Worship
for the Lord’s Day
May 31,
2020
A Note
before we begin this day’s worship:
Today is Pentecost Sunday, often referred to
as the Birth of the Church. It is a day
that we generally encourage people to wear red when they come to church. I hope you remembered to wear something red
today, even though we can’t see you. The
visuals of the day are often associated with fire/flame, wind, and a dove. If you have a candle available, light
it. And if you have a fan, you might
want to turn it on as well. However, be
careful that the fan doesn’t blow out the flame or that it spatters any of the
wax onto something that you’d prefer remain clean. Having a dove nearby may be more difficult,
for sure. But imagine one flying through
the sanctuary and alighting on the communion table to rest.
Let’s
begin:
Opening
Prayer
Spirit
of wind and fire, come to us this day, freeing us from our fears. Lift us up when we have fallen. Dust us off and set us squarely on the path to
hope You have set before us. Remind us
that we are never far from Your presence. Get us ready for the great adventure and
opportunities that lie before us. Help
us be good and willing workers for You. In
Christ’s Name, we pray. AMEN.
Prayer
of Confession
Lord
of patience and persistence, we live in a broken and shattered world. All around us we see great evidence of hatred
and separation. We cannot help but
observe the alienation of Your people from each other. We create devices to separate rather than unite;
to divide rather than come together in hope. Forgive us for our sins. These sins cause such division and hurt. Remind us today that the disciples, too, lived
in a fearful world and that one day You came to them, as they sat huddled in
fear, and You empowered them. You gave
them hearts of courage and faith. Please
bring to us the same hearts that we may serve You well, bringing peace and hope
to our world. In the name of Christ, we
offer this prayer. AMEN
Words
of Assurance
People
of God, fear no more! The power of God’s
Holy Spirit has set us free from the prison of doubt and fear! Now is the time to shine with the light of
God’s love, given to you by Jesus Christ.
AMEN
Affirmation
of Faith – The Apostles’ Creed
I believe
in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ His
only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost; born of the Virgin
Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He
descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended
into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from
thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy
catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.
Pastoral
Prayer
Knock us off our seats, O Lord, with
the wind of Your Holy Spirit. Don’t let us just sit back and rest as though
nothing important was happening. Remind
us that You have come to bless and prepare us for Your service. Now is the time of proclamation and
celebration! Now is the birth of Your
church, not as an exercise in futility, but as a dynamic group of people who
know You and love You as You know and love each of us. Flame up our hearts! Make us so joyful that we find it difficult to
sit back and watch. We want to be part
of Your healing love and mercy. We want
to be people who bear the word that Your love for us is eternal; that Jesus
Christ, our Savior, proclaimed and taught that love in all that he did and
said, modeling for us a new way to live. Pick us up and propel us forward into Your
world. Help us remember that You have
given to us what we need to be Your disciples. We just need to say a resounding
"Yes!" to You. Thank You, Holy
God, for all the wondrous patience and blessings You pour into our lives each
and every day, as we offer our lives back to You in joy and hope. Hear the prayers of Your people as I lift my
own prayers up to You now….
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, forever.
AMEN.
This hymn
is played by a very talented pianist without anyone singing the words. I’ve included the words below. It can also be found as Hymn #319 in the Blue
Presbyterian Hymnal
Spirit,
Spirit of gentleness,
blow
through the wilderness calling and free,
Spirit,
Spirit of restlessness,
stir me
from placidness,
wind,
wind on the sea.
1 You
moved on the waters,
you
called to the deep,
then you
coaxed up the mountains
from the
valleys of sleep;
and over
the eons you called to each thing:
"Awake
from your slumbers
and rise
on your wings."
2 You
swept through the desert,
you stung
with the sand,
and you
goaded your people with a law and a land;
and when
they were blinded
with idols
and lies,
then you
spoke through your prophets
to open
their eyes.
3 You
sang in a stable,
you cried
from a hill,
then you
whispered in silence
when the
whole world was still;
and down
in the city
you
called once again,
when you
blew through your people
on the
rush of the wind.
4 You
call from tomorrow,
you break
ancient schemes.
From the
bondage of sorrow
all the
captives dream dreams;
our women
see visions,
our men
clear their eyes.
With bold
new decisions
your
people arise.
Scripture
Readings
Old
Testament: Psalm
104:24-34, 35b
24O Lord, how
manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of
your creatures.
25Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable
are there, living things both small and great.
26There go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport in
it.
27These all look to you to give them their food in due season;
28when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your
hand, they are filled with good things.
29When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away
their breath, they die and return to their dust.
30When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew
the face of the ground.
31May the glory of the Lord endure
forever; may the Lord rejoice
in his works—
32who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the
mountains and they smoke.
33I will sing to the Lord as
long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
34May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.
35Bless the Lord,
O my soul. Praise the Lord!
