Stirrings

 Acts 2:1-21

Do we believe in the life of the Holy Spirit? Do we believe in the Spirits ability to trouble us and send us out? Out beyond what we are comfortable with? Out beyond our doors? Out to seek inclusive and diversity?

This is what this beginning looks like in our Acts story today. The disciples were in the upper room still. Remember, the room where they are hiding out for fear. Fear of what happened to Jesus might happen to them. Fear because they didn't want to loose their life. Fear because Jesus wasn't with them anymore. Then the Holy Spirit comes in flame and tongues and sends them out the door and this is the last we see that upper room.

What are we afraid of? Are we afraid of being the biggest fools if we start to open ourselves and go out into the community? Are we afraid this building might not be here if we go out or open it up to diverse groups? And really the phrase, "We've never done it this way before," is just a fear of the future phrase. We fear we might lose the past, but the thing is its already gone. The days of full pews, huge children's ministries, and whatever else it is we picture are gone. We need to live right into this moment.

Which means we have to start asking questions. Where is the Spirit leading us? When Jesus goes out into the wilderness the Spirit drives him there. We are in a wilderness the church hasn't experienced before. Now it is our turn to listen. To seek. To find. Because then the doors will open once we have knocked on them.

Pentecost gives us the framework for living into this. Who are we? What are our gifts? How might we share those with others? It is time for us to drop our fear and live into the life we have right now. Because there is life here. We just have to dare to claim it and seek it out. In this is the abundance of joy we talked about last week.

Sure at first it will be hard, uncomfortable, even foreign to us. Yet we are people whose history has shown how to trust, pray, and even go through the desert to find the promise of life. Will you join one another in discerning where the Spirit is leading?