PENTECOST & ALDERSGATE SUNDAY

Pentecost Sunday

This short act of worship has been prepared for you to. I invite you to share in a few moments with God, knowing that other people within Paulton, Trinity and Chew Stoke Methodist Churches are sharing this act of worship with you.

Revd Martin Slocombe

Psalm 104:24-30

²⁴ O Lord, how manifold are your works!
   In wisdom you have made them all;
   the earth is full of your creatures. 
²⁵ Yonder is the sea, great and wide,
   creeping things innumerable are there,
   living things both small and great. 
²⁶ There go the ships,
   and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it. 

²⁷ These all look to you
   to give them their food in due season; 
²⁸ when you give to them, they gather it up;
   when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. 
²⁹ When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
   when you take away their breath, they die
   and return to their dust. 
³⁰ When you send forth your spirit, they are created;
   and you renew the face of the ground. 

Hymn – StF 477 – Teach me to dance to the beat of your heart www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PXBIEK4ueM

Prayer

We praise you, God of all time, for speaking to us through the tongues of Pentecost, for stirring our longings with the excitement of Pentecost, for uniting our communities with the inclusiveness of Pentecost. 
Fill our lives, we pray, with the enormity of Pentecost, until they overflow with compassion and commitment to care for and celebrate all creation to the glory of your name.
Amen.

Gracious God, ignite our prayers with the life-giving fire of Pentecost, that we may not fear our inadequacy, our hesitancy or our doubt, but bring before you all that we are, all that we have been, and all that we can be. 

May we know that we can never aim high enough, and never conceive anything complete enough, to prepare us for all you would bless us with – individually, as communities and as nations.
Help us to gather together and wait for you afresh, trusting in your eternal love, mercy and forgiveness.
Amen.

Readings

Acts 2:1-21 

The Coming of the Holy Spirit

2When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All 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. ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ ¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ ¹³But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’

Peter Addresses the Crowd

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. ¹⁵Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. ¹⁶No, 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. 
²⁰ The sun shall be turned to darkness
   and the moon to blood,
     before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. 
²¹ Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Romans 8:22-27 

²²We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; ²³and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. ²⁷And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Reflection

Today, for the first time in many months, we are meeting together to worship inside our buildings.  Buildings which we love, buildings and people that have inspired our faith, and whom we have missed.

As I look forward to meeting you all again, I do so with a little uncertainty.  We are all a year older (as am I), and for some of you, that might mean you are no longer able to join with us, some of our dearest friends have died, others have moved away, and sadly, some may have found other things to do on Sunday mornings, and will no longer want to come to church.  As our churches reopen to a wider use, we are uncertain how many groups will return, and I know of a number that have closed or are no longer planning on meeting.  Going back to exactly how things were is not going to be possible, many things have changed irreversibly, and so, rather than look back, we must concentrate on looking forward, whilst acknowledging that we are not entirely sure what our church community might look like.  Who knows, there might be new people coming who have engaged with service sheets and Facebook Live over the past months, and now want to join with us in person – please God, may that be so.

At Pentecost, the disciples, filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit, burst out of the house, and had to face a new world, in which God was in control.  That can be scary.  They didn’t know what they had to do, or where they had to go, whether they would be welcomed or rejected, but in the Holy Spirit they placed their trust, and their trust was rewarded.  As we face an uncertain future, certainly in the next few months, are we brave enough to place our trust in the Holy Spirit to guide us to the places and people that God has brought before us?

As Paul writes to the persecuted church in Rome, “we hope for what we do not see”.  Just because we do not have a clear vision of what the future holds, does not mean that we do not hope that God is in it with us as we again reach out to our communities.  In fact, I some ways I am glad that we cannot see the future, because that means it is not mapped out for us, cast in tablets of stone, and we can dream dreams, and shape it in response to the Holy Spirit’s calling.

Today is exciting in many ways, not least of which is that having stopped our traditions for so long, we now have an opportunity to reshape them to fit this time, rather than continuing traditions which arose out of a different era.  Many important things need to remain, whilst not restarted others will release the time and space to begin new things, to open our eyes to see the new crowd which has gathered before us, and to seek a new place in our communities.

We hopefully will not be required to speak a multitude of foreign languages (which is just as well), but we are required to communicate our message in a way that the people who live around us today can understand.  Last week I shared in a Zoom meeting with a group of Methodists from Coventry who run Coffee Shop Sunday, a time of worship held in Costa Coffee on a Sunday afternoon.  They spoke about the importance of meeting people where they were (on a Retail Park in this case) and dropping church language which meant nothing to those outside the church.  So they had a gathering not a service, they sang songs not hymns, and they listened to a talk not a sermon.  Most importantly, they are speaking to the people of Coventry in ways that they can hear and understand – and they are GROWING in number.

Over the coming months we need to be rethinking our mission in response to all of the challenges that we, and our neighbours, have faced in the last year.  If ever there was a time to take stock of our role in society, it must surely be now.  Our mission can no longer be the same as it was, but is exactly the same as it has always been – to share the power of God, revealed in the love of the Son, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Today is Pentecost, marking the giving to the Holy Spirit, marking the birth of the Church. 

Today is exciting.

Today speaks of hope.

Today is the start of the future. 

May we all step out together, with a new mission, inspired by a renewing of our faith, and a new vision for our churches, knowing that, “Best of all is God is with us”.

Amen

Prayers for others

Almighty God, at Pentecost, you came amongst you people, inspiring your disciples to take you out into the world, filling them with excitement and an overwhelming desire to serve you.  You brought peoples from many countries together to hear your message.  Today we recognise your call to serve others regardless of their tradition or background or distance from their homes.

We pray for all in need, wherever they are, especially those in a foreign land.  We continue to pray for India, Yemen, Israel and Palestine.

We pray for those close to home who do not recognise the touch of your Holy Spirit upon their lives.

We pray for businesses as they reopen, and for owners as they hope for a stable period of trading.  We pray for wisdom for us all as we reengage with friends and family, and for respect and compassion to be shown to those who remain fearful.

We pray for those who choose to look forward in hope, rather than back in regret.

We pray for the North East Somerset & Bath Circuit, of which we are a part, for it’s ministers, lay workers, churches and congregations – especially this week we join with the Circuit as we pray together for Trinity as together we seek a new way forward and hope in the future.

As part of Churches Together in Radstock & Westfield we pray for our brothers and sisters at Ammerdown, and for the work they do amongst peoples of all nationalities and faiths.

We pray for our families and friends, and for all those in need at this present time:-

And we pray for ourselves …

Living God, we thank you for the energy of Pentecost, and for the overflowing of your Spirit into our world.  May we be blessed by the Spirit’s presence, and be overflowing in our love for you, and for others.

Amen

The Lord’s Prayer

Let us pray with confidence as our Saviour has taught us

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 trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation;

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

the power, and the glory

for ever and ever.

Amen.

Hymn – StF 395 – Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me - www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2t3TfhoNE8

Holy Communion for Pentecost

As well as being Pentecost, today is also Aldersgate Sunday, and we close our worship with a hymn of John Wesley, reminding us of God’s presence at all times.

Hymn – StF 610 – Best of all is God is with us - www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpVfjZ7PxhM