Sunday Service 24th May

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy4td8ttm-0

Pentecost

24/5/26

Call to worship

Hymn 600: Spirit of God

Time for all 

Hymn 599: Holy Spirit hear us

Dedication of Offering

Reading:  Acts 2:1-11

Prayer (The Lord’s Prayer will be on the screen)

Reading: Luke 5: 12-16

Hymn 489: Come down O love divine

Sermon

Prayer

Hymn 561: Blessed assurance

Benediction

Welcome to our meditation for 24^th May.

This week in our reflection is on Pentecost.

A lot of spectacular stuff happens at Pentecost, and sometimes we think that at some point that should be our faith...if God is about then shouldn’t spectacular stuff be happening?

Bu maybe something simpler, more easily understood, maybe even better...is happening.

But we will reflect on that after our readings and prayer for today.

Prayer of Dedication of Offering

Heavenly Father,

As the Spirit touches our lives for good, we pray that these offerings, dedicated to you, may touch the lives of others for good.

Amen

Prayer

God of wind and fire,

of touch and transformation,

we come before you in praise and hope.

You speak in many voices, move through many lives,

and refuse to be contained by fear, habit, or polite expectation.

You cross the boundaries we set up to protect ourselves from others,

and instead call us to accept those we have kept at arms length,

calling to greater community where the outsiders are allows in.

We confess how easily we trade boldness for safety, and Spirit for respectability. We reach out to those who we feel safe with, those who we are not threatened by.

We confess the ways we prefer being agreeable to being changed, and how often we silence what might unsettle us. we don’t want to challenge others, in case they challenge us, and we might not be able to defend ourselves.

Forgive us when we choose to be nice instead of being faithful.

So we let things slide, we let things pass, and in doing so hurt gets deeper.

In silence now, we bring the times where we have resisted your presence because we have felt uncomfortable and out ort depth.

Silence

Renew us, Spirit of God,

and set us alight in faith and hope, ready us for the challenges ahead,

and prepare us to carry the wind of Pentecost out of our buildings and into your streets,

in.

This we ask in Jesus’ name, and in his name say the words he taught us as a community to say.

Our Father,

Which 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, the power and the glory, for ever.

Amen.

Sermon

As humans we are suckers for sleight of hand.

We are all aware of the magician and the spectacular tricks. And so much spectacular things are happening. And while they are happening the audience don’t see the sleight a lot of modern thrillers on TV are based round this too.

The heroes are out-gunned and have no hope. It seems that they have only one desperate chance to beat the bad guys.

So there is a great big scene when they attempt the near impossible.

And it fails.

The villain is gloating away at the defeated hero, only for the hero to smile because while the villain has had all their attention of the hero, they haven’t noticed the sidekick sneaking up the back and defeating all the villains defences.

Now knowing all of this...we still get distracted by the spectacular.

And this makes sense.

We have evolved to notice the big danger...

Like a sabre-toothed tiger trying to sneak up on us.

Or those great big rocks above our path that might come loose as we walk under them.

Or those ominous storm clouds that might be the beginning of a hurricane.

Or that giant wave on the horizon that might be a Tsunami.

Or the flames of the forest fire in the distance.

If our ancestors didn’t notice the big danger and react then we wouldn’t be here today.

We have been hot wired to notice the big, the spectacular and to give the big and spectacular more significance than other stuff.

The only problem with that is when we match if to Christianity...then our views can get a bit skewed.

Like our ideas about what Pentecost is about.

If we look at Pentecost through the eyes of a brain hot-wired to see the and give significance to the big and spectacular that might be dangerous...then what do we see?

Well it is big and spectacular...we have the noise from above that sounded like a strong wind, a hurricane, overwhelming and frightening,

then what looked like tongues of fire that touched all the people there, and fire was terrifying when it was out of control,

then all the men speaking in strange tongues, as if they had been possessed by another being.

Now forget about theology here, because all theology is is trying to describe feelings.

I could go on and on about the theology of Pentecost and the significance of Pentecost in the Jewish tradition as the fulfilment of Passover.

I could explain why in the Christian tradition the belief was

as Jews saw Pentecost as the fulfilment of Passover in the giving of the Ten Commandments,

so Christians saw Pentecost as the fulfilment of the crucifixion in the giving of the Holy Spirit.

But that’s not what we see.

Even though that’s what I have said nearly every Pentecost for the last 30 years, that’s not what we see.

What we see is the spectacular, the strong wind, the flames that we have no control over, the apparent possession and control of the disciples...and that is frightening.

And what is more we feel guilty because we are frightened by it.

If this is the way God comes to us shouldn’t we be happy about it?

And why isn’t God like that now?

Because in some places it seems like that is how God is.

I remember when I first came to Alva there was a mega church movement stating in America.

Before 1970 there was hardly any big churches in America. 400-500 in a church was nearly unheard of. The idea that there may be a church that had over 1000 people in it on a Sunday was amazing. In the late 70’s there was only about 50 churches with over a 1,000 people attending on a Sunday morning.

Then in the 1980 there was churches that had 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 people turning up on a Sunday. And their ministers and pastors would tell us of all the wonderful things God was doing in their church.

