Sermon and Liturgy for Pentecost Sunday - Year A

Sermon and Liturgy for May 23 1999 - Pentecost Sunday - Year A
Acts 2:1-21 and and I Corinthians 12:1-13
"God's Birthday Gift"

READING: Acts 2:1-21 and and I Corinthians 12:1-13
SERMON : "God's Birthday Gift"

The following is a more or less complete liturgy and sermon for the Pentecost Sunday Year A.

Some of the Prayers below are taken and modified from John Maynard (maynard@SYMPAC.COM.AU) "Prayers and Litanies for Pentecost" as sent to the PRCL-List, May 1999). This includes portions of the Eucharistic Prayer which he sources from "An Order of Worship, Pentecost 1980, of the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the USA". The children's story is traditional - but for presentation here is a slightly modified version of the story sent by Bass Mitchell bassm@va.tds.net)

GATHERING AND MUSICAL PRELUDE (* = please stand)

* WORDS OF WELCOME AND CALL TO WORSHIP (based on Psalm 104:24-35)

L The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
P And also with you.
L How manifold are the works of God!
In wisdom he made all things.
P The earth is full of God's creatures, the ocean too is filled with life both great and small.
L All of these look to God to give them their food in due season. When God gives it - they gather it up and are filled with good things. When he hides his face, they are dismayed.
P When God sends forth his spirit they are created, his breath brings life to them all.
L I will sing to the Lord as long as I live.
P I will praise my God all my days.
L May the Lord rejoice in his works.
P May the glory of the Lord endure forever.

* PRAYER OF INVOCATION:
With many voices we praise You, O God. In different ways we serve You. As we assemble before you today we pray that you would send your Spirit upon us and that you would take our diversity and mould it into a common theme of thanksgiving. We pray that you would weave us and the gifts that we offer into a whole cloth of service that will blanket the world with your love, your true goodness and your glory through Jesus Christ, our Living Lord. Dwell, we pray, within our worship and within our hearts that we may bless you and bring everlasting praise to your name. Amen.

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND SHARING JOYS AND CONCERNS
Gathering in of prayer joys and concerns

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE AND THE LORD'S PRAYER

A READING FROM ACTS 2:1-21
(NRSV) When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. {2} 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. {3} Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. {4} All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. {5} Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. {6} And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. {7}

Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? {8} And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? {9} Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia,Pontus and Asia, {10} Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, {11} Cretans and Arabs--in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." {12} All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" {13} But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine." {14} 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. {15} Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. {16} No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: {17} '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. {18} Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. {19} And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. {20} The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day. {21} Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'

L This is the Word of the Lord
P Thanks be to God.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION
L With what can we come before God?
P A clean heart and a humble spirit he will not despise.
L Loving God - we open our hearts to you.
P Nothing, O Lord, can be hidden from you.
You know when we sit down and when we rise up.
Even before a word is on our tongues you know it completely.
L Gracious God, you know that we have wandered from your path,
that we have ignored your commandments and forgotten your
call to us. We need your help. We pray to you for your
grace and mercy.
P Merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word and deed,
by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbours as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
......... (silent prayer of confession) .........
L Loving God, cleanse us by the power of your Holy Spirit, that
we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy
name, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
P Touch us and we will be made whole. Amen.

SUNG RESPONSE:
O Lord, hear my prayer. O Lord, hear my prayer; when I call
answer me. O Lord hear my prayer, O Lord hear my prayer;
come and listen to me.

ASSURANCE OF GOD'S LOVE & MERCY
It is written in the scriptures that "Christ suffered for sins once, and for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring us to God. (1 Peter 3:18-19)

Brothers and Sisters, I tell you in the name of Jesus Christ, that your sins are forgiven by God. This is God's gift to you through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord, a gift - and not of works - lest anyone should boast. Praise be to God. Amen.

A READING FROM I CORINTHIANS 12:1-13
(NRSV) Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. {2} You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. {3} Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says "Let Jesus be cursed!" and no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit. {4} Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; {5} and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; {6} and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. {7} To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. {8} To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, {9} to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, {10} to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. {11} All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. {12} For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. {13} For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

L This is the Word of the Lord
P Thanks be to God.

SERMON: "God's Birthday Gift"

"Gracious God - bless now the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts. Breath your Spirit into us and grant that we may hear and in hearing be led in the way you want us to go. Amen.

I heard a story the other day about a boy who was wandering under the narthex of a large downtown church one Sunday morning and stopped and examined a large bronze plaque that was hung on the wall. "What are all those names up there?" he asked one of the ushers. "Those are the names of people who died in the service." the usher replied. Curious, the boy asked the usher - "The 9:30 service or the 11 o'clock service?"

I don't want to be long today - butI do want to talk about the birthday of our church - not the particular birthday of St. Andrew's United, but the birthday of the whole church - the birthday of the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church the birthday which we celebrate on this day each year.

