31st May 2020 Service.

Pentecost

Call to Worship

Breathe upon us, Holy Spirit,
and inspire our thoughts and actions.

Stir in our hearts, Holy Spirit,
and fill us with energy to spread joy in the world.

Strengthen us, Holy Spirit,
and move us to bring hope to those in despair.

Breathe within us, Holy Spirit,
as we worship and witness to God’s coming reign.

The Collect for today

Almighty God, on this day you opened the way of eternal life to every race and nation by the promised gift of your Holy Spirit: Shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Prayer of Adoration and Confession

Loving God,
Compassionate Son,
Healing Spirit,
with tender kindness you transform our lives with your presence.
You turn weeping into laughter, sorrow into joy, and death into life.
We come in adoration this day and pause to worship you.
We rest from our work and responsibilities.
We lay aside everything that distracts us along with our usual activities
to praise you again for the beauty that fills your world
and to enjoy our life in you.

Holy One, Source of our lives,
we confess that we have not always listened for your Spirit’s call.
You call us to love our enemies, but we hold onto grudges and nourish animosities.
You call us to unity in the body of Christ, but we remain divided.
You send us into the world to be witnesses,
but we avoid opportunities to share our joy in Christ.
Loving God, you know us better than we know ourselves.
Hear us as we share with you the secrets of our hearts in this silence:

Assurance of Pardon

Friends, hear and believe the good news of the Gospel! In Jesus Christ, God’s generous love reaches out to embrace us. In Christ, we are forgiven and set free to begin again by the renewing power of the Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God for this most generous gift.

Prayer for Understanding

Spirit of God, at Pentecost you moved among the gathered disciples to bring about new understanding. Move in the same way among us today and give us a deeper understanding of the Scriptures. Give us renewed energy to act upon your holy wisdom faithfully, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Living Word. Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer (in the words most familiar to you)

The Readings

Psalm 104:24-30; 35

24 How many are your works, Lord!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
25 There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number –
living things both large and small.
26 There the ships go to and fro,
and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.

27 All creatures look to you
to give them their food at the proper time.
28 When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.
29 When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
30 When you send your Spirit,
But may sinners vanish from the earth
and the wicked be no more.
Praise the Lord, my soul.

Praise the Lord.

John 7:37-39

37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

John 20:19-23

19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

21 Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’

Acts:1-21

2 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: ‘Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs – we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!’ 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, ‘What does this mean?’

13 Some, however, made fun of them and said, ‘They have had too much wine.’

14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: ‘Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15 These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! 16 No, this is what was spoken by 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 men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.

18 Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.

19 I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.

20 The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.

21 And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Amen.

This is the Word of the Lord, to Him be all praise and glory.

Sermon

In recent weeks I have taken to practising a basic form of yoga, to counterbalance back and neck stiffness. Doing some research, I was reminded that yoga is more than strange body contortions, but comprises three important elements, asana (posture) pranayama (breathing and energy) and diyana (state of mind). As a beginner I tended to hold my breath and focus only on counting seconds!

All this reminded me of the working of the Holy Spirit and the essential nature of breath and energy in our lives. A video instructor pointed out to me the importance of breath. She said, “We can do without food for weeks, water for days, but breath for only about five minutes.” Of course, food water and breath are the essential elements of physical life by which we obtain and use energy, and all are provided by God in this creation.

In Genesis 1 we have the creation stories which begin with the work of the Spirit of God hovering over the primal waters, and culminating in all the creatures which have breath, even the ones which get or generate their oxygen in the oceans, culminating in humankind given the breath of life in its nostrils.

Breath very simply represents life and energy. Take this quote from our Psalm today:

Psalm 104: 29-30

29 When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
30 When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.

The energy of life flows and ebbs and flows again throughout the creation.

It is also so in our individual lives and that of our Church which in its renewal at Pentecost received from God a big kiss of life.

On the day of Pentecost, we celebrate an extravagant, ecstatic event in the life of the infant church. There is a trap here: we may be tempted to think that ecstatic experience is the chief way the Spirit works.

Pentecost means “the fiftieth day” a translation of the Hebrew Shavuot which is a Jewish Harvest Festival that is celebrated seven weeks and one day after the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It is also called the Festival of Weeks. In Exodus 34:22 it is called the “firstfruits of the wheat harvest.” This then is also a festival celebrating the providence of God, sustenance for the community and the people’s life.

In the Church we tend to limit Pentecost to the energising of our spiritual life, but this reminds us that our physical life and well-being are also very much part of God’s care for us. He is truly the One in whom we live and move and have our being.

