PRELUDE
Breathe on me Breath of God
https://youtu.be/DBrlmVdF1Nw
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,
So shall I never die,
But live with Thee the perfect life
Of Thine eternity.
Breathe on me, Breath of God,
Till I am wholly Thine,
Until this earthly part of me
Glows with Thy fire divine.
GREETING
“On Pentecost they gathered quite early in the day, a band of Christ’s disciples to worship, sing, and pray. A mighty wind came blowing, filled all the swirling air, and tongues of fire aglowing inspired each person there.” Amen. (NCH, 272, 1)
CALL TO WORSHIP(based on Acts 2)
L: O God: pour out your Holy Spirit,
P: that we might be your sons and daughters;
L: that we might prophesy in your name;
P: that we might see visions of justice and mercy;
L: that we might dream dreams of hope and peace.
All: Pour out your Holy Spirit, that we might change the world!
HYMN
Come Holy Spirit Heavenly Dove
https://youtu.be/rP6cPffwPs8
1.Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove,
With all thy quickening powers;
Kindle a flame of sacred love
In these cold hearts of ours.
2 In vain we tune our formal songs,
In vain we strive to rise;
Hosannas languish on our tongues,
And our devotion dies.
3 And shall we then for ever live
At this poor dying rate?
Our love so faint, so cold to thee,
And thine to us so great!
4 Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,
With all thy quickening powers;
Come, shed abroad the Saviour's love,
And that shall kindle ours.
INVOCATION
Let us pray...
Spirit of the living God: fill us with your wind and fire, that we might be enlivened again. Come into our worship, into our church, into our very selves, that even we may change your world. Amen.
FIRST SCRIPTURE LESSON
Acts 2: 1-21: “The day of Pentecost”
GLORIA PATRI
https://youtu.be/QUBxpypSblw
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be; world without end. Amen, Amen!
PASTORAL PRAYER
Let us pray...
O God, you who are known in more ways that we may tell, we thank you for yourself and for your work in the universe and in our own world, in the church of Jesus Christ, and in our own lives. Holy Spirit, we thank you for bringing order out of chaos, for giving life to the lifeless, inspiration to the prophets, and for making known even to us the deep things of God. We thank you that as we open our lives to your presence, you do come—to pardon, guide, comfort, and strengthen us, that we may serve you better, and follow our Lord, even more closely and obediently.
O Spirit of love and mercy: come near to every soul turning toward you, and draw near to every soul who has forgotten you or disbelieves in you, or thinks he or she cannot love you. Generate in any who feel their own weakness the power they need to live well. Inflame with love each one of us who feels unloved, or unlovable, or filled with jealous, hateful, or suspicious thoughts. Breathe your gentleness into every soul who may be quick to judge others harshly, or swift to exercise power unfairly.
Healing God: give life to those who are sick in body, mind, or spirit, especially those suffering from this current health crisis. And grant that all those whose lives are touched by illness or sorrow or danger or grief this day, especially our everyday heroes, may be granted your comforting presence. And, as always, we remember in a special way all those near and dear to this family of faith. Companion all of these your children; sustain them and sustain us, both in sickness and in health, both in life and in death.
And to you, Holy Spirit, who, with the Father and the Son Jesus Christ, are one God, be the glory and our love forever, Amen.
THE LORD’S PRAYER
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 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!
DOXOLOGY
https://youtu.be/eMnevRoAz74
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Praise God all creatures here below!
Praise God above you heavenly host!
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!
Amen!
OFFERING PRAYER OF DEDICATION
Let us pray...
Gracious God: for all you have given, for all we have received, we give you thanks. We bring before you the gifts of our lives—our passion and joy, our visions and dreams. In your name, we give it all and pray, Amen.
HYMN
Holy Spirit Truth Divine
https://youtu.be/kYjxfJjG-3Y
1.Holy Spirit, truth divine,
dawn upon this soul of mine;
breath of God and inward light,
wake my spirit, clear my sight.
2 Holy Spirit, love divine,
glow within this heart of mine;
kindle every high desire;
purge me with your holy fire.
3 Holy spirit, power divine,
fortify this will of mine;
by your will I strongly live,
bravely bear, and nobly strive.
4 Holy Spirit, peace divine,
still this restless heart of mine;
speak to calm this tossing sea,
stayed in your tranquility.
5 Holy Spirit, right divine,
king within my conscience reign;
be my guide and I shall be
firmly bound, forever free.
