Labor Pains
For May 19, 2024:
Labor Pains
by Katy Stenta
Romans 8:22-27
As the whole world labors, the question arises: What are these labor pains for? Do they count for anything? Are they worth it? Are they even recognized?
In the News
In the United States, maternal health is low on the priority list as it remains one of the few industrial countries without mandated maternity leave and postpartum care. As such, many maternity wards are closing. In fact, one right next to me, The Burdett Birth Center, recently closed. This one was north of the city where I live and was much more accessible to the lower socio-economic city of Tory in addition to all of the rural counties in the area. It is the only midwife-led center and accepts Medicaid. Fortunately, folks rallied and prevented closure.
In the wake of Mother’s Day, where the unpaid labor of women is celebrated as hero-work that no one else can do, and yet no community system of childcare, maternity care, paternity leave, equitable pay, or other functions are set into motion, it cheapens a holiday that started with feminist and peaceful roots. The labor of childbirth, mothering, and parenting in general, does not seem to “count” much in the United States. However, it is still important, though unrecognized work.
In the Bible
The Bible often pairs labor with rest. In Exodus 20:8 God commands humans to labor for six days and then to take sanctuary and rest, something we are not very good at. Hebrews 4:9-10 promises God-rest for all those who work for God, as well. Then, of course, Jesus invites all of those who come to him weary, for they will get rest in Matthew 11:28-30. There is talk of labor and rest and rewards for those who work. One passage that references labor is John 16:19-21, where Jesus says that just as after labor, the pain is forgotten with the joy of childbirth, so is the joy of resurrection.
In the Sermon
It is noteworthy that the pains of waiting for adoption and redemption are as real as pains from any other labor. In a society that often forgets and does not count so many things, the Spirit is interceding for us in the groans of labor. Family and motherhood tend to only count in certain instances.
For example, the only families that seem to count are the most simplistic ones that include mother, father, and two children — all neuro-typical, employed, white, middle-class, and all living in one household. Does only “normal” childbirth and family count? Even in that so-called “normal” household there is unseen labor to produce that picture.
The adoption into the labor of God is such that the pains of childbirth go beyond what one might immediately picture to be a family. After all, Jesus himself never married or had children, and he counts us all as siblings. We are adopted into the redemption. The reassurance that there is real labor going on, that the Holy Spirit can tell between the groans that are real and the ones that are not, the thrusting of the Holy Spirit between us and our pain, to work also with us on our behalf, this intercession with our labor so that it is not in vain, this kind of help performs the very adoption we need. It is by this virtue that we are created toward the new Kin(g)dom that is being created. One where the sighs and groans are heard, felt, and prayed into being, and the bonds there are so much stronger than just family. Thanks be to God.
Dry Bones or Dancing Bones
by Dean Feldmeyer
Ezekiel 37:1-14
“The Sickness unto Death,” according to Danish theologian and philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, is despair, or hopelessness. This despair, he says, stems from our human failure to be aligned with God and God’s purpose. When the prophet Ezekiel and the Israelites forced to live in Babylon are experiencing their own hopelessness, God seeks to re-align them with God’s purpose and restore their hope by setting the prophet down in the middle of a cemetery. Go figure.
In the News/World
We western Christians tend to turn up our noses at the concept of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” As Gandhi pointed out, if we use that as our guide, we end up with a world full of blind, toothless people. What we miss, however, is that when it first appeared in the Torah (Exodus 21:23-27) it was introducing a revolutionary new concept and attempting to express God's principle of fairness and justice through a system of retributive justice. And it was intended as a guideline for individuals as well as governments and courts: Let the punishment fit the crime.
Unlike revenge, retribution (retributive justice) is not personal, is directed only at wrongdoing, has inherent limits, involves no pleasure at the suffering of others, and employs procedural standards. Without retributive justice, all we have is ever escalating vengeance.
Which is what we seem to be facing, right now, in the contemporary Middle East.
Hamas attacks Israel on October 7, murdering 1200 people and Israel responds with a massive show of strength and aggression, bombing then invading and occupying the entire country of Gaza and killing more than 34,000 souls. Retributive justice has been abandoned, an eye for an eye is a lost concept, and all we are left with is escalating violent revenge. Does anyone actually believe that Israel will be able to bomb antisemitism and terrorism out of existence by actually killing more than 30,000 individual Hamas fighters, or are those bombs just managing to create more terrorists who will, themselves, escalate the violence out of a need for revenge?
Will we, the United States of America, be complicit in this escalation? Ask us and, if we are honest, all we can do is shrug our shoulders and shake our heads. In truth, the situation seems hopeless.
For LGBTQ+ people within the United Methodist Church, the situation seemed nearly hopeless for more than 50 years. In 1972, the General Conference of the UMC (the quadrennial law-making body) declared homosexuality to be “inconsistent with Christian teaching” and thus, anathema. No money from any United Methodist church or organization could be used to support any group that championed the cause of LGBTQ rights. No same gender marriages could be performed in our churches and none of our clergy could perform such weddings. No homosexual persons could be ordained or commissioned as ministers.
For 50+ years, faithful gay, lesbian, and trans persons, along with their allied straight United Methodist Christians, worked to soften or reverse this language. Then, in 2019 the General Conference tightened the language with additional draconian rules and sanctions against gay Christians and those who took up their cause.
But somehow, those conservative United Methodists who sought to ban LGBTQ+ Christians from all but the most watered down and pedestrian type of participation in the church, began to see the handwriting on the wall as more and more pastors and churches defied the rules with acts of civil disobedience. Outraged that punishment for such actions was moving too slowly, the conservatives decided to leave the denomination.
As of April, 2024, roughly 25% of United Methodist churches have disaffiliated from the UMC.
Then, the last week of April and the first week of May, the United Methodist General Conference voted overwhelmingly to strike all anti-LGBTQ+ language, pronouncements, principles, and rules from the United Methodist Book of Discipline. The tide had changed.
Or, to use another metaphor, the bones of what was a church dying from wounds suffered during 52 years of fighting, suddenly got up and didn’t just walk, they danced.
In the Scripture
Today’s text from the Hebrew scriptures comes from a section of the book of Ezekiel wherein he describes a series of ecstatic visions that he has received from the Lord. In this one, God takes Ezekiel to a valley that is full of dry, human bones.
Sometimes, buried human bones come to the surface unbidden. This can be caused by erosion and soil movement, suddenly, as in an earthquake, or over time due to erosion, landslides, or other geological processes. It also happens in areas that are prone to flooding as the weight of the water displaces caskets and/or bones and pushes them to the surface.