Every year we celebrate Pentecost - that day when God poured out his Holy Spirit upon all flesh as he promised through the prophet Joel. But it strikes me that for all our talk about the gift of the Spirit and how it creates, upholds, and sustains the church as a whole, we often miss the full significance of what God has given us - we miss it because we fail - in all our talk and in all our listening - to ask ourselves:
"how has God gifted me in particular - as an individual.."

The story is told of a man called Yates who during the depression owned a sheep ranch in Texas. He did not have enough money to continue paying on the mortgage - in fact he was forced like many others to live on government subsidies.

Each day as he tended his sheep he worried about how he was going to pay his bills. Sometime later a seismographic crew arrived on his land and said that their might be oil on his land and could they test drill. After a lease was signed they went ahead.

At 1115 feet a huge oil reserve was struck - subsequent wells revealed even more oil than the first well revealed. Mr Yates owned it all. He had the oil and mineral rights. He had been living on relief - yet he was a millionaire. Think of it - he owned all that oil with its tremendous potential, yet he did not realize it.

How often we are like this - we are poor and helpless - unaware of the extraordinary power that we have available to us - that which is lying just below the surface in our minds and our hearts.

Each one of us here has been given by God our own special day of Pentecost - a day on which God imparted to us the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Indeed it is this indwelling, this personal day of Pentecost, which we pray for as a church over every believer when we lay hands upon them and with the sign of the cross - anoint their heads with oil on the day of their confirmation.

What God gives us when he gives us his Spirit is more than strength and support and teaching and comfort, those things we normally identify with God's presence, he gives us more too than joy, and peace, patience, and kindness, those things which we call the fruit of the Holy Spirit, he gives us as well a set of gifts - gifts designed for the building up of the body of the church, and for the individual ministries to which we are called, and for our spiritual life.

The prophet Joel, in his prophecy of the last days, mentions some of the gifts that have been granted by God through his
Spirit:
gifts of vision and gifts of dreams
gifts of prophecy
- poured out upon our sons and our daughters,
upon our young and upon our old.

Peter, in his sermon on the day of Pentecost speaks of the gift of tongues - of languages both angelic and human - to those assembled there so that they will not think the disciples are drunk or mad -

And Paul - who in the long run - was the most experienced of all the apostles with the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives, lists some of the gifts that God gives and explores with the Corinthian congregation how those gifts can be used and abused.

A book that I am reading right now lists twenty-seven gifts of the Spirit - Some of them are
- the gift of teaching,
- the gift of discernment,
- the gift. of exhortation
- the gift of hospitality
- the gift of intercession
- the gift of the word of wisdom
- the gift of prophecy
- the gift of faith
- the gift of administration
- the gift of helping
- and the gift of mercy.

Each of these gifts are spiritual gifts - to be distinguished from the natural talent we are born with - they are gifts of our second birth - and can transform an apparently untalented person into someone who has a remarkable ability to minister to others.

What gifts do you have?

What gift or set of gifts has God poured out upon you so that you might love and serve your God and your neighbour in the way God has intended especially for you ?

I want you to think about that - to try to identify within yourself what God has given to you - to use in his work.

It is a profitable exercise - because it forces us to think about what God wants to do through us - it forces us to pray and to read the scriptures and to think about what God has done through us in the past and where we feel he is leading us now. And when we do that we activate the Spirit within us - we bring its power to the forefront of our lives .

What gift or gifts has God given you for your second birth?

Discovering the answer to this question is so profitable an exercise that I suggest that as a way of honouring God you get together with four or five of your brothers and sisters in Christ and try a simple exercise:

- sit with a piece of paper and pen and have these people name to you one or more of your strengths - of your qualities - and write them down. Let each person have a turn as the one in the spotlight. I have done this - and I have helped others to do it - and it is a powerful experience - one in which you begin to see what God has done and is doing in your life. That is kind of what happened with Mr. Yates - someone ed to see what lay beneath the surface - and he discovered that was a rich man - and his life of poverty and desperation was transformed into a life of abundance and of generosity.

He found what had always been there - and he used it - and itchanged his life.

That is what the Spirit is about, what the gifts are about.

They are there to be used in the work of God, a work to which we are all called, and which, when we all serve as we are intended - transforms us, our church, and our world - into what God intends us to be.

PRAYER OF THE DAY:
Dear Lord - help us each to identify the gifts you have given us - the abilities you have granted us for the doing of your work, for helping our brothers and sisters become stronger and better at being a light to the world. Help us to celebrate these gifts and to use them... Lord hear our prayer.....

Gracious Father - we thank you for the indwelling of your Holy Spirit. Help us to touch the power you have granted to us and to share it with others so that healing and wholeness may come upon all.... Lord hear our prayer....

