Pastor’s Message: Aflame with Power

Writing in the June issue of Sojourners magazine, author Enuma Okoro observes that the season of Pentecost is “aflame with the power of a living God. As always, we have a choice either to close our eyes and ears and ignore the holy invasion or to allow ourselves to be caught off guard and swept up in God’s mysterious transforming work of making all things new. Either way, God is set loose on the world. We are invited to join—to participate in bringing kingdom order out of worldly chaos. Be prepared; it’s not what we expect.”

This observation embodies several key themes in the biblical story, each of which leaves room for pause, reflection, and renewal. The first is that we have a choice of how to respond to God’s presence. We can respond with benign neglect—not denying it but not paying much attention either. We can acknowledge the presence, open ourselves to it, and follow where it leads. Or we can choose one of the many ambiguous options between neglect and embrace. In whatever response we make, we are exercising the divine gift of a delicate and dangerous freedom.

A second theme is God’s mystery. Much religious rhetoric these days seems to reflect a desire to pin God down to certain doctrines and unchangeable “eternal truths.” No doubt God is eternal. And no doubt, as Paul put it, “in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.” But that reconciling work often takes forms far beyond our ability to predict, describe, or understand. Acknowledging God’s mystery involves a stance of humility and wonder on our part, provides a fertile place to grow beyond what we are now, and offers the opportunity to see ourselves in a cosmic perspective. As Robert McAfee Brown once remarked, “What you see depends on where you stand.”

Finally, it helps to be reminded of the fact that, indeed, God is set loose upon the world. This is God’s world, God’s creation, God’s project, God’s ongoing work. God is intimately involved with us and will never give up on us. It was Paul again who wrote: “In all things, God works together for good with those who love him.” In that transforming work, we too are set loose upon the world, aflame with God’s power. May the Spirit given at Pentecost light us up!