Animal activity, human excavation or construction, natural decay and composition, and human cultural practices can also be responsible for the appearance of human bones that were once buried.
In the case of the valley of bones described by Ezekiel in his vision, the most likely explanation is that these bones were never buried in the first place. I imagine this valley as the scene of a particularly large and bloody battle, one where hundreds, perhaps even thousands of combatants fell and died.
So horrible is the spectacle of all that carnage that people fled from it, abandoned it, and never returned to it, hoping to put it out of their common memory.
Or perhaps this valley was one where the bodies of the dead were tossed during a horrible plague of one kind or another. This was a plague that took lives so fast that there was no time to bury them all. The corpses were simply removed from the town and thrown into this particularly deep valley, far away from town.
And now, years, decades, or maybe even centuries later, Ezekiel finds himself standing in the middle of it all. A valley full of bones, old and dry, over which the specter of death hovers, ever present. The very picture of hopelessness and despair.
“So, Zeke,” God says. “Is there any hope for this lot? Do you think they could ever walk again?”
Ezekiel knows that the obvious answer is “NO!” Of course they’ll never walk again. They’re dead. Not just dead, but long dead. Dead and dusty.
But this is God he’s talking to, here, so he hedges his bets a little. “Only you know,” he says.
God blows off Ezekiel’s half-hearted response. “So, here’s what we’re gonna do,” he says. “You’re gonna preach to these bones and they’re gonna get up and walk. Whataya think of that?”
You know the rest of the story: Ezekiel preaches and God uses Ezekiel’s preaching to bring about a miracle wherein the bones come alive, are restored to human form, and begin to breathe, and God, afraid that Ezekiel might miss it, says that this whole thing is a sort of object lesson wherein the bones are the children of Israel being held against their will in Babylon.
Once they were hopeless. Now, through God and God’s servant, Ezekiel, they will be restored to hope.
Hope, Ezekiel seems to be saying as he recounts the story in his memoir, is the purview of the Lord. It is a gift that it pleases God to give to God’s children and servants — and maybe to God’s LGBTQ+ children and God’s servants in the United Methodist Church. Maybe even to those of God’s children who are living, fighting, and dying in the Middle East.
In the Sermon
In the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta “The Mikado,” the title character strives to be a compassionate sovereign who always makes sure that, when he renders a judgement, the punishment he metes out fits the crime it was intended to punish.
For instance, social bores who talk interminably are forced to listen to the endless sermons of German mystical theologians, and advertisers of worthless patent medicines are sentenced to have their teeth extracted by amateur dentists. Well, it’s comedic satire, so…
What the Mikado is attempting to achieve, however clumsily, is what is called proportionality – The response to a misdeed can be no more violent or extreme than the misdeed itself. You probably have heard this concept expressed as “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”
The problem, however, is that proportionality rarely works. It’s supposed to create balance and equity. You hurt me and I hurt you in a way that is proportionate to the hurt you caused me and it ends there. Except it rarely ends there. It might if we were perfectly rational beings, but we’re not. More often, we are emotional beings who base our judgements and our actions not on rationality but on emotion and feelings. If you felt justified in hurting me in the first place then you are not going to be satisfied that, when I return that hurt to you, everything is now equal, balanced, and over.
So, even when we use proportionality, the cycle of vengeance doesn’t necessarily end. It goes on and on.
Knowing this, Jesus called his followers to go a step further, beyond proportionality, and forgive those who hurt them. But forgiving our enemies is not an easy thing to do. And convincing others that it’s what must be done if we are going to end the cycle of vengeance is nearly impossible. In fact, when we are standing in Gaza or Israel amid a landscape of death and destruction, a “valley of dry bones” at least as horrible as the one in which Ezekiel found himself, it is understandable that we might consider it hopeless.
But, as our LGBTQ+ siblings in the United Methodist Church might remind us, hope is not something we can manufacture for ourselves on demand in order to lift our mood. It’s not something we can simply decide to have even in spite of the bones all around us.
Hope, YHWH tells Ezekiel, is the purview of the God who made us and watches over us. It is a gift that God creates and doles out to God’s children.
When we, from time to time, find ourselves standing amid the dried and dusty bones of shattered dreams, failed efforts, and bitter disappointment, it is then that Ezekiel speaks to us, reminding us that our hope is not in our own achievements but in the love of God and the good news of Jesus Christ.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin
Acts 2:1-21
The Gift of Understanding
The Pentecost crowd in Jerusalem receives the gift of understanding, with each person hearing in their own language, with no translation needed.
That gift might have changed the course of World War 2. “While we will never know what would have happened if this confusion had not occurred, it is likely that the sad fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the result of a serious error in translation from Japanese to English. In July 1945, the Allied countries met in Potsdam and presented Japan with the terms of a declaration of surrender. After the terms had been translated from English into Japanese, the Allies delivered the declaration and anxiously awaited the response of the then Prime Minister, Kantaro Suzuki. This ultimatum demanded Japan's immediate surrender. The terms included an emphatic statement; any negative response by Japan would lead to "swift and absolute destruction."…No formal decision had been reached and Suzuki replied that he was "assessing the situation." The Japanese prime minister stated that he was "refraining from comment at this time." Mokusatsu was the keyword he used to express his thoughts. It is a word that can be interpreted in several different ways.”
The translators chose the definition "to treat with silent contempt" (ignore).” The Allies assumed this was Japan’s response. Instead, the word could also be translated as "I have no comment yet" or "let me keep my comments to myself for now." The translator of Mokusatsu “did not add a note clarifying that the word could also mean "wait to make a public official comment."
Ten days later, the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima,
* * *
Acts 2:1-21
Languages
Like Jerusalem, New York City is also a city of many languages, coming from many displaced people. We can imagine the scene in Jerusalem by imagining the streets of New York, or any other international city. New York City has an "exceptional linguistic history, beginning with Indigenous languages like Lenape (in which Manaháhtaan means “the place where we get bows”). Early settlers included the first 32 Walloon families to live permanently in New Amsterdam and enslaved Kikongo speakers from the Kingdom of the Kongo."
