Sunday service for 5 June 2022, Pentecost

5 June 2022, Pentecost
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by the Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse phone: 632143 
Email: tpeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk

Prelude Music (sanctuary only)

Welcome

Sanctuary Hymn: Mourning Into Dancing

Call to Worship
One: Rejoice! The Lord is near!
All: We come seeking the way, trusting the Spirit will lead us.
One: Rejoice! The Lord is near!
All: We come carrying our burdens, trusting God will hear us.
One: Rejoice! The Lord is near!
All: We come to be re-created as the Body of Christ, to make him known.

Online hymn 623: Here in This Place
Sanctuary Hymn 594 verses 1, 3, 5, 6: Come, Holy Spirit, Come!

Prayer
If we say we have no sin, we deceive only ourselves, for God knows us inside and out, and even our neighbours know there is more than the image we project.When we are honest about our shortcomings and our failings, the Holy Spirit makes room in us for God to do a new thing, for truth to take root, and for our faith to bear fruit in the world. Before God and with God’s people, let us pray.

Your Spirit sends us out to meet others on their terms, O God, yet we confess that we would rather insist they come to us and learn our ways instead. Your Spirit brings people together as themselves, as equals, yet we confess that we are so used to competition we can’t imagine how to be in community with those who are different. Your Spirit gives all the gifts we need to live in your kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, yet we confess that we continue to believe some people are not worthy of your gift and call. Forgive us for believing we can restrict the movement of your Holy Spirit. Forgive us for resisting when the Spirit opens the doors and blows us out of the house into the street. Forgive us for keeping our mouths firmly shut, holding your good news for ourselves rather than participating in your revelation to the world. May your holy wind blow again this day, overcoming our recalcitrance and leading us to the grace of your radical gentleness and generosity of spirit. Amen.

Friends, if anyone is in Christ, the whole creation is made new — the old has gone, and the new has come! Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit, know that you are forgiven, and live as if you are forgiven, loved, and free. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Hymn: Mourning Into Dancing

Children’s Time (sanctuary only)
Song: Wa Wa Wa Emimimo

Readings: Acts 2 (video)

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
“In the last days it will be, God declares,
that 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.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.
And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Philippians 4:4-7
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

For the word of God in Scripture
For the word of God among us
For the word of God within us
Thanks be to God.

Sermon: Speaking Their Language

Before it was the birthday of the Christian Church, Pentecost was a Jewish holiday that celebrated the gift of the Torah — the time God spoke to Moses on top of Mt Sinai and told the Israelite people everything they needed to know to live into their identity as God’s chosen people. God didn’t give people all those instructions so that they could become his people…the instructions were given because they were his people.

At the celebration of the Jewish holiday of Pentecost, which in Hebrew is called Shavuot (and this year began last night!) it has long been a tradition to stay up all night studying the scriptures the night before the holiday. So Pentecost eve, if you will, was a time for gathering to read God’s word together all night long, debating and discussing and asking questions and looking to the word for guidance.

Can you imagine, then, first thing in the morning, getting ready for a day of celebration after spending all night at Bible study, and the Holy Spirit comes rushing into the room with so much power that you’re propelled out of your seat, out the door into the street?

In the beginning, the Spirit blew over the waters of the earth and became the breath that sent God’s word out to create the whole spectrum of life: light and dark, land and sea, plants and animals and people. No one was there to hear the Spirit moving, but she was there. At Mount Sinai God spoke and created community out of a giant group of ex-slaves who were traumatised, lost, querulous, and anxious. They stood round the foot of the mountain and saw smoke and heard thunder, but only Moses heard God’s voice and then came down to explain what God had said, and how they could follow God’s way and live out God’s love and justice. On that Pentecost morning, when Jesus was gone and his disciples were unsure what to do next, the Spirit wind blew them out of the house where they were holed up behind a locked door studying scripture, out into the streets where they began to speak, and everyone in Jerusalem heard it, without needing a translator. A new community was created as they heard, in their own mother tongues, the stories of God’s goodness and how they might live new lives as God’s people.

It’s fascinating that throughout history the Holy Spirit appears to be purposely broadening the audience — from no human ears even existing to hear the first breath on the waters, to speaking just to Moses, to sending the disciples out of the house to talk to everyone in their own languages. The first action of a whole community filled with the Spirit was to go out and communicate God’s goodness across the barriers that kept people apart, working across differences without glossing over them. Pentecost isn’t a story of everyone speaking the same language. It’s a story of the Spirit enabling hospitality that creates community from a group of people whose experiences and languages and skin colours and family configurations were different — a community gathered around the good news of God’s powerful resurrection love. In that community, the Spirit doesn’t distinguish between young and old, men and women — the Spirit simply pours out and the people speak. The boundaries between the human and divine break down, and therefore so do the boundaries we have set up between people.

