For the week of June 8 - Pentecost Sunday
Morning Prayer: Living God, You have created all that is. Send forth Your Spirit to renew and restore us, that we may proclaim Your good news in ways and words that all will understand and believe. Amen. (Lectionary Prayers)
Opening Hymn: #61 Come, Thou Almighty King
- Come, Thou almighty King, help us Thy name to sing, help us to praise!
Father all glorious, o'er all victorious, come and reign over us, Ancient of Days! - Come, Thou incarnate Word, gird on Thy mighty sword, our prayer attend!
Come, and Thy people bless, and give Thy word success,
Spirit of holiness, on us descend!
- Come, holy Comforter, Thy sacred witness bear in this glad hour.
Thou who almighty art, now rule in every heart, and ne'er from us depart,
Spirit of power!
- To Thee, great One in Three, eternal praises be, hence, evermore.
Thy sovereign majesty may we in glory see, and to eternity love and adore!
Romans 8L14-17 (CEB)
14 All who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons and daughters. 15 You didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to lead you back again into fear, but you received a Spirit that shows you are adopted as His children. With this Spirit, we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The same Spirit agrees with our spirit, that we are God’s children. 17 But if we are children, we are also heirs. We are God’s heirs and fellow heirs with Christ, if we really suffer with Him so that we can also be glorified with Him.
Prayers of Intercession: Thank You, Lord, for hearing our prayers for those dear to our hearts. We now pray as You have taught us: 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, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us, not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Offering spotlight: Thank you for giving so that we can invite children into our facilities for a week of fun and faith, showing them how important Jesus Christ is to us. We look forward with hope that this neighborhood will always look at this church as a beacon of hope and love, with faith in Jesus Christ.
Offering prayer: Gracious God, breath of life and movement of all creation, we bring these gifts today as signs of our faith and our hope in Your Spirit’s work among us. As You did on Pentecost, pour out Your Spirit anew, leading us to speak words of welcome and love across every boundary. May these offerings support ministries that cross divides and embody the hospitality of Christ. Open our eyes to see Your deeds of power and to follow where Your Spirit sends. In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen. (Discipleship Ministries)
Hymn of Preparation: #420 Breathe on Me, Breath of God
- Breathe on me, Breath of God, fill me with life anew,
that I may love what Thou dost love, and do what Thou wouldst do. - Breathe on me, Breath of God, until my heart is pure,
until with Thee I will one will, to do and to endure. - Breathe on me, Breath of God, till I am wholly Thine,
till all this earthly part of me glows with Thy fire divine. - Breathe on me, Breath of God, so shall I never die,
but live with Thee the perfect life of Thine eternity.
Scripture: Acts 2:1-7, 12-21
2 When Pentecost Day arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound from heaven like the howling of a fierce wind filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each one of them. 4 They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak.
5 There were pious Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd gathered. They were mystified because everyone heard them speaking in their native languages. 7 They were surprised and amazed, saying, “Look, aren’t all the people who are speaking Galileans, every one of them?
12 They were all surprised and bewildered. Some asked each other, “What does this mean?” 13 Others jeered at them, saying, “They’re full of new wine!”
14 Peter stood with the other eleven apostles. He raised his voice and declared, “Judeans and everyone living in Jerusalem! Know this! Listen carefully to my words! 15 These people aren’t drunk, as you suspect; after all, it’s only nine o’clock in the morning! 16 Rather, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
17 In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your young will see visions.
Your elders will dream dreams.
18 Even upon my servants, men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.
19 I will cause wonders to occur in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and a cloud of smoke.
20 The sun will be changed into darkness,
and the moon will be changed into blood,
before the great and spectacular day of the Lord comes.
21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.[a]
Affirm your faith by reciting 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 Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontus Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; the third day He rose from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at 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 Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
Message: Pastor Becky
Pentecost is the fulfillment of the Trinity. We have had access to the Father in God, Jesus the Son and now a full outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit has always been at work. God’s creating and sustaining power has always been with us.
