The Spirit of Pentecost

Sometimes, Christians can yearn for the past- the good old days. Sometimes they want to return to the days of the early church in Acts. Sometimes they mean a return to the time when the institutional protestant church was powerful and influential in American society. Sometimes this is just a longing to return to the trouble free church of their childhood memories.

The longing to “return” often uses the language of “take back” or “restore” or “great again” It often focuses on so called “traditional values”. This language can mean a return to the time when white men held most if not all of the church’s (and societies) power and authority.

But God does not call us to go back.

Yesterday was Pentecost, when Christians celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit. In John’s gospel, Jesus tells the disciples he is sending the Holy Spirit because, ” I still have many things to say to you, but your cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” John 16:12-13 NRSV

God’s Spirit moves forward. The Spirit hovers over the waters of chaos and creates life. God’s spirit leads the people who will become Israel into a new future. ¹ Jesus calls God’s people into new ways of becoming that include all people. Jesus calls us forward into a future that replaces the politics of empire with the beauty and justice of the kin dom² of God.

God calls us forward into life in the already begun and continuing to emerge kin dom of God. It might be worth our while to take some time in the coming days and weeks to sit and ponder, what and how is God calling us, as individuals and as communities, forward into God’s future kingdom?

1. The prophets do call God’s people to return, but they are not returning to the past but to renewed fidelity to God’s future. ↩︎
2. Why “kin dom” and not “kingdom” here. ↩︎