So, I was very happy at a recent Virginia Mennonite Conference delegate assembly when we affirmed the work of the Peace Committee (led by Nicholas Detweiler-Stoddard and Spencer Bradford) to print anti-war ads in our local newspapers.

I have to admit, this sort of thing makes me proud to be a Mennonite.

For those outside the Mennonite community, you should know that the Virginia Mennonite Conference is one of the more conservative conferences in our denomination (MCUSA). For Mennonites, however, to be conservative about the tradition is to be clear about our historic position of peace. Our Mennonite conference takes seriously our mission to conserve the church’s tradition of proclaiming the peace of Christ.

From the window of the nursery I can see the cemetery that stretches across the hill alongside the church — a field planted with rectangular stones to mark the graves of the faithful: Stauffer, Newcomer, Reiff, Funk. A couple of centuries of weather have made the older headstones undecipherable. Mennonites settled here along the Beaver Creek in the middle of the 18th century. I imagine some of the jagged and blackened gravestones honor the dead from those years. The life of this church rests on the foundations laid by those who now populate the field of graves. “We are born of the dead,” Robert Pogue Harrison writes in his book The Dominion of the Dead, “of the worlds they brought into being.” We are clothed with the faithfulness of the past: cherished histories and memories, cultures and traditions that invite us to a fresh experience of the same old gos­pel. Anabaptism is not a set of disembodied principles or core convictions. It is the legacy of the dead handed down to us in real places, through particular congregations and specific people.

I also preached a sermon about Mt. Zion: Life of the Dead.

But last Sunday I was back at church in Chapel Hill and got to preach. Much of my sermon was a reflection on a Mennonite church I visited in Boonsboro, Maryland—Mt. Zion Mennonite Church. They have a beautiful cemetery next to the church building. The way the building grows up from the graveyard made me think about how the dead live on through us. As Walt Whitman put it, Grass is the uncut hair of the graves. Likewise, church is the uncut hair of the great cloud of witnesses. I should also say that Robert Pogue Harrison’s book, The Dominion of the Dead, has been extremely helpful in thinking through all of this.

Here’s an excerpt from my sermon:

We need the dead, but the dead also need us. That’s what so interesting to me about this passage from Hebrews. This is from verse 39: “Yet all of these…did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect” (11:39). They would not, apart from us, be made perfect. I don’t know if the word “perfect” is the best translation of the Greek word there. The root of the word, in Greek, is telos—and it means something like “to bring to an end, to complete, to finish.” Basically, the point is that the dead have not been brought to an end. They continue on. Their lives have not been completed. They are not finished. The dead have been waiting for us, that we may complete each other, that we may finish the work together.

The Bible study before the Sunday morning worship service of Iglesia Menonita Luz del Evangelio turns into a passionate sermon.

A discussion of the story of Esther becomes a call to live as the pueblo de Dios amid forces that seek to destroy the church.

Haman, the villain in Esther’s story, becomes a name for political leaders and immigration enforcement agents who sever the body of Christ by taking away “los hermanos y hermanas del pueblo que no tienen papeles” — brothers and sisters who are undocumented residents.

But, like the Jews in the story of Esther, “tenemos que orar“ — we need to pray because some demons require prayer and fasting. Yet no matter what happens, the pueblo of God can have faith. “Porque tenemos un abogado en el cielo, a la diestra del Padre” — we trust in Jesus Christ, our heavenly immigration attorney, arguing on our behalf, defending our citizenship in the pueblo of God.

Among the various metaphors for describing the saving work of Jesus, we now have another: our Lord the immigration attorney, “el Abogado en el cielo.”

Part of what I want to do in my sermon today is share with you what I experienced at that church. But this isn’t just a report about my travels. It’s a message about the gospel, it’s a sermon about the good news expressed through that Hispanic Mennonite congregation on the outskirts of south Dallas. Every church is a place where the gospel is communicated—that’s obvious. But I want us to think about how the gospel is spoken through the body language of the church—through the movements of the body of Christ, the way people get together and worship God and offer their lives as a blessing for the world. The gospel is a bodily reality; it’s a way of life. And the church is the body language of God. We share the Holy Spirit with the world through worship and fellowship, through sharing our lives.

I believe in the Holy Spirit

“Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind” (Acts 2:2). Pentecost happened with a bang. Heaven came down to earth and blew through the room. This heavenly wind “filled the entire house where they were sitting” (v. 2).

While all of this is very exciting, the story dances on the edge of danger: “Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them” (v. 3). God’s fire isn’t something to be messed with. Remember what happened to Sodom! The people were inhospitable to strangers, to three foreigners, and God consumed the city with fire from heaven (Gen. 19).