Of course that always sounds crazy, then and now. Some of the people who heard this message in the streets that morning nearly 2000 years ago thought it was bonkers and believed the only way someone could come up with this nonsense was if they were drunk. Now, granted, sleep deprivation, like, say, staying up all night to study, can make people act drunk sometimes! But the truth is that’s just a convenient way of dismissing something they didn’t want to hear. Just as on Easter morning the men had dismissed the women’s idle tales, so too on Pentecost morning people who did not want to imagine a world where God was loose and active and everywhere and empowering everyone to do God’s work found ways to write it off. It’s a threatening idea, that the Spirit might be out there doing things we haven’t sanctioned, with people we haven’t vetted and approved. And it might be an even more threatening idea that the Holy Spirit might be in here, in us, pushing us out of our safe four walls into the streets to do things we don’t understand and could never have imagined with people who don’t even speak the same language. It’s much easier to simply say those people are crazy and we would never do that, we’re Presbyterians for goodness’ sake!

But the early church thought this was cause for rejoicing, not for fear. After all, the gift of the Holy Spirit is a reminder that the Lord is near! So we don’t need to be afraid of following the Spirit out of the house and into the street. We don’t need to be afraid of reaching out to people who are different. We don’t need to be afraid of welcoming people, speaking their language, changing our ways to ensure that they can hear the good news of God’s love better. Instead we can rejoice in the fact that the Spirit enables us to be hospitable and generous, and empowers us to leave our seats and our buildings and create the Church out there, not just in here.

Paul’s letter to the Philippians, reminding them to rejoice always, has this little line in it that I think our translations do a disservice to, and that connects us back to the Acts story of Pentecost morning. Our English translation says that Paul wrote “do not worry about anything” — but in the original Greek the letter says “do not be pulled apart in multiple directions”. It’s the same word that Jesus said to Martha, that she was being pulled apart by trying to focus in too many directions at once when she was trying to get Mary to be like her. I think that’s part of the problem of the scoffers on Pentecost morning. They see and hear something happening, but they also see that it seems to have started with lowly uneducated boorish Galileans, and it’s taking in people of all kinds of backgrounds and statuses. And so they are pulled apart — God calling on the one hand, but their prejudices and their traditions and comfort zones calling on the other hand. In that anxious place of being pulled in multiple directions, they end up in competition instead of cooperation, and that makes it impossible to be generous or to experience or offer hospitality. So they cannot rejoice, as Paul teaches us to do, because they are anxious — not in the sense we think of that English word today, which is not what Paul is talking about, but in the sense of being pulled apart by competing values in themselves, between a desire for the way things were and a desire to see what God is doing now. Because they can’t allow that God would work in people they thought were inferior, or that God would lead a new direction, they also can’t rejoice in God’s nearness, and therefore rob themselves — and their community — of the peace that passes all understanding.

But the Spirit of God is here, now…surrounding us, including going behind us to push us out to places we might not go alone, to be with people we did not choose for ourselves, broadening the message of God’s love wider and wider every time. And we aren’t alone, God is with us, right here, close at hand, giving us the gifts we need to do kingdom work, the words we need to share good news, and the hearts we need to welcome all God’s people into community. The Holy Spirit has been widening the circle since the beginning of time. Still God’s breath fans the flames of Christ’s passion to make us into his body — not to be all the same, and not to be in competition, but to work together across the lines, speaking each others’ languages and adapting to each others’ needs gifts, as equals and neighbours made in God’s image. Where once there was division and distrust, arrogance and apathy, grief and greed, mourning turns to dancing and praying and generosity and hope and peace beyond what our minds can imagine. Now through the gift of the Spirit we can be of one mind, not pulled apart…and so we who are being created into God’s community rejoice in the Lord, who makes all things possible, even for us, even here, even now.

May it be so. Amen.

Online hymn: Send Us Out (Resound Worship)
Sanctuary Hymn 590: Holy Spirit, Gift Bestower

Sanctuary: Concerns of the Church (Announcements)

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer

On this jubilee weekend, we give you thanks, O God, for your servant the Queen,
and for her faithfulness in doing her duty and serving her country these past 70 years.
We are grateful for her constancy,
for the example of graciousness and compassion she has set,
and for her willingness to speak of her faith in you.
As we prayed at her coronation, again today we ask that you would
Strengthen her, O Lord, with the Holy Ghost the Comforter;
Confirm and establish her with thy free and princely Spirit,
the Spirit of wisdom and government,
the Spirit of counsel and ghostly strength,
the Spirit of knowledge and true godliness,
that so persevering in good works unto the end,
she may by thy mercy come to thine everlasting kingdom.

