Pentecost Sunday, the birthday of the church, is a classic reminder that we’re a Spirit-endowed fellowship. We long to live into the creative power of this reality yet it raises some uncomfortable questions. Do we participate in the life of our church with the expectation that our sureties and lifestyles would be seamlessly confirmed? Or do we participate with the expectation that the Spirit’s wind and fire will release us from the tyranny of our settled certainties and comfort zones?

God’s Spirit is never predictable. We may want to install seat belts on the chairs in our church sanctuary as we negotiate this rush of creative wind. But it’s not always dramatic. Sometimes the Spirit comes as a beckoning ray of light inviting us to explore places we’ve never before ventured into. Franciscan priest Richard Rohr explains: “

When the Spirit is alive in people, they wake up from their mechanical thinking and enter the realm of co-creative power. . . Like Pinocchio, we move from wooden to real. We transform from hurt people hurting other people to wounded healers healing others. Not just individually, but history itself keeps moving forward in this mighty move of Spirit unleashed. The indwelling Spirit is this constant ability of humanity to keep going, to keep recovering from its wounds, to keep hoping and trying again.[i]

This may be hard to recognize in our present political climate where religious equality, justice for the poor, and caring for the earth are continually under assault. Living love, growing justice, and welcoming everyone can feel like a huge stretch. Where is the mighty movement of God’s unleashed Spirit in the midst of all this?

We’ll most likely miss it if we become too fixated on the controversies swirling around the White House. Sure, such things are important and we should be engaged and concerned. Still, politics is about so much more. Some of us here at Daniels Run Peace Church are working at affordable ways to put solar panels on our church roof and a plugin station for electric cars in our parking lot. Others of us are installing a rain garden on our church property. Such things are also politics in the best sense of caring for the wellbeing of our community. The coming of the Spirit is about empowering God’s people for the task of creating and living into God’s purposes for us and our world.

[i] Richard Rohr, The Divine Dance (London: SPCK, 2016), 146-147