"The history of New York’s lesser-known languages is also that of the traumas of many speakers. Some fled genocide (as in the cases of Western Armenian and Judeo-Greek), others mass deportation (languages of the North Caucuses), racial violence (Gullah, an English-based Creole) or starvation (Irish). Linguistic minorities “have been overrepresented in diaspora,” Perlin points out, because they are “hit hardest by conflict, catastrophe and privation and thus impelled to leave.” Like in Acts, language is a taste of home.
* * *
Acts 2:1-21
How the Holy Spirit Works
As the Holy Spirit comes to the believers in Jerusalem, we wonder how the Spirit works in our world. Max Lucado shares “The idea that the Holy Spirit can help us on a day-to-day basis stirs a lot of questions for many people…I think we start by opening our minds to the possibility that we have a heaven-sent helper, the divine helper. The presence of God seeks to be our friend. And for many people that’s a whole new idea because we’re trained in our culture that it’s me, myself and I. If I’m going to succeed, it’s because I pull myself up by the bootstraps. So for many the first step is opening yourself up to the possibility that you have an unfailing friend in the Holy Spirit.
He adds, “On the night before his crucifixion, Jesus talked about the coming of the Holy Spirit and said, “The Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth.” The Holy Spirit guides us by verse and voice, of which there are two types. Sometimes it’s that inner voice, that inner knowing…I realize this gets a bit mystical, but that’s the nature of the Holy Spirit. We have a voice within us. It’s more than a conscience. This is a voice within us telling us to turn this way or that, or to avoid this or to pursue that.”
The gift of the Spirit continues for us.
* * * * * *
From team member Tom Willadsen:
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Spirit/Breath
The Hebrew word רוחי appears at least ten times in today’s reading from Ezekiel. Transliterated it’s ruach—the ch is a guttural. That combined with consecutive vowels gives the word a breathy feel, appropriate for spirit, wind and breath.
The NRSV renders the word as “spirit” and “breath,” and in footnotes suggests “wind” as another possibility.
* * *
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Leviathan — to sport with
Leviathan is the name of a Ugaritic god, a primeval sea monster who battled against Mot, the god of the underworld. Leviathan was ultimately defeated. In the Hebrew scriptures, Leviathan goes by the name Lothan. That the God of the Hebrews formed Leviathan as a plaything to sport with in the ocean, is total insult to the Ugarites. You might want to be sure there are no Ugarites in attendance on Pentecost Sunday, because them’s fightin’ words!
* * *
Romans 8:22-27
Saved from what?
These verses are a strong endorsement to Christians about the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Trusting the Spirit, for example, can free pray-ers from the anxiety of not getting the words right. The Spirit knows our the prayers we hld in our hearts, even if we cannot articulate them.
The term “saved,” as it appears in v. 24 can be misunderstood, Many scholars believe the salvation Paul was addressing from idolatry, not the eternal life of the immortal soul of a Christian who is hoping in the right way. This verse, like many, can give Christians a kind of rigid, smug certainty which is, in my opinion, more toxic and dangerous than genuine humility.
* * * * * *
From team member Chris Keating:
Acts 2:1-21
Bruh, you’re doing too much
If someone under 30 has said that to you recently, be warned they’re not concerned about whether you’ve been taking a day off. Likewise, if they tell you the sermon was dank, they’re not referring to the relative humidity of the church. It’s a compliment, bruh. (Those over 50 might simply say, “Cool sermon, Rev.”)
(Here’s a cheat sheet in case you’re lost!)
We might not be gathering with Parthians and Medes this Pentecost Sunday, but we could certainly be rubbing elbows with representatives from five different generational cohorts. Typically we bemoan the absence of younger generations in worship. But have we taken steps to learn what sort of influences, stresses, and contexts have shaped their lives? Indeed, outside of church, there continues to be historic interactions between many generations in the U.S. workplace. And when Gen Z, Millennials, Generation X, Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation do come into contact, the results are often as confusing downtown Jerusalem as Luke describes it in Acts 1. We can pray that the Spirit would bring us new understanding.
OK, Boomer, here’s your homework. If we are to live into the breadth of the Spirit’s work in creating communities that span all sorts of differences, perhaps the church might take time to explore the everyday slang of younger generations. More than merely sounding hip and cool is the understanding of how their slang emerges from their life experiences. As one British council reports:
(Gen Z representatives are) Digitally native, tech savvy and connected. More than previous generations, many of Gen Z grew up surrounded by technology, effortlessly switching between devices and platforms with endless streams of content, scrolling, clicking and swiping from a young age. McKinsey describes Gen Z as a ‘hypercognitive generation very comfortable with collecting and cross-referencing many sources of information.
So don’t be cheugy. It ain’t cap; it’s simply low-key a sign of respect.
* * *
Ezekiel 37:1-14
God’s holy ruach
There are ten references within this text to the Hebrew term ruach, which can be variously translated “wind,” “spirit,” “breath,” or even “tempest” depending on the context. Beyond Biblical Hebrew, the word eventually came to mean the complete range of emotional possibilities. At times it could even be used to mean “ghosts” or “soul.”
In writing about God’s great invitation to make all things new in Jesus Christ, theologian Jurgen Moltmann sees three patterns in scripture that the church should use in talking about the future God wishes to give us. He first looks at the perspectives of how God comes to the world to renew it, and then calls us to see the experience of God’s presence in us in the Spirit. Moltmann notes, “The being-in-Christ and the new life-from-the-Spirit are two sides of the same thing.” He argues that when we see ruach as tempest, we may discover that “life begins at every moment when we are moved by the Spirit. Through rebirth from the Holy Spirit our transitory life become eternal life…Eternal life is not something that just begins after death. It begins here and now in the rebirth from the eternal Spirit we experience.” (See Moltmann, Jesus Christ for Today’s World, Fortress Press, 1994,chapter VIII, 1, Kindle edition).
* * *
Romans 8:22-27
The whole creation is groaning
The struggles of war reveal the depths of creation’s agonizing cries. On the one hand, the struggles in Palestine against hopelessness and despair mount every day. As the war between Hamas and Israel continues, the sounds of hopelessness and agony echo across the world. Palestinians fleeing the eastern section of Rafah are sharing feelings of fear and despair as Israel’s airstrikes are rooting them out of their homes and shelters. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) describe the military actions as “a precise counterterrorism operation,” designed to “eliminate Hamas terrorists” and dismantle Hamas’ infrastructure. Hamas reports the moves as “a humanitarian catastrophe,” and a threat to the lives of 1.5 million Palestinians.