SECOND SCRIPTURE LESSON
Acts 1: 1-11: “The promise of the Holy Spirit; the ascension of Jesus”
SERMON Change the World!
Let us pray...
“Holy Spirit, come, confirm us in the truth that Christ makes known; we have faith and understanding through your helping gifts alone.” Amen. (NCH, 264, 1)
We don’t need to travel far through the pages of the exciting Book of the Acts of the Apostles before we realize just what was so distinctive about those first Christians. Those who believed in the faith and committed themselves to its teachings proceeded to do a very radical thing—they answered God’s own call to change the world—in fact, they, like Jesus himself, turned the world upside down!
On the day of Pentecost, that occasion we celebrate today, those early believers got the attention of the people—they received the gift of the Holy Spirit; they spoke in tongues; 3000 new converts were baptized; and the Christian church as a church was born. So Happy Birthday to us!
But those dramatic events of Pentecost morning were only the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s call to change the world. By the time the Book of Acts ends, we find that this peculiar belief in the resurrected Christ spreads from that tiny upper room in Jerusalem to the glorious palace of Caesar in Rome. In but the twinkling of history’s eye, thousands upon thousands of people called themselves Christian for the very first time. Thousands upon thousands of people engaged in this unique calling and in fact changed the world.
Today we celebrate Pentecost—the birthday of the Christian church—a perfect opportunity, I think, to remind ourselves of our shared responsibility and privilege to continue in that great tradition of our foreparents in the faith—that mandate to change the world.
But how did those first Christians do it?
And how can we do it, in our own time and place, so distant and different from theirs? How can we change the world?
The risen and ascended Christ shows us the very same way he showed them...
First, change the world by waiting patiently and expectantly—waiting for the promise.
“And while staying with them, [Jesus] charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father...before many days, you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
We learn from other passages in this same Book of Acts that this patient and expectant waiting of the apostles consisted of teaching together, praying together, and worshiping together. Before they could change the world, they needed to change themselves.
No one of us contemporary Christians can be the world changer than God intends us to be if we fail to transform our own lives—if we fail to feed our own spirits in worship and prayer and mutual instruction. We come together in and asthe church, but only to go out and do our work and change the world—feed the hungry (which we do so well here at Second Church), cloth the naked, visit the sick, work for justice and freedom and human dignity. As we used to say in one of my earlier churches at the very end of the worship service: “The worship is over; the service begins!” or “We gather in worship only to scatter in service.” But we do have to gather first—gather for instruction, nurture, encouragement, and inspiration. And hopefully, one of these days soon, once we have subdued this COVID-19 beast, we shall gather again in our beloved sanctuary.
We have to work patiently and intentionally on our own spiritual renewal before we can ever hope to achieve this high and holy calling to change the world.
Second, change the world by submitting, sometimes impatiently and hesitantly, submitting, sometimes even reluctantly, submitting to God’s intention, rather than to our own.
Right smack in the middle of the risen Christ’s teaching about being patient and waiting in Jerusalem for the gift of something brand new, the gift of the Holy Spirit—right smack in the middle of one of those key instructions about how to change the world—those dull-witted disciples blurted out: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” In others words: “Is this the time when our beloved nation will become the leader of the world? Is this the time when our flag will fly above every other flag? When our army will conquer every other army? When we shall be the most powerful country on the face of the globe?”
Once again, those not-so-bright believers missed the whole point—it had happened before with children coming to Jesus to be blessed and handicapped people coming to Jesus to be healed; and the disciples always rebuked them. Always, it seems, those closest to our Lord miss the very point of his remarks and indeed the very point of his ministry.
The risen Christ responded, as we can imagine, indignantly, perhaps even disgustedly, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.” In other words: “You are talking about old days and old things; old kingdoms and old kinds of power—the way things used to be! But now there is a different world and a different kind of kingdom yet to come! Don’t reinforce the old patterns and the old practices; transform them; change this fallen world into the new kingdom God intends!”
Even and perhaps especially we good church-goers need to hear again this fundamental lesson of our faith. How often we reminisce about the “good old days” in the church; how hard we sometimes try to recreate the way things used to be. Remember those seven last words of the church? Rather than any of that, we Christians are called to change the world (including our churches)!
