Spirit

Recently I took note of a rather innocuous comment to a friend's Facebook status. (My friend happens to be an Episcopal priest, but could just as easily have been an involved layperson of any denomination. Her parents simply noted, "we'll see you about 1 p.m; we have coffee hour after church.")

For people like me (or anyone raised in Lake Wobegon) this statement requires no explanation. Mainline churches serve coffee after church - volunteers sign up to do that - and my friend's parents were on duty this weekend in their congregation. End of story.

Except that I am aware that increasingly we live in a world where statements like this really do need explanation. Many people would not know what this means. This sounds a bit crazy to church people but only recently I had someone ask me what exactly a "potluck supper" is. My point is not at all judgmental on either side of this - it is simply that there is a vocabulary and a whole set of customs and practices (far more serious in many ways than coffee hour or potlucks) that increasingly require interpretation.

Here, of course, is where the Holy Spirit comes into play. I noted in my sermon this weekend that unlike Christmas and Easter, the Church gets it's prayer answered on Pentecost -we have no cultural adaptations to be navigated. One should be careful what we pray for, because even many Christians come into Church this weekend without knowing it is Pentecost. (It seems without displays in our grocery stores, drug stores, and malls to remind us, as we have at Christmas and Easter, we are a bit forgetful.) Nevertheless, the Spirit comes to make communication (and community) possible - for us to speak and be understood, for us to listen and to understand one another.

It seems to me that unlike Christmas and Easter, when the Church is competing with all kinds of positive and negative cultural practices, we are quite on our own this weekend. And yet--and this is the great paradox--the Spirit is not our own. The Spirit, like the wind, blows where She will. The Spirit cannot be contained by the Church. When we speak of Pentecost we are being reminded that God's Spirit is sent to renew the face of the earth, that God's Spirit is at work in God's world and among people who have no idea that today is Pentecost.

Strangely, I think this is good news on many levels. Among other things it is a reminder that we are not in charge. Christians have a mission and responsibilities in the world but the Spirit of God is at work not only through us but sometimes in spite of us. The Spirit shakes things up when they need shaking, and settles things down when anxiety is high. In short, the Spirit refuses to be managed or domesticated.

I love the Church profoundly, for all of its giftedness and all of its challenges. I love Church people, and speak their language; it's my own native tongue. I can say "please sign up for coffee hour in the narthex" and not feel that requires any explanation! I can remind people to wear red to church and assume most of them understand why.

But I am also glad that God the Holy Spirit comes to make the world, and the church that is called to serve the world, more interesting, more multi-lingual, more multi-cultural, and just a lot more fun.