Three big “events” fill my awareness, right now – Pentecost, the World Cup, and Synod (in no particular order!); and I find myself wondering what, if anything, they might have to do with each other?
Given the way in which Pentecost is often described as “the birth of the church”, it is easy to make links between this Feast and Synod, which our Bishop has recently described as a place where we will “listen, share and pray together, in order to give spiritual and missional leadership to the District”. I really do hope that his description will be accurate; but I also know how very human we who go to these meetings are! As I prepare for Synod, I am deeply aware that the church faces very significant challenges right now, and we need all the help we can get, to avoid simply being a “talk shop”! Please will you pray for us, that we will be able to receive and respond to the guidance of God’s Spirit, in this coming week?
But where does the World Cup fit into my musings, then? I wonder whether you, too, feel like it often forces itself into our thinking and speaking, regardless of whether it “fits”, or not (it even takes a prominent place on the Synod agenda!)? This much struck me, over the past week, however –
Consider the billions of rands, and the hundreds of thousands of work hours, and the energy and creativity has been invested … to host a (granted, important) sporting event. And think of the enormous costs that spectators will gladly incur, just to be part of it all. My mind boggles at the magnitude of it all!
Much good has already come from our hosting of the World Cup – in job creation, and in development of our infrastructure; perhaps even in helping us rediscover a sense of national pride … But I cannot help comparing that investment with what the church puts into the coming Kingdom of God (surely, an even more important event?); and feeling that somehow, we come up lacking. Am I being too harsh?
Rod
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