Wait: God answers
May 19, 2024
Wait: God Answers
Pentecost
Lighting the Christ Candle
Welcome and Announcements
Call to Worship
The Spirit of God has brought us here. The Lord has set us down here, though our bones are tired.
Can these dry bones live?
Yes! The Breath of God will revive us! The Word of God will awaken us!
Today, we come together to experience new life.
We give thanks to the Wild, Life-Giving Spirit of God, and wait for his revelation!
Hymn: 381 Holy Spirit hear us
Prayer of Adoration
O God, You are Spirit; You are wind; You are breath. As we were created you put your very breath into us as the gift of life.
Your breath continues to come among us, as your wind gently touches our brow with comfort and as your forgiveness raises us to life. Through your Spirit you open our hearts, and help us to listen for your word among us.
Today as we worship you, may your Spirit, breathe on us with renewed life.
You come to us in Jesus, to teach us to walk, to work, to pray, to live, to love, your way.
Come upon us now to teach us to listen, to know your voice, and to wait for your power to come among us. Amen
Call to Confession:
We do not stop enough to listen to the still-speaking God.
And like the people of Jerusalem long ago, we often misunderstand the Spirit’s movement among us.
In the silence and stillness of this moment, let us draw near to God and taking a deep breath, come and confess together:
Prayer of Confession:
Forgive us God for the barriers we create within ourselves. We construct barriers that resist your healing work and prevent us moving toward wholeness. Forgive our fear of change, our lack of trust in your love. Forgive us God, for the barriers we create between us and you. Forgive our busyness, our independence, our desire to go our own way. Life giving spirit, God’s advocate and guide, have mercy on us, teach us to watch, and wait and listen for your guidance. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon
The God of healing gently touches our lives with his Spirit, bringing warmth and comfort, life and wholeness, forgiveness and restoration into fractured lives and souls. Believe the good news, in Jesus Christ we are forgiven and set free.
Passing the Peace
Hymn: 389 Breathe on me breath of God
Scripture:
Acts 2: 1-21 p 1692
Romans 8: 22-27 p 1757
Sermon: Wait: God answers
The Oxford Dictionary defines “wait” in these words: to allow time to go by, especially while staying in one place without doing very much, until someone comes, until something happens or until you can do something.
It is wise to remember that “wait” and “until” are linked. That is clearly outlined in the command Jesus gave. Wait until the Spirit comes.
In that waiting the disciples did not know what to expect. They didn’t know what they were called to do. They tried to figure it out on their own, and it didn’t work out as they had hoped.
In the end they had no choice but to wait until the Spirit came. They waited together. They talked. They remembered Jesus and the things that he taught them. They, likely, prayed for the day the Spirit would come. Most importantly, they did nothing because there was nothing that they could do.
There is a sense of powerlessness in the waiting. There isn’t anything you can do. You can’t make the late plane arrive any earlier. You can’t get that project going without the right tools. You just have to wait.
I think that an important part of that, is admitting your powerlessness.
That realization leads to learning about trust and hope.
In waiting we ask the questions: Where is our trust going to be placed? In whom will we hope?
When we confront those questions, we realize that waiting is not a passive activity; but rather, a choice. When we choose to trust God, then we place our hope that in his time all will be revealed.
In the letter Paul writes to the Romans he focuses on the necessity of trust and hope. In that choice we wait on the Spirit, and trust that the Spirit will help us to pray, as we groan inwardly. Then in the right time, our calling in Christ will be revealed. Paul seems to be making the point that the hope in this waiting is how we will be saved.
Indeed, the coming of the Messiah and the salvation found in him has always been focused on God’s promise that “in the fullness of time” the Messiah will come. Our Advent and Christmas carols use the words—the Messiah promised long….
How many generations waited for that promise to be fulfilled? How many died while they waited, and yet their trust and hope remained intact?
When Root and Bertrand write that the Church needs to stop working and wait for God, they are addressing our greatest need.
They remind us that the secular age has accelerated our lives; and we have become complicit with the demand that we follow suit. Our lives have become ruled by the need to constantly be working and doing something. We need to be productive. As a result, rest, even Sabbath rest, has lost it’s place of importance. The message from society, “If we are resting, we are wasting time.”
What we need is more Sunday Soup. I know, that is really a reference to my own culture and background, but bear with me.
On Saturday my mom would make a huge pot of soup; then on Sunday after worship we would have soup and a bun with meat or cheese.
Then we would spend the afternoon playing board games or card games together. Or sometimes just be cozied up reading. Seriously, group reading was an activity in my family, and not just on Sunday—it could be seen on beach days as we all arrived with our towel and our book.
So Sunday afternoon we would play together and then for supper we would have the last of the soup and buns with meat or cheese.
I miss those days. It’s not just the Soup with the little meatballs, but the time spent together with no pressing need. All that we had to do was just be.
Root and Bertrand call those times of just being together, “resonance.” They define resonance as “those moments that shape who we are, and how we relate to the world.”
When we have stopped long enough to just be together, they tell us we will discover a feeling of fullness and of being in sync with one another simply through our presence together. When we connect with the people in our lives, it is a time when we find a meaning greater than we can see or explain.
When the disciples finally get hold of what Jesus wants from them in waiting, I believe they found that resonance. They found a greater understanding of how they had been shaped by the ministry of Jesus and what it meant for each one of them, singularly and collectively.
Root and Bertrand remind us that revelation of that kind of resonance surprise us with its power.
Do we want to be surprised with power?
I know that’s a loaded question. What kind of power? What will it mean for us? To answer yes, means giving up control, and trusting in the mystery that is God. If you think that sounds frightening, you would be right.