That same fire came again at Pentecost: God’s fire, spectacular flames from heaven. Exhilaration filled the room and poured out into the streets. This wasn’t the first time divine fire excited the disciples. In Luke 9, Jesus and the disciples tried to pass through a Samaritan village. But the villagers refused. In response to their lack of hospitality, James and John asked Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven to consume the people (Lk. 9:54)—just like Sodom and Gomorrah. The disciples wanted to use God’s heavenly fire to punish the Samaritans, but Jesus rebuked them. God’s fire is dangerous; Jesus won’t let the disciples use it.

On Pentecost these same flames came down from heaven, but this time God’s fire didn’t destroy anything. The fire didn’t punish inhospitable people. Instead, the divine flames created the church—a group of people set ablaze with God’s spirit of hospitality. With the fire came the Holy Spirit who enabled the disciples to speak in different languages. Visitors from all over the world heard the invitation of the gospel in their own languages. The author of Acts lists all the peoples and languages in order to display the expansiveness of the Spirit’s invitation: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, Rome… everyone, Jews and Gentiles (Acts 2:9-11). Everyone is invited to join this movement of God. And that’s basically Peter’s interpretation of the Pentecostal event when he quotes the prophet Joel: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh”—notice how Joel says all flesh (v. 17). And we find the same emphasis at the end of Peter’s quotation of Joel: “Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”—again, notice how Joel says everyone (v. 21).

The Spirit of God led the followers of Jesus into a mode of communication that opened them up to everyone, to different people and different languages. Pentecost was a communication miracle. And the point of the miracle was an invitation. The Holy Spirit did not descend with power in order to provide a thrilling experience that came and went. Rather, the Spirit came with fire and enabled the followers to speak in different tongues so that everyone could hear the invitation of the gospel and join the fellowship of Christ. Pentecost was the miracle of communication that led to the miracle of communion: people came together, foreigners became family, strangers became friends.

Peter’s impromptu sermon for Pentecost bore profound fruit: “So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers…. All who believed were together and had all things in common…. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts” (2:41-46).

Speaking in tongues was only the beginning. Complete strangers started to hang out together. They devoted themselves to fellowship, to being with one another. People opened their homes for grassroots worship services—breaking bread, talking about Jesus, and praying. And they shared their property with anyone who was in need. The miracle of communication that happened on Pentecost birthed a miracle of communion. Yes, the rhythm of communion was a miracle because coming together always stretches us beyond our limits. Tensions quickly arise if we stay with the same group of people long enough. It’s usually easier to leave one table and find another where those frictions don’t exist—yet we quickly find news quarrels to take the place of the old! But we hear in Acts that the first church regularly ate and worshiped together, probably daily (v. 46)—they were committed to table fellowship. The Spirit of Pentecost formed communities of faithful fellowship, a way of life characterized by rhythms of eating and praying together, despite the tensions. Fidelity to the movement of the Spirit meant fidelity to gathering around the same tables, day after day, week after week, year after year.

Theologians like to come up with what they call “marks of the church.” They narrow down all of the things that go on at church and come up with a few essentials. Different churches have different lists. If I were to pretend to be a theologian and come up with the two most important marks of the church according to Acts 2, they would have to be prayer and food preparation. The church needs people who are always learning how to pray and always coming up with new recipes for good food to share. Church life is very much an earthy spirituality: make food and eat it with people, and pray about what’s going on in your life.

To remember Pentecost is to remember that heaven has come to earth, that Jesus is here, that the Spirit is on the move. To believe in the Holy Spirit is to rest into God’s heavenly presence at our tables of fellowship, and to let God transform the world through our earthy spirituality. We invite others to join us in prayer, which is how we learn the intimate language of God. And we make meals and commune together, which is how we let the Spirit weave our bodies together into the body of Christ. Praying and eating—these rhythms are the ongoing movement of the Holy Spirit, re-forming us into what we shall be: the beloved community of God, resting in God’s presence for eternity, eating at the heavenly banquet table. We eat and pray today with the same people we will eat and pray with for eternity. It’s the same banquet with the same host—Jesus Christ.

I grew up with a version of Christianity that talked about faith as if it was something that happened primarily in my head, a decision I made in my mind. It was very theoretical and rational—a faith for the intellect. But the story of Pentecost displays a kind of Christian belief and spirituality that happens to the whole body. For the disciples gathered in the upper room, their minds followed their feet. The mission of the Spirit played out in their bodies as they ran out the door and into the streets to share good news in languages that their minds did not comprehend. Pentecost happened to their bodies, not just a part of their heads or their hearts.

Faith in the Spirit of God involves everything we are and all that we have. Faith happens to us as we make food and eat together, as we break bread and share a cup, as we talk about Jesus and pray for one another, and as we come back to the table even after being offended. Faith happens to us when we let strangers who’ve heard the good news invade our houses of worship, disrupt any order we’ve established, and then invite them to come back the next time we meet! That is the shape of our faith: to let the rhythm of the Spirit take control, to reassemble as the body of Christ gathered around the table, because our house of worship is where God nourishes our souls, because this mess is what salvation feels like and what the heavenly banquet looks like. Pentecost is a vision of eternal life.

