Pentecost

Pentecost: Breath of God

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The Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles and Mary at Pentecost, Elizabeth Wang, at radiantlight.org.uk
The Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles and Mary at Pentecost, Elizabeth Wang, at radiantlight.org.uk

FIRST LESSON:  Acts 2: 1-21

This passage completes the succession from Jesus to the disciples and is made complete with the arrival of God’s promised Spirit.  This is the moment that had been predicted by both John the Baptist and Jesus and the passage is written to reflect that earlier prophecy.  This is the moment for which the world has been waiting.  This passage has probably received more attention than any other in the Book of Acts.  Certain faith traditions draw on it because of the experiential presence of faith and others use it to frame the season of Pentecost, when the church and its community are renewed and reborn by the power of God’s Spirit.  According to the passage, the entire community is baptized into the realm of the Spirit.  There was no one left out, no one that wasn’t up to the standard of baptism.  It was as if the very breath of God showered onto the crowd with no plan at all.

The word for Pentecost (literally, “fiftieth day”) was used by Jews for a day-long harvest festival more commonly known as the “Feast of Weeks”.  The image of “tongues of fire” and the flames that are often used to symbolize Pentecost (as well as our own denomination) echoes the fire that was frequently used in Jewish and Greco-Roman writings as a metaphor for the experiences of prophetic inspiration.  The Hebrew word for God’s Spirit is ruah.  It is not limited to wind or even breath, although it is often translated in that way, but is, rather the very essence of God once again breathing all of Creation into being.

The “gift of tongues” should not be confused with the spiritual gift of glossolalia that concerns Paul in 1 Corinthians 12-14.  The Pauline meaning denotes a special language given to a few believers by the Spirit in order to edify the whole congregation.  For the writer of Acts, though, this Spirit came upon all, rather than merely a chosen few.  In many ways, the Pentecost experience of “tongues” has more to do with hearing and understanding than with speaking.  It has to do with rhythm.  Rather, the Pentecost story is about unity, about what happens when we open ourselves to the entrance of God’s Spirit into our lives.

So God’s Spirit is poured out upon a community of believers.  The Holy Spirit is not a “personal” gift from God.  There is nothing personal or private (and certainly not restrictive) about it.  The church has always tended to be comfortable with worshiping the Father and the Son but often the Holy Spirit is seen as a sort of marginal, misunderstood entity.  Jurgen Moltmann was known for referring to the Holy Spirit as the “shy member” of the Trinity.  But it is clear from this story that the arrival of the Holy Spirit is not hidden from view and, for that matter, is anything but shy.  The Spirit’s arrival is a noisy affair with special effects that draws an interested public “from every nation” to the community.  This arrival of the Spirit completes the picture.  It is the last piece of the story—God created, redeemed, and is now empowering the people of God to be who God created them to be.  This is the way that God sustains us in this world and the next.  Joan Chittister says that “God creates us, Jesus leads us, and the Spirit shows us ways that are not always in the book.”

The Spirit does not imply a ghostly-type image.  Talking about Spirit is talking about God–God in power like the force of wind or in intimacy like breath.  This is not speaking of bits and pieces of God.  This is the fullness of God, the total essence of God.  This is God’s Kingdom coming.  Pentecost is hope at its deepest level and the promise that everyone can be ignited by the Spirit in order to live out their God-called life.  Nothing but fire kindles fire.

Several years ago, I had an experience that, for me, gave life to this Pentecost story.  I was traveling through Hungary as part of a church choir tour and one of our singing opportunities was the Sunday morning worship service of a small, extremely poor Protestant church on the Pest side of the city.  No one in the small congregation spoke any English.  We, of course, did not speak Hungarian either.  You have to understand that the Hungarian language is usually grouped closely with Finnish because of its syntax, but it has so many words and sounds that are borrowed from Turkish as well as centuries of various gypsy languages that it has no real commonality with any language.  So, our communication was limited to hand signals, nods, and smiles.  The entire worship service was in this language that was more unfamiliar than anything that I had ever heard.  We went through about an hour of unfamiliar songs, foreign liturgy, and a 30-minute sermon that meant absolutely nothing to us.

