When I was preparing the email I sent out earlier today (also on Facebook under events), specifically when I was working on the first paragraph (I wrote that paragraph last) I was thinking about the first Pentecost.  For many of us, these stories are familiar and we pass over them, especially in the times of waiting and move forward to the event. I know this is the case for me. When Luke (Acts 2) describes for us the Holy Spirit breaking forth out of heaven and what seemed like tongues of fire descending on those who gathered together, I’m not surprised or amazed. I know this about to happen…

I’m reminded of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which, as a side note, has influenced theology of Satan for many people more than is often realized. In Paradise Lost, Adam is confronted with the choice of eating the fruit so that he could be with his wife Eve, but that would mean experiencing death; or the other option of not eating the fruit and not experiencing death, but then also not being with his wife Eve.

Adam, as he deliberates, says this remarkable phrase, “ … whom the pain Of death denounced, whatever thing Death be.” (Book 9; Line 694-5) For Adam, death was still a mystery. It remains in many ways still a mystery for us, but for Adam the experience was beyond his realm of experience. He hadn’t seen anyone suffer death. When we read Paradise Lost, or Genesis 3, we understand far more the implications of that decision than Adam or Eve.

For those who were gathered together waiting for the giving of the Holy Spirit, what the Pentecost experience was going to be and how it would change them, fill them and empower them was beyond what they could have understood. To use Milton, the disciples would be saying something like, ‘we are together, waiting for the giving of the Spirit, promised by our ascended Saviour, whatever this giving of the Holy Spirit be.’ It was a time of mysterious possibility as they were waiting together…

Two things came to mind.

The first is the reminder that it is worthwhile when reading the Bible to feign ignorance so that we can experience the mystery, intrigue and surprise of how God’s story unfolds in the life of his people. Reading the text like this gives us the opportunity to be shocked and surprised by a God who is beyond our capacity to understand, put in a box or predict. This can helps us dream the mysterious possibilities that God is calling us into.

The second, bringing the idea into the context of the connection, is that as we gather together to celebrate Pentecost by sharing a meal and by considering how the implication of resurrection can impact our community in our coming together and in our going out, we should wait with anticipation and also mystery as we consider where the Holy Spirit is leading us as the connection, whatever thing that be…

~chris

The next few weeks we are going to look at how we worship, fellowship and enjoy life together. We decided to call this: Life Together: Coming Together – Going Out. This is an opportunity to for us to look at how we live out life as an intentional worshiping community. This relates to the time we spend together. Whether that be at the gathering time around the table on Sunday evening or throughout the week. These are times of intentionally coming together for community and fellowship, for Christian growth and mutual affirmation. The second part of our Christian life is the going out. We all find ourselves interacting with those outside of the connection community in the physical communities that we live in.

One of my favourite quotes, which I have used a couple times already, is from H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture:

The power and attraction Jesus Christ exercises over men never comes from him alone, but from him as Son of the Father. It comes from him in his Sonship in a double way, as man living to God and God living with men. Belief in him and loyalty to his cause involves men in the double movement from world to God and from God to world. Even when theologies fail to do justice to this fact, Christians living with Christ in their cultures are aware of it. For they are forever being challenged to abandon all things for the sake of God; and forever being sent back into the world to teach and practice all the things that have been commanded them.

This can be applied to how our community functions. The call to gather together, to build each other up, to be known in that community, is there as we long for Christian fellowship. But it is also the truth that as we join in this Christian fellowship we realize that the peace we find there should and must extend into the lives of those around us. It is the double call of coming together and the going out.

The gospel of Luke announces the gospel message – Jesus is Lord – and Acts outlines how the gospel message unfolds in the lives of the people who choose to live into the reality of that message. Acts is a book of the resurrection breaking forth. It begins with a time of wonderful amazement and newness that only the reversal of death could bring. It is a time of dreaming and dreams coming true. That is how we would like to frame this season.  A time of dreaming of who we can be as an intentional gathering worshiping community and those who are sent out from that community into the communities we live in.

So we want to dream about what we could be as we come together and as we go out.

One way to create room for dreaming to happen is that in the response time on May 18th and May 25th we will leave time for you to dream, to dream on our own or to dream as a group. We will frame this time of dreaming in the teaching and then allow the Spirit to speak to us about how we can embrace the power of the resurrection in our coming together and our going out.

On Pentecost Sunday, June 8th,  we will celebrate the giving of the spirit and this time of dreaming by sharing a potluck meal together and then sharing our dreams.

So let’s dream together in this time of celebrating the resurrection!

~chris