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Content from worship resources Liturgy, Learning, & (purposeful) Life
This week’s writer: Paul Turley
Pentecost
Acknowledgement of Country
As we begin, we acknowledge the Dharawal peoples who have been in relationship with the Creator for thousands of years. We honour their care for this land and pay our respects to their elders – past, present, and emerging.
This day and all days, we pray for true reconciliation, which includes telling the truth about what has been done and creating a path for the way forward.
Call to Worship – based on Psalm 104
O Lord our God,
how many and varied are your works!
In wisdom, you have made them all; the earth is filled with all your wonderful creations.
How many and varied are your works!
You spoke the universe into being, the earth and all it contains.
How many and varied are your works!
Everything is alive because of your love. Everything is alive in your love.
How many and varied are your works!
Come, let us worship.
Opening Prayer
God, in your name, we claim that this day is a day of celebration. We celebrate that we are alive on your good earth, that we are all created in your image, to be like you, that we are a part of your continually unfolding creation, and that we are a part of your great community that stretches throughout the world and across all time.
We live in your goodness, God, and we rejoice! Amen.
Introduction to Theme
Today is a day we refer to as Pentecost – the day to commemorate the descent of the Holy Spirit on the disciples and followers of Jesus Christ while they were in Jerusalem for a festival. The Pentecost moment is a kind of recreation and a new creation all at the same time. God asks Ezekiel, ‘Can these bones live?’ Acts, Ezekiel, and Romans all shout yes. As we consider what that day of Pentecost may have been like – people had come together in Jerusalem from many different places.
Where are you from? My first day at Wayside I was asked the question by the Aboriginal program manager
‘Where are you from?’ All day I had been answering questions on coming over from (my previous job at) Qantas and she said ‘No, no no….where are you from?’ She wanted to know where I was from, a different point of connection to the other conversations that day. All of us gathered here today – we have come from many different places.
So where are you from? Where are we from? I asked people as they arrived this morning so before I show you a map of where we are from – just turn to the person next to you and for a few moment to ask ‘where are you from?’ That could be where you were born, or where you grew up.
It’s just to give a sense of part of our collective journey and not in this place together. We’ll gather all the place on the map and see later on what that looks like.
The time of Pentecost: It was one of the 3 major Jewish festivals people expected Pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Last time I led the service it was Passover and everyone was in Jerusalem. This time it is the festival was Shavuwat (Shavuot). The Feast of Shavuot commemorates the anniversary of the day when God gave the Torah to the Hebrews at Mount Sinai. On Shavuot (Old Testament) God wrote His Commandments on tablets of stone on Mount Sinai, on Pentecost (New Testament) God wrote His Commandments on tables of flesh, meaning in our hearts, with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Great Bunyanut Festival
This week I heard our friend Brooke Prentis discuss and reflect on festivals of Aboriginal people and the sense of community and gathering that that would bring.
- Of 300 nations, there are 600 dialects,
- 100 Torres island, 20 are lived on
- Traditionally aboriginal people have been incredible linguistics
Her grandmother can remember going to the Great Bunyanut festival up to 10 years old. The festival is last recorded 1896 but may have continued in secret at least up until 1943. It was held on the land of the Wakka Wakka people and as far south as Gadigal land people would travel there. There were at least 40 nations coming together. A ceremony for food and trade, marriage ceremonies. People could understand each other, and found ways to communicate.
Song: Lord, Lord let your glory fill this place
Prayer of Confession
We now come to our time of confession
God, you see us as we are; you see beyond the person we try to ensure others see.
Forgive us that we have sought to hide from each other, ourselves, and you. But you know us in our deepest hearts and minds. You know that we have not lived truly animated by your love. Your Spirit is the Spirit of truth but we have preferred to tell ourselves, over and over, half-truths, lies and deceptions.
We know that your Spirit is the Spirit of reconciliation and renewal, we know that we are all as one people who share one language of the heart. Yet we have persisted in our nonsense stories about separateness and have trampled time and again on your true community.
We have preferred to read about the work of your Spirit in the Scriptures rather than experience the fire of God in our bones. We have been willing to dream and hope for a new world but not willing to let your Spirit move us to action.
Forgive us, God of grace, Amen.
Words of Grace
Be assured of this; God is present by the Spirit in all the world, in this place now and in your very being. You don’t need to go anywhere to find God. You are here. God is here. You are loved. You are forgiven. We give thanks for God
Bible Reading: Ezekiel 37:1–14
1 The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry.3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.”
4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.5 Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.6 I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD.”
7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”
10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.11 Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.
13 And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people.14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act,” says the LORD.
Acts 2:1–21
1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?
9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,11 Cretans and Arabs–in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”
13 But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say.15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
17 ‘In the last days it will 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.18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.19 And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
Message
Bible Reading
Romans 8:22–27
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.
24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.
We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
Song: Deep Stillness
Prayers for Others
Offering
Nothing we have God, could repay the gift of new life you give us. In our offering, we simply want to respond with heartfelt thanks and pray that our money and the other gifts that we share might be used to share your love and life with all the world. Amen.
Song: Brother, Sister, let me serve you
Blessing/Benediction
You are the people of the eternal flame. It burns above your heads, it burns in your hearts, it burns in all the world. Today, you live in its light, are warmed by its heat and are fired by its burning.
Song:For you, Deep Stillness
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