And we got sucked in by that.

Because what minister didn’t want God doing wonderful things in their church.

And wonderful things could only mean one thing, spectacular growth;

ordinary people doing amazing things in the name of the kingdom of God.

But that was also scary, losing control of what we knew.

And we were caught in that dilemma...wanting the great big signs, but scared of what the great big signs might do to us.

If only we were like those first disciples.

The trusted in the spectacular, they let the spectacular take control, and they were blessed...thousands coming to know Jesus in a single day.

And it is because of our lack of faith, our lack of trust, that our church isn’t like that, we aren’t like that.

That’s what happens when we look at this narrative through the eyes of the spectacular.

What if there is another way for us to read this passage, another filter with which to see these events?

Once Jesus was in a town where there as a man with a dreaded skin-disease. When he saw Jesus he threw himself down and begged him, ‘Sir, if you want to, you can make me clean!”

Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. ‘I do want to.’ He answered.

Here we have a man who was an outcast.

Because his disease was incurable he wasn’t allowed to stay near other people. if he got too close his own family would stone him to death to protect the community.

They were believed to be not only outcast by the community; they were outcast by God, because surely God would not allow such a thing to happen to a good person.

So at someplace, at sometime the man had one something deserving of such punishment.

And if God was punishing the man, then who were mere mortals to help him and go against the will of God.

When we are preparing these sermons we look at various commentaries and to be honest, the main one we use I usually ignore...but this week it came out with an interesting sentence.

The man kneels and asks, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” It is an interesting sentence. Power is acknowledged, but so is vulnerability. He does not demand healing. He asks whether Jesus is willing.

At the heart of this story is not ability, but desire, not can you? but will you?

I think this is the most important part of this miracle, and also the most important part of Pentecost.

Think about it.

What is our greatest fear?

I would suggest that God doesn’t want to be with us.

Like the leper we have no power to control God.

How many times have I said from this spot that we can do nothing to force God to love us...love is a gift from God, all we have to do is accept it.

But it one thing me saying that, it is another any of us believing it.

We know we are flawed, we know we make mistakes, we are the leper, the outcast.

We are smart enough to know that god has the power to love us.

We just don’t know whether God wants to...and we are so desperate to see the signs, the proof.

And we look for it in the spectacular, and can’t see it, so think it isn’t there.

Bit Jesus rarely does the spectacular.

With this leper all his does is touch him.

Before the man knew healing, before the man was given any instructions...Jesus touched him.

Jesus showed his care in a simple touch.

 Equally at Pentecost the miracle wasn’t the spectacular.

There were thousands of people there for the festival, thousands of outsiders. Non Jewish speakers who wanted to believe that God cared, but had no proof, no sign.

And the wind and the flames weren’t a sign to them of anything, they didn’t understand any of what was going on.

And I suggest that even the disciples probably didn’t have a clue what was going on.

What they understood was hearing in their own language what God was doing.

Here’s the only thing worth hearing about Pentecost...God cares.

God cares about you. God cares about us.

God wants to be part of our life, not in the spectacular, but in the ordinary, everyday life that we live.

Our lives are more than us trying to be entertained, or trying to be fulfilled, or trying to have significance or importance.

Our lives are acts of love, God’s love for us, our love for God.

And that love is shown in how God touches our lives, as Jesus touched the leper.

And that love is shown in how God speaks to us, as the disciples spoke to the people in words they could understand.

Our reaction is in how we love others in return.

As God took a risk with us, so we take a risk with others.

As God is willing to touch our lives for good, so we are willing to touch the lives of others for good.

As God seeks to speak to us with words of hope, so we speak to others with words of hope.

I would suggest it isn’t spectacular.

When Jesus touched the leper it wasn’t spectacular, there may not have been anyone else even there at the time.

It was just one man reaching out to another man.

But it made such a difference in that man’s life.

Maybe that is all we need from God, to feel his touch and be assure that he cares for us.

Maybe that is all God seeks from us, to reach out and touch the lives of others, so that they know that God cares for them.

Let us pray

Holy Spirit,

we pause in your presence, aware that sometimes you do not arrive quietly or on our terms.

You move like wind: unseen, uncontained, disturbing what has settled too easily.

You burn like fire: not to destroy, but to refine,

to bring light where we have grown used to shadows.

Meet us here, different people in different places on our journey of faith.

Meet us here, different people with different expectations of what may happen in our life.

Help us see that we are one in our longing for clarity,

one in our uncertainty of how you may love us,

one in our fear of what change might demand.

Slow us down enough to notice where you are already at work,

help us to see the people that you have put in our lives that have guided us to this time and place,

help us see the times we have felt your comfort and strength,

help us see the obstacles we have already overcome that have shaped our character

Give us ears to hear your voice

even if your voice comes in unfamiliar accents and unsettling truths.

As we listen to your voice kindle in us a fire that reaches out to others with compassion.

Let it shape our words, and our actions.

When we rise from this place, send us out changed,

not louder for its own sake, but braver in love,

wider in welcome,

and ready to follow wherever you leads.

Come, Holy Spirit.

Stay with us.

Move among us.

Make us alive.

Amen.