And third, change the world by receiving gratefully what God gives. As Jesus said, “you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”
I think that very often we modern-day, post-resurrection Christians lose sight of what a tremendous blow the death of Jesus was to those first believers. Their hopes and dreams for a whole new world were shattered with his last cry from the cross. They fled in disbelief and fear and hid themselves away, lest they be associated with the executed heretic and traitor. It was as if their very hearts had been cut out. But then, they received power when the Holy Spirit came upon them on this day we call Pentecost.
Sometimes, I think, even we can feel the same way as those pre-Pentecost Christians. Days and times come, perhaps even these very days and times through which we are living right now, when we feel as if our own world has come to an end, that the sun will never be so bright or warm again. Down in the cellars of human existence, we too have groped in the darkness, discouraged, dejected, depressed, and finally disabled. But even we can receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon us, if only we would accept the gift.
Who among us, who among those first Christians, would not want such a special power? Not the manipulative, oppressive power of politics or economics or military strength or social status, but rather that intellectual, emotional, and spiritual power that enables us to live fulfilled, victorious lives—that power that enables even us to change the world!
Wait for the promise of God! Submit to the intention of God! Receive the gift of God! But even doing all this will not necessarily enable us to obey and fulfill the Pentecost command to change the world, unless there is a final act of faith, our Lord’s direct call to action: “and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.”
Nothing that you or I or any other Christians will ever do will be more important to the end of changing the world than witnessing to the risen Christ. All of the waiting and submitting and receiving will be for nothing, if we do not share God’s love, both in word and in deed, with those who need it most. In our kind of a world in which people are held captive by their past, are defeated by their present, and are afraid of their future, we must witness to God’s forgiveness of and victory over the very powers of this world which sought to destroy him. And all of us are empowered to do precisely this and thus change the world!
My friends, let me close with a personal note...
Peter’s Pentecost sermon includes these words of God according to the prophet Joel: “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.”
I went to both high school and college in the 1960’s. I came of age in that very turbulent decade in American history. And most of us in those days began our adult lives with that same lofty mandate—change the world! The war in Vietnam dragged on; the civil rights movement was still aflame; the feminist movement was blossoming; the sexual revolution was at full tilt; and beloved leaders were being assassinated. And we were starry-eyed young idealists—we saw visions and set out to change the world. And how we prophesied! We were going to stop Vietnam and all other wars thereafter. We were going to end racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, and all the other ills that beset society.
But we didn’t quite succeed, at least not as we had imagined and hoped. In fact, as our contemporary world demonstrates, we simply failed to fulfill those visions. Our prophecies were wrong. And now, some fifty years later, the folks of my generation are old men and women; but we can still hear and heed and then answer the Pentecost call and promise to dream dreams and to try one more time to change the world!
Let us pray...
“Holy Spirit, come, fulfill us, you the love of Three in One; bring our lives to full completion through your work in us begun.” Amen. (NCH, 264, 4)
HYMN
Gracious Spirit dwell with me
https://youtu.be/LeYZEalAZ5g
1 Gracious Spirit, dwell with me!
I myself would gracious be,
And with words that help and heal
Would thy life in mine reveal;
And with actions bold and meek
Would for Christ my Savior speak.
2 Truthful Spirit, dwell with me!
I myself would truthful be,
And with wisdom kind and clear
Let thy life in mine appear;
And with actions brotherly
Speak my Lord's sincerity.
3 Tender Spirit, dwell with me!
I myself would tender be;
Shut my heart up like a flower
At temptation's darksome hour,
Open it when shines the sun,
And his love by fragrance own.
4 Mighty Spirit, dwell with me!
I myself would mighty be,
Mighty so as to prevail
Where unaided man must fail,
Ever by a mighty hope
Pressing on, and bearing up.
Ever by a mighty hope
Pressing on, and bearing up.
5 Holy Spirit, dwell with me!
I myself would holy be,
Separate from sin, I would
Choose, and cherish all things good;
And whatever I can be
Give to him who gave me thee.
BENEDICTION
Hear this Pentecost promise and blessing: “Receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon us! See visions and dream dreams that will change the world!” Amen.
BENEDICTION RESPONSE
GO NOW IN PEACE
Congregation:
https://youtu.be/mefNCtwjp2M
Piano:
https://youtu.be/JLJXpuxDjes
Go now In peace, never be afraid.
God will go with you each hour of every day.
Go now In faith, steadfast strong and true.
Know He will guide you in all you do.
Go now In love, and show you believe.
Reach out to others so all the world can see.
God will be there watching from above.
Go now in peace. in faith and in love.
Amen. Amen. AMEN!
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