Wednesday after Pentecost

Dear Friends,

It has been three days since we gathered to celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and I am still filled with amazement and wonder at what happened that day. Our worship together was filled with a joy that I have not witnessed at SSSJ for some time now. Our singing felt more robust. Our prayers felt more reverent. Our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving at the Eucharist felt more intense. And, after the service, our picnic together felt like icing on the cake. Surely, the Spirit was with us last Sunday.

Since then, I have been turning over and over in my mind one question – what happened, and can it happen again?

There were several things that came together to make Pentecost 2010 the remarkable day that it was. There was the hanging over the baptismal font and the creativity and hard work it represented. There was the dramatic presentation at the 10:30 service, in which several members of our congregation stepped up to proclaim the Gospel through drama. There was the music, which came from our hearts after we learned that our organist, Charlene Shealy, was taken to the hospital. And there was the arrangement of our worship space, which brought all of us together between our two most important symbols – the font by which we become members of the body of Christ, and the altar around which he nourishes, strengthens, comforts and renews us. It is right there, between our baptisms and communion with God and one another, that we are called live.

Jesus teaches us many things in the Gospels. He teaches us the importance of spending regular time in prayer. He teaches us to love God and our neighbors as much as ourselves. He teaches us that it is important to spend time together in fellowship (preferably with food) so that we might build a stronger community. He teaches us to serve our fellow human beings, especially the poor and the outcast. All of these are vitally important lessons of the Gospel story.

But perhaps the most important thing that Jesus teaches us is that the kingdom of God is near. It is not a place in some distant never-never land that we will never visit in our life times. It is not some time in the far off future. Instead, the kingdom of God is as close to us as our own heartbeats, and as present as our next breath. As children of God, we are called to live together in the kingdom right here and right now.

In his book, The Peaceable Kingdom, Stanley Hauerwas writes that a church is a community in which we practice living together in the ever-present kingdom of God. It is a place where we practice serving God by serving each other. It is a safe place where we can engage in holy conversation without fear of rejection. It is a common place, where we can each offer the gifts we have for the sake of the larger community. This is why, he says, that all of the pot luck suppers and bake sales and volunteer work days that we find in a local church are just as important as the Eucharist itself – because they allow us to practice life in the kingdom.

St. Simon and St. Jude has always been just such a church, and I believe that this is the reason our worship was so joyful last Sunday. We are a church the seeks to live in the ever-present kingdom of God, through our love and service to each other and by engaging with each other as fellow pilgrims on a journey with Christ. We are a church which realizes that our ministry in the world is not just something we do each Sunday, but on the days of the week in between – we live between our Baptisms and the Eucharist. We are a church that cherishes our liturgical heritage as Episcopalians, while looking for new expressions of worship in our current context here in Irmo.

Over the past few days, several people have asked about the "relational" seating arrangement we had for our worship on Sunday. Some felt that the seating arrangement a major factor in the overall joy we experienced and would like for us to leave the chairs set up facing each other in the collegial style. Others were candidly less enthusiastic about the change, and would like for us to return the chairs to their former arrangement. I must admit that while I was overwhelmed by the power of the Spirit in that service, I am not certain whether or not our seating arrangement was a major factor for that power. However, I would like for us to take the time to find out.

For this reason, I am asking that we try an experiment over the summer in which we leave the chairs arranged as they were on Pentecost to see how it affects our worship together. As on Sunday, I will lead worship from the midst of the assembly during the first half of the service, and then move up to the altar for the Eucharist after the peace. Nothing will be done to prevent us from returning the chairs to their former arrangement, and at the end of the summer we can return the chairs to the original configuration if we so desire.

At the same time, I would like to invite you all to a dialog on how we worship together at SSSJ. What are the things that are most important to you? What do you think would be most appealing to the unchurched we are called to serve? Why do we do the things we do when we worship? How does music (or the lack of it) affect your experience with God?

My brothers and sisters, God blesses those things which are in accord with God's will, and redeems those which are not. I strongly believe that the Holy Spirit is moving among us and will continue to guide us as we find new ways to live together as the body of Christ. All we need to do is be willing to let the wind of the Spirt blow through us, and show us the direction to take.

In Christ, Mark+

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