At one point I looked around and realized that they had their heads down and were speaking what must have been a common prayer.  We put our heads down.  As I sat there, praying my own prayer along with them, I was suddenly aware that something had changed.  I still, of course, could not understand the words but somewhere in there I had heard something inherently familiar.  I looked at the person next to me and said, “That’s the Lord’s Prayer.”  I started with the second petition of the familiar prayer and slowly those around me began to join in.  When we came to the end, there was sort of a stunned silence around us.  We had all finished at the same time.

This was not a case of my somehow miraculously understanding a language that I did not know.  It was, instead, a hearing of an incredible rhythm that runs beneath all language and connects us all.  That rhythm is the Spirit of God.  I realized at that moment that the point of the Biblical Pentecost story was not the speaking, but the hearing and the understanding.   Regardless of our differences, there is one common voice that connects us all, if we will only listen.       

That is the way we are called to live—with one voice—even though it may be a million different languages.  In essence, it is the reversal of the Tower of Babel story.  Where the Tower of Babel account divided people because of their lives, Pentecost restores communication and unites different languages with a common voice.  The difference is in the hearing.  The difference is that sometimes it IS about our not being control.  The difference is that this unruly, uncontrollable Spirit of God has empowered all of us.  It is not a private affair.  This is not a personal spirit.  This is God’s Spirit that does what it set out to do in the first place—to create the world into being.  This Pentecost story is the release of God’s Spirit into the world.  The heavens have opened up and poured out on us all.  And the new creation, the taste of all things to come, has begun.

Pentecost did not create a church.  Pentecost breathed God’s breath into the world and equipped all of us for work. 

 1)      What is your response to this passage?

2)      What is your own image of the Pentecost experience?

3)      What messages does that original Pentecost have for today’s church and for us?

4)      What is your understanding or image of the Holy Spirit?

 NEW TESTAMENT:  Romans 8: 14-17

Put very simply, Paul is contrasting two ways of living—the way that we are tempted to live in this world and the way that God calls us to live.  He plays with notions of slavery and freedom—slavery to the perils of this world or freedom in God through Christ.  Slavery means fear.  Slavery means having no rights of inheritance.  Slavery means no hope.  Freedom, then, means to belong to a family and to have the rights to an inheritance.  We have been adopted by Christ and will share in the inheritance that God provides.

When we believe in God, we become children of God.  But this also means that we suffer with Christ.  But this, too, is part of God’s promise of the renewal of all of Creation.  It is a hope that we cannot see on our own but are rather empowered to see through the Spirit of God.  Here, there’s more to being a Christian than just knowing the right stuff and doing the right things and professing the correct beliefs.  To be Christian, you must open yourself up and invite God’s Spirit to enter your life.  It is not enough to be “spiritual and not religious” no matter how in vogue it may be today.  Inviting God’s spirit to enter one’s life, becoming heirs of God’s Spirit, inheriting this Spirit of Pentecost, if you will, is the way that you will be glorified through Christ in God.  It’s that simple.

In an excerpt from a sermon entitled “Are You Saved”, Amy Miracle (how cool would that be to be Reverend Miracle?) says:

 Frederick Buechner put it this way: “No matter who you are and what you’ve done, God wants you on his side. There is nothing you have to do or be. It’s on the house. It goes with the territory.” That is the claim of scripture and the claim of the Christian tradition but we never seem to believe it. Surely there must be a catch, some book I need to read, some technique of prayer you need to master. There must be some minimum standard. How could salvation be available to absolutely everyone?

In her book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard writes, “when I was six or seven years old … I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find… For some reason I always “hid” the penny along the same stretch of sidewalk up the street…. Then I would take a piece of chalk and, starting at either end of the block, draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions. After I learned to write I labeled the arrows: SURPRISE AHEAD or MONEY THIS WAY. I was greatly excited, during all this arrow drawing, at the thought of the first lucky passerby who would receive in this way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe.”

Salvation is like that. And the death and resurrection of Jesus is the arrow that points the way to this free gift. The very fact that salvation is free might be a problem.

1)      What meaning does this passage hold for you?

2)      What does the “adoption” language mean to you?

3)      What images of God does this bring about for you?

4)      What image of salvation does that bring about for you?

