Prelude – Beneath the cross of Jesus
Words for Meditation
104:24 O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
104:25 Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great.
104:26 There go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.
104:31 May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works–
104:32 who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke.
104:33 I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
Introit – He Is Exalted
Opening Prayer
Do not move too quickly from any good thing:
not laughter or a sight of beauty,
not a taste, a feeling, a companion, or a truth.
These are gifts, not to be wasted.
Be generous in sharing.
Linger and give thanks.
Be excessive in awe.
Just, do not hurry through them
as if they are not precious in this season of grief.
Open to Wisdom’s guidance through pain.
Listen patiently to your fear.
Pause, so that the voice of your body can speak.
You cannot hurry in heartbreak or loss
and hope to make it through.
but also for each other.
When we tend inward,
we prevent that which makes our spirit decay.
When we nurture our soul,
we grow in our capacities to contribute to the whole.
not courage nor healing,
not love that liberates,
nor justice that transforms.
Not the new world we hope to grow
from the ruins of all that is destroyed.
Everything we need the most
for our collective soul to make it through this alive
requires great urgency and abundant patience.
take a breath,
and find again the rhythms of life
best for growing our souls.
Opening Hymn – Holy Spirit, Living Breath of God
Scripture Reading – Job 17-18
Special Music – Open Our Eyes
Closing Hymn – As A Fire is Meant for Burning
Benediction
Pentecost is coming.
It will be an end and a beginning.
It will bewilder and confuse.
Though some will fight it,
the aching world calls it forth with urgency.
Come, Spirit, come.
The Spirit who moves like “a rush of violent wind…”
Who appears like fire…
Who is the breath of God…
She comes to us unconcerned with order,
wild with freedom,
turning over anything and everything that stands in Her way.
Let Her come and fill our mouths with words we didn’t know we could speak.
Let Her come and help us hear in languages we once could not understand.
She is being poured out.
The people will prophesy.
The heavens will draw near.
The chorus of voices-past will join in
and proclaim the truth of God.
Justice will come.
Do not be like the ones who sneer and ask, “are they drunk?”
Do not be surprised by what’s happening as if
the scriptures and history and the prophets have not foretold…
You’ve heard it said –
The sun will burn out and the moon turn to blood
before the day of Justice arrives.
Instead, open your hearts
and pray that God’s grace
may carry you into the Kindom.
Let courage rise up.
Let passion enflame.
Let love transform.
Let weeping fill the land.
There will be no peace until there is justice.
No healing until wrongs are made right.
Come, Spirit, Come.
And turn the world of evil upside-down.
Benediction Response – Holy Spirit Come to Us
Words for Pondering
Psalm 8
8:1 O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.
8:2 Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
8:3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;
8:4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
8:5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.
8:6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet,
8:7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
8:8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
8:9 O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Postlude – Sweet, Sweet Spirit