But we need to answer the question, “do we want to be surprised with power?” …for the sake of argument, we are answering YES!
Then that means that we must wait, together.
Root and Bertrand say that the Church and the individual congregations need more resonance in order to develop deeper relationships with one another. We need more resonance and a clearer purpose as we grow into a deeper connection with God.
There is no way that we can rush through the process.
We are called to wait.
We are called to wait together.
The good news is that the Church has been there before.
Today we learned how the Church was surprised with the majestic power of God as they waited together in an upper room.
But there are many other instances…both corporate and individual.
Paul, waited in blindness for Peter to come and teach him.
Jonah waited in the belly of a whale until he responded in obedience to God.
The people of God waited in exile and sang the songs of faith, until God made the way in the desert.
Each found resonance with God, and with others.
And they also found their origin story—their reason for being.
We have just come through an anniversary year. It was clear that our origin story rests in a bike that could use the railway tracks for the purpose of mission and outreach. The years that unfolded were filled with mission and outreach. And that is still very much a present reality.
But sometimes origin stories are not what they seem to be. A deeper look needs to be taken. And sometimes we are called to pivot and discover a new origin story.
We think of the origin story of the church as Pentecost with tongues of flames from the Holy Spirit, but really the origin story of the Church is the scared and uncertain disciples hiding behind locked doors and waiting for the revelation of God.
For Paul it wasn’t his training in Scripture, but his understanding of his spiritual blindness… for Jonah it was in finally embracing obedience. We will learn more about these and other waiting stories as we look at what they learned in waiting. We will see how each learned what God called forth in obedience through both the waiting and the subsequent calling.
So back to the Church.
The book of Acts, although titled the Acts of the Disciples, is really the Actions of the Holy Spirit. A closer examination shows us that no one acted out of their own strength; but through divine action.
Acts is about what God did through the Spirit and people who were willing to wait for God to act for them and through them. The Church was born of the Spirit and people who were willing to wait for God to act.
It is clear that the Church is always called to wait.
Yet, there is still a small part of us that sighs with impatience. Waiting seems so counterproductive, especially in the time and age in which we live.
We need to do things.
We need to survey our neighbourhood and see what they need.
We need to spread flyers.
We need to do something, anything that shows we are still alive and even relevant to the world on our doorstep.
But if the time is not right, nothing will work.
Imagine for a moment that you are building a deck. You need an auger to dig the holes for the concrete supports… but you don’t have one. However a friend tells you that they have a power auger and that as soon as they have time, they will come and dig the holes for you; but it may take a few weeks.
So after a day do you take a soup spoon and go out into the yard and start digging holes by yourself?
That makes no sense, right?
What makes even less sense is worrying that if we don’t act God will not show up.
We can’t put the cart in front of the horse.
The truth is that if we act in our own power God will not show up. The things we do may show evidence of blessing, but they will not be filled with resonance and will certainly be missing that surprising and awesome power of God.
Waiting is about having faith. Faith will remind us that God will do what he has said he will do.
Waiting is filled with hope. Hope comes out of trusting that what God started, he will finish.
We are called to wait for God to act.
When we wait together, we rehearse and remember the great acts of God and we develop resonance with God and with one another. Our waiting looks forward to what God will do, even as our understanding of who God is grows stronger. But that means waiting without busyness because busyness hinders us from meeting God.
Being ready to encounter God does not involve busy work, or striving, or trying one thing after another. Waiting is a time to rest, to live in the resonance of our relationships as together we anticipate God—speaking, guiding, and leading.
If we wait and if we listen—God will answer.
What will that look like? We don’t know.
But we do know that we will be surprised by the power that God will display. Just as the disciples were surprised by a power that gave them the ability to speak other languages and drove them out of hiding onto the streets to tell everyone, in their own language that the Messiah has come. They were driven to tell everyone that his name is Jesus and he has the power to bring new life and forgive sins.
When God speaks among us, that may not be the exact way it will happen, but it will have that same power and we will not mistake what he will be asking of us.
If we wait and if we listen—God will answer.
Amen
Affirmation of Faith:
Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40: 31 NRSV
Hymn: 382 Spirit of God descend upon my heart
Offering and Doxology 830
Offertory Prayer
Holy God, you have given yourself to us in creation, in Jesus and in the Spirit. We now give back to you our wealth, our hearts, our service. We recognize that all we have is a gift from you, and that we are immensely blessed. Receive what we offer and transform it by the power of your Spirit into enough of your grace to proclaim and enact your peace, justice, and love in the world. Amen
Gathering Prayer Requests
Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession
We thank you O God that you are the spirit of life and that your breath of life fills the whole world and holds all things together.
We thank you O God that you are the source of life that brings life to the world, whole life, full life, unhindered, indestructible everlasting life
We thank you O God for the life of your spirit which Christ sends into the world.
We thank you O God, that where Jesus is present there is life, the sick people are healed, the sad people are comforted, the marginalised people are accepted and that all are restored to you. Hear us now as we bring those needs which are on our hearts before you now….
JOY
COMMUNITY
WORLD
Flooding in Afghanistan
Holy Spirit, who brings the new creation break into the here and now bringing foretastes of the age to come when all things are made new, and creation is set free.
Set us free as we go into the world, that we may love as you would love, and do what you call us to do. We ask this in the name of Jesus who taught us to pray, saying:
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 debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever. Amen
Hymn: 384 O Breath of life come sweeping through us
Benediction
As you go forth from this place, may the wind of the Spirit startle your senses and blow through your life; may the fire of the Spirit scorch your complacency and light your way.
And may the blessing of the Holy One—Father, Son and Spirit—rest with you now and forever more. Amen
Blessing Song: 500 Open my eyes v.1