 GOSPEL:  John 14: 8-17, (25-27)

Philip still didn’t get it.  All this time and he still didn’t get it.  If we look at Jesus, if we look into Jesus’ eyes, we will see the eyes of God.  Well, the truth is that that is probably as difficult for us as it was for Philip.  Is it so hard to believe in a God that is that accessible to us?  Is it so hard to believe in a God that would dare to get that close to us?

The truth is, once again, that they are afraid Jesus is going to leave before he had finished his work.  And what then?  The focus here is on doing the works of Jesus and doing them in the world.  Jesus defines his role here as a “helper” (paracletos).  It can also be translated “advocate”.  It is, once again, the reminder that we are not left to fend for ourselves.  The work will continue.  But it will continue with us, guided and aided by the Spirit, the very essence of God.

Jesus broke into history not to finish the work, not to demonstrate power, but to bring love and unity and empowerment to those who were here.  That means us.  Maybe we’re not called to walk on water; maybe we’re not called to heal paralytics; maybe we’re not even saddled with the responsibility of bringing the entire Kingdom of God into its fullness of being.  Maybe we’re called to just open our eyes and do what comes next, respond to whatever it is the Spirit showers our way.  Maybe we’re just called to be who we are and use our gifts in the best possible way to work in our own unique way and do our own unique part in building the Kingdom of God.  Maybe that’s the peace that Jesus left us.

In a sermon entitled “Doing Greater Things”, Tony Campolo tells this story:

I was in Haiti. I checked on our missionary work there. We run 75 small schools back in the hills of Haiti. I came to the little Holiday Inn where I always stay and shower and clean up before I board the plane to go home. I left the taxi and was walking to the entrance of the Holiday Inn when I was intercepted by three girls. I call them girls because the oldest could not have been more than 15. And the one in the middle said, “Mister, for $10 I’ll do anything you want me to do. I’ll do it all night long. Do you know what I mean?”

I did know what she meant. I turned to the next one and I said, “What about you, could I have you for $10?”  She said yes. I asked the same of the third girl. She tried to mask her contempt for me with a smile but it’s hard to look sexy when you’re 15 and hungry. I said, “I’m in room 210, you be up there in just 10 minutes. I have $30 and I’m going to pay for all 3 of you to be with me all night long.”

I rushed up to the room, called down to the concierge desk and I said I want every Walt Disney video that you’ve got in stock. I called down to the restaurant and said, do you still make banana splits in this town, because if you do I want banana splits with extra ice cream, extra everything. I want them delicious, I want them huge, I want four of them!

The little girls came and the ice cream came and the videos came and we sat at the edge of the bed and we watched the videos and laughed until about one in the morning. That’s when the last of them fell asleep across the bed. And as I saw those little girls stretched out asleep on the bed, I thought to myself, nothing’s changed, nothing’s changed. Tomorrow they will be back on the streets selling their little bodies to dirty, filthy johns because there will always be dirty, filthy johns who for a few dollars will destroy little girls. Nothing’s changed. I didn’t know enough Creole to tell them about the salvation story, but the word of the spirit said this: but for one night, for one night you let them be little girls again.

I know what you’re going to say: “You’re not going to compare that with Jesus walking on water.” No, I’m not, for very obvious reasons. If Jesus was to make a decision which is the greater work, walking on water or giving one night of childhood back to 3 little girls who had it robbed from them — giving one night of joy to 3 little girls that armies had marched over — which do you think Jesus would consider the greater work, walking on water or ministering to those 3 little girls?

And Jesus said, “The work that I do, Ye shall do and greater works than these shall Ye do because I go unto my Father.” I can’t replicate the power acts of God in Jesus Christ, but every time I perform an act of love in his name, I am imitating Jesus and he is saying, “Well done thou good and faithful servant.”

1)      What meaning does this passage hold for you?

2)      Why is it so hard for us to see God in Jesus or see God in the Spirit in our lives?

3)      What stands in our way of doing what we are called to do?

4)      What is your reaction to the notion of not being called to “do it all” but rather to be and do the unique part to which you are called?

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

Let there be no distance between who you are and what you do.  (Richard Lederer in a 2007 commencement speech at Case Western Reserve University)

 God is not what you imagine or what you think you understand.  If you understand, you have failed. (St. Augustine)

 God enters by a private door into each individual. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

 Closing

Breathe on me, Breath of God, fill me with life anew,

That I may love what thou dost love, and do what thou wouldst do.

