When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness (Acts 4: 31).
Rick Smyre wrote in a recent edition of Net Results: “All communities and churches will face, without exception, the need to transform themselves as the effectiveness of old ways crumble.”* As we try to imagine new capacities for new realities, as we try to help people learn how to think differently, it will also be important to help people see God in new transforming ways. Our capacity to respond to new realities is either hampered or enhanced by the images of God we have inherited.
As I drove away from another meeting where people argued too long over how to spend the last few dollars from their dwindling budgets, I asked myself what the Holy Spirit might do. Would she send their papers flying? Is it possible that as we struggle with diminishing finances, She is asking us to make friends with the newcomers moving into our neighborhoods because we need friends more than we need money?
Today’s neighborhoods resemble a colorful collage of cultures. North American Protestants are awakening to this reality: The fastest growing populations in our neighborhoods do not think, act, or even use the same language as do the majority of “mainline” church goers. Gaps have widened between the church and young people who have become disengaged from church tradition. How do we cross the cultural chasm that seems, for many, as wide as did the Red Sea for our biblical ancestors?
This is how our first century ancestors met the challenge of their time: Guided by the Holy Spirit, the first century church made contact with new people from foreign cultures and their mission flourished. They traveled great distances, across uncharted waters, to reach strangers on distant shores. Where Christian believers touched the lives of strangers, friendships were formed. We need not travel far. The strangers from our postmodern time dwell on the other side of our swimming pools, or can be found standing by the local laundromat.
Why then, are so many congregations hesitant to reach across them? Some seem to be crippled by inertia and others by fear. Is it paralysis or denial? Our future, as well, hinges upon whether or not we will emulate the early church’s bravery, cross over the gaps, and follow the lead of the wild, fierce, Spirit.
So, to what extent are congregations’ capacities to meet this new reality affected by an unconscious force–their internalized images of the Divine? Have we unintentionally tamed God in our imaginations, and become content to worship a god who is so predictable we dare not change a thing in our patterns of worship and church life for fear of disturbing him?
We celebrate Her divine person at Pentecost and then, for the most part, forget about Her for the rest of the liturgical year. But I have noticed that She is very much alive. She is the voice of protest shaking us out of our complacency, freeing us from the snares of entitlement, and attitudes that claim that it is permissible to ignore the strangers on the other side of familiar shores. Her presence is still felt where people startle each other with bold words of love and mercy. I have glimpsed Her in the emerging postmodern church as the dry bones of institutions crumble and communities of faith breathe with new life. For those of us too timid to leave what has become so familiar, She is our apostolic spirit, the courage to enter the unknown to discover new life.
We call Her the “Third Person of the Trinity,” but make no mistake, She is the first to announce good news to the poor and to insist that justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. She is the Spirit of God for the church, yesterday and today, caught in the midst of cultural chaos. She can close the cultural gaps; She’s done that many times before. I have seen Her open the eyes of weary parishioners, scaled with the dust of bureaucracy, to new visions and dreams. And when we become reacquainted with Her, we are surprised to discover that we can begin to understand one another in spite of our different ways of speaking and believing. She is the hope for a church come alive
She is as ever wild, fierce, and beautiful. She can never be tamed. We need her more than ever today.
Barbara Jones-Hagedorn is a retired minister and former associate executive presbyter of the Presbytery of Hudson River. She resides in Brewster, N.Y.
*The quote is from Building Capacities for Community and Church Transformation, Series 2. by Rick Smyre
