MORNING PRAYER
I know there are some of you who are still finding this morning worship on the web useful so here is this week’s offering. Mary Tucker Come, Spirit of God!
Come with your power to transform us.
Come Fire of Love!
Come with your wisdom to enlighten us.

PSALM 113 God’s glory shines over the heavens. Who compares to our God?
Servants of God, praise,
praise the name of the Lord.
Bless the Lord’s name
now and always.
Praise the Lord’s name
here and in every place,
from east to west.

The Lord towers above nations,
God’s glory shines over the heavens.
Who compares to our God?
Who is enthroned so high?

The Lord bends down
to see heaven and earth,
to raise the weak from the dust
and life the poor from the mire,
to seat them with princes
in the company of their leaders.

The childless, no longer alone,
rejoice now in many children.

Hallelujah.

CANTICLE
Be glad, rejoice, give glory to God!
I will draw you from the nations,
gather you from exile
and bring you home.

I will wash you in fresh water,
rid you from the filth of idols
and make you clean again.

I will make you a new heart,
breathe new spirit into you.
I will remove your heart of stone,
give you back a heart of flesh.

I will give you my own spirit
to lead you in my ways,
faithful to what I command.

Then you will live in the land,
the land I gave your ancestors.
You will be my people
and I will be your God.

READINGS

Acts 2:1-21

The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost

2 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. ² Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³ They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. ⁴ All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

⁵ Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. ⁶ When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. ⁷ Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸ Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? ⁹ Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,^[b] 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome ¹¹ (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” ¹² Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

¹³ Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”

¹⁴ Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. ¹⁵ These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! ¹⁶ No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

¹⁷ “‘In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your young men will see visions,
    your old men will dream dreams.
¹⁸ Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
    and they will prophesy.
¹⁹ I will show wonders in the heavens above
    and signs on the earth below,
    blood and fire and billows of smoke.
²⁰ The sun will be turned to darkness
    and the moon to blood
    before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
²¹ And everyone who calls
    on the name of the Lord will be saved.’

This is the Word of the Lord, Thanks be to God.

John 15:26-27, 16:4-15

The Work of the Holy Spirit

²⁶ “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. ²⁷ And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

⁴ I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you, ⁵ but now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ ⁶ Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. ⁷ But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. ⁸ When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: ⁹ about sin, because people do not believe in me; ¹⁰ about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; ¹¹ and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

¹² “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. ¹³ But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. ¹⁵ All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

This is the Word of the Lord, Thanks be to God.

Thoughts on the readings

Welcome again to one of the great days of the Christian calendar, welcome to Pentecost, welcome to Whitsun, welcome to the Holy Spirit and . . . welcome to journeying.

One of the joys of our Eucharists, our communion services, is the way they lead us on a journey, a journey through prayer and praise, a journey through word and teaching, a journey once again through the last great journey of Jesus from life, to death, to eternal life.

Today I could have wished a slightly different order in the journey, if only in the order of our readings. We started with the great and familiar words telling of the coming of the Spirit in wind and flame and then, as it were, stepped back a pace to Jesus telling the disciples that this was what was going to happen.

But as those of you with dodgy sat. navs. or poor map reading skills will know, many a journey is actually enhanced by an unexpected detour or, as I like to call them, scenic routes! Welcome then to Pentecost, welcome then to a journey or, as it happens, three journeys.

The first is a shared journey, shared by the Israelite nation and us the Christian descendants of Abraham. It’s a journey of learning, a journey into faith and understanding and takes up much of the Old Testament. For much of that time God’s chosen people had special holy places, perhaps a tent, like that set up for God to live in by the wandering Israelites in the wilderness. It seems strange to us but is part of the journey to understanding what God is like and where he is.

In those early days it helped the people of God to have a special place to, as it were, ‘keep God’. They feared as well as worshipped him and perhaps the tent and later the temple (and for us our churches) was not just a special place to worship, but an attempt to keep God where they wanted him – safe and out of the way!

Throughout their journeying, and ours since, we have eventually come to realise that God is not to be caged or limited by our imagination of him. So the journey continued and God became man. Jesus lived and died and rose again to show that the fearful God they, and possibly we, were tempted to hide away was actually a God motivated entirely by love.

The man Jesus demonstrated that this God was powerful indeed but also and overwhelmingly a God of love, a God of forgiveness, a God for all people however undeserving. And today we celebrate another step on the journey, another step in God’s patient explanation of what he is like, in the stories of the Ascension and of Pentecost,

In the second reading, our reading from John, Jesus prepared his disciples for the fact that he was going to leave them, to ascend. That his physical body, which had shown so clearly what God was like, was to go but that this was to be a good thing, that something even better was on the way.