We also tend to associate Pentecost with exuberant spirituality, powerful prayer and unusual manifestations of the Holy Spirit. In Siddha yoga, which is a more meditative yoga, the foundational principal is called Shaktipat which is a powerful awakening of the body’s life force called Kundalini. This is an amazing, but also potentially dangerous experience. People tend to focus on spectacular displays of energy and as they can be ecstatic want to hold on to them. Similarly in Pentecostal Churches the focus is on baptism in the Holy Spirit, sometimes called the fountain experience, based upon Jesus words in John’s gospel: 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Although we may enjoy times of ecstatic experience in our Christian pilgrimage, it is not the normal way in which the Holy Spirit works. Think of Zechariah 4:6 Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ which suggests the opposite.

God’s spirit has been here from the beginning and his kiss of life has been with us from the beginning.

That is one reason why we have made Psalm 104 the starting point for this Pentecost message from the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit was not absent up to the time of that first lively day of Pentecost. From the beginning, by the Spirit of God, all things are held in existence. Time and space are sustained by God’s Spirit. There has never been one place, or one second of time, when the Spirit has been absent. The Spirit is the nurturing power that enables all things to become.

In the poetry of Psalm 104, if God withdraws the Divine Breath, all returns to dust. If God breathes out the Divine Breath, all things will exist again.

In Psalm 104 a believer from long ago delights in the beauty and extravagance of all creation. It is God’s doing, God’s generosity, held in bountiful existence by God’s Breath or Spirit.

An Australian minister translated Psalm 104 like this:

In the first travail of our planet’s birth,
while earth’s crust settled and seas found their shores,
while mountains stood tall and valleys nestled below,
you were present with a word insistent as thunder.
You were the One who first poured streams down valleys,
letting the kangaroo drink and the cockatoo quench its thirst.
You saw the kookaburra settle in the scrub,
laughing from among the branches,
while the mountain ash lifted high its head,
and the river gums gave nesting place to owl and parrot.

The kiss of life, God’s Spirit-Presence, is the only thing which allows creation to exist, along with our human activities.

Your sun and moon revolve on,
regulating our waking and sleeping;
after dark the wild creatures are on the move,
then at dawn they slink back to their lairs.
In the rhythm of this good life we get up and go to work;
tired, we come home at night to receive sweet rest. Bruce Prewer.

From the beginning the Spirit of God has been here. The great mothering Spirit is what makes it all possible. From Genesis: “And the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.” The ordinary things we take for granted, are a part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

We could trace the history of the work of the Holy Spirit throughout the Old Testament, energising and inspiring prophets, reawakening the people of God through the centuries, encouraging devoted people to record their experience of God and interpreting the words of the Law and Prophets to pass them on through the generations until we come to the New Testament

We are reminded there that it is the Spirit who enables the ministry of Jesus. He received this kiss of life in abundance.

The Spirit is there in his baptism, temptations in the wilderness, preaching at his home synagogue at Nazareth, healing, teaching, reaching wide his arms to include the outcasts and misfits within the circle of his love. It is the Spirit of which Jesus who speaks at the Last Supper. On Easter Day it is the Spirit whom Jesus offers the disciples, when behind locked doors he comes and breathes on them and says: “Receive the Holy Spirit for the ministry of forgiveness”

Then came the day of Pentecost. It was as if the whole life, death, and resurrection of Jesus had opened in his followers a greater capacity to experience the ministry of the Spirit. Putting it another way, Jesus had carved in the hearts of his disciples a large space for the Spirit.

While they were all together in one place, there was this hour of Pentecostal extravagance. Of wonder, joy, and a new courage. The Spirit who had been with them from their birth, who had moved their hearts to respond to the call of Christ, who had wrestled with each one of them in their apprenticeship as disciples of Jesus, who had been in the breath of the risen Lord in the locked Easter room, now moved with power like a mighty wind and like tongues of fire. All bondage to fear, all uncertainty and timidity were blown away on the day of Pentecost. They became inflamed with the love-courage of Jesus as the Spirit propelled them into action.

Unexpected and wonderful things followed. Peter the coward with only fitful love for his Lord, who a few weeks earlier had been rattled by the teasing of a serving maid, now became the public preacher with a burning love who would not be silenced. The scene was so ‘way out’ that even though it was not yet 9.00 a.m. the disciples were accused of being drunk. It was certainly a dramatic scene.

And the long-term outcome? Year after year of loving service. Years of being faithful to Christ in words and deeds. Decades of the dedicated, tough discipline of living the love of Christ among many nations. Of becoming outcasts from the synagogues in which they had grown up. Of becoming persecuted, imprisoned; and for many of them it meant being slaughtered like their Lord had been. The day of Pentecost resulted in doing the hard miles in the company of the Spirit who had been from the beginning but was now creating a new world through the ongoing mission of Christ in the world.

