A Service for Pentecost 2022

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June 8, 2022

A Service for Pentecost 2022

HYMN -Breathe on me breath of God NEH 342- Carlisle

1 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.

2 Breathe on me, Breath of God,

Until my heart is pure,

Until with thee I will one will,

To do and to endure.

3 Breathe on me, Breath of God,

Till I am wholly thine,

Until this earthly part of me

Glows with the fire divine.

4 Breathe on me, Breath of God,

So shall I never die,

But live with thee the perfect life

Of thine eternity.

PRAYER OF PREPARATION
Almighty God,
to whom all hearts are open,
all desires known,
and from whom no secrets are hidden:
cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love you,
and worthily magnify your holy name;
through Christ our Lord. Amen

PRAYERS OF PENITENCE
The Spirit of the Lord fills the world and knows our every word and deed.

Let us then open ourselves to the Lord and confess our sins in penitence and faith.

You raise the dead to life in the Spirit: Lord, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

You bring pardon and peace to the broken in heart: Christ, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

You make one by your Spirit the torn and divided: Lord, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

May the God of love and power forgive you and free you from your sins,
heal and strengthen you by his Spirit, and raise you to new life in Christ our Lord. Amen.

THE COLLECT

God, who as at this time taught the hearts of your faithful people

by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit:

grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things

and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort;

through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour,

who is alive and reigns with you,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever. Amen

FIRST READING – Acts 2.1-21

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.’

HYMN O thou who camest from above NEH 431 – Hereford

1 O Thou who camest from above,

The pure celestial fire to impart,

Kindle a flame of sacred love

On the mean altar of my heart.

2 There let it for thy glory burn

With inextinguishable blaze,

And trembling to its source return

In humble prayer, and fervent praise.

3 Jesus, confirm my heart’s desire

To work, and speak, and think for thee;

Still let me guard the holy fire,

And still stir up the gift in me.

4 Ready for all thy perfect will,

My acts of faith and love repeat,

Till death thy endless mercies seal,

And make my sacrifice complete.

GOSPEL – John 14.8-17,25-27

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

Sermon

Canon Paul Oestreicher wrote in the Church Times many years ago the following “the risen Christ did not return to impress the world with his power, did not return to humiliate the Roman governor or the high priests, but briefly touched those who loved him, and left them as mysteriously as he had come. There was no gratifying Jesus cult, but rather this: “there are many things you cannot yet understand. The Spirit will come and to lead you to the truth.” The journey to the truth was a continuing process: no dogma, no tablets of stone, not even a holy book, but the experience of the living Spirit on the road to the kingdom.”

After Jesus’s death there was no great demonstration of resurrection, Jesus didn’t stride into the temple show his hands and his feet and his side to the high priest, he didn’t march into the governor’s palace with thousands at his side demanding that he be obeyed. Only his disciples, and only those who had loved him in life, saw him after his death. The proclamation, the declaring of the good news, and the new hope, all that Jesus was, was left, no, was given, to the disciples. But how could these poor men from Galilee, this odd assortment of fisherman and tax collectors and goodness knows what else, fulfil such a task. What training had they had? What courses in public speaking and effective presentation had they been on? What training in theology had they had. Of course, they had a none, but they had a gift, a gift which none of them could understand nor adequately describe, they had a gift promised to them by Jesus himself.

Far from the Apocalypse, the end of all things, that Peter felt sure would now come. What instead happened, and what they were eventually to realise, was that the gift of the Spirit, far from being a harbinger of the end of things, was instead the bringer of new things, of a new insight, a new understanding. St John calls this Spirit the Paraclete, a word usually translated as advocate or councillor, it may also be understood as helper. To quote from Canon Oestreicher again:

“This Holy Spirit is not the self-centred creation of Charismatic movements down the ages, which give divine status to their form of enthusiasm. This Spirit is the mysterious hidden presence of God in men and women and children inside and outside the Church: love in action in the world, the divine counter-culture, the sign of the Kingdom that is to come and yet is already present in the streets of the poor, even where there is no Mother Teresa. … The Holy Spirit takes us by the hand and leads us to the Father and the Son.”

So this is Pentecost, when the disciples experienced the tangible presence of the Spirit, and began their mission to create a people of the Spirit, seeking to be guided and taught by the revealing, disturbing, overwhelming Spirit of God. And here we are, inheritors of the journey, of the mission to become people of the Spirit of God. We are not worthy, of course we’re not, but nevertheless it is us in our generation, in our time, that must express the Spirit of God, make him known and his voice heard. But most of all must participate in the life of the Spirit. That is to say that we must allow the Holy Spirit to draw us to the Father and the Son – all else merely follows from that.

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH

Let us declare our faith in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ:

Christ died for our sins
in accordance with the scriptures;
he was buried;
he was raised to life on the third day
in accordance with the scriptures;
afterwards he appeared to his followers,
and to all the apostles:
this we have received, and this we believe. Amen. 1 Corinthians 15.3-7

HYMN Gracious Spirit Holy Ghost NEH367 – Capetown

1 Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost,

Taught by thee, we covet most

Of thy gifts at Pentecost,

Holy, heavenly love.

2 Love is kind, and suffers long,

Love is meek, and thinks no wrong,

Love than death itself more strong;

Therefore give us love.

3 Prophecy will fade away,

Melting in the light of day;

Love will ever with us stay;

Therefore give us love.

4 Faith will vanish into sight;

Hope be emptied in delight;

Love in heaven will shine more bright;

Therefore give us love.

5 Faith and hope and love we see

Joining hand in hand agree;

But the greatest of the three,

And the best, is love.

6 From the overshadowing

Of thy gold and silver wing

Shed on us, who to thee sing,

Holy, heavenly love.

INTERCESSIONS – Vera Oldham

Heavenly Father, today we gather to celebrate the feast of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Disciples. As the first disciples did on that first Pentecost, let us now unite in prayer and open our hearts to receive the Holy Spirit. Lord send your Holy Spirit into our hearts, into our lives and into our world.