Breathe on me, Breath of God, until my heart is pure,

Until with thee I will one will, to do and to endure.

Breathe on me, Breath of God, till I am wholly thine,

Till all this earthly part of me glows with thy fire divine.

Amen.

(Edwin Hatch, 1878, UMH # 420)

Proper 26A, Ordinary 31A: Crossing Over

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OLD TESTAMENT:  Joshua 3: 7-17
The Jordan River, February, 2010
This passage is in essence Joshua’s commissioning.  After Moses’ death, it is Joshua’s calling to lead the people.  He is the successor to Moses and the chosen of YWHW.  And now it is Joshua that leads the Israelites across the Jordan and into a new land.  The crossing of the Jordan was indeed significant.  After all this time, all this wandering, all these years of uncertainty and trepidation, they were crossing over.  It was as if it was all starting to make sense.  And yet there had to be some uncertainty there.  I mean, it wasn’t a perfect situation.  The leader that they had trusted for so many years had been replaced by another—one about whom they were excited and yet he was untested.  They didn’t know how things would go.  And, “Promised” or not, this was a new land, a new place.  Change was all around them.  So in this passage, God “exalts” Joshua.  In essence, Joshua has a resume’ to present to the people.
But coming into the land, there seems to be a problem.  There are other peoples living there.  Now, the idea of driving out those who were there before them is bothersome for us, to say the least.  I guess we could chalk it up to historical and cultural context.  Or we can read the sentence again and consider the context in which it is written and see it a little bit differently.  The text doesn’t say that God is killing these “others” or blowing them up.  The text says that the living God will drive from before you the Canaanites, the Hittites, etc…etc…I don’t know.  Maybe it’s a way of saying that the Lord will lead you to live with these people and still remember who and whose you are.  Maybe God is promising that, as compared with the times of slavery in Egypt when you were completely swept into a culture and a way of worshipping that wasn’t yours, that this time, in this land, the Promise of “Chosenness” will hold.  God will figuratively drive from before you the ways of the Canaanites, the Hittites, etc…etc…In THIS land, you will be who you are called to be.  And, as a reminder, God calls Joshua to direct the entrance of the Ark of the Covenant into this land.    
There are a lot of instructions in this passage.  There was a definite intention to get this right.  You see, it wasn’t just any old box that was being carried into this place.  This was the Ark of the Covenant.  It held the holy scrolls and, in essence, the holiness of these people.  It was the tangible reminder of who they were.  It has been painstakingly carried with them for all those years.  Some would surmise that the Ark finally had a home, a stable place where it would always be.  Now we don’t get this from this small part of the larger story, but the twelve men that were chosen from the twelve tribes were not just fodder for the parade.  In the next chapter, these men piled up twelve large boulders at the very spot where the priests had stood with the Ark of the Covenant as the waters stopped flowing so that the people could cross over on dry land.  The stones were part of their identity.  It was these twelve tribes coming together and claiming who they were.  And the Ark that they had carried for years was a reminder that God’s Presence had always been with them, delivering them, redeeming them, and showing mercy.  They are not “locking in” the Ark of the Covenant.  (In fact, perhaps the place itself is not as important to God as the reminder to tell the story.  If the PLACE was important, then I don’t think it would have been moved and destroyed so many times in the centuries that would come after this.)  They are embracing it as God’s Presence among them.  They are claiming their identity as part of this universal priesthood of all believers.
And so, now, the entire nation crosses over the Jordan.  They enter a new life, a life of Promise and hope, a life to which they have journeyed for years.  Now it is time to live into this new life. 
a.      What is your response to this passage?
b.      What do you think was meant by the notion of “driving out” others?
c.       How can this passage speak to us and to our time?
d.      What image of God is present in this passage for you?
NEW TESTAMENT:  1 Thessalonians 2: 9-13
Remember that in our previous readings of Paul’s letter to the church at Thessalonica, Paul exhorted them to be strong, to hold on to their faith, even in the midst of conflict and persecution.  We are told that the Thessalonians accepted what they heard not as a “human word” but as “God’s Word.”  And yet, the letter also affirms that the Word is at work in the Thessalonian church as believers.  Essentially, this Word of God is not just floating up in the air somewhere, but becomes incarnate in this world, becomes the Living Christ in this world as believers in it live it out in their life and in their work.  This Word of God was heard as a witness to God’s work in the world, to God’s work in Jesus Christ.  It was a witness that was heard from Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy who also spoke words of encouragement just as they proclaimed the Word of God.
