Pentecost And Communion
Sermon
Dancing The Sacraments
Sermons And Worship Services For Baptism And Communion
Call To Worship:
"You prepare a table before me ... my cup overflows." Come let us taste and see and worship God.
Hymn: "Holy Spirit, Truth Divine"
(words: Samuel Longfellow; music: adapt. Orlando Gibbons)
Children's Time:
One day Jesus' friends came together into one big room. They were sad as they came and sat on the floor to talk together. "Why did Jesus have to leave us?" they asked one another. They shook their heads sadly. They did not understand. They missed their friend. But suddenly there was a loud noise that sounded like the flapping of many wings in a violent storm. Everyone covered their ears. They were afraid. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire rest on the heads of each of them and they were filled with God's Spirit. They all began to talk at the same time, but in different languages, and yet they understood each other. Some of them threw up their arms and danced, filled with joy. Something had happened. Something had changed their sadness to joy. It was as if the spirit of Christ was with them. They knelt on the floor and thanked God, and from that day they began to tell everyone about Jesus and God's love. With time the story of Jesus spread around the world, for the church was born that day. The people were the church and they built buildings for the worship of God. They built hospitals for the sick and paid doctors and nurses to care for them, remembering how Jesus had healed. They planned and built places for people to learn to read and write, thanking God for God's love because of the day of Pentecost, the birth of the church.
Talk Together:
What is the church? (Young children think of the building) The church is not only the place where we worship God, but it is also the people who come there to love and obey God. Let us pray, "Dear Lord, thank you for this building and these people, and for your love that brings us here together. Amen." (Dismiss the children.)
Prayer Of Confession:
Lord, our faces are veiled and our minds hardened. Give us the boldness to turn to you and find freedom from the bondage of fear and doubt. Transform our fear into faith and our doubt into hope, that we may reflect your glory. Amen (2 Corinthians 3:12--18).
Words Of Assurance:
Receive the Holy Spirit and know that you are loved in the name of Christ, who lived and died so that death and all that limits love have been conquered. Amen.
Hymn: "Every Time I Feel The Spirit"
(words and music: African--American spiritual)
Psalter Reading: Psalm 23
Old Testament: Proverbs 9:5
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 12:4--26
New Testament: Acts 2:1--4
Sermon:
When Jesus promised his disciples that he would send the Holy Spirit, he was promising them that God would come as Spirit, instilling in them courage and creativity, continuing God's redemptive action. Fifty days after Easter, after the Ascension, the friends of Jesus were gathered together, recalling the stories of Jesus and of their ancestors of the faith.
"Remember when our people tried to build a tower to God?" one of them asked. "Yes," they recalled, "the Tower of Babel!" They laughed together at the memory, but swiftly there was silence again, for they were a saddened people. They had lost their Savior to death. Then suddenly there came into the room a sound like a rushing, violent wind, and all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to babble. But as they listened, they were amazed. This was not a babble of voices but the gift of tongues. Each one was speaking God's word as they understood and proclaimed in their own voice, their own uniqueness. They ate together and understood one another. There was unity, the unity of the table of communion. No longer did they need to attempt to climb their "tower" toward God, for God was with them in the Spirit, a baptism not by water but by fire and wind.
I have a friend named Patti. When she was young, her friends were colorful, living life with zest and vigor. Some had flaming red hair. Some wore tattoos that were offensive to older folks. Some had pierced ears and some even pierced noses. To some their appearance was playful. To others it was shocking, but they were Patti's friends. Patti's father's friends were colorful, as well. They too lived life with zest and vigor, wearing strange hats with tassels hanging from them, singing songs offensive to some and playful to others, but they were Patti's father's friends.
One evening Patti's friends said, "Let's go to Patti's house."
Patti's father's friends said the same, "Let's go to Patti's father's house." They gathered together in one room. They spoke in different "tongues," but some in each group met others speaking their language and they understood one another, touched by the Spirit.
There is diversity of tongues and interests today, even as there was on that first Pentecost. Frederic Buechner, author and preacher, once taught in the prestigious school of theology, Harvard Theological Seminary. Having attended Union Seminary in New York City in the 1950s, among the richest years of his life, he hoped to find the same extraordinary sense of community at Harvard when he came to teach there thirty years later. Because in his Union days most teachers began their classes with prayer, he did the same at Harvard, and the word went around like wildfire: Buechner prayed! For Buechner preaching meant putting the Gospel into words, not the way you would compose an essay, but the way you would write a poem or love letter, putting your heart, your very own life, into it. As he listened to students who did not believe in divinity in a school of divinity, it was a depressing form of bankruptcy. The price of diversity was a large one. He finally told the students that they reminded him of a lot of dead fish lying on cracked ice in a fish store window with their round blank eyes. There he was, making a fool of himself, spilling out the secrets of his heart, and there they were, not telling him what they believed about anything beneath the level of their various causes. A black African student responded, "The reason I do not say anything about what I believe is that I am afraid here it will be shot down."