There certainly was some excitement on the day of Pentecost. Just as there may have been some extraordinary pivotal points of our own personal Christian experience, but the real outcome was indomitable love. It has been rightly said on occasion: The only infallible sign of Holy Spirit that Jesus knew and shared, is love. That is why St Paul places love at the pinnacle of all the possible gifts of the Spirit. Love is the litmus test.

Lesslie Newbigin, the notable bishop of the Church of South India, compared Pentecost with the striking of oil. When a powerful flow of oil is achieved, there is a lot of excitement and action. It is a big, extravagant (and potentially dangerous) moment. It is cause for uninhibited celebration. A wild scene.

But it is the result that really matters. It must be tamed and delivered to where it is needed. Unless the well is capped, and the oil directed through pipes, the fuss is worth nothing. The pipes running across the land look boring compared with the scene when the oil first flowed free. But that is where the whole event becomes fruitful. It would be infantile to want to recreate the excitement of the day when oil was first struck. If the oil can be disciplined for the wellbeing of humanity, the strike is worth it.

If we are among those who have your extravagant moments of the Spirit, well and good. But unless these are channelled into love, that special brand of love shown by Christ Jesus, then we would be better without the ecstatic moments. Love, both before and after Pentecost is the infallible sign of the Holy Spirit.

Today our church is very unlike the gathering of the 120 at Pentecost. We are in a sense, scattered. The ways in which we do things are changing, adapting to the time of coronavirus. Funerals, weddings, fellowship baptisms and worship are beginning to follow different patterns. Janet Hunt describes a recent baptism thus:

There would be no children leaning in close to the font as the water was poured. Indeed, I would not be pouring the water at all this time. Instead, I would stand back and speak the words, ‘You are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…’ with dad holding her and her mother scooping the water on her little head, and with them both making the sign of the cross on her forehead and placing their hands on her in blessing. There would be no assisting minister standing on tiptoes to light the baptismal candle from the Christ candle. No, this time the youngest among us would not carry the hand crocheted blanket, the children’s Bible, the recently signed baptismal certificate, the box that held the baptismal candle to the little one’s parents. And no, this time I would not lift that baby high to walk her out into the congregation who would normally be there to smile to see her up close as they sang out the words of “Jesus Loves Me” or “Children of the Heavenly Father” or “I Was There to Hear Your Borning Cry.”

So, I didn’t get to hold the baby, pour the water, hold her high? So what? She is still baptized — and perhaps having her parents do what I ‘normally’ would have done makes it all the more meaningful as they now consider what it is to raise her in the faith.

Surely one could say the same about so many other things as well as we have adjusted how we ‘normally’ do them to work in a time where we are called to minister in ways we simply never have before.

Will we always grieve what was that may never be again – at least as we remember it? Perhaps.

Will we grieve in such a way that we are then unable to see the ways in which the breath of Jesus upon us is calling us to new ways and new things and new places which we have perhaps never done or seen or been before? I pray not. I really do. JH.

Baptisms are not likely to remain hands off, but the Spirit of God may take us quietly in other new directions. Like Pentecost this is nothing to fear and is in its own way exciting. We remember that the Spirit of God holds us with grace in life and love and power, as has always been the case.

Amen.

Invitation to the Offering

Pentecost celebrates the gifts of the Spirit poured out on the Church, preparing Christ’s followers to serve him in the world. Let us then offer our gifts to God today to build up the Church, its ministry and mission wherever the Spirit leads.

Prayer of Dedication

Spirit of grace and power bless the gifts we bring today so that they accomplish surprising things in Jesus’ name. We offer ourselves, too, so that our lives may proclaim the Good News with your grace and power. Amen.

Prayers of thanksgiving and intercession

Wind of the Spirit blow through us on this day of Pentecost and renew our faith.
Re-awaken our love for God, let the flame of your love warm our hearts with trust in Jesus Christ and dare us to do great things in his name.
Spirit of Power and Promise,
Flow through us and renew our faith.

Wind of the Spirit blow through us and give us energy to serve you in Christ’s church.
Open our eyes to recognize needs for ministry and mission, and to learn from this time when we have had to do things differently in worship and pastoral care.
Open our hearts to connect to those for whom the time of social distancing has been difficult.
Open our hands to share in the tasks that need to be done,
and open our lips in prayer and praise.
Spirit of Power and Promise,
Flow through us and renew our faith.

Wind of the Spirit, blow through us and give us understanding:
Of those whose lives seem to be so different from ours,
and those facing situations during the pandemic which we have not experienced.
Help us to understand those whose perspective is different from our own or with whom we have disagreed.
Give us insight into and solutions to the problems and challenges we will face at home, at work, and in the world as we try to recover from the effects of coronavirus.
Spirit of Power and Promise,
Flow through us and renew our faith.