On some level, some of this passage could almost be taken as Paul’s touting of himself and his compatriots who witnessed to the people. There are some commentators that think that perhaps Paul was responding to previous criticism (of which we have read before) that he and his companions preached for their own gain—either financial or to achieve a higher status within the society.  This is once again a reminder that that was not the case.  Paul is working to structure a case for his and his disciples’ integrity.  He is saying again that he has done everything he has done and everything he can do to encourage these believers in the faith.  And then he is affirming them for accepting the words the way they were intended—not for ill-gotten gains but as a witness to the Word of God that should be lived out in their lives.
In a previous reading from the First Letter to the Church at Thessalonica, you’ll remember that Paul talked about a “mothering nurse” as a nurturing care toward the people.  Here, he uses the image of a father with his children, laying out a relationship that includes guidance and integrity.  They are both relational images.  It reminds us that living out this witness is about living in relationship with God and with one another, encouraging each other, loving each other, and guiding each other in the faith.  It is also a reminder that as children of God, we are all related, all inter-connected.  Take that a step future and it can also be taken as a reminder that everything we do affects others.  How many times to do we provide encouragement or guidance when we don’t even realize we are doing it?  How many times do we provide compassion and nurturing when we don’t even think about it?  (And, I suppose, how many times to we neglect to provide those things because we do not realize how someone is looking to us for direction?)  It’s more than just being a “good example”.  It’s realizing that everything we do and everything we are is done within this community of which we are a part.  Witnessing to and living out the Word of God means living in relationship with one another.
In the commentary, Feasting on the Word, Susan Marie Smith writes that “finally, Paul says to the Thessalonians that God ‘calls you into his own kingdom and glory’.  God calls us as a people.  The faith community is invited into the reign of God.  Professor Morris Weigelt in an address at Nazarene Theological Seminary (May 9, 2009) has expressed our corporate nature in this clever way:  ‘We can no longer ask, ‘Who am I?’ We must rather ask, ‘Who am we?’’  Will the congregation claim this invitation to unity, and to live proleptically (that means “with anticipation”) in God’s realm even now?  It is not just the leaders who are called (ekklesia), and who are sent (apostallein).  It is all the faithful.  In a church no longer with the easy superiority of Christendom—that is, a church not unlike that of Paul’s day—perhaps the people need to be reminded that the Thessalonians were folks just like us.  It is we who are called to proclaim and to live the reign of God.”
a.      What meaning does this passage hold for you?
b.      What does it mean to you to “witness” to the Word of God?
c.       How can this speak to us today and the way we relate to one another in our own society?
d.      What does it mean to say that we are the ones called to proclaim and to live the reign of God?
e.      What does it mean to claim that we do that “with anticipation”?
f.        I asked this in our discussion of a previous reading of Paul’s writing:  What sort of letter would Paul write to our community or our society?
GOSPEL:  Matthew 23:1-12
Once again, we have a passage with Jesus confronting the “powers that be” of the first-century Jewish society.  Keep in mind, though, that Jesus was Jewish.  (Contrary to what we sometimes allow ourselves to think, Jesus was never a “Christian”!)  So with that said, this sort of becomes a family conflict.
But Jesus begins by acknowledging their power and authority.  “Sitting on Moses’ seat” implies that he saw them as the ones in the position of teaching and interpreting the Torah and that they were to be followed.  But then he quickly tells his hearers not to do what they do.  Apparently, what they were teaching and how they were living were not aligned with one another.  Jesus claims that they are interpreting Scripture in a way that it was not mean to be interpreted and were, in essence, laying needless and unsupportable “burdens” on those who followed them.  They were interpreting Scripture in a way that was never intended.  For instance, the interpretation of what should happen in order to observe the Sabbath or ritualistic purity codes might have been impossible for the poor to follow.  The Pharisees were interpreting Biblical law in such a way that further marginalized the marginal in the society and in many ways made religious practices abusive rather than transformative. 
