The Advocate Abides with You and in You

I don’t know your preferences for operating in life. In a culture that has promoted rugged individualism, and sees growing isolation, not everyone is open to partnering and getting help. I know that some people readily collaborate with others in work and leisure, but many go it alone. Many push away for the help of an advocate.

Part of this is our need not to feel beholden to others. Part is pressure to be self-sufficient. We figure things out for ourselves and see judgement on ourselves if we don’t. If you share the work, you will have to share the credit. Some worry that having help invites an inferior result. Hence, the adage: “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” Pushing away assistance can come from our ego craving full credit, from agonizing that we will be a bother to someone else.

Some hold the view of God as the absolute Monad. To emulate God, then, is to become, in every way possible, a single unit, functioning solo, without relationships. The Christian is that God certainly is One, and wholly other than all else in existence, but also that God is intrinsically social.  To see God as community, as radically social leads us to see ourselves as embraced in this community—a family of God and one another. Examine these four passages of Scripture, and search the implications of a social God.

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness” …So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)

In the Beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. (John 1:1-3)

Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice. At the busiest corner she cries out; …Give heed to my reproof; I will pour out my thoughts to you; I will make my words known to you. (Proverbs 1:20, 23)

And just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:10-11)

Do you see in these that we hold God somehow to be Holy Community, reaching out to create a holy family, large and diverse? In a community, asking for help is good, collaboration is good, relationship is good. Somethings we do virtually on our own, but there is reward in asking for help.  The following is from the Pentecost Day Gospel

Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. (John 2:1-4).

Jesus asks the Father, who sends the Spirit. This Advocate, the Holy Spirit helps us: teaches us and reminds us all that Jesus taught. So, what shall we choose, “Lone Ranger” all the way, or the inter-connected community that Jesus has created?