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Pentecost at Emmaus June 13th, 2021

The utterly amazing, bewildering, confusing, inspiring, visioning, birthing, fruitful, loving Spirit is in us today!

Opening Song: Open My Eyes

Pentecost Blessing:

...May the sound of God’s name spill from your lips as you have never heard it before.

May your knowing be undone.

May mystery confound your understanding.

May the Divine rain down in strange syllables yet with an ancient familiarity, a knowing borne in the blood, the ear, the tongue, bringing the clarity that comes not in stone or in steel but in fire, in flame.

May there come one searing word: enough to bare you to the bone, enough to set your heart ablaze, enough to make you whole again.

And the people of the Beloved Community say: Amen

The Gospel: Acts 2:1-11

The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost (Dan Lambert)

When the day of Pentecost came, the disciples were all together in one place. They felt truly alone now abandoned by Jesus – truly alone. They feared for the future of their little group of companions. Their mood of sadness contrasted sharply with the sounds of celebration coming from the streets outside.

There the streets of Jerusalem were clogged with pilgrims who had come from many parts of the empire to celebrate the completion of the wheat harvest. It was a party to toast the abundance of god and the hard work that would bring bread to the people.

Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. Their conversation was drowned out by the sound. They looked at each other in terror. How could this be happening in this small room they wondered?

And then they saw what seemed to be a fire inside the room which separated into individual slivers of fire that separated and came to rest above each of them.

This vision filled them … and awe came upon everyone. They remembered the words of the Prophet Jeremiah “in this place of which you say it is a waste there will be heard again the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness: the voices of those who sing.

And the words of Jesus spoken at the Last Supper: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. And you will know the Spirit for it lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Because the Spirit lives forever, you also will live.

Then all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the truth as the Spirit enabled them.

That day the Spirit enlivened the hearts and minds of the people and gave the disciples a new sense of peace and inspiration. No longer afraid behind closed doors, they went into the world to proclaim the good news.

Acclamation:

I believe God loves the languages

of those struggling to speak

the words embedded in our flesh

of every shape and hue.

And I believe God blesses

every space where we are welcomed

to speak with tongues of fire

and hear with hearts aflame.

- by Jan Richardson

Reader: God is with you.

Homily: Reader 1:

We’ve talked about the importance of language many times before; about the way it shapes and molds the images we hold in our minds.

And as our dear Cindy Vrooman, would have told us, what we say is not nearly as important as HOW we say it. Actually we really only hear about 20% of what is actually spoken (so…you’re off the hook remembering this!). What we are really listening to, is the heartfelt emotion that we hear and feel underneath the words spoken.

I think the miracle of Pentecost, was more about what was HEARD and FELT by the crowds gathered there, than about the different languages spoken. It was about real hearing, real listening into a known sense of our true ONENESS.

• As Pentecost People, I think we are all being called to speak new languages today: with hearts that convey real understanding of the deeper unity, not conformity, we all share. To speak:

the language of the poor,

the language of the mentally ill and sick,

the language of the disempowered and disenfranchised;

those bullied and belittled.

• But, just as importantly, I think the Spirit is calling us to listen with ever new and expanding perceptions, to the evolving nature of the Spirit of God. within us all; asking us to:

Listen for signs of life, not death;

Listen for unity, not conformity,

Listen for: for growth not stagnation,

Listen for: for freedom not control,

Listen for: loving inclusion not division.

• When we really hear... truly listen, something sacred happens...we discover our inherent unity, a deeper communion is given and received,; a healing, a growth and an expansion takes place, far beyond our words and wildest understandings.

• And, as if by wind and flame, we are being carried by a Spirit, so strong and so vast, that the only true name for it is...Love!

Maybe LOVE is that one searing word which will set our hearts afire, make us whole again, and help us realize...we truly are One...One Sacred Breath!

We as an Emmaus community, breathe together and listen to one another as one spirit-filled breath!

All I know is that we need the Spirit's loving, discerning and courageous action now more than ever...for ourselves, for our beloved community, our nation, our world, and our earth itself!

So, let's gather and invite, invoke, and implore our sister Sophia to fill us up to overflowing.

