Menno Musings

Pentecost has arrived right in the middle of our Anabaptist Values series, which is perfect because the Holy Spirit was such an integral part of the life and faith of the early Anabaptists. Our reading for this Sunday focused on the beginning of the Pentecost event (Acts 2:1-21), and we discussed how the Holy Spirit invades from heaven, enabling and empowering a community, an other community.

There was a certain anarchy to this. Anabaptists had a high suspicion of hierarchic power structures, the economic practices of the world, and the violent means used to enforce these. Most Anabaptists, thus, never sought to enforce their own cultural expression, no matter how just they thought it was, but strove to be a prophetic counter-cultural political space that calls the “kingdoms of the world” to account for their own injustices.

The phrase “Jesus saves” can come with a lot of baggage, and for many it could signal an overly individualistic and restricted spiritual, inner reality. In fact, we are probably all too familiar with John 3:16 sign waving, and you may have been turned off by a street preacher or two telling you to believe right and get saved to avoid hell. However, what we find in the Bible and with Jesus is something more involved than just right belief and getting to heaven.

There are many lords in our world today whose only aim is to exploit resources, exploit people, accumulate stuff, money, power, control and they do this by sacrificing others in the name of freedom and national security.,, Paul tells the community that their unity and action is defined by the Lord who empties himself and gives himself for others.

This summer, we at Pasadena Mennonite Church will be going on a journey through some values that we have identified as “Anabaptist Values.” The goal of this series of sermons is to be spend some time reflecting on our tradition so that we might know ourselves better. Where have we come from? What tradition do we find ourselves in? How much do we (and don’t we) identify with this tradition? All of this is really an attempt for us to know our story and help us have a vision for who we are now and where we are going, our mission.