments that crowd the space where God would be. Our inside home may even be loaded from floor
to ceiling with ourselves. We may be
full of ourselves, and leave no room for God. But blessed are those who can empty themselves
for the occupation of the Triune God, and the on-going interior work of the
Holy Spirit.
The classic practices of the Christian life tend to be more
exercises in clearing out than in adding on, in emptying rather than
accumulating. Thus they run against the grain of much ordinary existence,
especially in a society like ours that is preoccupied with acquisition and
consumption. It’s easy for our spirituality to become a matter of collecting
religious merit badges, when what the Trinity seeks is not what we do, but who
we are. God desires our company, our companionship, our kindness.
It’s a strange thing that God wills to be our guest, as strange as
Jesus born in Bethlehem’s barn, yet equally true. So strange is this divine desire that we may
fight it or ignore it, trying to keep the Trinity at a cold distance. Yet
our inside home can be a royal suite that welcomes the King of glory. God seeks it out as a lodging place in this world.
And to accept this visitor is to become
holy. In the end, holiness is a form of
hospitality.
Still, there’s danger in having God come as a guest. God arrives with pentecostal fire, burning
away the precious accumulation that clutters up our lives, the junk that makes
our existence stagnant. The Lord makes
his own space in our homes, space not only for the divine immensity, but for
God’s friends as well, space for all those the Lord loves, whether or not they love
God or even know God. When we welcome God, then the hospitality we
offer becomes inclusive: we welcome all creatures, both good and bad, who in
God’s grace and divine creation, made them to exist and move and have their
being.
When we welcome God as guest to our inside home, then we welcome a
hungry horde, those countless camp followers who accompany him. All creation makes its claim. Can you stand to be a friend of God when he is
so indiscriminate about those he embraces? Can you stand to host an open house, not for
the pristine, glorious God alone, but for everyone he accepts in his reckless,
wasteful love? If not, there’s some
preparation work to be done. We need to
make room for God’s renovation in our hearts.
We need to prep the walls and scrub the floors of our interior home to
allow the work of the Holy Spirit to make of us something new and transformative.
Your inside home will then become not some place for you to burrow
or cocoon, not a way for you to avoid life and stay safe. Your inside home will then become a microcosm
of that holy city sent from heaven, a grand hotel for the universe, a place of
peace.
The Holy Spirit is coming, are you prepared?
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