Ordinary Time

Pause

Pour your Spirit upon us, O Lord; we are your sons and daughters.

Animate us with your gifts to serve your people.

Listen

When Pentecost Day arrived, they were all together in one place. 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 2:1-4

Think

It’s hard to imagine being all together in one place now, isn’t it? Like when you watch a show filmed before quarantine began, and you see people in crowds, hugging, touching one another without a care in the world. It’s hard to comprehend that time, when the thing people did when they were scared was come together.

It’s not hard to comprehend that scared feeling, though. The insecurity of the disciples’ position is one we’re all intimately familiar with now. Their whole world has been turned upside down by the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus and will be turned upside down again by this flame. And yet, from our perspective 2,000 years removed, this breaking-open of the old order is a good thing. It’s a good thing that the fierce wind and the flames of fire came to usher in this good new thing God was doing, though it surely felt unpleasantly unpredictable at the time.

I wonder what good new thing could God be doing in this time of uncertainty.

Jordan Haynie Ware

Pray

Loving God, who shatters the doors of our hearts with the fierce winds of your love: send the flames of your Spirit upon me that I may witness the new thing you are doing, though it turns the world upside down; through Jesus Christ our Lord, whose death and resurrection overturned the universe, with whom you live and reign. Amen.

Go

Breathe upon us, breath of God, young and old alike.

Send us forth, gifted with your power, to serve your people.