Pentecost Thoughts

At Amlwch Methodist Church today we had Rod Simpson as our preacher. Rod was talking about the need for the church and everything that was done for God to be revitalised by the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament lesson was Ezekiel 37, the vision of the Valley of Dry Bones. It struck me that everything that was said in today's service made me think of one subject - resurrection.

The vision of the dry bones suddenly coming to life had very obvious resurrection thoughts in and behind it. It was as if we were being challenged to dream that even very dry bones could still experience resurrection. Of course the story is about the rebirth of Israel. Often in the Old Testament there is this longing of the Jews to return to the way things were in their heyday. Yet I felt, as I heard the time honoured words, that this was something we keep on hearing in our present experience.

So often we hear people wishing we could go back to what they thought were days of great value. It is a very current thought among some Muslim communities. Some countries have returned to the old values as they see them and it has not worked out as expected. You cannot turn the clock back and expect people to live as if their recent experience has never happened. It is an indelible mark they continue to wear and so there is no going back to a "golden age".

The Jews dreamed of a Messiah coming to save them and return to the golden age when David was king. This could never have happened. Is it any wonder they had problems in seeing Jesus as the promised Messiah? All of us think back to good old days and dream that if they came back to us we would be in clover. Not a chance. We have to be a resurrection community which looks forward to the possibilities if we could be born again.

What new things would we do if we were given a second chance? What could we put right if given a second chance? To go back to how thing were would be to put on a straight jacket and accept old values as best. But to leap into the future with a chance to improve what we had done wrong would be truly liberating. At the end of the second World War in the United Kingdom there was a new fresh wind blowing. New values came in with the "Welfare State" and all it meant. It is history now but at the time it was a resurrection of the nation so that a new world could be ushered in. That was the right way of thinking in those days and we should look for an emulation of this renaissance today.

To open our eyes and ears to what God might be calling for today is to be attentive to our calling as a resurrected community. So many simply want to fill our church pews and seats again. But what matters is not filling churches but the salvation of humankind. We need to be attentive to the needs of those to whom we would take the gospel of Jesus. There is a need to apply our thinking to the needs of others in order to bring about a revolution in Christianity. Revolution means turning around and this means to we Christians a march forward to the position in which people find themselves. Just as John Wesley, Isaac Watts and other field preachers went out to the people we must devise missions that amount to the same approach but with the 21st century in mind.

If you wish to win over the "Man in the street" go into the street because that is where he is. He will not come to church so the church must go to him. Go into any one of our historic village churches and city cathedrals and you will see nothing but history. Take the church to the people and you will see today. Where else would you expect the sheep Jesus told us about to be? The beautiful historic buildings with architectural charm are all well and good but they are irrelevant to the call to change from fishermen to shepherds. It is the church community that God is calling to feed sheep. Their buildings are just incidental to the work itself. When this penny drops we shall see a new revolution and revival in Christianity, but not before it occurs.