Week after Pentecost

Around the nation, preachers lit fires under congregations in remembrance of the day of Pentecost. Most of those fires were extinguished by the gluttonous, after church lunching. This is not the fault of the preacher. What happens between the hearing of the sermon and the emerging back into the world after?

Marva J. Dawn points out that in our information age, truth is a novelty, something to be accumulated. Like most consumer goods, information is sought after voraciously, but once obtained, it is shelved. It seems we want the facts, we want the truth, but we get so much of it that we are numb to the call it places on our lives. Cigarette and alcohol adds are equally ineffective for the same reasons. People like the information, but are incapable of seeing the action they should take in response to it.

How does the preacher break out of this black hole our culture has created? This certainly is an enormous task as many preachers and teachers become disheartened early on at the great response to a sermon or teaching, but a lack of change in lifestyles.

So it falls to the Spirit. We can only be faithful to the Spirit leading in our lives, and pray fervently that the Spirit works just as powerfully in the congregations.