(All our songs this morning are from Hymns & Psalms (H&P) numbers will be given where available)
Welcome to our Sunday Service, today shared on paper across our circuit and with the congregation at Thornton Methodist Church led by Stuart Ayrton one of our Circuit Local Preachers.
Click on the blue links to follow them for bible readings and associated links
Call to Worship
Let us come into God’s presence.
Let us come just as we are.
Let us expect great things from God.
Let us welcome the Holy Spirit and be set on fire today
Song – H&P 288 – Holy Spirit come, confirm us
Prayers
Father God, We thank you for sending your Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Fill our hearts with your love and help us to seek your face. Give us grace to turn to your world with a burning desire to bring your love to others.
Lord God, You call people to come from many different countries. You call people who speak many different languages. You call people with many different gifts.
Lord God, we come to meet with you today, All together in one place, Embracing and celebrating our differences.
Thank you, Lord, that there is unity in diversity.
Lord God, it really blows our minds When we think about our vast and colourful world, and remember that you made it all. You are greater than any divide. You delight in the differences of your people. Bless our hearts today with the fullness of joy that your Spirit brings.
Sometimes we try and build ourselves into a tower, cut ourselves off from others, forgetting that we need them too. Forgive us, great and glorious God, and break down our barriers.
Sometimes we turn away from people of other cultures, just because they’re different.
Forgive us…
Sometimes we cling on to our own prejudices, and don’t see diversity as a blessing.
Forgive us…
Lord of every language under the sun, you understand our every word. But, more than that, you read the thoughts of our hearts. You forgive us our sins, whoever we are, and whatever we may have done. Lord of every language under the sun, we rejoice in your forgiveness.
Today we will hear miraculous stories of people both separated and united by language.
Lord, we thank you for our mother tongue, the language that reveals our true selves.
We rejoice in the gift of communication. Thank you that our words can be extraordinary
When your Spirit breathes through them. Amen.
Meditation
Common language
Confusion – as the Babel-babble of languages ripped apart a proud people and scattered them in misunderstanding.
Resolution – as a Spirit-filled language swept swiftly through a listening crowd and united them in understanding and community.
Same God. Same Spirit. But now in longed-for reconciliation, as the word of death defeated by the love of God was spoken with Pentecostal power. ©Marjorie Dobson
Song – H&P 578 – This is the day
Reading
Song – H&P 315 – God’s Spirit is in my heart
Sermon
We hear about the events of Pentecost as the Holy Spirit is given to individuals in all their diversity. Those gathered from the surrounding nations hear God’s good news being declared in their own languages. Peter addresses the crowds, telling them that what they have seen is a fulfilment of Joel’s prophecy that God’s Spirit will be poured out on all people. We are individuals with our own gifts, passions and personality traits, but we are united by our faith in God and a common vision. Do we recognise gifts in each other and bring them together to present something beautiful to God? We often speak about people who ‘walk the talk’, by which we mean that their faith is about both belief and action. In the Gospel story, Jesus is the supreme example of this, as he stresses to Philip that his words and his action both say the same thing, namely that he has come to show us what God is like. We are also called to walk the talk, to live and speak in a way that shows people what God is like so that they might in turn be drawn to him. It is difficult to describe something as abstract as the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples. Many different images are used in Scripture including fire, water, and a rushing wind. All of these ideas imply energy and movement. The image of the fire is both communal and individual. All were filled with the Spirit, yet a tongue fell on each separately. God, through the Holy Spirit, recognises us as individuals with our own gifts, passions and personality traits. Together, though, we are more than the sum of our separate identities. Do we recognise gifts in each other and bring them together to present something beautiful to God?
Have you ever heard someone say “We’re not a church that thinks in terms of black and white. We’re all people: God’s people.” And that’s such a wonderful sentiment because it means that we want to treat each other with equal respect. And yet, for some of us, that can also be a challenging sentiment because if we’re truly to belong we need to be able to be, and be seen, for who and what we are. Think of it this way: our faith is wonderfully universal. We say that God loves the whole world and we believe God does. And yet Jesus came, born of a specific woman, in a specific time, in a confluence of culture and political ramifications, and his specificity, his distinctiveness, his individuality, are all part of that incarnation. So what then if our own distinctive individuality, what makes us who we are, is also how we hear and come to know God.