Had we been there in those far off days, I suspect that we, like Mary Magdalene outside the tomb, would have been too keen to hang onto Jesus in his bodily form, to keep him with us as he was. But the job of Jesus on earth was done. The job of showing us God. The job of salvation which required God to die for us was also done and now the next part of the journey was to begin and for it, a completely new understanding of God was needed.

This was to be an even more constant support than a human version of God, this was to be an unseen but powerful presence available to us all, everywhere and for ever. The Spirit of Jesus. The Spirit of God – of God with us.

So there’s journey one and how fortunate we are to live in these days, to have all the learning of thousands of years of developing understanding of God which is wrapped up in our scriptures, our growing knowledge of God as powerful father, loving Son and present Spirit.

But the journey is not over and, in Peter, we have a wonderful example of just what the power of God’s Spirit can do for those who are journeying. Peter, who today we heard inspired and confident, speaking to the assembled crowds without fear and full of conviction.

Hang on a minute! This is Peter. This is Peter the impetuous. This is Peter of ‘foot in mouth’ fame who so often got things so badly wrong that at one point Jesus said to him, ‘Get behind me Satan.’

This is Peter who tried and failed to walk on water, who pulled out a sword and chopped off a servant’s ear’, a tired fisherman, the man who swore to keep faith and then ran away, the man who swore blind three times that he didn’t even know Jesus.

If we are tempted to look on the Holy Spirit as some lesser manifestation of God – stop right there. Just look at Peter’s journey. A journey from confusion to conviction, from fear to faith. A journey of change so profound it beggars belief except that in the power of the Spirit, of God’s Spirit, of the Spirit of Jesus, all things are possible, for all people, everywhere and for ever.

And so to the third journey, our journey.

We may take huge comfort from today’s reading about Peter and the disciples for it is full of promises of what is available to us as we journey on with God. First and foremost of course is that promise of presence. ‘I will be with you always,’ says Jesus to each one of us, ‘even to the end of the world.’

We may feel God’s presence, especially in church or out and about in the beauty of nature. We may even, like the early Israelite people, have a particular awareness of him in a ‘tent’, some corner we have set aside for him in our homes or gardens, but oh how much more precious is that feeling of him beside us, with us, in times of trail and torment. That knowledge that we can call on him, deep in our own hearts at any hour of the day or night.

And there’s another promise too, and it’s one that makes me smile enormously – it’s that drunkenness allegation! So it can be with us! It’s a promise of joy, of confidence, of overflowing love so great that we may feel, and appear, drunk on it!

And what better advertisement can there be for a world lost in sadness and fear, but to see Christians living in exactly the same circumstances as their own but filled with God’s Spirit of love, so much so that we appear drunk with it!

So as you journey on, and we’re all at different stages on that journey, rejoice that we are in a time and place on the whole journey of God which means we know him as Father, Son and Holy Spirit anywhere, everywhere and for ever.

Welcome to journeying. Welcome to Pentecost. Welcome to Whitsun. Welcome to the Holy Spirit.

CANTICLE OF ZECHARIAH
I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.

Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, who shepherds the people and sets them free.

God raises from David’s house a child with power to save.
Through the holy prophets God promised in ages past to save us from enemy hands, from the grip of all who hate us.

The Lord favoured our ancestors recalling the sacred covenant, the pledge to our ancestor Abraham,
to free us from our enemies, so we might worship without fear and be holy and just all our days.

And you child, will be called prophet of the Most High, for you will come to prepare a pathway for the Lord by teaching the people salvation through forgiveness of their sin.

Out of God’s deepest mercy a dawn will come from on high, light for those shadowed by death, a guide for our feet on the way to peace.

INTERCESSIONS
Jesus, you promised us the Spirit to be our advocate and guide. Recognizing your fidelity and our many needs, we pray:

~ Fill us with your Spirit, and send us forth to serve you.
That we may be renewed in heart and mind:

That we may see you in your people who are poor:

That we may speak the truth in love:

That we may make wise choices for the common good:

That we may work to bring about a new heaven and a new earth:

That we may be credible witnesses to your mercy:

THE LORD’S PRAYER

PRAYER
Spirit of Jesus, on Pentecost you stirred the apostles to go out and proclaim the Good News. You blessed them with the faith and courage to carry the gospel throughout the world. Kindle in us zeal for the coming of the kingdom. Translate our vision of a more loving world into daily acts of justice. This we ask in the name of Jesus, our friend and Saviour. Amen

BLESSING
May the Spirit of God dwell within us. Amen.
May the Spirit of God animate us. AmenMay the Spirit of God create new hearts in us. Amen.