Spirit’s Sound & Fury, Signifying…?
As the Easter season winds down and we ready ourselves for the Spirit-centred celebration of Pentecost, I am often struck by the confluence of church and community calendar events. The church acknowledges its move from uncertainty to action in the Pentecost story, with wind and flame and wonder…
As the Easter season winds down and we ready ourselves for the Spirit-centred celebration of Pentecost, I am often struck by the confluence of church and community calendar events. The church acknowledges its move from uncertainty to action in the Pentecost story, with wind and flame and wonder marking a new arrival of God’s Spirit in the disciples and the world.
Pentecost marks the commencement of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity; in a world where new faith communities and traditions spring up each week (there are more than thirty worshiping communities in Tamworth alone), the unity of the Spirit needs to be heard – and understood – afresh.
When Jesus prays for oneness in John’s Gospel (John 17), how is his prayer being realised and enacted today?
This week (27th May-3rd June) is National Reconciliation Week [www.reconciliation.org.au/nrw/], which lies at the heart of who we are as a nation and echoes the vocation we have as disciples of Christ. There are few issues in our church and community which are so clearly defined by the culture in which we were raised, as the issue of reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous people. Already as you read this, some people are becoming annoyed, or frustrated. That is a reflection as much of entrenched disadvantage as it is of entrenched perceptions – from every aspect.
When Paul names us as “ambassadors of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5.16-21) what does that mean both for our perceptions and for our actions?
In the church and in the community, we often accept how things are as “how things have always been”, yet the Gospel stands opposed to that perception. The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, and the exhalation of God’s Spirit upon the church and the world completely transforms everything. Even our experiences can be healed, forgiven, restored, transformed; how else can we live as reconcilers of church and community without first knowing that we are constantly restored and transformed by Christ’s love and forgiveness? Do we dare risk ourselves in prayer about these things?
What would happen if we prayed – with open hearts – for the Spirit to transform our thinking on reconciliation between churches and between indigenous and non-indigenous people?
As Jesus prayed for his disciples, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”