Five Minute Friday: Future

Last week I didn't play the last ever Five Minute Friday on Kate Motaung's Heading Home, but what better way to begin FMF on the new site dedicated exclusively to FMF than with the one word prompt Future? Thanks to Kate for containing as our gracious host!

Kate suggested we write our own futures rather than generic future-talk, so I'll FMF about the pentecostal flame I designed for the cover of our worship bulletin for this coming Sunday when we'll celebrate the Festival of Pentecost, sometimes known as the "Birthday of the Church."

In the church's year of grace we've experienced the astonishment of resurrection from the dead followed by fifty days of Easter—a week of weeks! For the past couple of Sundays we've backtracked in time to before Easter to Jesus' farewell discourse in the upper room of Maundy Thursday when he charges everyone to keep the commandments, especially his commandment to love one another with the same kind of agape love he showed us. We've heard and abided within (made it our own, as the gospel account we received from John's community would have it) Jesus' promise that we – that's us! – will do even "greater works" than he has done during his earthly ministry. We've talked about God's call to us to steward and care for all creation.

Since I've been preparing my adult SS class discussion for the upcoming Day of Pentecost and anticipate we'll continue the Contemporary Acts of the Apostles theme for at least the next few weeks, I'll remind everyone of the Risen Jesus' word to us that we will be his witnesses, we will receive the comfort and the activity of the indwelling Holy Spirit, so our earthly presence of the Crucified and Risen One and those "greater works" won't be from our own initiative, but will be fruit of the Holy Spirit of life that engulfs us in God's power of resurrection. In the Spirit of newness, God creates a future for all creation through us!

"We're coming to the edge, running on the water, coming through the fog, your sons and daughters. Let the river run, let all the dreamers wake the nation. Come, the New Jerusalem."

"Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Then I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem…" Revelation 21:1

Kate suggested writing our own futures onto the page; what's more central to a future for all us than a well-cared for, revitalized planet?