Words © John L.
Bell and Graham Maule. Music John Bell TiS
418 sung by the choir
In Hebrew and Aramaic
the word for Spirit uses the feminine pronoun – she - and in Proverbs Chapter 8
we meet Wisdom or Sophia, present at creation and throughout time and
place. In the biblical book ‘The Wisdom
of Solomon’ these words are used:
The Nature of Wisdom
There
is in her a spirit that is intelligent, holy,
unique, manifold, subtle,
mobile, clear, unpolluted,
distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen,
irresistible, beneficent, humane,
steadfast, sure, free from anxiety,
all-powerful, overseeing all,
and penetrating through all spirits
that are intelligent, pure, and altogether subtle.
For wisdom is more mobile than any motion;
because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things.
For she is a breath of the power of God,
and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;
therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her.
For she is a reflection of eternal light,
a spotless mirror of the working of God,
and an image of his goodness.[1]
unique, manifold, subtle,
mobile, clear, unpolluted,
distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen,
irresistible, beneficent, humane,
steadfast, sure, free from anxiety,
all-powerful, overseeing all,
and penetrating through all spirits
that are intelligent, pure, and altogether subtle.
For wisdom is more mobile than any motion;
because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things.
For she is a breath of the power of God,
and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;
therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her.
For she is a reflection of eternal light,
a spotless mirror of the working of God,
and an image of his goodness.[1]
And it is this
wonderful imagery that John Bell and Graham Maule draw on in their hymn ‘Enemy
of Apathy’
She sits like a bird, brooding on the waters,
hovering on the chaos of the world’s first day;
she sighs and she sings, mothering creation,
waiting to give birth to all the Word will say.
Sitting, waiting
...... From the beginning of time the
breath of God has been present, hovering over all that is creation, bringing
her perspective of wisdom and compassion and counsel to the world. Preparation for this day of Pentecost had
been a long time coming – the Spirit of
God was sitting, waiting,- involved, active, - yet waiting for the Word to be
made flesh and live among us. In this Pentecostal
celebration the spirit of Jahweh weaves together the generations; the exiles in
Ba+bylon, those living under the yoke of the Romans, the darkness and despair
of this world, and in the oneness of the breath of God brings life out of
death, hope out of despair, new beginnings out of endings.
She wings over earth, resting where she wishes,
lighting close at hand or soaring through the skies;
she nests in the womb, welcoming each wonder,
nourishing potential hidden to our eyes.
Nourishment, food
for the soul....The strong sense of universality of the Spirit, the dance that
speaks to all people in different ways, the encouragement and the nurturing and
nourishment that feeds us all. Where is
it that we are nourished? Here perhaps,
with this special family, in our own particular place be it physical, mental,
creative, spiritual. For it is there
that the Spirit is moving, nourishing, offering food for the soul and bringing
us to a new and evergrowing awareness of our potential as the people of God in this
place....
She dances in fire, startling her spectators,
waking tongues of ecstasy where dumbness reigned;
she weans and inspires all whose hearts are open,
nor can she be captured, silenced or restrained.
There was no
restraint this evening...’lose your shyness, find your tongue, tell the world
what God has done[2]’.....there
was no stopping her, no stopping us at the joy of the knowledge and presence of
God. In the whoop of the child as they
race up to give you hug, in the dance of the woman who most would call ‘a
disgrace’ but who had heard the music in her soul and just had to let it out,
in the slightly out of time and dubious pitched singer who just has to sing
loudly in pure joy, in the voices raised in praise in music, in prayer, and
soaring rhetoric, there was no restraint at that first Pentecost where social
mores just went out the window in the face of the breath of God.
This was the outpouring of power of the Spirit
of God that would transform a wounded and disillusioned band of stragglers into
community that would change the world, bring meaning out of hopelessness,
promise and vision out of mourning, healing and wholeness and forgiveness and
grace, disturbing us and upsetting us, gathering us together as one people,
inviting us into love and action, the avowed enemy of apathy for all the world.
For she is the Spirit, one with God in essence,
gifted by the Saviour in eternal love;
she is the key opening the scriptures,
enemy of apathy and heavenly dove.
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