Please share your thoughts on how we can breathe together, listen with more compassion, and how we speak to each other and to those we meet.

Invitation: Reader 3

What is it that we bring to the table at this feast of Pentecost?

Reader 1: Let us now pull all these petitions into our hearts. We are grateful for the people in this community who have been blessed so abundantly with gifts – wisdom, courage, faith that is groaning with new life and perseverance.

OFFERING SONG: How Beautiful

The Meal Prayer:

Reader 1:

May we love ever more, be amazed evermore, be confounded ever more.

Reader 2:

May we commit ourselves to love, amazement and action.

Reader 1:

May we set our hearts ablaze, enough to make us whole again.

Reader 2:

May we be the loving fire we wish to see in the world.

Reader 1:

We are Spirit and Life and the searing word of liberation.

From the inside out….from the roots branching upwards….

from the heart, to thought, to word, to action.

Through life’s trials and hardships

we can arise beautiful and free.

(Julia Butterfly-Hill)

All: Amen.

Our Meal Conversation

Reader 1: May God be with us.

All: And with the whole world.

Reader 2: Lift up our hearts.

All: We lift them up to God.

Reader 1: Let us give thanks to God.

All: It is right to give thanks and praise.

EUCHARIST PRAYER:

Reader 3: It is truly right to thank You, O Spirit of God

You move among us as God’s breath, as natural and rhythmic

as our own. We will find you in the ten thousand things of creation.”

Reader 1: You promise all of us wise and understanding hearts. We know that your wisdom, which sees all things and is at work in all things, can be touched everywhere.

First Invocation: Reader 3

We remember Jesus, who challenges us to set ourselves free: free from images and ideas and religious practices that bind us into fear and a false sense of separation from the Spirit of all Life.

We, too, are blessed in the power of that same Spirit, which we

now invoke upon all gathered here, to celebrate the transformative energy symbolized in our gifts of bread and wine.

Invoking the Memory of Tradition:

Reader 1: We remember the night before he died, when he took bread, broke the bread and shared it with his friends asking them to remember his total surrender to the Spirit of Life and Love and his enduring love for each of them saying:

All: (extend hands)

This is my body which is being given up for you.

Reader 3: Knowing his life was to be poured out, Jesus shared the cup of wine in a spirit of kinship with his friends, saying:

All:

This is the cup of my love, poured out for all of you so you may know the Spirit. Do this in memory of me.

Celebrants:

In the spirit of this celebration we rejoice and thank God for all we have received; but we do so in painful awareness of all who are excluded from the table of God’s abundant life. And we pray that we may never turn anyone away from this table.

For ourselves gathered here we ask the grace to allow this Spirit to move freely in our lives.

All: Our Father/Mother

All: O Cosmic Being who gives birth to all radiance and vibration! Soften the ground of our being and carve out a space within us where your presence can abide.

Fill us with your creativity so that we may be empowered to bear

the fruit of your mission.

Let each of our actions bear fruit in accordance with your desire.

Endow us with the wisdom to produce and share what each being needs to grow and flourish.

Untie the tangled threads of destiny that bind us,

as we release others from the entanglement of past mistakes.

Do not let us be seduced by that which would divert us from our true purpose, but illuminate the opportunities of the present moment.

For you are the ground and fruitful vision, the birth, power and fulfillment, as all is gathered and made whole once again.

Kiss of Peace: (presiders break the bread)

May the peace of Christ be with you.

All: And also with you.

Presider: Invitation to Eucharist

(One presider lifts the plate and cup holding it up while the other reads)

Presider: We extend the invitation of Jesus to each and every one of you to take and eat, to take and drink.

Communion Song: The Servant Song

Reader 1: Pentecost Closing Prayer by Mark Siriano

On this Pentecost, may you find your heart singing with the Spirit;

your ears humming with the voice of the Holy One; speaking in a language that reaches deep into your soul; and wisdom dawning on your mind;

so that the shackles that may have hardened around your mind may be broken;

and God’s voice and language set free within you.

May our Emmaus community

experience the flow of God’s vibrant Spirit;

receive it with joy;

hold it with hope and

give into it with love;

so that when the day is done all the world may know the profound love of God through us all!

Final Song: De Colores