Some of those fleeing the area told CNN that they believed they had “fled from death,” and that their families had endured much suffering and humiliation since the war had begun.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden condemned what he describes as “ferocious surge of antisemitism in America and around the world,” including particularly rancid postings on social media. This is the painful reminder that suffering can cause two things to be true at the same time. The ongoing war threatens the well-being of both Palestinians and Israelis, even as the Spirit of God groans in anticipation of peace and healing.
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WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship
One: O God, how manifold are your works!
All: In wisdom you have made them all.
One: May the glory of God endure forever.
All: I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
One: May my meditation be pleasing, for I rejoice in God.
All: Bless God, O my soul. Praise God!
OR
One: God comes and offers us life with purpose.
All: We welcome God and God’s gifts.
One: God desires for us to flourish and be whole.
All: We long for the wholeness only God can give.
One: God desires to reach out to all through us.
All: We will act as God’s ambassadors in this world.
Hymns and Songs
All Creatures of Our God and King
UMH: 62
H82: 400
PH: 455
GTG: 15
AAHH: 147
NNBH: 33
NCH: 17
CH: 22
LBW: 527
ELW: 835
W&P: 23
AMEC: 50
STLT: 203
Renew: 47
O God, Our Help in Ages Past
UMH: 117
H82: 680
AAHH: 170
NNBH: 46
NCH: 25
CH: 67
LBW: 320
ELW: 632
W&P: 84
AMEC: 61
STLT: 281
Of the Father’s Love Begotten
UMH: 184
PH: 309
GTG: 108
NCH: 118
CH: 104
LBW: 42
ELW: 295
W&P: 181
Renew: 252
I’ll Praise My Maker While I’ve Breath
UMH: 60
H82: 429
PH: 253
GTG: 806
CH: 20
Sweet, Sweet Spirit
UMH: 334
AAHH: 326
NNBH: 127
NCH: 293
CH: 261
W&P: 134
AMEC: 196
Like the Murmur of the Dove’s Song
UMH: 544
H82: 513
PH: 314
GTG: 285
NCH: 270
CH: 245
ELW: 403
W&P: 327
Renew: 280
Filled with the Spirit’s Power
UMH: 537
NCH: 266
LBW: 160
W&P: 331
Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart
UMH: 500
PH: 326
GTG: 688
AAHH: 312
NCH: 290
CH265
LBW: 486
ELW: 800
W&P: 132
AMEC: 189
Let It Breathe on Me
UMH: 503
AAHH: 316
NNBH: 128
NCH: 288
CH: 260
AMEC: 295
Fill My Cup, Lord
UMH: 641
PH: 350
GTG: 699
AAHH: 447
NNBH: 377
CH: 351
Sing unto the Lord a New song
CCB: 16
Renew: 113
We Will Glorify
CCB: 19
Renew: 33
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who gives purpose as well as life to your children:
Grant us the wisdom to seek for your purpose in our lives
that we may live meaningful lives of wholeness and joy;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are the one who not only gives us life but gives us purpose for our lives. You give us the instructions so that our lives can be full of meaning. Help us to seek you purpose in our lives so that we can have lives of meaning and wholeness. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to seek your purpose for our lives.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have gifted us with life and you have gifted us with purpose. You teach us so that we can find meaning in our lives and yet we fail to listen to you. We seek after things that do not satisfy us nor do they make the world better. Our lives are not satisfying because we have ignored the purpose you have created us to fulfill. Forgive our foolish ways and renew your Spirit within us that we may find true life in your purpose for us. Amen.
One: God does seek our wholeness and our joy by giving us purpose. God welcomes us back and grants the Spirit to guide us to eternal life.
Prayers of the People
Glory and praise to you, O God who grants us life and purpose. You show us your will for our lives so that we can know abundant joy.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have gifted us with life and you have gifted us with purpose. You teach us so that we can find meaning in our lives and yet we fail to listen to you. We seek after things that do not satisfy us nor do they make the world better. Our lives are not satisfying because we have ignored the purpose you have created us to fulfill. Forgive our foolish ways and renew your Spirit within us that we may find true life in your purpose for us.
We give you thanks for all the gifts you bestow upon us. We thank you for life and for the good earth that you created to sustain us. We thank you for those who have taught us by word and by their lives how to live into the fullness of life by following Jesus.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all your children in their need. We pray for those who have forgotten or have not discovered their purpose. We pray for those who find their life such a struggle that they do not even consider they may have a purpose in life. We pray for those who work to alleviate those things that separate people from you and a full life.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Sharing the Love With Everyone
by Elena Delhagen
Acts 2:1-21
What you’ll need: Scraps of paper folded up that have the phrase “I love you” written in different languages.
Good morning, friends! I am so excited to be with you today, on Pentecost Sunday. Pentecost is a special day in the life of God’s Church because it reminds us of a very special lesson, which we’re going to talk about in a couple of minutes.
But first, I’d like to give you something. (Hand out scraps of paper) I’m giving you a little piece of paper, and on that paper are the words, “I love you.” …What? You don’t think that’s what it says? It doesn’t look like “I love you”? Well, let’s read these together and see what’s going on here. (Spend some time reading the scraps of paper together)
Ahh, I see what’s going on here. See, each of you DID get a piece of paper that says, “I love you” — it’s just that the words are written in a different language! See, this one says “I love you” in __________, and this one says it in _________________. They all mean the same thing — we just didn’t recognize it at first.
See, on the day of Pentecost, God’s people were all gathered together in one place, and the Holy Spirit showed up in a really powerful way among them. The Bible says the Spirit came upon them like tongues of fire, but the fire didn’t hurt them! And all the people started worshiping God and talking about how amazing God is — but they were doing it in different languages! Languages they had never even spoken before but suddenly knew how to talk in because of the Spirit’s power! The thing is, the people who were passing by spoke those languages, and so now they were able to hear all about the wonderful power of God with someone who could communicate with them! Isn’t that incredible?
Friends, that brings us to that very important lesson from Pentecost that I wanted to talk about. God’s love, peace, and power is so big and good that it’s meant for the whole wide world — not just people who look like us or are close to us or live near us or speak the same way as us. God wants the Church to share that love, peace, and power with everyone, and the Spirit will help us do it.
Amazing, isn’t it? Let’s pray together.
(End in prayer.)
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The Immediate Word, May 19, 2024 issue.
Copyright 2024 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- Labor Pains by Katy Stenta based on Romans 8:22-27.