In the fall of 1985 Buechner moved west to Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, the home of the manuscripts and papers of C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, George MacDonald, J. R. R. Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, and Frederick Buechner! There he had to sign a pledge not to smoke or drink for as long as he taught or studied there, but to his delight he found that whatever "evangelical" meant, it did not mean closed--minded. There he could pray and he realized that he had been starving for years.
Without attention to the action of the Holy Spirit, there is the danger of becoming intellectual, institutional. When religion only teaches about God without providing education into being open to the Spirit, it avoids the teaching of the heart, the experience of the power and energy of God within, the divine love among persons.
Sometimes we lock up the Spirit in the church, but the Spirit gives life, and the basic task of all religions is to awaken awareness of spiritual reality and feed it. When we allow institutionalized religion to distance God, to compartmentalize God to "Sunday" and "church," we lose the "light within."
When we call on God in times of need but have not established prayer as our intimate relationship with God, we ignore the Spirit, we ignore our neighbor. The Eucharist feeds us to feed others.
There is a need for continual confession, forgiveness, and new life, which is the purpose of the Eucharist, for there is spiritual reality as well as physical. There is a spiritual universe from which the visible world draws its significance. Sensing the Spirit introduces us to the divine aspect of the universe.
This morning I watched the sun rise out of the ocean.
I thought about God, creation's beginning, and fire,
And called to the child, "Come and see!"
Dripping with sleep, he rubbed his eyes, looked and ran.
I called again, "Come, see God's Eternal Flame!"
And when he came, I asked, "Why did you run?"
He replied, "I was dressing for the sun."
Then be prepared to meet him at this communion table. Amen.
Sacrament Of Holy Communion:
As you come to the table of communion, remember that we are dressed in new life through the son.
Hymn: "There's A Spirit In The Air"
(words: Brian Wren; music: medieval French melody)
Prayers Of The People
Pastoral Prayer:
God, Giver of breath and bread,
breathe on and in us.
As a community of your Spirit,
You have called us to your banquet,
saying, "Come, eat of my bread,"
hoping we will taste
your love and presence
that will deliver us from doubt.
Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief;
fill us with your word,
food for our banquet. Amen.
The Lord's Prayer
Offering:
Bless thou the gifts our hands have brought; bless thou the work our hearts have planned. Ours is the faith, the will, the thought; the rest, O God is in thy hand. Amen.
Doxology
Hymn Of Commitment: "Here I Am, Lord"
(words and music: Dan Schutte)
Benediction:
Go now in the name of God whose Spirit brings into existence possibility through Jesus Christ, whose Spirit makes possible love, and the Holy Spirit, whose Spirit is the power and love and promise of God. Amen.
"You prepare a table before me ... my cup overflows." Come let us taste and see and worship God.
Hymn: "Holy Spirit, Truth Divine"
(words: Samuel Longfellow; music: adapt. Orlando Gibbons)
Children's Time:
One day Jesus' friends came together into one big room. They were sad as they came and sat on the floor to talk together. "Why did Jesus have to leave us?" they asked one another. They shook their heads sadly. They did not understand. They missed their friend. But suddenly there was a loud noise that sounded like the flapping of many wings in a violent storm. Everyone covered their ears. They were afraid. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire rest on the heads of each of them and they were filled with God's Spirit. They all began to talk at the same time, but in different languages, and yet they understood each other. Some of them threw up their arms and danced, filled with joy. Something had happened. Something had changed their sadness to joy. It was as if the spirit of Christ was with them. They knelt on the floor and thanked God, and from that day they began to tell everyone about Jesus and God's love. With time the story of Jesus spread around the world, for the church was born that day. The people were the church and they built buildings for the worship of God. They built hospitals for the sick and paid doctors and nurses to care for them, remembering how Jesus had healed. They planned and built places for people to learn to read and write, thanking God for God's love because of the day of Pentecost, the birth of the church.
Talk Together:
What is the church? (Young children think of the building) The church is not only the place where we worship God, but it is also the people who come there to love and obey God. Let us pray, "Dear Lord, thank you for this building and these people, and for your love that brings us here together. Amen." (Dismiss the children.)
Prayer Of Confession:
Lord, our faces are veiled and our minds hardened. Give us the boldness to turn to you and find freedom from the bondage of fear and doubt. Transform our fear into faith and our doubt into hope, that we may reflect your glory. Amen (2 Corinthians 3:12--18).
Words Of Assurance:
Receive the Holy Spirit and know that you are loved in the name of Christ, who lived and died so that death and all that limits love have been conquered. Amen.
Hymn: "Every Time I Feel The Spirit"
(words and music: African--American spiritual)
Psalter Reading: Psalm 23
Old Testament: Proverbs 9:5
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 12:4--26
New Testament: Acts 2:1--4
Sermon:
When Jesus promised his disciples that he would send the Holy Spirit, he was promising them that God would come as Spirit, instilling in them courage and creativity, continuing God's redemptive action. Fifty days after Easter, after the Ascension, the friends of Jesus were gathered together, recalling the stories of Jesus and of their ancestors of the faith.
