This week a line of kindergartners 68 children long snaked its way up the
sidewalk and through our front doors, and down into the basement of this
building. I stood with the door
open welcoming them, and they looked up at me with bright curious faces and
said Hi!- nearly every single one.
They were here to visit their new school, being renovated across the
street, and I was invited to join a small group of them for a tour. I took my place at the end of the line,
and looked ahead at a dozen bobbing dark heads as we crossed the street, a
dozen tiny bodies in bright orange and dark navy t-shirts that read on a dozen
small backs, “Ask me about my hopes and dreams.”
Our session dreamed some dreams last
March. We sat in a room and laid out in front of us everything we could think
of that was happening in the life of our congregation. We read and absorbed all
the congregations’ shared observations. We had pages and pages of lists on
sticky newsprint on the walls and the floor. We held it all up before God and asked what was next. We talked and prayed, and then we
waited. And waited. And we left the retreat without answers, but a clear sense that
we were to keep holding these things and keep waiting.
And I couldn’t help but think of that
as I oohed and ahhed the new windows and sanded classroom floors along with my
tour-mates, standing in a space of hopes and dreams, and thinking about how all that is happening around in the life of this congregation, including being there with these little ones, was opening up of hope and
stepping towards realizing some dreams of our own.
Hospitality. Jan and I sat on the
basement floor eating bagged lunches with them that day and imagined a bit into
the future.
What will happen to us in the Fall? Who will we be then? Because we will be
different than we are today. To them we will be: the church across
from my school! (We are already, I
was told by one of the little girls, “The church I went to once for a party.”)
Will we be: the church where I wait for my dad to pick me up? The church where
I go for help with math? The people that come and read to my class?
Who are we to the kids at St. Joe’s?
The people who make space for my prayer? The people that listen to me? The
people that share books with us, or helped us build our labyrinth where I go
when I need to quiet my insides?
Who are we to our neighbors? The folks
whose garden I water? The people who helped me with rent? The people who give
lemonade and bathroom breaks to the playground building volunteers?
Who are we in the Church? The people
who honor and value the gifts of all? The people who seek to follow Jesus
alongside others? The people not afraid to risk, and gentle with each other in
the bumpy places? The congregation that offers rest, and permission to stop,
and a place to explore the gifts of peace and sabbath? The people who are not afraid of
differences and stand with others in honesty and love?
Pentecost is the beginning of the
church, yes, but it really is the moment when the Spirit gets out ahead of the
disciples, pulling them forward into the future that God desires for them, for
the world. When all the dreams of
those who’d gone before and the lessons learned and the prayers prayed and the experiences
experienced seem to be pointing to something that isn’t a conclusion or a
summary or a regret or even a gratitude.
It’s a calling. It’s movement. It’s motion.
The Holy Spirit is out ahead of us,
pulling us forward into the future that God desires for us.
We once said of ourselves “God is
doing something here that incorporates the past and leads us into the future.” Pentecost invites us to that future, it
compels us to have visions and dream dreams and in the process opens
possibilities we never envisioned and dreams we didn’t even know to dream.
What is the Spirit doing ahead of us? What is the Spirit doing ahead of
you? How are you being called
forward into the newness breaking forth in the world? Which is to say, where
are the surprising moments that make you feel like you are part of something
bigger – even little moments, like walking unexpectedly one lunch time in a
line of tiny hopers and dreamers toward their future, wondering how it will
change the trajectory of our future?
You know it's the Spirit when you’re blown as
if by wind from the places you’re hiding in safety into the place where you
risk being known by others.
You know God is going out in front of you and calling you forward when others are
welcomed in whom you wouldn’t seek out.
It’s the Spirit when it’s messy and a
little out of your control.
It’s the Spirit when you find yourself
living into gifts and using language you didn’t know you had, or maybe that you
that you’ve never been brave enough to test out.
It’s the Spirit when it makes you want
to love the world more, and helps you see Jesus there.
When it’s the hope and
dreams that move front and center, instead of the fears and worries, that is the Spirit of God.
The disciples didn’t manufacture
Pentecost. They didn’t produce it or strategically plan it. They gathered together in prayer and
waited for the power of the Spirit. And when it came it wasn’t what they
expected. But they were ready nonetheless.
And the Spirit gave them the languages
– all different – to speak the hope and love of God in many different ways to
many different people, one message with many voices – Jesus, still meeting
people exactly how they need to be met and telling them just what they need to
hear to bring them to life.
And then all together they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to
the breaking of bread and the prayers.
And Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple,
they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts,
praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. Living into this blessing that has grabbed hold of them and
propelled them forward.
Here’s
one thing
you
must understand
about
this blessing:
it
is not
for
you alone.
It
is stubborn
about
this;
do
not even try
to
lay hold of it
if
you are by yourself,
thinking
you can carry it
on
your own.
To
bear this blessing,
you
must first take yourself
to
a place where everyone
does
not look like you
or
think like you,
a
place where they do not
believe
precisely as you believe,
where
their thoughts
and
ideas and gestures
are
not exact echoes
of
your own.
Bring
your sorrow.
Bring
your grief.
Bring
your fear.
Bring
your weariness,
your
pain,
your
disgust at how broken
the
world is, how fractured,
how
fragmented
by
its fighting, its wars,
its
hungers,
its
penchant for power,
its
ceaseless repetition
of
the history it refuses
to
rise above.
I
will not tell you
this
blessing will fix all that.
But
in the place
where
you have gathered,
wait.
Watch.
Listen.
Lay
aside your inability
to
be surprised,
your
resistance to what you
do
not understand.
See
then whether this blessing
turns
to flame on your tongue,
sets
you to speaking
what
you cannot fathom
or
opens your ear
to
a language
beyond
your imagining
that
comes as a knowing
in
your bones
a
clarity
in
your heart
that
tells you
this
is the reason
we
were made,
for
this ache
that
finally opens us,
for
this struggle, this grace
that
scorches us
toward
one another
and
into
the
blazing day.
We are a Pentecost people, and this blessing is not for us alone. We are hopers and dreamers, pulled by
scorching grace toward a world filled with people longing to be asked about
their hopes and dreams. We are watchers
and listeners, noticers in waiting. May we be ready for the Spirit to pull
us into the future.
Amen.
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