- Second Thoughts: Dry Bones or Dancing Bones by Dean Feldmeyer based on Ezekiel 37:1-14. “Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness.” Henri J.M. Nouwen
- Sermon illustrations by Mary Austin, Tom Willadsen, Chris Keating.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children's sermon: Sharing the Love With Everyone by Elena Delhagen based on Acts 2:1-21.
- More to come...
Labor Pains
by Katy Stenta
Romans 8:22-27
As the whole world labors, the question arises: What are these labor pains for? Do they count for anything? Are they worth it? Are they even recognized?
In the News
In the United States, maternal health is low on the priority list as it remains one of the few industrial countries without mandated maternity leave and postpartum care. As such, many maternity wards are closing. In fact, one right next to me, The Burdett Birth Center, recently closed. This one was north of the city where I live and was much more accessible to the lower socio-economic city of Tory in addition to all of the rural counties in the area. It is the only midwife-led center and accepts Medicaid. Fortunately, folks rallied and prevented closure.
In the wake of Mother’s Day, where the unpaid labor of women is celebrated as hero-work that no one else can do, and yet no community system of childcare, maternity care, paternity leave, equitable pay, or other functions are set into motion, it cheapens a holiday that started with feminist and peaceful roots. The labor of childbirth, mothering, and parenting in general, does not seem to “count” much in the United States. However, it is still important, though unrecognized work.
In the Bible
The Bible often pairs labor with rest. In Exodus 20:8 God commands humans to labor for six days and then to take sanctuary and rest, something we are not very good at. Hebrews 4:9-10 promises God-rest for all those who work for God, as well. Then, of course, Jesus invites all of those who come to him weary, for they will get rest in Matthew 11:28-30. There is talk of labor and rest and rewards for those who work. One passage that references labor is John 16:19-21, where Jesus says that just as after labor, the pain is forgotten with the joy of childbirth, so is the joy of resurrection.
In the Sermon
It is noteworthy that the pains of waiting for adoption and redemption are as real as pains from any other labor. In a society that often forgets and does not count so many things, the Spirit is interceding for us in the groans of labor. Family and motherhood tend to only count in certain instances.
For example, the only families that seem to count are the most simplistic ones that include mother, father, and two children — all neuro-typical, employed, white, middle-class, and all living in one household. Does only “normal” childbirth and family count? Even in that so-called “normal” household there is unseen labor to produce that picture.
The adoption into the labor of God is such that the pains of childbirth go beyond what one might immediately picture to be a family. After all, Jesus himself never married or had children, and he counts us all as siblings. We are adopted into the redemption. The reassurance that there is real labor going on, that the Holy Spirit can tell between the groans that are real and the ones that are not, the thrusting of the Holy Spirit between us and our pain, to work also with us on our behalf, this intercession with our labor so that it is not in vain, this kind of help performs the very adoption we need. It is by this virtue that we are created toward the new Kin(g)dom that is being created. One where the sighs and groans are heard, felt, and prayed into being, and the bonds there are so much stronger than just family. Thanks be to God.
Dry Bones or Dancing Bonesby Dean Feldmeyer
Ezekiel 37:1-14
“The Sickness unto Death,” according to Danish theologian and philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, is despair, or hopelessness. This despair, he says, stems from our human failure to be aligned with God and God’s purpose. When the prophet Ezekiel and the Israelites forced to live in Babylon are experiencing their own hopelessness, God seeks to re-align them with God’s purpose and restore their hope by setting the prophet down in the middle of a cemetery. Go figure.
In the News/World
We western Christians tend to turn up our noses at the concept of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” As Gandhi pointed out, if we use that as our guide, we end up with a world full of blind, toothless people. What we miss, however, is that when it first appeared in the Torah (Exodus 21:23-27) it was introducing a revolutionary new concept and attempting to express God's principle of fairness and justice through a system of retributive justice. And it was intended as a guideline for individuals as well as governments and courts: Let the punishment fit the crime.
Unlike revenge, retribution (retributive justice) is not personal, is directed only at wrongdoing, has inherent limits, involves no pleasure at the suffering of others, and employs procedural standards. Without retributive justice, all we have is ever escalating vengeance.
Which is what we seem to be facing, right now, in the contemporary Middle East.
Hamas attacks Israel on October 7, murdering 1200 people and Israel responds with a massive show of strength and aggression, bombing then invading and occupying the entire country of Gaza and killing more than 34,000 souls. Retributive justice has been abandoned, an eye for an eye is a lost concept, and all we are left with is escalating violent revenge. Does anyone actually believe that Israel will be able to bomb antisemitism and terrorism out of existence by actually killing more than 30,000 individual Hamas fighters, or are those bombs just managing to create more terrorists who will, themselves, escalate the violence out of a need for revenge?
Will we, the United States of America, be complicit in this escalation? Ask us and, if we are honest, all we can do is shrug our shoulders and shake our heads. In truth, the situation seems hopeless.
For LGBTQ+ people within the United Methodist Church, the situation seemed nearly hopeless for more than 50 years. In 1972, the General Conference of the UMC (the quadrennial law-making body) declared homosexuality to be “inconsistent with Christian teaching” and thus, anathema. No money from any United Methodist church or organization could be used to support any group that championed the cause of LGBTQ rights. No same gender marriages could be performed in our churches and none of our clergy could perform such weddings. No homosexual persons could be ordained or commissioned as ministers.
For 50+ years, faithful gay, lesbian, and trans persons, along with their allied straight United Methodist Christians, worked to soften or reverse this language. Then, in 2019 the General Conference tightened the language with additional draconian rules and sanctions against gay Christians and those who took up their cause.
But somehow, those conservative United Methodists who sought to ban LGBTQ+ Christians from all but the most watered down and pedestrian type of participation in the church, began to see the handwriting on the wall as more and more pastors and churches defied the rules with acts of civil disobedience. Outraged that punishment for such actions was moving too slowly, the conservatives decided to leave the denomination.
As of April, 2024, roughly 25% of United Methodist churches have disaffiliated from the UMC.
Then, the last week of April and the first week of May, the United Methodist General Conference voted overwhelmingly to strike all anti-LGBTQ+ language, pronouncements, principles, and rules from the United Methodist Book of Discipline. The tide had changed.
Or, to use another metaphor, the bones of what was a church dying from wounds suffered during 52 years of fighting, suddenly got up and didn’t just walk, they danced.
In the Scripture
Today’s text from the Hebrew scriptures comes from a section of the book of Ezekiel wherein he describes a series of ecstatic visions that he has received from the Lord. In this one, God takes Ezekiel to a valley that is full of dry, human bones.
