PIONEER
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Worship
via Blog Day of Pentecost May 31, 2020
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WELCOME AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
Welcome as we come before God in worship,
whether through the written word of Blog and mailed services or digitally
through our Zoom service. Over the blocks or over the miles, we gather as the
Pioneer faith community, gathered as children of God to worship, to be
spiritually fed, and to be equipped to go out to serve in Christ’s name in
whatever way we can do so safely.
Session met May 26 and decided to resume worship at the church under limited conditions effective June 14, 2020. Click here for the full article. Attendance will be limited to 25 people including the worship leaders. It will be on a first-come first-served basis. Let Jon know if you wish to attend. The rule for six-foot distancing will be in place and there will be no community singing. Not everyone will be comfortable gathering and that is okay. Those who are vulnerable are encouraged to worship from home via the blog or Zoom.
Now allow yourself a brief time of silence
as you open your hearts and feel God’s presence with you, right where you are.
BAPTISM: Friends, remember your baptism … and be thankful.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Remember the promise of the Lord:
God will pour out the Spirit on all flesh.
The Spirit helps us in our weakness,
interceding with sighs too deep for words.
The Spirit of God renews the earth.
Bless the name of the Lord!
PRAYER OF THE DAY
God our creator, earth has many languages,
but your gospel proclaims your love to all nations in one heavenly tongue. Make
us messengers of the good news that, through the power of your Spirit, all the
world may unite in one song of praise. Send your Spirt into our lives with the
power of a mighty wind. Open the horizons of our minds by the flame of your wisdom.
Loosen our tongues to show your praise, for only in your Spirit can we voice
your words of peace and love. Amen.
OPENING
PRAISE SONG: “Spirit Song”
CALL
TO CONFESSION
The proof of God’s amazing love is this:
while we were sinners Christ died for us. Because we have faith in him, we dare
to approach God with confidence. In faith and penitence let us confess our sin
before God and one another.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Eternal
God, whose covenant with us is never broken, we confess that we fail to fulfill
your will. Though you have bound yourself to us, we will not bind ourselves to
you. In Jesus Christ you serve us freely, but we refuse your love and withhold
ourselves from others. We do not love you fully or love one another as you
command. In your mercy, forgive and cleanse us. Open our hearts to your love.
Make our will your own that your Spirit might work through us. (personal prayers of confession …) Amen.
ASSURANCE OF FORGIVENESS
Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation.
The old life has gone; the new life has
begun.
Friends, believe the Good News!
In Jesus Christ we are forgiven and
restored to new life!
PASSING THE PEACE
May the peace of Christ be with you.
And also with you.
Let us extend the peace of Christ in heart
and prayer to God’s children everywhere.
GLORY
BE TO THE FATHER
TIME
WITH CHILDREN
Fiona, Zoey, good morning. Do you know
what today is? It’s a birthday! Can you guess who? Not mine! Is it yours? No?
It’s the birthday of the church. Not just Pioneer but all the churches that
know Jesus. We call it Pentecost. Long ago after Jesus had gone back to heaven,
his disciples were in Jerusalem because Jesus told them to wait there. Suddenly
there was a really loud wind. That was probably kind of scary. Then it says the
Holy Spirit came down on each person there like little flames above their
heads.
I sent you some coloring pages again and
one of them was a birthday cake since it’s the church’s birthday. One was of
the Holy Spirit like a dove with little flames above the heads of people.
That’s what happened on Pentecost. There was also a picture of a star and a
moon, right? We know stars don’t really have five points on them, don’t we? But
we like to make them that way. And the moon picture has a face on it. We know
there isn’t really a face on the moon, but we like to draw it that way
sometimes. Well, the Holy Spirit isn’t really a dove or flames, but we and the
people back in Jesus’ time liked to picture the Holy Spirit in that way. We
don’t know what the Holy Spirit really looks like so we use a dove or flame
when we want to make a picture of the Spirit just like we make a star with five
points when we want to picture stars. Did you make your dove from the parts I
sent? I hope so. It can remind you that Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit to help
us remember what Jesus taught us. Let’s pray.
