Sermon notes  May 19  Pentecost  Acts 2:1-21 and John 14: 15-17,25-27

Good morning.  When I was a much younger man I was on a week-long retreat at a center of the Church of the Brethren. After dinner one evening I went out onto a hill overlooking a beautiful valley. It was autumn and the sky was clear and the air was crisp. As I sat and meditated on that day spent in prayer and fellowship I felt a cool breeze come over me. My arms began to tingle with delight and I felt and heard the voice of God. The Holy Spirit, God’s breath had visited me. I had spent much of the day in prayer alone and with others. My heart and being was open to this calling, this gift showered upon me. The presence of God through the Holy Spirit had broken into my life and I was transformed.

In a similar way the disciples and others gathered in a house in Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish festival of the Pentecost, they experienced a rush of wind from heaven, sounding like a roaring and mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit. New and strange things happen. Flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them.  The Holy spirit as promised by Christ described from our reading from John’s gospel was present.   God will send the Advocate, the HS to remind the disciples of everything Jesus had said and done. The HS breaks into their lives and they are never the same. They begin to proclaim the good news in all the languages spoken by Jews who were scattered around the Mediterranean world. They become passionate about their mission, about the risen Christ and what it means to each other and to the world.  From that moment the life of the church, in all its goodness, diversity, differences, and challenges begins to emerge and change the world.   We are the inheritors of this movement. Do we hear and sense the presence of the HS in our lives, here in this place?  Are we called today to proclaim the good news? 

Are we called today to be in this community as leaders of hope and goodwill? If churches do not produce people characterized by communion with God, Christ like character and bear the fruits of the Spirit people have every reason to ask why we stay in business.  

The Holy Spirit appears to each of us in different ways. For some, like the story in Acts the HS comes like a mighty wind, with a roaring vibration and noise inside a house.  For others, like me the HS comes in nature as a gentle breeze on a cool autumn evening .  Our awareness of the HS can happen whenever we open our lives to God and God’s path. The HS brings passion and purpose.

The passion of my faith and mission in life often comes to me when I sing certain hymns and anthems, when I read scripture, as I participate in communion, as I pray alone or with you, or as I participate in a mission project.

The Holy Spirit shakes things up. We are so used to the ways we have done things in the past. The past is familiar and comfortable. Are we blocking our faith’s journey for the today and the days to come? Are we letting the past get in our way of the church’s journey in this community by clinging to the way it has always been done? The HS shakes things up.

Church of 12, fed by the HS now feeds over 800 families a month. A Presbyterian church in Covesville, fed by HS now is home to a day care center that services 30 families in the community.

 When the HS came upon these men and women in that house they did not know what the future held, but they knew their lives had been changed with a purpose. So they slowly, with bumps, valleys, sunshine and all set about to establish a community, a church in which the ways of God are paramount.  Where love and service to the world are instilled in their hearts and actions.

They struggled as we do today to figure out what all this means for their lives. One of the first things they did was elect some to be deacons, to lead the effort to address the needs of the poor, the orphaned and the widows. Those persons who were on the outskirts of society, were hurting physically, emotionally and spiritually. Those persons who were vulnerable to whims of the greater exterior world.

As time went on they tried to figure out how to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and to whom. Some wanted the movement to remain Jewish while others wanted to open up the movement to non-Jews. This was difficult for it upset their comfort zone. The Holy Spirit will upset our comfort zone. The Holy Spirit breaks into our lives and sets things loose.  

Let us open our hearts and selves to hear the blowing of God’s breath, to feel the fire of the Spirit of God and make us move to enrich our lives and make disciples of Jesus Christ by doing no harm, doing  good and always staying in love with God.

In our story today God breathed life into a community of once timid disciples and gave them fire of heart and mind to begin creating a new world.  Their former lives ended and their new lives began.

Though we may or may not hear or feel the rush of a mighty wind we are gathered here to worship as the worshippers in the story of Acts were gathered, to worship and praise God. 

The HS calls to us today to rekindle our hearts and actions to make disciples, to bring a heaven on earth, God’s Kingdom through acts of goodness and through acts of prayer and devotion. The Holy Spirit dwells in us, when invited by us through prayer, worship, service and other spiritual disciplines.  We are the hands and feet of Jesus in the world. But we can only be this body if we are a Spirit-filled people. This is our new Pentecost.

We have an Administrative Council meeting following this service. Let us bring the HS to our gathering. Let us turn our church and community upside down, light a fire and move.  Amen.