Sometimes, buried human bones come to the surface unbidden. This can be caused by erosion and soil movement, suddenly, as in an earthquake, or over time due to erosion, landslides, or other geological processes. It also happens in areas that are prone to flooding as the weight of the water displaces caskets and/or bones and pushes them to the surface.
Animal activity, human excavation or construction, natural decay and composition, and human cultural practices can also be responsible for the appearance of human bones that were once buried.
In the case of the valley of bones described by Ezekiel in his vision, the most likely explanation is that these bones were never buried in the first place. I imagine this valley as the scene of a particularly large and bloody battle, one where hundreds, perhaps even thousands of combatants fell and died.
So horrible is the spectacle of all that carnage that people fled from it, abandoned it, and never returned to it, hoping to put it out of their common memory.
Or perhaps this valley was one where the bodies of the dead were tossed during a horrible plague of one kind or another. This was a plague that took lives so fast that there was no time to bury them all. The corpses were simply removed from the town and thrown into this particularly deep valley, far away from town.
And now, years, decades, or maybe even centuries later, Ezekiel finds himself standing in the middle of it all. A valley full of bones, old and dry, over which the specter of death hovers, ever present. The very picture of hopelessness and despair.
“So, Zeke,” God says. “Is there any hope for this lot? Do you think they could ever walk again?”
Ezekiel knows that the obvious answer is “NO!” Of course they’ll never walk again. They’re dead. Not just dead, but long dead. Dead and dusty.
But this is God he’s talking to, here, so he hedges his bets a little. “Only you know,” he says.
God blows off Ezekiel’s half-hearted response. “So, here’s what we’re gonna do,” he says. “You’re gonna preach to these bones and they’re gonna get up and walk. Whataya think of that?”
You know the rest of the story: Ezekiel preaches and God uses Ezekiel’s preaching to bring about a miracle wherein the bones come alive, are restored to human form, and begin to breathe, and God, afraid that Ezekiel might miss it, says that this whole thing is a sort of object lesson wherein the bones are the children of Israel being held against their will in Babylon.
Once they were hopeless. Now, through God and God’s servant, Ezekiel, they will be restored to hope.
Hope, Ezekiel seems to be saying as he recounts the story in his memoir, is the purview of the Lord. It is a gift that it pleases God to give to God’s children and servants — and maybe to God’s LGBTQ+ children and God’s servants in the United Methodist Church. Maybe even to those of God’s children who are living, fighting, and dying in the Middle East.
In the Sermon
In the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta “The Mikado,” the title character strives to be a compassionate sovereign who always makes sure that, when he renders a judgement, the punishment he metes out fits the crime it was intended to punish.
For instance, social bores who talk interminably are forced to listen to the endless sermons of German mystical theologians, and advertisers of worthless patent medicines are sentenced to have their teeth extracted by amateur dentists. Well, it’s comedic satire, so…
What the Mikado is attempting to achieve, however clumsily, is what is called proportionality – The response to a misdeed can be no more violent or extreme than the misdeed itself. You probably have heard this concept expressed as “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”
The problem, however, is that proportionality rarely works. It’s supposed to create balance and equity. You hurt me and I hurt you in a way that is proportionate to the hurt you caused me and it ends there. Except it rarely ends there. It might if we were perfectly rational beings, but we’re not. More often, we are emotional beings who base our judgements and our actions not on rationality but on emotion and feelings. If you felt justified in hurting me in the first place then you are not going to be satisfied that, when I return that hurt to you, everything is now equal, balanced, and over.
So, even when we use proportionality, the cycle of vengeance doesn’t necessarily end. It goes on and on.
Knowing this, Jesus called his followers to go a step further, beyond proportionality, and forgive those who hurt them. But forgiving our enemies is not an easy thing to do. And convincing others that it’s what must be done if we are going to end the cycle of vengeance is nearly impossible. In fact, when we are standing in Gaza or Israel amid a landscape of death and destruction, a “valley of dry bones” at least as horrible as the one in which Ezekiel found himself, it is understandable that we might consider it hopeless.
But, as our LGBTQ+ siblings in the United Methodist Church might remind us, hope is not something we can manufacture for ourselves on demand in order to lift our mood. It’s not something we can simply decide to have even in spite of the bones all around us.
Hope, YHWH tells Ezekiel, is the purview of the God who made us and watches over us. It is a gift that God creates and doles out to God’s children.
When we, from time to time, find ourselves standing amid the dried and dusty bones of shattered dreams, failed efforts, and bitter disappointment, it is then that Ezekiel speaks to us, reminding us that our hope is not in our own achievements but in the love of God and the good news of Jesus Christ.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary AustinActs 2:1-21
The Gift of Understanding
The Pentecost crowd in Jerusalem receives the gift of understanding, with each person hearing in their own language, with no translation needed.
That gift might have changed the course of World War 2. “While we will never know what would have happened if this confusion had not occurred, it is likely that the sad fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the result of a serious error in translation from Japanese to English. In July 1945, the Allied countries met in Potsdam and presented Japan with the terms of a declaration of surrender. After the terms had been translated from English into Japanese, the Allies delivered the declaration and anxiously awaited the response of the then Prime Minister, Kantaro Suzuki. This ultimatum demanded Japan's immediate surrender. The terms included an emphatic statement; any negative response by Japan would lead to "swift and absolute destruction."…No formal decision had been reached and Suzuki replied that he was "assessing the situation." The Japanese prime minister stated that he was "refraining from comment at this time." Mokusatsu was the keyword he used to express his thoughts. It is a word that can be interpreted in several different ways.”
The translators chose the definition "to treat with silent contempt" (ignore).” The Allies assumed this was Japan’s response. Instead, the word could also be translated as "I have no comment yet" or "let me keep my comments to myself for now." The translator of Mokusatsu “did not add a note clarifying that the word could also mean "wait to make a public official comment."
Ten days later, the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima,
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Acts 2:1-21
Languages
Like Jerusalem, New York City is also a city of many languages, coming from many displaced people. We can imagine the scene in Jerusalem by imagining the streets of New York, or any other international city. New York City has an "exceptional linguistic history, beginning with Indigenous languages like Lenape (in which Manaháhtaan means “the place where we get bows”). Early settlers included the first 32 Walloon families to live permanently in New Amsterdam and enslaved Kikongo speakers from the Kingdom of the Kongo."
