(Ann Weems – The church is ... (from Reaching for Rainbows))
The Church is
Pentecost – but what is Pentecost?
We talk about The
Holy Spirit, mystical visions, flames and fire, being sent out into the world,
speaking in strange tongues, dancing, rejoicing … all things strange and alien
to us.
We like our worship
to be precise, predictable, orderly … stick
to the bulletin thank you very much, and please be done within the hour, we
have things to do and don’t want to be late … We don’t do well with
unpredictability and things that seem out of control – it’s the Presbyterian in
us, the mainline denomination in us – it is the way we’ve been and we like it,
so let’s not change it …
But what if the gift
of Pentecost is the ability – no, the necessity of changing ourselves over and
over, and becoming what is needed by the world out there to offer the Gospel??
What if Pentecost
calls us to abandon the comfort of the way things are, and instead we are to
follow the Spirit wherever that journey takes us?
What a radical and
discomforting thought – to willingly abandon everything we know, everything we’re
comfortable with, everything we LIKE, to follow the Spirit into the unknown …
yet, ironically that is the very process we have for decades expected of our
candidate for ministry.
We train them,
support them, then after their ordination and commissioning we send them out
into the vast unknown and expect them to minister to the communities they’re
more often than not simply plunked in.
Over the years I’ve
marvelled at the stories this has created throughout the Church. The minister
and his wife who arrived in a prairie town in the mid-1970’s and she expressed
surprise that they had electricity and running water … or the published story
of the young minister at Smoky Burn in Saskatchewan who found himself in a
double holer alongside a parishioner making small talk while gazing at the vast
prairie landscape … the stories are incredible, diverse, uncomfortable and
laughable … and every year they are added to as newly ordained and commissioned
ministry personnel are sent out into the unknown and told – and we ARE told in
our vows of ordination and commissioning – to TRUST in the Spirit.
To be fair, for the
most part it works – the experiences that mould us and shape us in those first
months of ministry are at times incredible and rewarding – though, as I look
back I think an apology is in order for the patient folks in Bella Coola who
endured long winding sermons that tried to be scholarly and notable, but
reading now were … well, not so much …
We learn along the
way.
We grow along the
way.
We change along the
way.
And we trust in the
Spirit every step … every breath … every moment of the journey …
Yet, it is a strange
dichotomy – we have one set of expectations for our Ministry personnel and
another for the occupants of the pews … the Ministers are to trust in the
spirit and embrace the dynamic possibility of change and movement throughout
their careers, while the people in the pews are to endure the change and
movement by the coming and going of the people in the pulpit: WE MOVE – YOU SIT …
Somehow I don’t think
that is what the Spirit has in mind …
Yet, change comes …
look back on the journey each of us have had within the Church and think about
what it was like worshipping in our youth, and contrast that to what it is like
worshipping now … in my youth, not really that long ago, we – that is the
younger generation – didn’t stay up stairs AT ALL. We were taken down ten
minutes before Church started and herded into a service of readings and hymns
before being lead off to our curtained cubicles for our Sunday School lessons.
Then our parents would gather us after Church was over and we’d head home … the
minister was some strange almost mystical figure in robes who stood way up
there removed from the rest of us, and who seemed mysterious and powerful.
In my teens,I met our
new minister one afternoon playing basketball across the road from the Church
in the gymn of the local elementary school. The afternoon ended with Rev. Bob
getting a nose bleed from an errand palm of one of the youth players … it wasn’t
my finest hour …
Yet, I can’t imagine
Reverend Wes or Reverend Ross playing basketball with us, even five years
earlier … and I look back on my ministry and I’ve swam, climbed rocks, danced
(not very well) and participated in ALL manner of activities with our youth –
all things I have a hard time seeing some of those grand old men who were the
ministers of the past doing … Change … it’s inevitable – it’s subtle – and it’s
ongoing.
And sometimes we only
see it when we pause to look back and see how far we’ve come …
Children at worship.
Children at Communion. ALL manner of change has unfolded around us in our
lifetimes - Yet, for ALL the change, we’ve experienced as communities of faith,
in our life time, I marvel at how resistant we really are to it …
Ezekiel, offering the
prophetic query – “Can these bones live?” knew that resistence … Can these dry,
dead, dusty, broken up bones live?
Can these (…) bones
live?
Too often we look
around us, especially in our modern era with so many people busy with so many
OTHER things than Church, and we wonder CAN these BONES live?
This past week a
fellow blogger from the Maritimes lamented on his blog Maritime Preacher that
within the United Church of Canada there are Church congregations who are
pleading to be allowed to simply die.
Nick Phillips writes
a timely observation:
Yes, we do have too many churches. But some of
these churches which wish to be left to die are actually churches in areas
where there is a huge opportunity to share the Gospel message. One church in
particular is in a residential neighbourhood, absolutely full of small families
and they are the only protestant church in the area. And they are more than
satisfied with continuing with nothing more than Sunday morning services
presided over by a part-time aging retired minister.
Heart… breaking…
No wonder people don’t want to have any kind of
connection to the church if this is the public message we are giving.
When did we lose our passion? Why? How? What
took it away?
I can’t believe I serve in a denomination where
churches wish to die when so many people in our communities are looking for
hope, joy, love, peace… the things that our great and wonderful Father, our God
in heaven, is just waiting to pour out for all who come to know him.
“Father, forgive them for they know not what
they do…”
Let’s bring it back!
Let’s bring Christ back into our churches and
have the Spirit move us to serve faithfully, sacrificially, with our whole
being so the world may once again know how great is our God!
Pentecost is about
embracing the Spirit’s call of faith. Daring to dream. And having the courage
to act on our faith … church suppers, knitting circles, yard sales, mens’
coffee, a booth in the local farmers’ market, support to the food bank,
services out in the community, and being PRESENT … these are signs not just of
life, but of the real and dynamic change that is possible when the People of
God – you and I – take seriously the call of the Spirit to go out into the
world and LIVE.
Can these bones live?
Yes, they can … if
they dare to believe in the power of the resurrection, and are bold enough to
go out into the world in the name of Christ proclaiming, sharing and LIVING the
Gospel!!
I’ve journeyed in
this United Church of ours for over 20 years in a place of leadership in
ministry. I’ve experienced invigorating highs and soul crushing lows, I’ve seen
the best and the absolute worst of what people can do, and I’ve known the dark
lonely corners of feeling utterly rejected by the Church … and yet, at no point
on that journey have I EVER felt the kind of hopelessness that would offer the
answer NO, to the question “Can these bones live?”
The ONLY thing
preventing these bones from living, is a lack of faith. And a lack of faith can
only come when we’ve abandoned the call of the Spirit …
Today is Pentecost,
the Birthday of the Church, the day when we celebrate and affirm the winds of
the Spirit blowing over us and through us.
Today is when we say
AGAIN “Yes!” to the question – can these bones live?
Today is when we say
AGAIN – “YES!!” to the call of the Spirit.
Today is when we say
AGAIN – “YES!!” to our ministry and our faith.
Can these bones live?
(this is NOT a rhetorical question) …
Can these bones live?
…
Can these bones live?
...
Then let’s go into
the world and show them how lively and alive we truly are!!!
May it be so … thanks
be to God … Let us pray …
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