Notes from a Sojourn
May 26, 2020
The days between Ascension and Pentecost are traditionally a season of prayer when we petition the Holy Spirit to descend anew into our lives in order that the whole life of the Church may proclaim the Easter Gospel with refreshed joy and hope. Today’s blog entry is the first in a series of reflections on petitions we pray in a litany for the Spirit.
“Come, Holy Spirit, creator,
and renew the face of the earth…”
It’s a familiar line. We pray it every year during the season of Pentecost. Yet, if you’re anything like me, as familiar as it is, I’ve never really given it much thought. It’s part of our liturgy, but how often do we pay specific attention to the things we pray each week? How often do we really know what we say “amen” to? It’s one part of using the same liturgy each week that we don’t really talk about. Yes, familiarity makes things predictable, accessible, and sometimes even comforting. At the same time, familiarity can also bring about a lack of focus or awareness. Do we actually believe the things we ask God for each week? Because if we do, then I’m often confused as to why there is so much resistance to change and transformation, and why there is such a commitment to maintaining the status quo.
Annie Dillard has a famous quote to summarize what I’m talking about. She says, with regards to Sunday morning liturgy:
“Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may awake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.” (Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk, 1982)
This quote summarizes, for me, many of the thoughts I’ve had over the past week as I’ve heard multiple voices speaking about how they can’t wait to get back to “the way things were”. Especially in rural communities, it is common to hear folks waxing poetic about the good old days, or still speaking about hurts and wrong doings that occurred generations ago. Especially in a time of COVID, it is understandable that people might feel drawn to something stable and familiar.
Yet, it is also true that none of this way of being is congruent with the Christian message we hear, and pray each week. From Paul saying that in Christ we are a new creation, Jesus’ teaching that new wine can’t go into old wineskins and new cloth can’t go on an old garment, and Isaiah’s famous line, “See, I am doing a new thing! Can you not perceive it?” there should be no surprise that God is always calling us forward towards something new. God is not calling us to go back to what was. As one author describes, “The Greek word is translated “newness” and means a total renewal. It is not simply an experience similar to the past, but a qualitatively different one.”
I think the season of Pentecost is perfect for the time we find ourselves in. We have been forced to give up things that we clung to so tightly. And as Thom Rainer describes, our clinging to the past, the old ways, and the Golden Age do nothing but squeeze the life out of our communities and God’s ability to move within our churches. This is why Pentecost is so powerful. Jesus told the disciples that they would do greater things than even he had done. The Holy Spirit would come and burn away the barriers that stood in the way of what God wanted next. In that story, suddenly divided people, separated by geography and language barriers could suddenly all understand one another and come together. The barriers were removed, and a new and wonderful thing could begin.
COVID has cleared away many of the things that held us back from what God calls each of us to move towards. It is our role as Christians to always be moving towards the coming Kingdom of God and not getting caught up in preserving the kingdoms of the past.
God will use this time to do a new thing. We have a choice to make. We can either resist that change because it might seem scary, uncomfortable, or because it makes us face things we’d rather avoid; or we can get on board. We can become a new creation. We can choose God’s Kingdom over our own.
If we are willing to do this, then this Sunday, may our own voices be fully aware of what we are saying when we pray: "Come, Holy Spirit, creator, and renew the face of the earth." And then let us get ready and put on our crash helmets. Because the Spirit is coming. The Spirit will move. The season of Pentecost is on the way and will set the world on fire with renewal.
Come Holy Spirit, Come!
The Rev. Jon Martin, Parish of South Dundas