"The history of New York’s lesser-known languages is also that of the traumas of many speakers. Some fled genocide (as in the cases of Western Armenian and Judeo-Greek), others mass deportation (languages of the North Caucuses), racial violence (Gullah, an English-based Creole) or starvation (Irish). Linguistic minorities “have been overrepresented in diaspora,” Perlin points out, because they are “hit hardest by conflict, catastrophe and privation and thus impelled to leave.” Like in Acts, language is a taste of home.
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Acts 2:1-21
How the Holy Spirit Works
As the Holy Spirit comes to the believers in Jerusalem, we wonder how the Spirit works in our world. Max Lucado shares “The idea that the Holy Spirit can help us on a day-to-day basis stirs a lot of questions for many people…I think we start by opening our minds to the possibility that we have a heaven-sent helper, the divine helper. The presence of God seeks to be our friend. And for many people that’s a whole new idea because we’re trained in our culture that it’s me, myself and I. If I’m going to succeed, it’s because I pull myself up by the bootstraps. So for many the first step is opening yourself up to the possibility that you have an unfailing friend in the Holy Spirit.
He adds, “On the night before his crucifixion, Jesus talked about the coming of the Holy Spirit and said, “The Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth.” The Holy Spirit guides us by verse and voice, of which there are two types. Sometimes it’s that inner voice, that inner knowing…I realize this gets a bit mystical, but that’s the nature of the Holy Spirit. We have a voice within us. It’s more than a conscience. This is a voice within us telling us to turn this way or that, or to avoid this or to pursue that.”
The gift of the Spirit continues for us.
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From team member Tom Willadsen:Ezekiel 37:1-14
Spirit/Breath
The Hebrew word רוחי appears at least ten times in today’s reading from Ezekiel. Transliterated it’s ruach—the ch is a guttural. That combined with consecutive vowels gives the word a breathy feel, appropriate for spirit, wind and breath.
The NRSV renders the word as “spirit” and “breath,” and in footnotes suggests “wind” as another possibility.
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Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Leviathan — to sport with
Leviathan is the name of a Ugaritic god, a primeval sea monster who battled against Mot, the god of the underworld. Leviathan was ultimately defeated. In the Hebrew scriptures, Leviathan goes by the name Lothan. That the God of the Hebrews formed Leviathan as a plaything to sport with in the ocean, is total insult to the Ugarites. You might want to be sure there are no Ugarites in attendance on Pentecost Sunday, because them’s fightin’ words!
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Romans 8:22-27
Saved from what?
These verses are a strong endorsement to Christians about the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Trusting the Spirit, for example, can free pray-ers from the anxiety of not getting the words right. The Spirit knows our the prayers we hld in our hearts, even if we cannot articulate them.
The term “saved,” as it appears in v. 24 can be misunderstood, Many scholars believe the salvation Paul was addressing from idolatry, not the eternal life of the immortal soul of a Christian who is hoping in the right way. This verse, like many, can give Christians a kind of rigid, smug certainty which is, in my opinion, more toxic and dangerous than genuine humility.
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From team member Chris Keating:Acts 2:1-21
Bruh, you’re doing too much
If someone under 30 has said that to you recently, be warned they’re not concerned about whether you’ve been taking a day off. Likewise, if they tell you the sermon was dank, they’re not referring to the relative humidity of the church. It’s a compliment, bruh. (Those over 50 might simply say, “Cool sermon, Rev.”)
(Here’s a cheat sheet in case you’re lost!)
We might not be gathering with Parthians and Medes this Pentecost Sunday, but we could certainly be rubbing elbows with representatives from five different generational cohorts. Typically we bemoan the absence of younger generations in worship. But have we taken steps to learn what sort of influences, stresses, and contexts have shaped their lives? Indeed, outside of church, there continues to be historic interactions between many generations in the U.S. workplace. And when Gen Z, Millennials, Generation X, Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation do come into contact, the results are often as confusing downtown Jerusalem as Luke describes it in Acts 1. We can pray that the Spirit would bring us new understanding.
OK, Boomer, here’s your homework. If we are to live into the breadth of the Spirit’s work in creating communities that span all sorts of differences, perhaps the church might take time to explore the everyday slang of younger generations. More than merely sounding hip and cool is the understanding of how their slang emerges from their life experiences. As one British council reports:
(Gen Z representatives are) Digitally native, tech savvy and connected. More than previous generations, many of Gen Z grew up surrounded by technology, effortlessly switching between devices and platforms with endless streams of content, scrolling, clicking and swiping from a young age. McKinsey describes Gen Z as a ‘hypercognitive generation very comfortable with collecting and cross-referencing many sources of information.
So don’t be cheugy. It ain’t cap; it’s simply low-key a sign of respect.
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Ezekiel 37:1-14
God’s holy ruach
There are ten references within this text to the Hebrew term ruach, which can be variously translated “wind,” “spirit,” “breath,” or even “tempest” depending on the context. Beyond Biblical Hebrew, the word eventually came to mean the complete range of emotional possibilities. At times it could even be used to mean “ghosts” or “soul.”
In writing about God’s great invitation to make all things new in Jesus Christ, theologian Jurgen Moltmann sees three patterns in scripture that the church should use in talking about the future God wishes to give us. He first looks at the perspectives of how God comes to the world to renew it, and then calls us to see the experience of God’s presence in us in the Spirit. Moltmann notes, “The being-in-Christ and the new life-from-the-Spirit are two sides of the same thing.” He argues that when we see ruach as tempest, we may discover that “life begins at every moment when we are moved by the Spirit. Through rebirth from the Holy Spirit our transitory life become eternal life…Eternal life is not something that just begins after death. It begins here and now in the rebirth from the eternal Spirit we experience.” (See Moltmann, Jesus Christ for Today’s World, Fortress Press, 1994,chapter VIII, 1, Kindle edition).
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Romans 8:22-27
The whole creation is groaning
The struggles of war reveal the depths of creation’s agonizing cries. On the one hand, the struggles in Palestine against hopelessness and despair mount every day. As the war between Hamas and Israel continues, the sounds of hopelessness and agony echo across the world. Palestinians fleeing the eastern section of Rafah are sharing feelings of fear and despair as Israel’s airstrikes are rooting them out of their homes and shelters. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) describe the military actions as “a precise counterterrorism operation,” designed to “eliminate Hamas terrorists” and dismantle Hamas’ infrastructure. Hamas reports the moves as “a humanitarian catastrophe,” and a threat to the lives of 1.5 million Palestinians.