Jesus then takes on the Pharisees desire for honor and status.  They want to put themselves in a place of honor and wear elaborate prayer shawls to call attention to themselves and how “holy” they are.  What Jesus was saying was that the honor, the prestige, the place of status should all belong to God.  We are all disciples, all students of the teachings of God and we are called to humble ourselves before God.
Once again, it was a reversal of the norm.  These learned rabbis were used to being on the top of society.  They were used to having their teachings heard, probably even memorized and put to heart.  They were used to being exalted.  And now Jesus is saying that it is humility that is the greatest, that one who recognizes his or her place before God and exalts God, will, indeed be a witness to the Word of God.
As for burdens, if we truly “take on” the yoke of God’s word, then the law will live itself out within our lives.  It will not be looked upon as a burden or something that we need to do to “prove” ourselves worthy of God.  And if there are those who are expecting others to somehow do specific things to “prove” their love or their worthiness of God, then they just don’t get it.  It’s not about us; it’s about God.  God is God; we are not.  Jesus was in no way being “disloyal” to the Torah; in fact, he was being true to it.  Jesus’ notion of the “Law” was not burdensome; in fact, it was life-giving.  It brought freedom rather than constraint; it brought love rather than rules; it brought life rather than death.  It, again, is a reversal of the norms of this world.  And Jesus probably was NOT “anti-Pharisee” the way some of us would like to believe.  They were part of his “family”, remember.  And they had probably started out with good intentions, wanting to serve God, wanting to help others understand the Torah.  But somewhere along the way, it became about them rather than about God.  It probably happens to the best of us!
Rick Morley says it like this:  The faith that Jesus taught has immediate implications. It’s about today, and it’s about tomorrow. To hijack the message of Jesus and turn it into getting us something at some time down the road is to turn Christianity into a narcissistic cult. And that’s the very opposite of the faith that Jesus teaches. It’s not about us. It’s not about accumulating wealth nor stability for ourselves, it’s about us loving God and our neighbor with all we have and with all we are. (From “Going to Hell, Getting Saved”, by Rick Morley, also available at http://www.rickmorley.com/archives/1082?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=its-not-about-me-a-reflection-on-matthew-231-12. )
I think this passage provides a good check of our own religion, the way we practice and live out our faith.  I guess if I were to put it simply in the context of my own Christian faith tradition, I would say that “religion without spirituality” is practicing the religion about Jesus.  It sounds good, but it doesn’t have any depth, no engagement.  And “spirituality without religion” has a good possibility of becoming the religion about myself.  I think they need to come together—both spiritual religion and religious spirituality.  Then one will have the opportunity to practice the religion of Jesus.  I think that is the way we get out of ourselves and become one with God in a real and authentic way.  You cannot practice religion for religion’s sake.  That would certainly be the death of your being.  You need to somehow breathe life into it.  That’s where spirituality comes in.  Together they are religiosity on life support—a practice of faith, an embrace of the faith community, a recognition of one’s call to help and serve others, all with the Spirit of God, the life of your being, breathed into onself. 
a.      What meaning does this passage hold for you?
b.      What does it mean for you to think of the Law, the Torah, the teachings of the faith as “life-giving” rather than binding rules?
c.       How can this passage speak to us today and the way religion is looked at in our society?
d.      How would you respond to the increasingly-popular claim of being “spiritual but not religious.”?
Some Quotes for Further Reflection:
We must love them both, those whose opinions we share, and those whose opinions we reject, for both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in the finding of it. (Thomas Aquinas, 13th century)
It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have to our real work.  And when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. (Wendell Berry)
Christianity is not being destroyed by the confusions and concussions of the time; it is being discovered. (Hugh E. Brown)
Closing
Close with prayer.
Lord God, your love has called us here, as we, by love, for love were made; your living likeness still we bear, though marred, dishonored, disobeyed; we come, with all our heart and mind, your call to hear, your love to find.
Lord God, in Christ you call our name, and then receive us as your wown; not through some merit, right, or claim, but by your gracious love alone; we strain to glimpse your mercy seat, and find you kneeling at our feet.
Lord God, in Christ you set us free your life to live, your joy to share; give us your Spirit’s liberty to turn from guild and dull despair, and offer all that faith can do, while love is making all things new.  Amen  (Brian Wren, 1973, “The United Methodist Hymnal”, # 579)