The post-pentecost church

Christians worldwide celebrated the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, the Feast of Pentecost, on May 11.  On the Wednesday prior, a tornado struck the Winston Salem-Greensboro area during the night.  Around midnight, the sheriff’s office called the residents of Kernersville, including our daughter, to warn them to seek shelter. The twister struck about two miles from our daughter’s home.

The damage to the area was significant.  Most evident were the trees that had been uprooted and the tops of other trees that had been snapped off.  There were broken branches strewn everywhere.  Fortunately, no storm-related deaths were reported, at least I didn’t hear of any.

Breezes are gentle; wind is powerful.

In the wake of that tornado, I have been thinking about the famous wind experienced in Jerusalem, recorded in Chapter 2 of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. Apparently it didn’t sound like a refreshing ocean breeze.  Rather, the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible describes it as sounding “violent”.  That makes me think of the roar of a tornado, described as being like the sound of a freight train by those who have heard them.

Artistic renditions of the Pentecostal experience often show the Virgin Mary among the eleven remaining Apostles sitting rather serenely around a room with flames seated on their heads.  The flames aren’t even flickering!  Where’s the violent wind?  Why weren’t these people taking shelter? Don’t think that they somehow knew there wasn’t any danger … there was no warning and they must have been terrified, at least initially.

The Spirit of God is most certainly holy, but that doesn’t mean the Spirit is necessarily gentle. Holy Spirit may come to shake things up a bit … or a lot!  Read about what happened the rest of that day: the newborn Church became bold and moved out of the room into the streets.

The Wind of God is a power-filled wind, and can blow to uproot that which is complacent, useless, and potentially harmful, and to prune the Church, cleansing it of deadwood and non-productivity.  Thus the Church is prepared for new growth, bold witness, and is poised to inherit the fulfilled life.

Sometimes we hear the Sundays after Pentecost called “Ordinary Time.”  There’s absolutely nothing ordinary about them!  The color given to the Sundays after Trinity Sunday until the First Sunday in Advent is green, the color of growth.  Historically speaking, we are now living in real time between the experience of that Day of Pentecost in Jerusalem and the Second Coming of the Lord.  These are truly the “in-between times!”

So, how is the Church, and in particular, St. John’s Fayetteville, living out these extraordinary days?  What in the Church’s life needs to be pruned and even uprooted in order to help people live, work and worship in the fullness of Gospel joy?