Acts 2: 1-21          We Sing of God the Spirit      E/DC/GR        May 27/07

              1)      We sing of God the Spirit this morning, “who from the beginning has swept over the face of creation, animating all energy and matter and moving in the human heart.”[i]  E/DC Moving in the hearts of those confirmed.  Moving in each of our hearts as we take this chance to re-affirm our vows.   

2)      The Spirit brings fullness of life that inspires and gives us courage.  Our scripture from Acts continues to empower me as I think of those terrified disciples gathered in the upper room.  And Luke tells us God’s Spirit blew through those walls of fear and unknown, and filled the disciples with courage, sending them out into the streets to proclaim a most dangerous message.  If the Spirit can do that, then the Spirit can indeed enable me to face whatever may be in store for me. 

3)      The Spirit brings fullness of life through experiences of beauty, truth, and goodness.[ii]  We each experience these gifts in very different ways.  A sunset, a good book on history, a moving story of love that overcomes aging and arthritis and Alzheimer’s, lake-side re-creation.  A time of meditation, prayer, Bible reading, journaling, or a conversation with a friend.  As we sing of the Spirit, we may open ourselves again to these gifts that will fill us up! 

4)      Many of you experience that gift in seedtime and harvest.  The connection to the earth digging in the soil, planting crops, seeing those first plots alive with green.  Harvesting flowers and vegetables and crops.  Planters, harvesters, and those going by seeing that in spite of our weariness and worry about our world, the Spirit is moving over creation, stirring our hearts, and transforming our world. 

5)      We sing of the Spirit, sometimes gentle, who speaks our prayers of deepest longing and enfolds our concerns and confessions, transforming the world and us.[iii]  You know the times, when your heart has been so heavy, so guilty or so glad, it’s like the words whirl and swirl in our minds, and we cannot even shape the prayers.  Paul wrote that the Spirit speaks in groans too deep for words to tell.  The Spirit holds us in that time, praying for us, working through us and others till we are transformed.

6)      We sing of God the Spirit, at other times shaking us up with gale force.  “Faithful and untamable, creatively and redemptively active in the world.”[iv]  Most of you have been on or heard about those family vacations, when things simmer to a meltdown.  Mark Giuliano described his family’s experience.  They were tired and hungry, desperately looking for a restaurant in a strange town, with children fighting in the back seat.  Creatively, his wife pulled over, invited the children firmly to get out of the car, and “work it out.”  After a brief time, the children came to the door, not only having worked it out, but with the route marked on the map back to their hotel.  They also had the key!  Sometimes the Spirit is anything but gentle, setting us down at the side of the road to “work things out” with God, self and others!  And often those stronger winds send us into deeper relationship with God.

 7)      The Spirit continues to blow through walls of fear and injustice, reconciling people and communities to live in right relationship.  Our Bible is very clear that the church can’t stay out of politics any more than Jesus could.  Prophets, kings, judges, and the early church lived their faith in the issues of their time.  The Spirit breathes life into every good action and every movement toward social wholeness.  Each time we make steps however small to walk together with those on the margins of society. 

8)      “The Spirit challenges us to celebrate the holy not only in what is familiar, but also in that which seems foreign.”[v]  It’s so much easier, isn’t it, to stay with, “Well that’s what I’ve always believed.”  But we’re talking about fullness of life!   And that happens when we allow ourselves to stretch and grow, and let the Spirit blow through the cobwebs.  Open to the new: new minister; new ways of being church; of being in family; of opening our community to those who seem different.

 9)      And so we sing of God, the Spirit,

      Who from the beginning, has swept over the face of creation,

            Giving fullness of life,

      Friendship and family,

      Courage, beauty, truth, goodness,

      Comforting and challenging,

      Creating and redeeming,

      Transforming us and the world.

[i] Nancy Hardy, ed. A Song of Faith, p.41

[ii] ibid.

[iii] ibid. 

[iv] ibid.

[v] ibid.