“A Letter to the Congregation” 

Karen Sloan 28/05/2023

Readings - Acts 2:1-4, John 14:8-17, 25-27

Pentecost, a strange festival because it’s celebrating something that is already here, and has been since the beginning of time. Pentecost, rooted in what has gone before, in order for us to see what can come in the future.

I was wondering how to present this reflection since I can’t be here, and then I thought, well, let me write you a letter…, a short letter. So here we go..

Dear Congregation,

Although you are not my congregation in the sense I am not your pastor any more, but rather we are fellow travellers on the road.   But I do feel drawn back into the preaching space, and maybe this signals a change for me and a return to what I have been called to since I was in my early 20s.

Anyway, I was wondering how to present what I have been thinking and doing over the past few months, as I come to the end of my Tree of Life spirituality course, which is the reason I’m not with you.  Funnily enough I seem to think about God’s spirit quite a bit these days, in meditation and in my course, how it works in all of us, pushing, nudging quietly, or roaring like a great wind, if we can be still enough to listen.  Transforming is the nature of the spirit and both within and around us I believe it guides us to greater life and love.  

So with this understanding what does Pentecost mean today. Maybe it’s the story of the spirit in us, rather than somewhere else.  Maybe, as Rob Bell suggests,  it’s an evolutionary story as we grow in consciousness ,  from a “Me”, to a “We”, to an “Everybody”.

Let me explain…

We start with the “Me”.  We need the me, we need to understand ourselves, accept ourselves, have space to reflect and to just be.  To understand we are gloriously and wonderfully made.  When we are children the “me” helps us to form our identity, to recognise the world and our place in it, to develop resilience, and to feel love.  We gain a consciousness of ourselves as human beings.

The “Me” is incredibly important in our transformation as a person amongst other people.  And we carry those lessons the rest of our lives.

What about the “We”.  The “We” is our family, our friends, our community, our sporting team, our school, our church, our tribe.  We embrace and connect to other humans so that we can learn to love and be loved, have shared experiences, know the value and practise of loyalty and friendship and commitment and compassion and kindness. We gain a consciousness of those we travel with on the journey by being members of a group, a tribe.

I have experienced the “We”, through my friends who we have shared time with over many years.  I have also seen it happening this week in this church, the support and love given to those grieving or unwell.

But friendship and family isn’t enough.

We must include everybody.  And this means the non-human family as well.

Many people sit in the “We” stage, and when its working it can be okay, even wonderful.  We are certainly required to love and care for our friends and family and our community and receive love.  But what happens when that “We” becomes an us and them mentality, when one group suffers at the expense of the other. And we build walls instead of bridges. We are seeing that in the world at the moment, both in the Middle East  and in Ukraine in particular.

Something stirs in us, that the “We” we have created is maybe not enough. It’s suddenly like an itch that needs to be scratched. The realisation that when others suffer, when creation suffers, we all suffer.   And I know that when this happens, there is a need to respond to this shaking up, this dawning that all is not right by going beyond our tribe. 

God’s spirit, the Holy Spirit if you like, enlivens and empowers life at every level. And prompts us to connect to everyone and everything, not just those we know. Maybe this is the something that takes us from the “Me”, to the “We” to the “Everybody” stage.

To reach the point where we go outside our tribe. Beyond tribalism.

Is this the story of Pentecost for today?. A story of the spirit prompting a change in people’s lives, by following the one who reflects it most fully.

 Maybe..

We gather because we are followers of Jesus, who integrate the spirit of the father in his own life, and calls us to live not only for God but for our neighbour.  And our neighbour is anyone in need.  The earlier faith communities, followers of Jesus knew this and they began to share everything they had, former enemies became friends and people laid down their swords and picked up a cross. As the book of Acts records, there was no needy persons among them. The movement had started, a movement which would become the church.

So it has been recorded as a pivotal moment in scripture. Pentecost! Yet It doesn’t mean that God s spirit was missing somehow prior to this event.

 Rather out of the constraints of power, and tribes and issues about who’s in and who’s out, comes a story about what the spirit brings out of chaos.  Unity. Life. For all of creation, not just humans. And who drives it, the man called Jesus. And who is to continue it, us.

Not a magical story but an inspiring story.

So concluding this short letter, I sit with the idea that the spirit is moving as it always has moved, in the world, in us, to bring us together, to bring community, connection and life. But I will always see in Jesus the way forward, the way to be in the world for everyone, not just a “Me” or  a “We”  ….. 

Is that enough for Pentecost 2023, I hope so.

 Love

Karen