We hear of it at work in the beginning work in the origins of Creation. We hear it described as God’s breath, God’s wind as it swept over the waters, making order out of chaos (Genesis 1:2).
At Jesus’s baptism, the Holy Spirit descends like a dove. Mark records it in his gospel chapter 1 verse 10: “While He (Jesus) was coming up out of the water, Jesus saw heaven splitting open and the Spirit, like a dove, coming down on Him.”
We are familiar with the Holy Spirit, we have our very existence rooted in it as believers in Jesus Christ. We look to the promise for the disciples and we claim the fulfillment for ourselves.
Yet, that familiarity can work against us, because we think we know what happened. But, we neglect what it did then as it does now. The Holy Spirit is disturbing the ordinary.
In order to combat this idea that we think we know, let’s hear the account as interpreted in Eugene Peterson’s The Message:
When the Feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force—no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks, and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them.
There were many Jews staying in Jerusalem just then, devout pilgrims from all over the world. When they heard the sound, they came on the run. Then when they heard, one after another, their own mother tongues being spoken, they were blown away. They couldn’t for the life of them figure out what was going on, and kept saying, “Aren’t these all Galileans? How come we’re hearing them talk in our various mother tongues?
A gale force wind? Wildfire? The unleashing of the Holy Spirit caused a commotion! The disciples are inside, set apart and the noise is so intense! It drew a crowd because those on the outside heard it and came looking for its source.
The Holy Spirit attracted attention from the outside while it equipped those on the inside. Hear that again, the Holy Spirit attracted attention from the outside while it equipped those on the inside.
The Holy Spirit brought the crowd to the disciples and equipped those disciples to tell the message of Jesus to those coming. The Holy Spirit gave the disciples the ability to speak to those in the community. They were given the gift of languages because that was what the disciples needed to be able to tell the Jesus story. They would need to tell the immigrants to Jerusalem, those that came there to be closer to the heart of Judaism. They would need to tell it to the pilgrims in the city (remembering this was the only acceptable Temple for offerings and sacrifices). The Jews are far flung across the known world due to wars with the surrounding countries, those caught up in the exiles (think Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon). They would need to be able to speak to the enslaved in the city with their “owners”. Jesus proclaimed His message of liberation and this liberation was also to be spoken into the lives of all.
The Holy Spirit equipped them to reach their community.
Often, I preach/teach for you to have an understanding of what the Trinity does for us. I look to the personal/individual all with the hope of igniting and reconnecting you with your worth. The world and the folks in it, especially folks close to us, can chip away or cause us to neglect our sense of self. Those around us may not recognize our gifts and graces. May not see you as the gift from God you are. We need reminding for our faithful witness.
There are times I try to lift up how all these truths of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit form the basis of what we are asked to do for the world, for our community. My hope, my desire is that we can balance the two. The personal and communal effects of being in relationship with the Triune God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In balance, our lives are changed and so is the community around us.
Maybe for too long, we have grasped our belief too closely, placed our faith in a box that we aren’t looking to open until our death. There are times our faith is only focused on where we are going to go when we die. The problem is that while we are waiting to die to cash in on our faith, people are literally dying around us because we aren’t living in faith but waiting.
We can point to a great cloud of witnesses to the building of faith in community. In our hearts we name them, their faith lives on in us, their vision and God’s will have brought us to this day.
And now we have a choice to make: Do we continue like we are or Do we pray for the Holy Spirit to cause a commotion again? Our community is looking to us to decide so all can live. Amen
Closing Hymn: #393 Spirit of the Living God
Spirit of the living God, fall a-fresh on me. Spirit of the living God, fall a-fresh on me.
Melt me. Mold me. Fill me. Use me. Spirit of the living God, fall a-fresh on me.
The blessing: May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face shine upon you this week.