Dear Jesus, thank you for the moon and the
stars and birthdays. They’re fun! And thank you for the Holy Spirit even though
we don’t know what the Spirit really looks like. But thank you for having the
Holy Spirit help us remember what you taught like to love each other and be
kind. Amen.
HYMN: “Jesus
Loves Me”
Jesus loves me,
this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him
belong, they are weak but he is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves
me. Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves
me. The Bible tells me so.
Jesus loves each one of us just as much as
he loves Zoey and Fiona. Does that make you feel good?
SCRIPTURE
1: Psalm 104:24-35, 35b
How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them
all; the earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, vast and
spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number-- living things both large and
small. There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which
you formed to frolic there. All creatures look to you to give them
their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather
it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things.
When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away
their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit, they
are created, and you renew the face of the ground. May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in
his works-- he who looks at the earth, and it trembles, who touches the
mountains, and they smoke. I will sing to the Lord all my
life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. May my meditation be
pleasing to him, as I rejoice in the Lord. … Praise the Lord, my
soul. Praise the Lord.
SCRIPTURE 2: Acts 2:1-21
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.
And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it
filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them
tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were
all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the
Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout
men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came
together, and they were bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in his
own language. And they were amazed and wondered, saying, "Are not all
these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his
own native language? Parthians and Medes and 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 Arabians, we hear them telling in our own
tongues the mighty works of God." And all were amazed and perplexed,
saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others mocking
said, "They are filled with new wine." But Peter, standing with the
eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who
dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For
these men are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the
day; but this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: `And in the last days it
shall 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; yea, and on my menservants and my
maidservants in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.
And I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth beneath,
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness and
the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and manifest
day. And it shall be that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be
saved.'
SERMON: “Spirit
Quenched or Spirit Drenched?” Rev.
Jean Hurst
Fire and
smoke, darkness and blood, dreams and visions, wind and flame and a cacophony
of noise: today’s passage is one of drama. It was a maelstrom right then, right
there in their midst. It was a promise of what was yet to come. And it was a
description of the events that would precede the return of the Lord. Where is
your attention drawn? What captures your imagination in this passage for
Pentecost? What captures your heart?
This is, if you will, the
culmination of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The passion of Jesus is
complete. He walked out of the tomb and encountered his followers in a variety
of ways and times before he ascended to heaven. According to last week’s
passage in the first chapter of Acts, right before he ascended to heaven, Jesus
told the disciples to stay in Jerusalem until they had received the gift of the
Holy Spirit, which had been promised.
They wait. Their waiting coincides with the Jewish
holiday known as the Feast of Harvest or the Feast of Weeks. It celebrates the
start of the early wheat harvest. Counting the Day of Resurrection, it is 50
days since Jesus walked out of the tomb.
Without warning, it happens. As one writer described it,
the Holy Spirit invades the gathering
of disciples. A roaring fills the room as a great wind sweeps in. Flames dance
over each of those gathered there—men and women, young and old. I suspect
they’re simultaneously gaping in awe and trembling in their sandals. Pentecost
is promise-fulfilled but it’s not for the faint of heart.
Seemingly without prompting, they all begin speaking.
The commotion draws Jews from all over the city who had come to celebrate the
festival. They live in surrounding countries and made the pilgrimage to
Jerusalem to be there for this religious holy day. They are amazed and confused
as they hear these people from the backwater of Galilee speaking in their own
languages and proclaiming the wonders of God.
The scoffers accuse the disciples of drunkenness but
Peter shoots back that it’s only nine in the morning. He tells them that this
is prophecy fulfilled. He goes on to talk about Jesus—who he is, what he did,
and what happened to him. These Jews from surrounding countries as well as the
local Jews are touched to the quick. They want to know what to do. Peter tells
them to repent and be baptized and to save themselves from this corrupt
generation. About three thousand of them did just that and the church was born.
Would our
hearts be touched? How complacent have we become? Do we not also live in a
corrupt generation? When has the world seen such violence, such indecencies,
such abuse of power and divisiveness, such corruption and greed? How long has
it been since so many people lost their moral compass, their sense of right and
wrong, of compassion and caring, of values and decency?
