Together again

I will pour out my Spirit (Joel 2:28)

On the Day of Pentecost, today in the church's calendar, Peter stands up before the crowd and quotes Joel. God's promise, as spoken by Joel, is fulfilled in your hearing today. Today, God's Spirit is being poured out on all people.

As I walk around the villages as vicar, the most common question is this: when are they going to reopen the churches? I have had a fairly standard answer that explains why they needed to be closed (can't have one rule for the town and another for the village), but recently this has developed into a kind of verbal shrug (July at the earliest and then with lots of limitations I expect). Often, though, I really want to ask a question in return. 'But...you never come...do you?' I don't, for fear of being rude, for it is not meant as a criticism. It's just I'm often not sure why this question is top of the agenda for this particular person when they won't be joining the return anyway.

As I read the account of Peter's sermon and the pouring out of the Spirit, I wonder if I've got a part of the answer at least. The disciples are all together in one place. In church you might say. They've been doing normal church stuff since Jesus left: choosing leaders, praying, pondering all they have seen and heard. Then it struck me. They are safe. I don't just mean they are in a safe place, doing safe things, though that is true, but that they are no threat to anyone else. Remember the authorities on both sides of political divide clubbed together to get rid of the threat of Jesus, yet here are his followers and no one seems to be bothering them at all.

I wonder if you see where I'm going with this. You see, here's my question. Has church become a safe place both for those who attend and for those who do not? If we keep them in the church worshipping their God then they are not going to be bothering us. Everyone feels comfortable if the Christians are put back in their buildings. They can get on with their job of praying and worshipping God, and I can get on with quietly ignoring him. But for the Christians it's just as safe. I'm doing my Sunday bit with God and I can get on with the rest of the week without really bothering about him much at all. Now, please don't be offended. I'm not intending this as a criticism, but rather as an observation. Maybe church has got too safe for everyone and the prospect of going back to Sunday worship in church increases that sense of safety. We have not just felt sad without it but uncomfortable, anxious, fearful even.

So as we ponder our return to the church building, it is particularly significant for us that the gift of the Spirit breaks open its doors; drives the disciples out. Notice that the tongues of fire are separated when they come to rest on each individual. Notice that the disciples begin to speak different tongues or languages that are understood throughout the neighbouring countries. It's fascinating to look up the names on a map, because it looks like Jerusalem is at the epicentre of an explosion. You see, the gift of the Holy Spirit is not there to draw us into church to receive, though that may be necessary; it is there to send us out to give, to provide us with a vision, a dream, of a world where many call on the name of the Lord and are saved. So as we anticipate coming back together, let us not forget to allow that return to also be a rebound, to allow church to be a place we bounce into and bounce back out of, full of the Spirit and ready to witness to our neighbours with love and good news.

A pathway from the village to the church, and from the church to the village