National Anthem vv 1, 3 (sanctuary only)
God save our gracious Queen,
long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
happy and glorious,
long to reign over us: 
God save the Queen!

Not on this land alone,
but be God’s mercies known
from shore to shore.
Lord, make the nations see
that all should kindred be,
and form one family
the wide world o’er.

(You may be seated as we continue in prayer)

We are not yet one family the wide world o’er, O God.
We thank you for sending your Spirit to enable us to live as your people,
and we pray for your help in fulfilling your call.
Re-create us as makers of peace,
reaching out to those who are different,
making space to welcome those you call into community,
willing to learn and grow with each other.
May your people come together to make peace
in Ukraine, in South Sudan, in Ethiopia, in Palestine, in Colombia, in Sri Lanka, in the USA,
and here in our own homes and neighbourhoods and towns.
May your people come together to share good news
for the people of Yemen, and Afghanistan, and Hong Kong.
May your people come together to work for your kingdom
across divides of
skin colour, accent, sexuality, socio-economic status, education, sectarianism, and age.
Pour out your Spirit of vision and dream,
show us the world you long for,
and give us the courage to live toward your future.
We hear the sound of your rushing wind,
opening us where we have been closed,
clearing our heads and filling our ears with the sound of your Spirit moving,
blowing where she will.
We give you thanks for the privilege of hearing your new creation in progress!
We pray you would speak the language of our hearts to reveal your word again this day,
and loosen our tongues to proclaim your praise.
Trusting in the power of your Spirit, and in the name of our risen Lord Jesus Christ,
who taught us to pray together:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.

Sanctuary Hymn 584: Like Fireworks in the Night

Benediction
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

And as you go, may the Spirit of God go above you to watch over you. May the Spirit of God go beside you to be your companion. May the Spirit of God go before you to show you the way, and behind you to push you into places you might not go alone. And may the Spirit of God go within you to remind you that you are loved more deeply than you can possibly imagine. May the fire of God’s love burn brightly in you, and through you into the world. Go in peace. Amen.

Sung Benediction Response (John L Bell, tune Gourock St John’s)
Now may the Lord of all be blessed,
Now may Christ’s gospel be confessed,
Now may the Spirit when we meet
Bless sanctuary and street.

Postlude Music (sanctuary only)

Announcements

* You are invited to join in reading the Bible in a year for 2022 — immersing ourselves in God’s word throughout the year. Click here to find a reading plan that’s five days a week (leaving a couple of days for catch up each week!). We get together to discuss each week on Wednesday at 7:30pm in the Sanctuary. Please enter via the front door on Bath street — if you can’t manage the stairs, let us know and someone will meet you at the St John’s Road door. All are welcome, no experience necessary! Feel free to invite a friend, too! Anyone who has ever wondered just what the Bible actually says and what it has to do with us is welcome.

All worship is online (or on the phone at 01475 270037, or in print) and we also meet in the sanctuary at 11am. Hand sanitiser is available at every entrance, and mask-wearing is optional though encouraged. Masks are available at the door if you would like one. If you are able, please enter by the front door in Bath street, and only those who need step-free access should use the back door. If you feel unwell, please worship online, to protect both yourself and others in our community.

* Tonight we will gather for evening prayer on the Connect Facebook Page, led tonight by Teri. Log on at 6:58pm to join in.

* The Kirk now has online giving! If you have not already set up a standing order in order to facilitate your spiritual discipline of giving, or if you would like to make an extra gift to support the ministry St. John’s does in our parish, you can give online by clicking here. If you would like to set up a standing order, please contact Peter Bennett, our treasurer, or Teri and she can give you his details. You can also send your envelopes to the church or the manse by post and we will ensure they are received. Remember: no one is coming to your door to collect your envelopes, so please stay safe!

* Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Youtube, and to sign up for our email devotions! Midweek you can watch Wine and the Word on Youtube, pray with video devotions on Facebook, and consider a new angle on something with a devotional email. Feel free to share with your friends, too!

* The annual meeting of the congregation will take place during sanctuary worship on 12 June. You can find the annual finance report by clicking here. If you have any questions, please let Cameron, Teri, or Peter know by the 6th of June if possible so they can be answered for everyone both in the building and online. (there will still be an opportunity to ask questions during the meeting as well.)

* The Kirk Session will meet after worship on Sunday 12 June, with a light lunch provided. Kirk Session meetings are always open for those who wish to observe and know what is happening in the leadership of the church. If you’d like to join the session as we look forward at what God has in store for us, please let us know by 6 June of any dietary needs so we can plan properly for lunch.

* Young Adults Bible Study is now meeting together many Sunday afternoons, sometimes in the manse and sometimes on Zoom. Contact Teri for information on how to join and for a copy of the book they are using.