Tag: Holy Spirit

Pentecost +3, Proper 8C

If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

Welcome. Our handout features the readings for the Third Sunday After Pentecost (June 26, 2022) in Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary.

In our Forum on Wednesday, June 29, 2022, we’ll explore the portion of the letter to the Galatians that includes Paul’s understanding of the “fruit of the Spirit” and his admonition: ” If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.” Please view or download the handout we’ll use in our discussion as your own exploration continues.

View the Revised Common Lectionary readings appointed for Sunday, June 26, 2022.

Pay attention. Keep learning.

View or download the Handout for Proper 8, Year C.

View or download Art for Proper 8, Year C. with commentary by Hovak Najarian.

Please come back to this site throughout the week in order to keep learning.

Pentecost in 2 minutes

Yesterday (5/19/13) we shared this video in the Sunday Morning Forum. For those of you unable to join us, please enjoy this 2 minute look at Pentecost offered by the folks at Busted Halo.

Have other questions? Please use our Comment section to continue the conversation.

Come, Gracious Spirit

Now it is after sunset (in my patch of California). On the Eve of Pentecost I share with you this presentation of the hymn “Come, Gracious Spirit.” Enjoy (more than once) as you prepare for (or celebrate) Pentecost.

So you know: “A Christian hymn of prayer to the Holy Spirit written by Simon Browne, 1720. Sung in the video by the Altar of Praise Chorale.” [YouTube caption]

Pentecost: The coming of the Wild Goose

Wild Goose LogoOn Pentecost Sunday the Forum was introduced to the Wild Goose as an image of the Holy Spirit used in the Celtic Church. This bit of information was part of an essay on Pentecost by Jim Wallis.

While much of my work revolves around challenging unjust systems and structures, I do not doubt that the world we see around us of broken people and institutions is only a small portion of what is real. The Spirit of God extends wider and deeper and is at work in my life, the lives of others, and in the communities and institutions of this world. While I work for societal transformation, I try to stay rooted in the transforming work that the Spirit is constantly doing in me.

How are you working (with the Spirit of God) beyond yourself? How are you being transformed by the Spirit of God?

Too often, it feels like we need to make a choice between the work of this world, and the work of the Spirit, or between a personal focus, or a social focus of the gospel. “Either/or” marks how some churches present the Christian faith. Often, however, this is a false dichotomy. Early in the days of the Sojourners community I remember that one of our favorite words was “and.” We would talk about personal salvation and social justice, prayer and peacemaking, faith and action, belief and obedience, salvation and discipleship, worship and politics, spiritual transformation and social transformation. These were things that complemented one another and deepened each other instead of being in opposition.

How comfortable are you in living in a both/and situation?

In two weeks, my family and I will be headed down to Shakori Hills, North Carolina for the Wild Goose Festival. In the Celtic Church, the symbol for the Holy Spirit is a wild goose — wild, free, and untamed. The festival will be a weekend of justice, spirituality, music, and the arts. It is an “and” kind of space, more than an “either/or.” It will, no doubt, be a busy weekend. But I am looking forward to it, not just for the activities, but for the reminder that it is by chasing after the wild goose, the Holy Spirit’s movement, that we see ourselves, and our world, transformed.
Read the entire essay: Pentecost: The Coming of the Wild Goose

Find out more about the Wild Goose Festival

Pentecost Year A

In the Sunday worship our Rector quoted from a “creed” sent to him. The creed begins:

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Advocate,
Promised by Jesus,
Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

The creed continues to celebrate and affirm the Spirit’s presence and power in creation, in the matriarchs and patriarchs and prophets of our ancestry, how the Spirit changed Mary and alighted on Jesus in the Jordan; the creed delights in the Pentecost experience and the power of preaching and healing let loose in the world. The creed finishes:

She dwells in and with God’s people,
Midwife to our rebirth as heavenly children.
One day she will welcome us home to the City of God,
And wipe away every tear from our eyes.

Written by Anastasia McAteer it can be read at Clayfire Curator: We believe in the Holy Spirit: A creed

Here is another indication of the “live word of the Living God.”

Come Holy Spirit….

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“Because the Bible is, as we confess, “the live word of the living God,” it will not submit in any compliant way to the accounts we prefer to give of it. There is something intrinsically unfamiliar about the book; and when we seek to override that unfamiliarity, we are on the hazardous ground of idolatry” –Walter Brueggemann in “Biblical Authority: A Personal Reflection” (2000)

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