Some of those fleeing the area told CNN that they believed they had “fled from death,” and that their families had endured much suffering and humiliation since the war had begun.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden condemned what he describes as “ferocious surge of antisemitism in America and around the world,” including particularly rancid postings on social media. This is the painful reminder that suffering can cause two things to be true at the same time. The ongoing war threatens the well-being of both Palestinians and Israelis, even as the Spirit of God groans in anticipation of peace and healing.
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WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship
One: O God, how manifold are your works!
All: In wisdom you have made them all.
One: May the glory of God endure forever.
All: I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
One: May my meditation be pleasing, for I rejoice in God.
All: Bless God, O my soul. Praise God!
OR
One: God comes and offers us life with purpose.
All: We welcome God and God’s gifts.
One: God desires for us to flourish and be whole.
All: We long for the wholeness only God can give.
One: God desires to reach out to all through us.
All: We will act as God’s ambassadors in this world.
Hymns and Songs
All Creatures of Our God and King
UMH: 62
H82: 400
PH: 455
GTG: 15
AAHH: 147
NNBH: 33
NCH: 17
CH: 22
LBW: 527
ELW: 835
W&P: 23
AMEC: 50
STLT: 203
Renew: 47
O God, Our Help in Ages Past
UMH: 117
H82: 680
AAHH: 170
NNBH: 46
NCH: 25
CH: 67
LBW: 320
ELW: 632
W&P: 84
AMEC: 61
STLT: 281
Of the Father’s Love Begotten
UMH: 184
PH: 309
GTG: 108
NCH: 118
CH: 104
LBW: 42
ELW: 295
W&P: 181
Renew: 252
I’ll Praise My Maker While I’ve Breath
UMH: 60
H82: 429
PH: 253
GTG: 806
CH: 20
Sweet, Sweet Spirit
UMH: 334
AAHH: 326
NNBH: 127
NCH: 293
CH: 261
W&P: 134
AMEC: 196
Like the Murmur of the Dove’s Song
UMH: 544
H82: 513
PH: 314
GTG: 285
NCH: 270
CH: 245
ELW: 403
W&P: 327
Renew: 280
Filled with the Spirit’s Power
UMH: 537
NCH: 266
LBW: 160
W&P: 331
Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart
UMH: 500
PH: 326
GTG: 688
AAHH: 312
NCH: 290
CH265
LBW: 486
ELW: 800
W&P: 132
AMEC: 189
Let It Breathe on Me
UMH: 503
AAHH: 316
NNBH: 128
NCH: 288
CH: 260
AMEC: 295
Fill My Cup, Lord
UMH: 641
PH: 350
GTG: 699
AAHH: 447
NNBH: 377
CH: 351
Sing unto the Lord a New song
CCB: 16
Renew: 113
We Will Glorify
CCB: 19
Renew: 33
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who gives purpose as well as life to your children:
Grant us the wisdom to seek for your purpose in our lives
that we may live meaningful lives of wholeness and joy;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are the one who not only gives us life but gives us purpose for our lives. You give us the instructions so that our lives can be full of meaning. Help us to seek you purpose in our lives so that we can have lives of meaning and wholeness. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to seek your purpose for our lives.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have gifted us with life and you have gifted us with purpose. You teach us so that we can find meaning in our lives and yet we fail to listen to you. We seek after things that do not satisfy us nor do they make the world better. Our lives are not satisfying because we have ignored the purpose you have created us to fulfill. Forgive our foolish ways and renew your Spirit within us that we may find true life in your purpose for us. Amen.
One: God does seek our wholeness and our joy by giving us purpose. God welcomes us back and grants the Spirit to guide us to eternal life.
Prayers of the People
Glory and praise to you, O God who grants us life and purpose. You show us your will for our lives so that we can know abundant joy.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have gifted us with life and you have gifted us with purpose. You teach us so that we can find meaning in our lives and yet we fail to listen to you. We seek after things that do not satisfy us nor do they make the world better. Our lives are not satisfying because we have ignored the purpose you have created us to fulfill. Forgive our foolish ways and renew your Spirit within us that we may find true life in your purpose for us.
We give you thanks for all the gifts you bestow upon us. We thank you for life and for the good earth that you created to sustain us. We thank you for those who have taught us by word and by their lives how to live into the fullness of life by following Jesus.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all your children in their need. We pray for those who have forgotten or have not discovered their purpose. We pray for those who find their life such a struggle that they do not even consider they may have a purpose in life. We pray for those who work to alleviate those things that separate people from you and a full life.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
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CHILDREN'S SERMONSharing the Love With Everyone
by Elena Delhagen
Acts 2:1-21
What you’ll need: Scraps of paper folded up that have the phrase “I love you” written in different languages.
Good morning, friends! I am so excited to be with you today, on Pentecost Sunday. Pentecost is a special day in the life of God’s Church because it reminds us of a very special lesson, which we’re going to talk about in a couple of minutes.
But first, I’d like to give you something. (Hand out scraps of paper) I’m giving you a little piece of paper, and on that paper are the words, “I love you.” …What? You don’t think that’s what it says? It doesn’t look like “I love you”? Well, let’s read these together and see what’s going on here. (Spend some time reading the scraps of paper together)
Ahh, I see what’s going on here. See, each of you DID get a piece of paper that says, “I love you” — it’s just that the words are written in a different language! See, this one says “I love you” in __________, and this one says it in _________________. They all mean the same thing — we just didn’t recognize it at first.
See, on the day of Pentecost, God’s people were all gathered together in one place, and the Holy Spirit showed up in a really powerful way among them. The Bible says the Spirit came upon them like tongues of fire, but the fire didn’t hurt them! And all the people started worshiping God and talking about how amazing God is — but they were doing it in different languages! Languages they had never even spoken before but suddenly knew how to talk in because of the Spirit’s power! The thing is, the people who were passing by spoke those languages, and so now they were able to hear all about the wonderful power of God with someone who could communicate with them! Isn’t that incredible?
Friends, that brings us to that very important lesson from Pentecost that I wanted to talk about. God’s love, peace, and power is so big and good that it’s meant for the whole wide world — not just people who look like us or are close to us or live near us or speak the same way as us. God wants the Church to share that love, peace, and power with everyone, and the Spirit will help us do it.
Amazing, isn’t it? Let’s pray together.
(End in prayer.)
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The Immediate Word, May 19, 2024 issue.
Copyright 2024 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