Do we care and do we want to do anything about it? In
Jerusalem, the new converts’ hearts had been cut to the quick at what they
heard. They wanted to change. And they did. The Holy Spirit came upon them
also.
In this era, we tend toward one of two things. The first
is that Pentecost was an historical event in the life of the church and
occurred more than two thousand years ago. Interesting in retrospect, and
educational when we look at the growth of the church, but not very relevant
today.
The second attitude is that we accept the Holy Spirit to
be a gift to believers even today but that it’s a washed-out version of the
original. No wind. No fire. No drama. The Spirit nowadays is a placid little
voice in our conscience that might nudge us toward certain words and actions
but certainly isn’t life-changing or world-changing; rather bland and innocuous
and really quite safe.
Well folks, my message to you is that the Holy Spirit is
just as powerful and life-changing today as it has been for these past two
thousand plus years. If the work of the Spirit is stifled, it’s because we have
stifled it. Is that even possible, you might wonder? Scripture tells us it is.
In Ephesians 4:30, the Apostle Paul implores us not to grieve the Holy Spirit.
And in the first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 19 we are told,
“Do not quench the Spirit.” Some translations say, “Do not put out the Spirit’s
fire.”
That makes us sound awfully powerful, if we can have
such an impact that we could derail the work of God’s Spirit in the world. We are powerful. God’s will and purpose in
the world, the very mission of Jesus, is carried out through the church, the
body of Christ—us. We are the hands
and feet and voice and heart of Jesus in the world. But God does not force the
divine on us.
We are children of God, precious in God’s heart,
cherished, and called to a life of faith for the healing and transformation of
the world. If we love God, if we love Jesus, we will respond. If we do not …
God will not force us.
God could have stepped in and used divine power to keep
the world on track, according to God’s vision, way back in the time of Adam and
Eve. But God didn’t want a world of puppets. God wanted us to do what is right
out of love, not coercion. So yes, we are
that powerful. We are powerful enough to tell God ‘no’. We are powerful enough
to quench the power of the Holy Spirit and diminish it to a nice safe glow
rather than a roaring blaze. But do we want
to?
Think about the good you have known in the world—kindness,
love, healing, generosity, compassion, decency, nobility, caring, acceptance,
gentleness—the opposite of the evil we see too much of in the world today. Are not those, the good things, the very
things God wants for our world? Isn’t that why Jesus taught and modeled those
things and commanded us to follow? Is that not what the Holy Spirit kindled in
each believer so that they could move the world in that direction, into the
fulfillment of God’s kingdom on earth? Is this not what we want for our world,
for our children and grandchildren and future generations?
I just finished the book, The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown, about the University of
Washington’s rowing crew that competed and won in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
It described the boys’ feelings after they’d won the Olympic trials and knew
they were heading to Berlin. Their thoughts struck a chord with me. Brown
wrote, “They were now representatives of something much larger than
themselves—a way of life, a shared set of values. Liberty was perhaps the most
fundamental of those values. But the things that held them together—trust in
each other, mutual respect, humility, fair play, watching out for one
another—those were also part of what America meant to all of them. And right
along with a passion for liberty, those were the things they were about to take
to Berlin and lay before the world when they took to the water at Grunau.”1
What do we lay before the world? What is important to
us? What do we value? If goodness and love are what God wants and initiated
through Jesus and the Holy Spirit and if this is what we want, then why in the
world would we want to stifle the Spirit? Yes, there are risks. Some people
will disapprove of us. Some will scoff. Some will try to persuade us to do
differently, based on a worldly logic or political ideology or religious dogma.
It might take time and energy and resources we are reluctant to commit. It
might mean going out on a limb. It might mean looking foolish. 1 Corinthians
4:10 says we are fools for Christ’s sake. Consider whether what is gained in
Christ’s name is worth the risks. Consider whether we truly want the world that
is God’s vision and God’s kingdom.
