This past week has been a significant one in our Australian national calendar: Reconciliation Week. This year there have been a number of important anniversaries as part of this, including 20 years since the “Bringing Them Home Report” on the Stolen Generation was tabled in federal parliament, 25 years since the High Court’s “Mabo” decision on native title, and 50 years since the referendum which gave indigenous Australians basic citizenship rights.

I’ve found it helpful to take various opportunities this week to listen to and learn from my Aboriginal brothers and sisters. And in particular, to listen to their voices on what Reconciliation Week means going forward. We don’t mark these dates simply to remember the past; we mark them to acknowledge that this is our story and to ask what it looks like to live out of that story on into the future. How does it shape us and how will it change us?

These cannot just remain dates on the calendar. They need to lead to action.

I think the church calendar works in a similar way. For two thousand years, Christians around the world have marked various dates throughout the year to remember and re-tell key events from the life of Jesus, not just to celebrate or remember what happened on those dates, but to say that this is the story out of which we live and to ask how these particular events shape and transform us. As a Baptist, I have usually only celebrated the main ones of these such as December 25, the Friday before the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox (otherwise known as Good Friday) and Easter. But there are other parts of the story that continue to shape how I live.

This year I have had the privilege of preaching on both Ascension (last week) and Pentecost (this Sunday). I have been challenged by the life-altering, world-changing consequences of what happened on these days. I have proclaimed the truths I believe that the man Jesus Christ has been crowned as the reigning King over all creation and that the Holy Spirit has been poured out on women and men, Gentiles and Jews, young and old, in order to invite us into the very life of God and to empower us to live out His character and commands here and now.

These truths cannot just remain dates on my calendar. They are the radical reframing of reality in which I choose to live. They change my perspective on who God is, on who I am, and on how the world works. The story they tell must shape the way I live and engage with others.

After Pentecost, the church calendar now enters a new season, its longest season, often called Ordinary Time.

Ordinary Time is a reminder that the big moments and occasions we celebrate are lived out in the reality of our day to day lives. Whether it is our national story or our faith story, the challenge is to step into our everyday moments and encounters with transformed purpose and renewed commitment that comes from the fact that we live out of these stories, not just with gratefulness for the events they remember but with hope and anticipation for the renewed future they envisage.