Let’s take a look at two examples from the early church here in the book of Acts. The first, the day of Pentecost. The disciples were gathered; the Spirit came. And, astonishingly, the crowd that gathered heard them speaking in their own languages. So what does that say about our God, that God chooses to work through human cultures, human languages, speaking to people in what they recognise. The second example is from the church at Antioch. Now after the death of Stephen, the Christians dispersed and some, who had been Jews from Crete and from Cyrene, went to Antioch and there God brought together an incredibly diverse congregation: people from different ethnic backgrounds, from cultural and educational backgrounds too. And what happened there was astonishing: Saul, who was from Tarsus but brought up in Jerusalem; Barnabus, a Levite from Cyprus; Manaen who’d been brought up at court with Herod Antipas; Simon, named Niger; and Lucas who was from cosmopolitan North Africa. What bound this huge Spirit-filled diverse church together was their common allegiance to Jesus and the impact of this fellowship was huge too. For it was in Antioch that the followers of Jesus were first referred to as Christians, and it was from Antioch that Paul went on his missionary journeys. Mosaics are made individually from tiny, tiny pieces but under the hand of a creative artist they come together to make a yet more glorious picture. Michael Hawn in a book called “One bread, One body” writes “The mosaic of a culturally diverse congregation reflects the face of God from whom all cultures come.”
It is typical of God’s calling to us that on the day of Pentecost, instead of being allowed to dwell on what it feels like and means to have tongues of fire resting on you, the disciples have to go straight out and start preaching. The Acts account has got it just right. The description of the giving of the Holy Spirit is over in four verses, and the sermon takes most of the rest of the chapter. The first four verses are full of vivid detail – the wild wind rocking the whole house, the tongues of flame, and the strange speech – but we are not allowed to dwell on them. We don’t even hear how the disciples got out of the house and into the crowd, but suddenly, that’s where they are. And now that they have reached their destination, the narrative slows down, and there is time for dialogue, reaction, emotion. But not from the disciples. Instead, we are now focusing on the crowd, on their bewilderment, amazement, disbelief. ‘What about the disciples?’ you want to shout. ‘Were they bewildered, amazed, disbelieving? Or were they filled with joy, certainty and power?’ ‘You don’t need to Know,’ Acts tells us firmly. And that makes it clear what the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church is for. It is not designed to fill us with religious feelings, or give us unshakeable certainty, or impress others with our power, or even to form us into The Church, though it may have all of those effects too. The gift is given primarily to allow the disciples, and us, to do what Jesus told us to, which is to be his witnesses ‘in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:8).
So when at last we hear directly from the disciples, it is Peter’s voice, lifted in praise of God. He knows, with utter clarity, that what has happened to them is a sign of God’s huge and faithful purpose. This is what God has always promised, through his Prophets, and the point of it is our salvation. The verses that Peter quotes from Joel could be frightening, with their talk of the ‘last days’, the sun darkened and the moon turned to blood, but Peter is here to tell the crowd that God’s presence is opportunity, not terror, salvation, not condemnation. Peter’s excitement and joy bubble through this speech. The immediate effect on Peter of the gift of the Spirit has been to make him wildly generous. He longs to see Him. He looks on the crowd around him, and he knows he is now responsible for them. He must, he absolutely must, make it clear to them what God is offering through faith in Christ. The temptation is to see the gift of the Spirit as something for insiders, to be jealously guarded and enjoyed. But instead we need to share in Moses’s generosity of vision, and long for the Spirit to come down on all of God’s people. It is with that longing that Peter preaches, a longing that all should share in the forgiveness and new life that God has given to us. We receive in awed gratitude, and share because we know that God has given us what we do not deserve. Should we be more grudging than God?
The believers on the day of Pentecost had the balance right between reaching towards God, accepting the gifts they were given and living out their new experience in the communities they were a part of. We are also part of a wider community of believers who long to see a different way of living. May we, too, work towards that balance in our spiritual lives as we reach upwards towards God and outwards to his people. Let’s pray that we will deepen our relationship with God in Jesus Christ, and that we may be on fire with the Holy Spirit, not just today as we celebrate Pentecost, but for the whole of our lives.
Song – H&P 328 – Upon the day of Pentecost
Prayers of Intercession
Response after each phrase: Holy Spirit, affirm them today.
We pray, Holy Spirit, for all who lack confidence.
For parents struggling to meet the needs of their families…
Holy Spirit, affirm them today.
For children struggling with their work at school…
For teachers struggling to meet the demands of the day…
For young people who feel misunderstood…
For young adults struggling to find their place in the world…
For carers trying to support and comfort those who are vulnerable…
For the frail, facing diminishing strength and loss of identity…
For all people struggling to be who they truly are…
Holy Spirit affirm them – and us – today.
Amen.
Lord’s Prayer
Song – H&P 260 – Jesus is Lord! Creation’s voice proclaims it,
Blessing
Lord, we have come together as your people.
We have listened to your Word and joined together in your praise.
Send us back to our daily lives,
Ready to share your good news through the coming week.
Amen
