Andrew Boyle                       Pentecost                23 May 2010

Acts of the Apostles 2. 1-13    Romans 8. 14-17    John 14. 8-17

 On those occasions when the Social Butterflies gather for a social evening there is a group of men from the congregation who also, by necessity, gather for mutual support and sustenance. One of the things they also do when they gather is undertake activities in self-improvement. So on one occasion in the recent past where they meet at Jennie’s restaurant they undertook important male health checks performed by a visiting physician. At their most recent meeting they heard a very informative address from the Rev. Mr. Pritchard on the etymology of entomology. I understand that this was a  very edifying address and has done a great deal to broaden the minds of the members of the Moths.

One of the things that those of us who were at Pallotti last weekend did was look at the etymology of the word resurrection. Etymology is the study of words. Entomology is the study of insects. Etymology looks at where words have come from ; how they originated; how they were first used and how their usage and meaning has developed over time. With English so many of our words have come to us from other languages and so there is often some quite significant shifts in meaning as a word moves from usage in one language into another language and then how that word, now in English usage, gets shaped in ways which often take us quite some way from its original meaning.

Now this might seem like a yawningly boring subject to spend a weekend exploring but it did bear some great insights for us.

What I want to explore a bit today is the etymology of the word spirit -  as it’s Pentecost and we celebrate the coming of the holy spirit and the presence of the spirit of Jesus continuing in the community of believers, although Jesus has physically gone from their midst.

We start a long way back before the Day of Pentecost, right in the Hebrews’ stories of the creation of the world. There are two creation stories at the beginning of the Book of Genesis; that is the story of creation of the world in six stages and the story of the placement of the man of dust, Adam, in the Garden, East of Eden. In the first creation myth we hear that the spirit hovered over the waters. In the second creation myth we hear that God breathes breath into Adama, the man formed of dust. When God breathes the divine breath into the man he receives life.. In both cases the Hebrew word ruarch is used. Now in Hebrew ruarch simply means means breath. In both cases here the thing which gives form to the world and animates living beings is the ruarch of God; the breath of God.

Now while our breath and the breath of all living creatures is unseen it is utterly real and necessary for life. Our breath is our first and our last moment. Without it we do not exist. The ruarch of God.

Now at some point the Hebrew scriptures began to be translated into ancient Greek. This was the language of the ancient Mediterranean world from about 300 years before Jesus. And our Christian scriptures come to us from ancient Greek. So when ruarch came to be translated into Greek they used the word, pneuma. From which we get pneumatic and other words to do with air. In Greek the word pneuma also means breath – and the Greeks understood pneuma to be that primal animating element behind all of life. Sounds like a good match for the Hebrew word ruarch. Then as the Greek language Bible came to be translated into Latin during the fifth century the Greek word pneuma was translated into the Latin spiritus and you can see it’s from there that we get the word spirit.

Now when we move from one language to another there is often some slippage; that is the meaning of the word slips a bit; or it grows a bit; or in the new language it means maybe more or maybe less than in the original language; or has more complex meanings than it had in the original language or a more tight, limited meaning than in the original. So an example from Greek to English would be the word love; in Greek there are a range of words for different kinds of love: love of God, love of friend, love of friend of the same gender, love expressed in good works, sexual love. In English we have just the one word into which much gets mashed.

So while the core meaning in Greek of pneuma refers to the animating breath that is the elemental source of life when it gets translated into the Latin spiritus some other things get added. It does mean the breath – the simple bodily function of respiration - but it also refers to a disembodied spirit – a ghost; or demons or gods of various kinds; good and not so good – of which there were many in ancient Roman culture.  

So can you see what is happening. From ruarch – the animating breath of God which gives life to all living things – we have moved by two steps to spiritus – which can be either the simple bodily function of respiration or a disembodied spirit – at loose in the cosmos. From the trying to describe something as that source of life fundamentally embodied in all living creatures to also describing a disembodied, disconnected spirit or ghost.