"Remember when our people tried to build a tower to God?" one of them asked. "Yes," they recalled, "the Tower of Babel!" They laughed together at the memory, but swiftly there was silence again, for they were a saddened people. They had lost their Savior to death. Then suddenly there came into the room a sound like a rushing, violent wind, and all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to babble. But as they listened, they were amazed. This was not a babble of voices but the gift of tongues. Each one was speaking God's word as they understood and proclaimed in their own voice, their own uniqueness. They ate together and understood one another. There was unity, the unity of the table of communion. No longer did they need to attempt to climb their "tower" toward God, for God was with them in the Spirit, a baptism not by water but by fire and wind.
I have a friend named Patti. When she was young, her friends were colorful, living life with zest and vigor. Some had flaming red hair. Some wore tattoos that were offensive to older folks. Some had pierced ears and some even pierced noses. To some their appearance was playful. To others it was shocking, but they were Patti's friends. Patti's father's friends were colorful, as well. They too lived life with zest and vigor, wearing strange hats with tassels hanging from them, singing songs offensive to some and playful to others, but they were Patti's father's friends.
One evening Patti's friends said, "Let's go to Patti's house."
Patti's father's friends said the same, "Let's go to Patti's father's house." They gathered together in one room. They spoke in different "tongues," but some in each group met others speaking their language and they understood one another, touched by the Spirit.
There is diversity of tongues and interests today, even as there was on that first Pentecost. Frederic Buechner, author and preacher, once taught in the prestigious school of theology, Harvard Theological Seminary. Having attended Union Seminary in New York City in the 1950s, among the richest years of his life, he hoped to find the same extraordinary sense of community at Harvard when he came to teach there thirty years later. Because in his Union days most teachers began their classes with prayer, he did the same at Harvard, and the word went around like wildfire: Buechner prayed! For Buechner preaching meant putting the Gospel into words, not the way you would compose an essay, but the way you would write a poem or love letter, putting your heart, your very own life, into it. As he listened to students who did not believe in divinity in a school of divinity, it was a depressing form of bankruptcy. The price of diversity was a large one. He finally told the students that they reminded him of a lot of dead fish lying on cracked ice in a fish store window with their round blank eyes. There he was, making a fool of himself, spilling out the secrets of his heart, and there they were, not telling him what they believed about anything beneath the level of their various causes. A black African student responded, "The reason I do not say anything about what I believe is that I am afraid here it will be shot down."
In the fall of 1985 Buechner moved west to Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, the home of the manuscripts and papers of C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, George MacDonald, J. R. R. Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, and Frederick Buechner! There he had to sign a pledge not to smoke or drink for as long as he taught or studied there, but to his delight he found that whatever "evangelical" meant, it did not mean closed--minded. There he could pray and he realized that he had been starving for years.
Without attention to the action of the Holy Spirit, there is the danger of becoming intellectual, institutional. When religion only teaches about God without providing education into being open to the Spirit, it avoids the teaching of the heart, the experience of the power and energy of God within, the divine love among persons.
Sometimes we lock up the Spirit in the church, but the Spirit gives life, and the basic task of all religions is to awaken awareness of spiritual reality and feed it. When we allow institutionalized religion to distance God, to compartmentalize God to "Sunday" and "church," we lose the "light within."
When we call on God in times of need but have not established prayer as our intimate relationship with God, we ignore the Spirit, we ignore our neighbor. The Eucharist feeds us to feed others.
There is a need for continual confession, forgiveness, and new life, which is the purpose of the Eucharist, for there is spiritual reality as well as physical. There is a spiritual universe from which the visible world draws its significance. Sensing the Spirit introduces us to the divine aspect of the universe.
This morning I watched the sun rise out of the ocean.
I thought about God, creation's beginning, and fire,
And called to the child, "Come and see!"
Dripping with sleep, he rubbed his eyes, looked and ran.
I called again, "Come, see God's Eternal Flame!"
And when he came, I asked, "Why did you run?"
He replied, "I was dressing for the sun."
Then be prepared to meet him at this communion table. Amen.
Sacrament Of Holy Communion:
As you come to the table of communion, remember that we are dressed in new life through the son.
Hymn: "There's A Spirit In The Air"
(words: Brian Wren; music: medieval French melody)
Prayers Of The People
Pastoral Prayer:
God, Giver of breath and bread,
breathe on and in us.
As a community of your Spirit,
You have called us to your banquet,
saying, "Come, eat of my bread,"
hoping we will taste
your love and presence
that will deliver us from doubt.
Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief;
fill us with your word,
food for our banquet. Amen.
The Lord's Prayer
Offering:
Bless thou the gifts our hands have brought; bless thou the work our hearts have planned. Ours is the faith, the will, the thought; the rest, O God is in thy hand. Amen.
Doxology
Hymn Of Commitment: "Here I Am, Lord"
(words and music: Dan Schutte)
Benediction:
Go now in the name of God whose Spirit brings into existence possibility through Jesus Christ, whose Spirit makes possible love, and the Holy Spirit, whose Spirit is the power and love and promise of God. Amen.
