It is two weeks past Pentecost Sunday as I write this, but I am still hashing out some of the thoughts which Pentecost stirred up this year. Most years Pentecost Sunday doesn't make much of an impact. It is a festival Sunday that competes with college graduations and other end of the school year celebrations and some years Memorial Day weekend. The general feel of Pentecost in the Lutheran church is kind of like the Pentecost reading from Acts 2, feeling slightly forced and awkward. Every year our reader dutifully stumbles through the list of nations hearing the good news in their own languages (Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphlylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs).
I have taken part in several services where we tried to make the Pentecost story more dramatic. We tried reading the text in a variety of languages to highlight the international feel of the day. We tried reading the text in a round to convey the noisy confusion we imagined that day to be. We asked everyone to wear red so the congregation might look like flame. We had the worship assistant process with a bowl of fire. (It was a small bowl with an alcohol-soaked rag in it. She was not happy.) Yet no matter what I have seen tried to promote the day of Pentecost the overall feel is "That was interesting but I hope it doesn't happen here." We get our annual dose of the Spirit's discombobulation and then settle back into our routine of good worship with good order.
This year as I was preparing for Pentecost, an idea clicked that hadn't before. I noticed when the Spirit came to the disciples, it led them out of the house in which they were staying. It seems like a small detail but it made me think about the orientation of the congregations I have served. Namely, most of the time when we talk about outreach and evangelism, our focus is on getting people into our house. We host concerts, lectures, meals and other special events with the hope that someone who steps onto the property might return to the property for worship. We fret over friendliness and hospitality with the hope of turning the one-time guest into a repeat visitor. Welcoming people into the house becomes an overriding concern for congregations and clergy.
Yet as I encountered the Pentecost story this year, I was confronted with the outward push of the Spirit. The Spirit doesn't say, "Come in." The Spirit says, "Go out." Go out and witness to the good news. Go out and live the story.
Perhaps the reason that Pentecost is awkward is that the story goes against our sensibility of church. We want to stay in, where we are comfortable, accepted and know what is going to happen. We assume that other people want what we want. The Spirit sends us out with a story to tell. We want to stay in where we know the language and culture. We assume that other people will want to be like us. The Spirit sends us out to tell the story in the language of the spiritual but not religious, the agnostic and atheist, and the bitter ex-church attendee. We want to be inside, where faith is neatly compartmentalized within the four walls of the sanctuary. We assume there is a clear distinction between church and the rest of life. The Spirit calls us out with a story that impacts every moment and every place.
The Spirit calls us out. I wonder what the church will look like if we listen.
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