When the Spirit is in action in the world today, it’s
not likely to be the drama that it was in Jerusalem so long ago. But it’s just
as powerful. When the occasion arises, when we need to speak or act and feel we
don’t have the courage, all we have to do is bring to mind what we value, then
open ourselves to the Holy Spirit and pray for guidance and courage. The Spirit
will work through us just as powerfully as with those new converts so long ago.
Like them, it’s not a one-time thing. It is choosing over and over again to
stand for what is right, asking the Spirit to help us. Each of those actions multiplied
by each of us changes the world. Amen.
1Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: Nine
Americans and Their Epic Quest for God at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Penguin
Books, NY, 2013, p. 289
HYMN: “Spirit”
PRAYERS
OF THE PEOPLE AND THE LORD’S PRAYER
God of Life, who is with us all our days,
breathe deeply into us for we come breathless to you from fretful times and
fragile relationships, our attention distracted, our energy drained, our
intentions splintered, our love glazed over, our hopes unmet and our faith
frayed. Still, we come to you with praise and thanksgiving, for your blessings,
your grace and your love, for this insistent yearning to know you and to love
you back. Lord, pour your Spirit into us, so that despite painful times, sobering
losses, and puzzling trials, our lives may be healed. We are yours, and you are
forever, heeding our prayers and the needs of our lives.
Hear now our prayers for your people, our
joys and our concerns. We ask for your healing and presence for those who
especially need your care. We pray for Ralph Hook … John Matthews … Barbara
Clark … Charlie Cagle … Sandi … Trisha … Dave … Jacob Cunningham … Joyce … Jennifer … Chuck … and Courtney.
Surround each with your love and peace. Grant them strength and courage,
healing and comfort, and the solid assurance of your presence with them.
Tender God, we pray for the people of our
nation and of the world, for all are your children. We lift up those who live
in fear, those struggling simply to survive, those whose lives have been
devastated by the coronavirus, those who live with darkness and defeat and are
on the verge of giving up on life. Bring hope, we pray.
Lord, we entrust our cares to you, including those
still in our hearts, trusting in your love and compassion. We pray in the name
of Jesus who taught us to pray:
Our Father who art
in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as
it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as
we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from
evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
OFFERING
The Letter of James tells us that, “Every
generous act of giving is itself a gift from God above. In gratitude, let us
bring before God the gifts of our hearts and labors. Pause as you think of how
your heart expresses gratitude to God for all God’s blessings.
DOXOLOGY
PRAYER OF
DEDICATION
Gracious God, who called us from death to life, we
give ourselves to you; and with the church through all ages we thank you for
your saving love in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
CLOSING HYMN: “Open
My Eyes That I May See”
CHARGE AND BENEDICTION
Your charge for the week is to trust the presence and
power of the Holy Spirit even as you trust your own best nature to speak and
act for that which is good and right in God’s eyes.
Now, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love
of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
CHORAL RESPONSE
May the Lord, Mighty God, bless and keep you forever.
Grant you peace, perfect peace, courage in every endeavor. Lift up your eyes
and see his face and his grace forever. May the Lord, Mighty God, bless and
keep you forever.
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LOOKING
AHEAD
Worship and church
activities are suspended until the coronavirus is contained and it is once
again safe to come together and worship. Use the church blog to access worship
and spiritual support articles and to keep up with what’s going on. If you have
trouble accessing or using the site, call Jean or Jon.
PPW Annual Sale will be held July 17th and 18th.
PLEASE
KEEP THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE IN YOUR PRAYERS:
Ralph Hook
(medical issues), John Matthews (cancer and pending surgery), Barbara Clark
(Pendleton PW heart surgery 5/19), Charlie Cagle (cancer), Sandi Posz
(lymphoma), Trisha Cagley (health problems), Dave Clark (kidney cancer), Jacob
Cunningham, Joyce Sahlberg (health issues), Jennifer Schirm (Parkinson’s),
Chuck VanHise (leg/walking rehab), and Courtney Ziegler (Huntington’s).
LECTIONARY
FOR 6/7/20
Genesis 1:1 –
2:4a; Psalm 8; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28:16-20