Wind of the Spirit, blow through us and bring healing
to all who face pain or illness, discouragement, or disappointment,
made so much keener because of their isolation.
Bring healing for all who know sorrow, sadness, or grief. We pray tenderly for Rosemary Gray and her family as they mourn Dominic, and we thank you for his life and witness. We pray for all who mourn and who face stress and pressure as they try to rebuild their lives.
Bring healing to the earth, new purpose to places of upheaval and renewal to our wildlife and ecosystems at risk.
Spirit of Power and Promise,
Flow through us and renew our faith.

Wind of the Spirit flow through us and give to us the compassion we see in Christ Jesus.
Blow through us and refresh us as your faithful followers, equipping us to serve the world you love in his name, Amen.

Sending out and Benediction

Let us embrace the work and wonder of this day
with fresh commitment.
May we go forward together
in the power of the love of God
in the company of Jesus Christ
and by the leading of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Hymns
Here are some hymn suggestions to check on YouTube if you wish to sing along. Some may not be as familiar as their titles suggest:

Be still for the presence of the Lord

Hail thee, festival day

Come down, O love divine

Breathe on me breath of God

Spirit of God, unseen as the wind

Holy Spirit come to us

Come Holy Ghost our souls inspire

Praise the Spirit in creation

For Children

Balloons are our topic again.

As you see, we have uninflated balloons today. You can have a lot of fun with a balloon. Maybe you have a long, skinny balloon, or seen some people who can take a long, skinny balloon and make it into the shape of different animals. Have you ever tried that? Hold up your balloon if you have a round one. We’ve all played a game where we toss round balloons into the air to see how long we can keep them up without them hitting the ground. That can be a lot of fun.

But, straight out of the packet, a balloon is not much use for anything. Throw it in the air and it drops straight down; try and play catch with it and it is the same. It is about as much use as a straight rubber band. It wouldn’t even exercise your pinkie! What does it need to be of use? Some energy – it needs to be filled with air

Before a balloon can fulfil its purpose, someone must breathe some life into it.

I think a balloon can help us learn something about the church. Today is a special day we call Pentecost. It was the day that God sent His Holy Spirit to breathe life into His church so the church would be all that God intended for it to be. (Inflate the balloon a little and stop.) Before God sent His Holy Spirit, the church was lifeless–like these balloons. The church was not witnessing and telling people about Jesus. After the Holy Spirit breathed life into the church, people began telling everyone they saw about Jesus. (Find a balloon, blow it up a little and stop.) It didn’t even matter if they spoke the same language. (Inflate the balloon some more and stop.) Everyone they told about Jesus understood what they were saying. Thousands of people were added to the church. (Inflate the balloon a little more and stop.) The church became alive and was doing the things God had commanded. (Finish inflating the balloon and tie it off.)

Breathe life into your balloon, and remember that just as the balloon needs to be filled to be what it was intended to be, you and I need the Holy Spirit to fill us so we can be all that God wants us to be.

We thank You, God, for sending Your Holy Spirit. We thank You for breathing life into the church and we thank You for giving Your Holy Spirit to all who believe in Jesus. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen. Here is a song about the Holy Spirit:

Holy Spirit fill me up!

A Prayer in a Time of Distress

Almighty and everlasting God, you are strength to those who suffer and comfort to those who grieve. Let the prayers of your children who are in trouble rise to you. Hear our prayer. We claim your promises of wholeness as we pray for those who are ill or are suffering loss and long for your healing touch. Hear our prayer. Make the weak strong, the sick healthy, the broken whole, and confirm those who serve them as agents of your love. Hear our prayer. To everyone in distress, grant mercy, grant relief, grant refreshment. Hear our prayer. When we begin to rebuild, we commend our neighbourhoods to your care. Give us strength of purpose and concern for others, that we may create a community where your will may be done. Hear our prayer. God of compassion, you watch our ways, and weave out of terrible happenings wonders of goodness and grace. Hear our prayer. Surround those who have been shaken by tragedy with a sense of your present love and hold them in faith. Though they are lost in grief, may they find you and be comforted; Through Jesus Christ who was dead, but lives and rules this world with you. Amen

Intimations.

Once again, we are greatly saddened to learn of the death on Thursday evening of Dominic Gray. Please pray for Rosemary and Dominic’s family, especially those in Australia and remember Julia Brown and her family as they grieve for Ross.

Tanya is showing signs of improvement but is facing complicated infections and harsh chemotherapy. Her parents Arun and Preethi, are still anxious and exhausted with only Preethi allowed to be with her.