Paul sees the mission of Jesus as renewing the unseen foundation of humankind. Christ’s mission teaches us that the pathway to the eternal is not through temporary outward fame or success, but through an inner core of gratitude, humility and service. His mission is to draw us into the ultimate peace that comes from serving a being and a community greater than ourselves.
For all of Eli’s flaws, he is surely a model for any of us called to hold space for anyone else to doubt whatever settled certainty is keeping them from hearing the life God might be calling them to live.
Maybe we could use a reminder that, when we try to talk about God, we are oysters, looking at starfish, trying to imagine a ballerina.
In our lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, the strange signs of wind and fire point not to themselves but to the wild power of the Holy Spirit unleashed not to scatter but to gather, unleashed not to destroy but to re-create.
Jesus says that love is what makes space for the truth to emerge. Love and truth are twin pillars, we might even say, that hold things up so the walls we hide behind can finally come down. Only in truthfulness and love will we become one as Jesus and the God he still draws us to are one.