Today’s readings: Acts 2, 1-11; 1 Cor. 12, 3-7.12-13; John 20, 19-23.
Living behind closed doors was not what the Church was meant to be. The Spirit promised and given was to lead the Church out towards the whole truth, which at different points in time we mistook to be some form of doctrinal truth. The long trail of Councils that were all milestones for the Church, yet all provisional, confirm that the big truth is that the Church itself is ultimately a seeker. Being in the power of the Spirit makes of the Church an unending story.
Einstein once said “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge.” But imagination involves risk. If there were no courage, there could be no imagination. And if there were no risk, there could be no apostolic leadership, only priestly maintenance. It is a pity that we tend to imagine less and rest more on knowledge. Knowledge is always limited and limiting.
With all that the Apostles knew, they were locked inside and afraid. They could hardly imagine what was to become of them and of the Jesus project. If we stick to the liturgical timeframe, 50 days after Christ was risen the 12 apostles were with doors closed and still fearing the Jews. Fear and exclusivity are two lethal viruses that resurface periodically in the life of the Church.
Pentecost is courage and vision, it is openness and strength, it is the fire and love the Church is meant to bring to the world, respecting diversity, embracing the variety of gifts, and rekindling the prophecy of apostolic leadership. These are all traits we sadly lack if we look around and inside our churches. Our churches are stricken with bureaucracy, have put the institution before the people, the law before the Spirit, and have perennially substituted God worship with temple worship.
Today the Church is called to break through the locked doors of convention and expect no more to be left safe in its sacred enclosures. People of faith are never meant to be indoor plants. Just as on that first Pentecost, the Spirit today can make us venture to open spaces where people live, where people are busiest with life and hassled with anxieties.
On Pentecost day the Spirit was the catalyst for reconceptualising the mission of the Church, and this is what ultimately is asked of us today.
This is not the Spirit seen merely as upholding the institution or those in authority. It is the Spirit that wildly breaks through, that can bring estranged people closer, that can go beyond our constructs of separation whether they are language, race, religion, or sexual orientation.
All organisations go through what theorists call a life cycle from birth to death. A classic life cycle starts with a dream and ends with closure. When Martin Luther King Jr so compellingly articulated the vision of a better America in his legendary I Have a Dream speech, he was not articulating ideas that were particularly new to the people. Rather than just espousing a new vision, he was awakening their innate longing for justice and peace by giving that dream a vocabulary, legitimacy, and direction.
Creativity and innovation are today taken seriously as corporate resources for 21st-century companies. Similarly, aesthetics and design have become central aspects in facing new markets. Speaking of the Church, what is needed is more than just sharpening up our communication techniques to be more cool and relevant. The Church needs rebranding, if we want to break through the crust of a culture that may look so hard to impact.
At times we resemble more the indoor, mute, pre-Pentecost Church, rather than the one narrated in Acts. In Acts, there was a shift from apostolic cowardice to apostolic leadership. We may be at the end of an era, or at the beginning of a new one. The truth remains that maps no longer fit the new territories, and to make sense of it all, we are all called to be catalysts in the release of new spiritual creativity and innovation.