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Sunday 23rd May 2021: Pentecost
Psalm 104
Send forth your spirit O Lord and renew the face of the earth! (repeat)
Send forth your spirit O Lord and renew the face of the earth! (repeat)
Bless the Lord O my soul, Lord God how great you are.
Wrapped in a garment of glory and might. Clothed in light as in a robe.
Send forth your spirit O Lord and renew the face of the earth! (repeat)
Lord my God great are your works in wisdom you made them all.
Rich is the earth and filled with your life. Bless the Lord, O bless my soul.
Send forth your spirit O Lord and renew the face of the earth! (repeat)
All of your creatures look up to you to give them their food in time.
You give with abundance they gather it up. By your hands they have their fill.
Send forth your spirit O Lord and renew the face of the earth! (repeat)
You can hear this sung by the Folk Choir of Notre Dame University here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE3k0iUFUGo
Reflection
What a wonderful clarion call is sounded by the Psalmist here: “Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth!” This strikes a powerful chord for us today as Christians and as custodians of God’s world.
But it is helpful to begin by considering the meaning of this exhortation in the context in which the Psalm was first conceived. So rather than starting with the later theological doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the Psalmist likely perceived the creative breadth of God as giving matter and all life a distinct, individual existence. It echoes the predominant worldview, or view of the world, encountered throughout the Hebrew scriptures. So we recall the creation narrative when the earth was without form and void … and then the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters. Similarly, Job declares “the spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty has given me life”
For the early Church renewing the nature of things in the world was seen in terms of the work of the Spirit of God acting within and transforming souls. In the pristine times of the first Christians, the Holy Spirit was forging a new face in all things, not only in the land of Judea but throughout the Gentile world. Thus the Gospel message was that the spirit shall be poured forth on high and there will again be a renewing of the face of the earth.
And so to today’s world. In reading the Psalm again it brought to mind the thinking of James Lovelock who celebrated his hundredth birthday last year. In the 1970s he introduced his concept of Gaia, the earth being a finely balanced single regulating organism. This did much to lay the platform for the current concerns about humanity irreparably damaging the environment. The pandemic we have all been living through has, if nothing else, brought home to us just how precarious and fragile is our relationship with the world and its diverse organisms. It is then with a renewed poignancy that we cry: “Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth!”
Prayer
Dear Lord,
You have placed us
as both stewards of your fragile world
and as vulnerable members of it.
As we strive to recover
from pandemic infection
financial disruption,
and social insecurity,
we again plead for you to
send forth your spirit,
and renew the face of the earth.
Amen
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