We are not a bunch of rationalists who believe that what’s in our heads will save us. Instead, we believe in a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, God’s love made flesh in our midst. And to believe in this saving relationship is to let our minds follow our feet; we have to lean into this relationship, to slowly and patiently live into it, to let the rhythm of the Spirit move us into communion.

The story of Pentecost begins and ends with followers of Jesus assembled together, waiting… And the Spirit does come, and continues to arrive, bringing foreigners and strangers to eat and pray at our houses of worship. So we find more chairs, find some more bread, pull out a few more cups, and hand out more hymnals—and fix up a new recipe from More-with-Less. Nothing happens as we planned. It’s a mess. But that’s how it goes for people who hope for the Spirit of Pentecost.

God is present through the ordinary life of our congregations. The life of God pulses through the body of Christ, flowing through us and with us. Congregational life ushers in the presence of God’s eternal love for the world.

This column will be a series of scenes from God’s mission among rural and urban congregations, wealthy and poor, young and old, recent church plants and historic congregations.

I hope to see Christ’s love made flesh in the diversity of his many members. I hope to see the features of God’s face in the sisters and brothers of the Mennonite family.

But my favorite detail of John’s story comes a few verses later, when they pull their nets ashore to be with Jesus: “So Simon Peter…hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, one hundred fifty-three of them” (v. 11). 153. Not “about a hundred,” or even—if he wanted to be more exact—“around 150 fish.” 153. The exact count mattered. Every last fish. The best reading of this detail in the story doesn’t come from the commentaries out there. As far as I’m concerned, David James Duncan has the best reading of this story. It’s in this novel here, The River Why—it’s a book about fishing. Let me read the part where he talks about the 153 fish in John’s Gospel:

“This is, it seems to me, one of the most remarkable statistics ever computed. Consider the circumstances: this is after the Crucifixion and the Resurrection; Jesus is standing on the beach newly risen from the dead, and it is only the third time the disciples have seen him since the nightmare of Calvary. And yet we learn that [the fish numbered precisely 153]…. How was this digit discovered? Mustn’t it have happened thus: upon hauling the net to shore, the disciples squatted down by that immense, writhing fish pile and started tossing them into a second pile, painstakingly counting ‘one, two, three, four, five, six, seven…’ all the way up to a hundred and fifty and three, while the newly risen Lord of Creation, the Sustainer of their beings, He who died for them and for Whom they would gladly die, stood waiting, ignored, till the heap of fish was quantified. Such is the fisherman’s compulsion toward rudimentary mathematics!” (14-15)

Robin died of pneumonia in the woods behind Wal-Mart. She lived in the forest for the past decade, but it wouldn’t be exactly true to say that she was homeless. She called the forest her home. She turned the woods into her dwelling by hanging pictures of her family on the trees surrounding her cozy tent…

Easter becomes a verb: the presence of Christ in us, making us anew, turning us into good news for the world, converting us into a presence of forgiveness—of joy and delight, as God says today in our passage from Isaiah: “I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people” (Isa 65:18-19).

When Christ easters in us, we become a reason for joy and delight, we share in offering God’s joy and delight in the world. But first comes the transformation of forgiveness, which may seem like the death of us. Let me explain. We hold grudges. We dislike some people. We keep a list of wrongs—someone who has sinned against us, or a certain class of people who we think is responsible for the injustices in our lives or the world. We order our world with these lists—the good people in this column, the bad people in that one. And these lists help us make sense of the world—we use them for telling the stories of history, our family history, our country’s history, our personal history, any kind of story. We can’t help but think about our world and our lives in terms of us against them, the good over here and the bad over there, enemies and friends, republicans and democrats, the working-class and the wealthy, Duke fans and UNC fans… the list can go on, depending on what you care about and who you care about and who you could care less about.

This is why forgiveness can feel like the unraveling of our lives. Letting our selves be transformed into Christ’s presence of forgiveness can feel like the end of our world, of everything we know, the death of our ego. Letting the risen Jesus easter in us means death to the old, to our familiar life, to the way things used to be, how we used to make sense of the world—of figuring out who are our friends and who are our enemies, of categorizing people according to our preconceptions.

Forgiveness means the end of competition, the end of rivalry, the end of a zero-some game where someone has to lose so you can win. Jesus comes back to forgive his enemies, not to plot their demise and his victory. Easter is not a victory over enemies, but an invitation to forgive, to let go of everything that holds us back from the embrace of reconciliation. To let forgiveness take its hold in our lives, to let Christ’s forgiveness work itself out in our lives.

For the rest of it, follow this link to my church webpage: “Easter in us”