We pray today O God for all those who labour in your vineyard. Support them and bless them that they may endure to the end and see that which their hearts hold in hope this day.... Lord hear our prayer....

We thank you Lord for all the gifts that you have given to us and to your church as whole. We hold before you today O God those who need a special touch of your Holy Spirit if they are to see the salvation you have planned for them. We hold before in our hearts those who have no sense of your glory or your purpose --- we remember those who live without hope or present help in their lives -- we ask for those who do believe - but who are oppressed in body or mind or spirit.... Be with them Lord and with all we name before you in our hearts now........ we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

* SHARING GOD'S BLESSINGS: As the Offering is presented all stand for the Doxology (Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow) and Prayer of Dedication

L We bless you, O God,
with these gifts you first gave us.
P We bless you, O God,
with these gifts for the work of your church.
L We bless you O God, with our hearts and our hands.
P We dedicate to you, O God, all that you have given us.
Use it to bring healing to others and glory to your name.
Amen

* SHARING THE PEACE - We greet those around us with a sign of peace (handshakes or hugs) and words like "The peace of the Lord be with you". This ancient tradition is an appropriate response to the peace that God gives to those who hear and do his word.

COMMUNION LITANY
L The peace of the Lord be with you.
P And also with you.
L Lift up your hearts.
P We lift them up to the Lord.
L Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
P It is right to give him thanks and praise.

THE EUCHARISTIC PRAYER
L Holy Lord, Father almighty, everlasting God: It is our duty and our delight to give You thanks and praise. In the beginning of creation Your Spirit moved over the waters. When we were formed from the dust of the earth, You breathed into us the breath of life. Even when we resisted and grieved You, Your Spirit came upon prophets and teachers, enabling them to speak Your truth. Great and wonderful are Your works, Lord God almighty. Your ways are just and true. And so with the faithful from every time and place, we lift our hearts in joyful praise, for You alone are holy:

P Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
Heaven and earth are full of Your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.

L O Lord our God: we thank You for Your Son Jesus, who lived with us sharing joy and sorry. He told Your story, healed the sick, and was a friend of sinners. Obeying You, He took up His cross and was murdered by those He loved. We praise You that Christ is not dead, but is risen to rule the world; and that He still is the friend of sinners. We trust Him to overcome every power to hurt or divide us, so that when You bring in Your promised Kingdom, we will celebrate victory with Him. Remembering the Lord Jesus, we break bread and share one cup, announcing His death for the sins of the world, and telling His resurrection to all the nations.

P Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again!

THE WORDS OF INSTITUTION AND PRAYER FOR THE SPIRIT
Wherefor, we remember, in accordance with his command, how Jesus, on the night he was betrayed took bread and broke it and thanked you - as we now thank you O God for the bread that gives us life - and then gave it to his disciples, saying , take, eat, this is my body, broken for you.... And in the same manner we recall how he took the cup and offered it to his disciples saying - take and drink, this is my blood, poured out for you. As oft as you do this - do so in memory of me.

Loving God, pour out Your Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts, that they may be for us the body and blood of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Grant that all who share this bread and this wine may be drawn together in unity by Your Spirit, and remain faithful in love and hope until that perfect feast with Christ in joy in His eternal Kingdom.

PROFESSION OF FAITH (The Apostle's Creed)
With the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church around the world this day, let us make our Confession of Faith:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
He ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

SHARING THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST
L The gifts of God for the people of God.
This is the joyful feast, our heavenly banquet.
P They will come from east and west, and from north and south,
And sit at table in the Kingdom of God.
L This is the Lord's Table. Our Saviour invites those
who trust Him to share the feast He has prepared.

The People come forward to receive communion,

DEPARTING PRAYER
L Let us pray....
Almighty God, we thank you for all your gifts to us.
P For the gift of salvation and eternal life
through Jesus Christ,
For the indwelling of your Holy Spirit,
For your presence in our breaking of bread,
For the ministries to which you call us,
For the service for which you equip us,
For the light you shine upon our path
And for the love you place upon our hearts,
We thank you.
L Lord, help us be your faithful people,
P Grant that we may be ones who do the works of righteousness
all our days and joyfully spread the good news of Jesus
Christ to all the world. Amen

* COMMISSIONING (Unison): In the power of the Holy Spirit we now go forth into the world, to fulfil our calling as the people of God, the body of Christ.

* BENEDICTION AND THREEFOLD AMEN
Go in peace;
and may the Spirit of God be above you and below you,
may she be to the right of you and to the left,
to the front and to the rear,
may the Spirit inhabit your hearts and your mind,
and move through your hands and your feet.
May the Spirit fill your eyes and grace your lips -
to the glory of God our Father
and Jesus Christ, our Risen Saviour
both now and forevermore. Amen

* CHORAL BLESSING: "Go Now In Peace"

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