Sheltering the fire, Spirit of Truth
James Cathcart
May 08, 2024
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John 15: 26-27 (NRSVA)
26 ‘When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. 27 You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, encouraging us to shelter in the truth of God, drawing us in, weaving us in.
The wonderfully wise Peter Neilson wrote the words quoted below in his Daily Worship last week. He was discussing how Jesus prepared his disciples for the next phase of God’s salvation plan where he would no longer be with them in the same physical way:
“No longer God with them in the flesh as Immanuel. The new phase would be God within them and among them, Spirit communing with spirit in the depths of their being and in their relationships.”
God among them! Isn’t that fantastic? Among isn’t just inside or beside it’s both and more! (Isn’t among a fantastic word by the way? It’s a funny sound and assembly of letters.) Jesus had been physically next to his disciples, they had been getting their heads around being alongside God, but were they ready to be among God?
Are we?
‘Among’ is an Old English word, and it comes from the idea of something being in a gemang an assemblage or a mingling. A mingling! Mingling itself is a Middle English word that is linked to among through an old word ‘meng’ for mix or blend. When things have been all menged together they are now mingling and those things are ‘among’ ‘ameng?’ each other. When we mix people or mix ingredients the thrill is in how these come together and yet remain distinct, bringing their own unique contribution but becoming more than the sum of their parts.
So yes, we use mingle and among both literally and figuratively. We mingle at a party as the guests ‘mix’ and spices literally mingle in a stew. We talk about our friend standing among the group of people at the bus stop, and we also talk about her standing among the best in her field (there is generally not a literal field here, it’s a figurative one full of luminaries in their wellies, all standing together nodding at each other admiringly we have to imagine).
When we talk about being among God, mingling with God we mean it both figuratively and literally. Figuratively we are among Jesus’s disciples. But we also literally mingle with God, in the meng, in the mix, through the Holy Spirit of Truth we get to be actually among God! We get to be distinct but also part of something bigger than ourselves — not just figuratively but literally!
Prayer:
Among us,
for us
with us
mingling with us
through the meng.
Amen.
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