New
Testament: Acts
2:1-21
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in
one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a
violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided
tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of
them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak
in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
5Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living
in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because
each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7Amazed
and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking
Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native
language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea
and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia
and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors
from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11Cretans
and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of
power.” 12All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does
this mean?” 13But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”
14But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and
addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known
to you, and listen to what I say. 15Indeed,
these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the
morning. 16No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17‘In the
last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all
flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men
shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18Even
upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy. 19And I
will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and
fire, and smoky mist. 20The sun
shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the
Lord’s great and glorious day. 21Then
everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
From an
old Gaither gathering, with Ernie Haase and Babbie Mason
Sermon
– Pentecost
2020
Celebrating Pentecost is
different this year. While most of us
are disappointed at not being able to celebrate in person at church, this is an
opportunity to experience the work of the Holy Spirit in new ways, to think
about how the Holy Spirit can be manifest in our lives, now.
Pentecost in the Jewish
tradition was known as the Festival of Weeks. The Festival of Weeks occurred 50 days after
the Passover celebration. When the
disciples met for the Festival of Weeks and the Holy Spirit entered like a rush
of wind giving them the ability to speak different languages, the church was
born — and Pentecost – this harvest Festival of Weeks, took on a whole new
meaning.
Over the last couple of months,
we have experienced a similar distancing from one another and our own church
family that the disciples felt after Christ’s death. They
met secretly, in fear, in an upper room.
Meeting online, or over the phone, or simply reading the
news/meditations/worship is not the same as being together in the flesh! Yet, the Holy Spirit breathed new life and
purpose into the room where the disciples gathered, and it quickly spread far
beyond their dreams. On this Pentecost,
we too can experience the Holy Spirit breathing new life and purpose into us as
we figure out how to navigate what lies ahead.
Even though we have the Holy
Spirit as our Helper, we may feel like we do not know where or how to start. Fortunately, the Holy Spirit has given us
creative gifts. We are called to listen,
follow and faithfully pursue new ways to reach new people during this time. Having our physical buildings closed forces us
to work outside of those buildings, to learn new ways of worshipping and
sharing God with the world, and to receive and use the gifts of the Spirit in
ways we never before attempted nor imagined!
I think it has also caused us to wonder and to rethink who we are, as
the church, what our true ministry and mission is about, what voice to we have
to offer – not just for our own purposes, but for our neighborhoods, our
communities, our world.
If Pentecost is, as we
are fond of saying, the birthday of the Church, then what does it mean to be
the Church? Some, additional questions
we might explore: Is God using my strengths for the development of ministry/mission,
God’s kingdom? Is God using my
brokenness in helping others, in reaching out to others who are broken? How do we unearth and utilize one another’s
gifts? Churches and their groups and
service options are often geared toward “marathoners,” people who will sign up
for thirty-five-week studies or three-year weekly commitments – or a “lifetime
rotation” as an elder or a deacon. I’m a
“sprinter,” I get tired of doing the same thing over and over again. I like short commitments or at least,
changing things up from time to time. I’m
okay with risk and trying something new.
I’m also okay with saying goodbye to something that needs a rest. I think we’ve been handed an opportunity for
a reset. To critically look at what we’ve
been doing and changing things up.
Not surprisingly, in our culture, “difference”
feels threatening. But difference is
God’s good gift; difference is how we know God, not merely through the daunting
labor of reconciliation, but even just hearing God’s voice. I love Hans Urs von Balthasar’s wisdom in finding
and using one another’s gifts:
“We cannot find the dimensions of Christ’s
love other than in the community of the church, where the vocations and
charisms distributed by the Spirit are shared: each person must tell the others
what special knowledge of the Lord has been shown to him (her). For no one can tread simultaneously all the
paths of the love given to the saints: while one explores the heights, another
experiences the depths and a third the breadth. No one is alone under the banner of the
Spirit, the Son and the Father; only the whole Church is the Bride of Christ,
and that only as a vessel shaped by Him to receive His fullness”.
And this quote from Jean Vanier, “Jesus is
calling us to receive him so we may give life to those who are thirsty. Those who believe in Jesus become like him. Through their love, words and presence, they
transmit the Spirit they receive from Jesus. They will quench the thirst of the poor, the
lonely, the needy, those in pain and anguish and will give them life, love, and
peace of heart.”
This is the Church,
the one born at Pentecost, right?
The day of
Pentecost. Various churches have their
customs. In one of my churches, people
wore red dresses and jackets. In
another, they hung striking bright yellow and red streamers from the
ceiling. At another church I served, we
had these swirly things with colorful streamers everyone waved at the mention
of the Spirit. What memories do you have
of Pentecost at church?
Mainline Protestants,
like us Presbyterians, love Pentecost, but suffer a kind of inarticulate
reticence about studying the Holy Spirit.
For me, I’ve heard so much pious chatter in my lifetime about who’s got
the Spirit (and thus who doesn’t), where the Spirit is (and thus isn’t),
powerful emotional experiences that feel culturally forced in that particular religious
movement rather than a surprising gift and movement of the Holy Spirit – so
then, perhaps in the way Protestants have barely spoken of Mary in order not to
be Catholic, we’ve also shied away from speaking too much about the Holy Spirit
so as not to be confused with the emotional connection that dominates so much
of Evangelical or Pentecostal religiosity.
