Taking our nourishment into the world
And how was your Pentecost Sunday? Pentecost is that day when we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit into the midst of Jesus’ followers. On this day, the Holy Spirit became truly alive to us as God’s breath, working in us to accomplish God’s mission in the world. Through the gifts bestowed upon us by the Holy Spirit, we can be about our baptismal call: sharing in our words and deeds the good news of God in Christ.
When Pentecost occurs on Memorial Day Weekend, I always wonder whether the camping, races, hamburgers and chips will overtake the day or share it with Pentecost. Imagine the spectacular Pentecost celebrations we could have with church cookouts added on… a community coming together to enjoy the delicious pleasures of that All-American meal: grilled meat and buns, salads of an amazing variety, endless mountains of chips and, of course, lots of dessert choices!
So often we are challenged to connect our church and cultural festivals, but not always with great success. The pews can empty precipitously. But what if we actually missed that great Sunday morning race or event? What if we chose to celebrate together in church instead? How do our Sundays fit in with Presidents’ Weekend or Memorial Day or the Fourth of July or Valentine’s Day and so forth? How we might weave these holidays together on Sundays… or even whether we should or not… continues to raise questions for us.
The question of choosing between hamburger buns and communion bread is really part of a larger set of questions. When we share Sunday together, how do we then share Sunday with the rest of the week? How do we take Sunday out into the world? Does our ministry have a place in the world? What does that look like in the world? Our church lives, liturgy and community equip us with the word and the nourishment. But how do we take that out of the church building and into our lives in the world? How can we take the nourishment we receive in that All-Church Meal of bread and wine and use it to transform the world?
The beginning of Pentecost is the perfect time to ponder these questions. At Pentecost, the holy breath of the Spirit covered the early church and drove them forth from Jerusalem to tell and show the world what God as revealed in Jesus was all about. That early call hasn’t changed for any of us in this modern day and age.
The church remains that place where we can come together as a faith community to hear the stories, to pray together and share the holy meal. We come together to prepare for the mission to which God is calling us. We come together to eat, to celebrate, to learn, to be nourished and equipped for ministry: ministry in the world.
Through our ministries and God’s abiding presence, we have been given the call to go forth into a broken world and begin the hard work of transformation. There is a blessing I use that essentially includes this prayer: “May God drive us forth from this place to fill the world with justice and with love. This is our call. This is our ministry.”
We can’t begin to repair all of the brokenness because the entirety of the restoration is always in the hands of God. But we can let the world know what it truly means to follow God’s call to love God and love our neighbor. Through our ministries, we can show the world Jesus’ Way: the way of life.
