I was reading some comments by contemporary theologian Walter Brueggemann (contributing editor to \u2018Sojouner\u2019) regarding the season of Pentecost and the collection of lectionary readings. He makes these comments firstly of the church
\n\u2026. \u201cIt is not an institution, but rather a community of folk who are propelled by God\u2019s own spirit, situated in Jesus\u2019 own narrative, and alive in the world in alternative ways.\u201d
\nIn making these comments Brueggemann is not only making comment on the nature of the early church situated around Jesus human incarnation some 2000 years ago but also and as importantly he is making comment on the nature of the church we need to live in today. Where community stands over against institution – where we are propelled not by regulation or fear but by God\u2019s own Spirit. The church first and foremost lives in Jesus \u2013 finds its reason for being in Jesus and bears witness to Jesus.\u00a0 Because it is situated in Jesus, it is alive, and powerfully propelled by the Spirit it must, by its very nature, present an alternative life giving\u00a0 possibility to the world.<\/p>\n
Brueggemann goes on to say that\u00a0 \u201cPentecost is a time to reimagine and re-enact the church as a movement that is unrestrained by old patterns or by the rule of fearful authorities.\u201d Being \u2018situated\u2019 in Jesus and powerfully \u2018propelled by the Spirit\u2019 led the church under the apostle Paul\u2019s leadership to \u2018freedom\u2019 (cf Galatians).\u00a0 Freedom from business as usual.<\/p>\n
Folks our church needs to find itself in this same place \u2013 not just for the sake of the preservation of the church as we know it but for the sake of a society that \u2018is in deep need of folk who have energy beyond business as usual.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was reading some comments by contemporary theologian Walter Brueggemann (contributing editor to \u2018Sojouner\u2019) regarding the season of Pentecost and the collection of lectionary readings. He makes these comments firstly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,35,76,71,87,88,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-good-news","category-honour","category-hope","category-kingdom","category-pentecost","category-spirit","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9978"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9981,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9978\/revisions\/9981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}