Christ’s Spirit, emphasized on Pentecost, celebrates an ongoing energy shift. It’s the energy shift away from worship – extracted energy, and toward inspiration – enlivening energy. Worship extracts energy by directing our energy outward. We direct our energy to an external unchanging deity and his earthly representatives. We seek in return a reward or an avoidance of his punishment. Worship or extracted energy is the relationship model of Militarism. Dutiful subordinates give their energy and lives to a supremacist War Lord. Worship or extracted energy is not the relationship model Jesus practiced. Nor did Jesus ever tell people to worship him. Instead, he gave people inspiration. Inspiration is enlivening energy born of the transforming interaction between Spirit, people, and life. Inspiration is the energy of movement, of engagement; of gifts shared and received. It is the passion of love and healing dynamically witnessed. Inspiration opens us and we feel Creative Presence moving as a Spirit within us and between us. Worship and inspiration are differentiated in today’s Feast of Pentecost. Their energy differences help us understand the difference between religion and spirituality. That difference is exemplified in an event commemorated today.
It was on this day 125 years ago, May 15, 1891, that Catholicism’s Pope Leo XIII sent out a public letter , in Latin, ‘encyclical.’ The letter addressed a crucial and growing concern. It addressed, in general, capitalism and, in particular, the Industrial Revolution. It was titled Rerum Novarum/On the Condition of Labor. Labor under capitalism is essentially slave labor and thus always extracted energy. This is certainly true of capitalism’s industrialization in which people were being drained of body and spirit. More than just resisting, the people who knew their energy was being extracted started stirring with inspirational enlivening energy. So horrible was the suffering and so deep the concern about people’s emerging energy, Pope Leo wrote his public letter. The letter diverged from the usual religious dogma spread by the priestly class. It did not promote holiness as worship energy and instead affirmed holiness as the inspirational energy stirring amidst the people. Leo may have written the letter, in part, to control the people’s emerging energy and curtail their transformation of societies, his papal one included. Leo was concerned for his institution’s survival. He may have calculated that select verbal affirmations, perhaps even slight reforms, would be preferable to obsolescence. Obsolescence was gripping the ruling class. It was gripping them politically because their monarchies and Republics were crumbling. It was gripping them economically because capitalism was being replaced. Obsolescence was gripping them theologically because the people did not need an institutional church that existed to sanctify their suffering. The old religion of Militarism needed to peacefully end. The people’s collective spirituality needed to rise. Unfortunately, the old religion of Militarism continues to fight against the people’s spirituality. Fortunately, the people continue to feel the fire of Pentecost. The fire is so strong we can inspire even rulers toward the enlivening energy of a transforming Spirit.
125 years ago the public letter Rerum Novarum initiated Catholic Social Teaching in the modern era. It seconded some of the most basic principles of human existence. Most notably it affirmed people’s human dignity. It seconded the people’s voice calling for basic human rights including the right to health care and safety, the rights of workers to unionize and to receive a just wage, the just distribution of wealth, and an end to inequality and greed. Sound familiar? If these principles are still in question what is the reason? Is it because people have been influenced backward toward Militarism’s worship as our energy focus rather than the Spirit’s inspiration as our energy?
Prayer: Inspiring Spirit, we commit to transformation of the world.
Question: What would happen if I stopped having my energy extracted and started flowing with the Spirit’s inspiring energy?
May 15, 2016 Gospel John 20:1923 Feast of Pentecost