Now we get to the question of the day: the Holy Spirit. In Greek, which is the language Luke was writing the Acts of the Apostles, he talks about the coming of the Holy Pneuma (unhelpfully capitalised) – still the holy, animating breath of God, breathed into the disciples -  like fire - as they were gathered on that Pentecost day. I don’t know about you but it feels to me like we have received Luke’s word picture, though, as an image of some sort of disembodied spirit lighting on the disciples. Of course the King James Version hasn’t helped us because it talks about the coming of the Holy Ghost which, while it is beautiful language, conjures all sorts of unhelpful images.

What is happening in Luke’s Pentecost story here is in some sense a new creation story. The breath of God is being breathed into a community of the followers of Jesus like breath was breathed into that first man Adam; dead, lifeless, frightened, The breath of God gives the disciples life; they are resurrected. The new Adam. And the progeny of this creative act, instead of engaging in a life-and-death struggle for supremacy, which ultimately leads to murder,  is a life-giving act which leads these followers of the way, animated by the breath of Jesus, and giving the same life which was in Christ to others. This livening of the spirit is an act of a new creation, or re-birth- or transformation. Hence we have Paul say: if anyone is in Christ they are  new creation. The old is gone, behold the new has come. All this is from God who was reconciling the world to himself.

But I want to some to back to the etymology of the word spirit, spiritus, for such a long time translated into ghost. Because I think we have inherited a notion of the holy spirit as a disembodied object at large in the world which sometimes lights on unsuspecting victims and sets them a-dancing like some sort of marionette; while the rest of us passively sit hoping at one and the same time that we both might be but also mightn’t be the target of this phenomena.

Our reflecting on the presence of the spirit with, or not with, us is complicated too by the liturgical language we use; the language of prayer and hymn and responsive litanies in our services. We so often use spatial language in our praying; most especially the word come. Now this word is an endeavour to conjure an image for us but it assumes that the spirit of God is elsewhere and we would like to God to order the spirit in our direction; because it left us after last week, or whenever it was that we last asked for the spirit to come. You see it reinforces the image of a disembodied spirit at large in the world rather than leaving us with the image that God is closer than our very breath. Now in saying all this I condemn myself because I have invited us to pray: Come Holy Spirit, this morning. Our unhelpful language is often difficult to shake off sometimes.

All of this is a particularly western problem. We suffer the malaise of disembodiment. We talk of our bodies as though they are not part of ourselves. Medically we are often treated as though our bodies are some slab of meat in the hospital bed; object of medical intervention to keep us jollied up and spending to keep the economy healthy. Bodies are so often seen as an unfortunate hindrance to life rather than expression of our essential self and of the divine breath animating us. We ignore and deny and abuse our bodies in all sorts of unfortunate ways to the extent that self-abuse really is in epidemic proportions in the west: over-fed, under-fed, drugged up, over-stimulated, sedated, sexed-up, fertility curtailed, fertility accelerated, death deferred, death brought-forward. We need to listen to that breath within us a bit better than we do. It is the practice in yoga and many forms of centring prayer that the basic act is to listen to the breath just at the bridge of the nose. Listen and remain aware of the inflow and outflow of that animating breath of God. In doing this it helps us to become much more deeply aware of ourselves; of what’s important to us; of what’s grieving us; of what needs to be let go of or taken up. Attending to the breath of God. Prayer.

We need to regain a sense in the church that the holy spirit is for us that natural, animating, fundamental element of life which enflames us, blows us about, gives us utterance which takes us beyond where we are with a sense that this has something else about it; the touch of God. I think all of our activity exploring what we might do about asylum seekers has this sense about it. A something extra factor – and so we are acyually being animated by the breath of God.

We need to recapture the sense that God is right here; not back then or in a few year’s time, but right here and we need to listen to that breath in ourselves and in each other and know that to acknowledge and honour that breath is the point of our being. And all will be well; and all manner of things will be well.

Andrew Boyle