God, the light of your Spirit has fallen upon us, the seal of your ownership is on us, you have placed the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Like tongues of fire, it has renewed and restored.
In our rising and our sleeping, in our working and our playing, in our joys and in our sorrows, your Spirit’s brightness has dispelled the darkness,
In our loving and caring, in our touching
and our listening, in our thoughts and in our actions, God’s Spirit has brought
life out of death.
(Pause to invite the Holy Spirit into your day’s activities)
God, your spirit fell like tongues of fire. It filled those that were empty,
it empowered those that were weary.
God, your spirit fell like tongues of
fire. It brought together those that were divided,
it
reassured those who were afraid.
God, your spirit fell like tongues of
fire. By its power we can walk together as one,
by
its power we can find strength to share.
God, your spirit fell like tongues of
fire. By its power we can find freedom in loving each other,
by
its power we can find life in you.
~ part of a longer litany used at the Mustard Seed House. Posted on Godspace. http://godspace-msa.com/2009/05/19/a-prayer-for-pentecost/
Scripture (CEB)
“…you will receive power when the
Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in
all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." – Acts 1:8
Suddenly a sound from heaven like the howling of a fierce wind filled the entire house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each one of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak. – Acts 2: 2-4
Musing:
I have been struck by fire, wildfires
in particular. The Eagle Creek fire, then the California wine country fires,
then the fires in the Clackamas and Ashland areas this past September. And, several
years ago when we are taking our middle son to college in southern California, we
drove on Interstate 210 along the foot of the hills just north of the Los Angeles
basin and the fires were there, licking at the fringes of the housing
developments.
In all these situations what struck me
is the way the fire moves, the damage it brings in one place and the patches of
almost untouched area in others, the speed that it can move, the randomness of
its path, and the unre
al way it consumes and transforms the landscape.
Whenever I hear these passage from Acts, it is this kind of image that springs to mind – individual flames of fire alighting on each one of them. It is the image of the wildfire jumping from tree to tree. It is the quick and almost unpredictable spread. It is the idea that the entire landscape changes because of the fire that alights.
I think this Pentecost we are closer to that original day chronicled in Acts. We are the disciples that have been cloistered in our rooms, we are the followers of Jesus who have been awaiting some sign, some power, something that will goose us into action. We, like they, have not been dormant but we have been confined. And now we are released with the vaccine and the new Covid-19 guidelines. And my question is, will we emerge like those 1st century followers of Christ, speaking in ways that can be heard by a wide and diverse humanity? Will we be on fire, the spark that causes the landscape to change?
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” This line should be before us as we emerge from Covid-19. Just an aside, it seems this was not a saying of Albert Einstein but a line from a novel by Rita Mae Brown, Sudden Death at least according to Michael Becker, an editor at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle who researched this.
Anyway, if we return to what we were doing before Covid then we are just doing the same thing over again and expecting different results, insanity. The last 25 years have shown us that we cannot hope to thrive if we keep doing the same things. We can’t just change the paint on our rusty Pinto and think we’ve got a brand new all-electric Porsche.
People are ready to embrace the world. People are hunger for connection, conversation, and relationship. People have watched as the world has spiraled out of control and felt unable to truly engage what has been and is happening. But now they can. Now they are walking past our window and they are wondering about what they hear. Will it be the same old lines that we spoke before? Or will it be the flames igniting new thoughts, new directions, new partnerships, and new possibilities.
We’ve been given a once in maybe 500-year chance to change the world. Will we let the flames alight and ignite us so that we can carry the gospel – carry the vision of transformed lives and a transformed world – carry the message of love, and justice and peace into the streets and pathways and light fires that will change the landscape?
You may not believe it, but there is a seismic shift taking place and the only question is, will we help to direct it and interpret it and see that it changes the landscape into something far different from what presently is?
We’ve been touched by the flame, the Spirit has come upon us, what will be do? What will our words and actions say? Will they speak to the gathered diversity of humanity? Will they speak of the end of colonial systems and privileged ways? Will they speak of equity and justice? Will they speak a word of “no” to hate and violence? Will we transform the landscape?
Only time and what we do will tell.
So now we leave this time of worship
And while so much of the road ahead is
uncertain, the path constantly changing,
we know some things that are as solid
and sure as the ground beneath our feet,
and the sky above our
heads.
We know God is love.
We know Christ’s light endures.
We know the Holy Spirit this there,
found in the space between all things, closer
to us than our next breath,
binding us to each other, until we meet
again,
Go in peace.
~ by Rev. Nora Vedress,
Calvary United Church in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada.
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