In one commentary I read, it was shrewdly
suggested that the Holy Spirit is the “shy member of the Trinity,” preferring
to stay backstage, deferring to the glory of Jesus and the Father. Even on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit
doesn’t make a grand, personal appearance.
Onlookers wonder; Is it the wind? Too much whisky early in the day? Is there fire on their heads? Rather, it’s the people of God, the receivers
of this Spirit, who take center stage, their hair tussled and singed,
staggering a little, bolting out into the street, talking a mile a minute.
In the Gospel account
of Jesus speaking about the Holy Spirit, Jesus suggests that things will be
even better for the disciples once he's gone and the Spirit comes! But then the Spirit's business isn't a
starring role at all. The Spirit is
deferential, glorifying the Father and the Son, like the stage director you
never see but who makes the show unfold and keeps the stars in the bright
lights, looking good.
The disciples
catapulted onto the streets and astonishingly, they were understood by pilgrims
from all over the place, in all those languages birthed at the Tower of Babel
so many years ago. I love rattling off
(and each year I practice ahead of time) the list of peoples present in
Jerusalem (Acts 2:9-11) – from nearly everywhere. For once, there isn’t confusion or
separation, but understanding and unity!
Maybe that’s what the Spirit did that day. Not only about the disciples talking in the
languages of all the pilgrims there, but the idea that the disciples, now
Pentecost people, God’s Spirit-empowered church, found the “language” to speak
to the people out there. No more church
jargon, and certainly no smug, judgmental declarations. Maybe it was just talking plainly about God’s
love and mercy so that everyone could truly hear it and believe it. How do we talk about the best news ever to
people who hear nothing but awful news and a jaded and cynical one?
I also love it that
Pentecost was the celebration of a harvest.
The Spirit, while you were sleeping, caused things to grow – and we
humbly give thanks to God for the fruit of the earth. Do you garden? Or do you know someone who farms? What about the idea that the Spirit is moving
over the fields/the gardens/the harvest rather than moving over the
waters. What power is it to know that
the Spirit is in our growing things? And
what about the idea that the Spirit is in OUR growing? That the Spirit moves over us and helps us
grow just as miraculously, silently, and mysteriously?
At Pentecost, the
Spirit rushed, not on this or that individual, but on the Church, on the
Body. It’s the church that is birthed,
not a gaggle of solo Christians who happen to be near one another on Pentecost.
The Spirit’s work wasn’t about coming to
individuals. It was about coming to the
whole body of the Church. It’s about us,
together and the work that we do, the voice that we share, the stance that we
make, the gospel at work in us manifested in who we are.
In Acts 2, it is
intriguing that salvation comes to – whom?
“Whoever calls on the name of the Lord” (2:21). Not a set of dogmas or even behaviors, but a
crying out, a plea, a calling on the Lord for help. I love that.
Whom else would such a God save? Peter
was empowered to preach that day in the city square – not in a synagogue or a church. Peter preached in the open air, and the
disciples scattered to offer words of comfort, kindness, understanding; to
answer questions and to baptize those new believers. But, it wasn’t just good preaching that
brought new life to the church, it was the lifestyle that flawlessly and
compellingly mirrored the vision. Read
Acts 2:42-47 and you’ll understand why the preaching worked – and perhaps some
of why ours doesn’t. A radical life of
devotion, breaking bread, prayer, sharing possessions in common, insuring there
was no needy person. How far have we
come from that central belief, wrapped up in our Christian American culture? In today’s political climate it is unpopular
to speak of caring for the poor or (perhaps worse) for the oppressed; just
think about the past few days. And what
voice has “The Church” spoken about such things, let alone what have we done
about them? Not much. Who are we, if we refuse to stand up for the life
of another? Who are we, if we have no
voice for the voiceless? We are
nothing. It is time that the Holy Spirit
empower us to find our voice again for understanding, for truth, for
mercy. Have we actively nurtured the
gifts of the Spirit in our words, in our actions, in our lives?
If you read Paul’s letters
to each church that he helped build, this Holy Spirit does amazing, tender,
desperately needed work in each Christian's soul. He speaks of the Spirit groaning within us,
helping us in our weakness, sighing in us when we are clueless how or what to
pray. Wow. "Breathe on me, breath of God" -
please, and now. "Spirit of God,
descend upon my heart; wean it from earth; through all its pulses move. Stoop to my weakness, mighty as Thou art, and
make me love Thee as I ought to love."
And to close, “Spirit, spirit of gentleness, Blow through the wilderness,
calling and free, Spirit, Spirit of restlessness, stir me from placidness,
Wind, wind on the sea. You call from
tomorrow, You break ancient schemes, From the bondage of sorrow the captives
dream dreams; Our women see visions, Our men clear their eyes. With bold new decisions Your people arise.”
Awake and Rise up,
people of God, in the power of the Holy Spirit!
Benediction
Go forth into
the world as God’s own children, in the joy of the Spirit. Feel the power of the holy wind and fire in
your lives. Be emboldened and encouraged
by this power! AMEN
