Preacher to Preacher

From Dan Copp
Clergy Development Director

The message of Pentecost is a profound one of promise and hope. Pentecost celebrates God’s continued redemptive presence and work in the world, as His Spirit dwells in and works through His missionary people. In celebrating Pentecost, we embrace anew who we are and Whose we are.

We live at the intersection of two kingdoms. We live in this world as expressions of “thy kingdom come.” We are citizens of the Kingdom of God engaged in the mission of God to redeem all creation, even as we are “aliens” or “exiles” in this fallen world.
As God’s missionary people we led very real lives as men and women, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors, employees and employers in the midst of the raging currents of today’s ever-present fallen nature. The promise of Pentecost breaks in with the declaration of our real citizenship and the promise of God’s provision through His Holy Spirit.

In Pentecost, we celebrate what it means to live in covenant with God and His people. In the imagery of Walter Brueggemann, proclaiming the message of Pentecost engages “exiles” in the “cadences of home.” As disciples of Jesus and citizens of heaven, we live here as missional “exiles.” The message of Pentecost resonates with us as cadences of home:

“the narration and nurture of a counteridentity, the enactment of the power of hope in a season of despair, and the assertion of a deep, definitional freedom from the pathologies, coercions and seductions that govern our society . . . the church identifying and redescribing this present place as the arena in which the rule of the creator-liberator God is working a wondrous newness” (Brueggemann, Cadences of Home).

In celebrating Pentecost, we affirm our status as “exiles” and we avail ourselves anew to the “cadences of home.” We embrace anew God’s mission to the world, and as His missionary people, we offer ourselves anew to the cleansing and provision of His Spirit as He empowers us to be His church.

I am pleased to commend the resources provided to you through this issue of Preacher’s Magazine and the supporting website www.preachersmagazine.org.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)