Hymn Suggestions:

ELW 771 God Who Stretched the Spangled Heavens

ELW 835 All Creatures Worship God Most High

ELW 861 When Long before Time

ACS 1064 Earth is Full of Wit and Wisdom

The prayer of the day sets the tone of this worship service for me.  The petition begins with the plea “kindle in us the flame of your love.” Kindle is a word that awakens and conjures up a lifetime of images and more.  From campfires at Bible camp or canoe trips, to lighting the Advent wreath at church and home, lighting a flame holds deep meaning.  So what do we mean this Sunday when we ask the Holy Spirit to “kindle in us the flame?” Deep in our bones we know what we need and truly desire – love.  We also recognize that love is the “most excellent way” and how love defines our truest selves.  Even though we see in our own lives and in others how the fire of love can be smothered or extinguished, nevertheless, each occurrence of the flame rekindling just proves once again that this is who we are meant to be.  I know you have seen and experienced what I have felt at each “God’s Work Our Hands” project, or each youth group service project, or each Thrivent Action Team event.  It is that pleasant satisfaction that God has built into our very bodies that feels so good when we do good. Like a spiritual endorphin after a strenuous workout.  That is God’s doing! We didn’t create ourselves this way: it is a divine wisdom to create a being that feels the powerful reward when love and goodness is expressed. Therefore, as other forces in our world conspire and strive to douse the flame - and that is certainly happening - we pray that the Holy Spirit will “kindle in us” that which we need and desire, because we can’t do this alone. With the negative temptations and contrary roadblocks we meet every day, we know we need the Author of life and love continually to enliven us to be who we were created to be.

Pentecost Sunday has had so many rich themes for me over the years, including a birthday for the church, a commencement of God’s mission of love though the apostles, and the promise of the mysterious continuing presence of the Spirit for our comfort and enlightenment.  This year the message that touches me most is the rekindling that we need in our context of multiple crises.  I have heard a growing number of people over the decades since the first Earth Day express anxiety and fear for the future.  They fear the ecologic destruction that characterizes the Anthropocene.  They fear the ruthlessness of the power hungry and how division, tribalism and misguided patriotism are fomenting resentments which only serve to perpetuate the rancor and spawn new cycles of hatred and revenge.  We have seen a fierce pushback and even rollback to the compassionate progress that movements of grace have achieved.  We see protections for clean air and water being dismantled. We see civil rights being rolled back.  These are frightening developments.  And many young people fear that nobody with influence is doing anything about it.  Over against this context, which can rob one of hope like the wind being knocked out of you, what we need is that which Jesus promised in the upper room and which blew through the gathering of followers on Pentecost day – the mystery of the Holy Spirit rekindling love, power and grace in our hearts.

These lessons speak to me of the continuing presence of God in the world and in our lives.  I find it helpful to remember that the lessons were written in days characterized by ruthless domination by powers that subjugated and exploited at will. The message we receive in the word revealed is that God’s love is a flame that cannot die. And so we pray that we will be so enthused that we will sing/proclaim/praise and thereby join the Spirit as we fan the flame of love brighter and brighter.  Pentecost speaks of ever-increasing circles of inclusion and healing even in brutal times.  Opposite of the movement to divide, the Spirit propels the sent ones (apostles) into the world, into wider and more diverse situations, establishing inclusive communities that are characterized by grace, which preach and praise love. Long ago we learned how Jesus’ words in Acts 1:8 describe the increasing concentric circles of an expanding mission which the apostles would carry out, beginning in Jerusalem and taking them to the ends of the earth and to all peoples.  This lesson in Acts 2 is the commencement of that mission, an unfinished mission, and we know that we are still in the process.  The ever-widening circles of mission drive the church toward greater inclusion and justice which are part of the righteousness of God we witness in Jesus.

As we carry this message of love through the world and to all people, Psalm 104 reminds us that this mission of love is also properly carried out within God’s immense creation, where wisdom, glory, providence, and grace extend before and beyond the narrow human perspective. The Spirit which Christ promised uses this ancient song to inspire and increase our wisdom as we witness the manifold works of God and the wisdom by which they exist.  We witness breathtaking biodiversity where patterns of relations and interdependence weave together uniqueness and relatedness in a tapestry of wonder that calls us into reverent worship – Bless the Lord, O my soul!  Our worship and praise of God, however, must lead us out of the small sanctuaries made by human hands and become action in the sacred spaces where God’s creations are.  For when we open our eyes to see deeply into what God reveals, we understand that we are in a context of a different brutality.  Year by year, we witness a reduction of the diversity God wove into creation for its and our health.  We witness the loss of animal and vegetative populations, we witness habitats altered, so that the lives they once supported have vanished.

Psalm 104, from verse one, (really we should read/sing the entire psalm today) expresses the truth that all life is perpetually in the hands of God’s grace.  Knowing this, we are called upon to heed the Spirit’s call; not just to marvel at God’s handiwork, but to serve and protect the home of us all.  The entire psalm expands the Pentecostal proclamation way beyond the known human languages and casts the news of God’s grace into every created sphere.  Listening to Psalm 104 we hear that “all creations sings”, joining us - or should we say, we are joining the choir of creation - in giving glory.  With this Pentecostal flame rekindled with love for all God’s creatures, we can strive for environmental, social, and interpersonal healing and wellness.