Pentecost Report

Yesterday the early morning rains continued and intensified.  At 6:30, I waded through calf-deep water to move the car to higher ground from the street.  I thought, hmm, I wonder if I'll be able to get to church to lead the 8:30 service.  Our pastor was out of town yesterday, and I was supposed to lead all the services.

By 8, the street was flooded, as were the sidewalks.  Luckily, I was able to send a Facebook message to one of the women who had keys, and she was already there with the church open.  Hurrah!  They ended up leading themselves, and I kept an eye on the river outside my house.

By 9:15, it was clear I wouldn't make it to the 9:45 service, at least not for the start.  Once again, Facebook came to the rescue.  I messaged a different woman, and she was able to lead the group.  I had planned to get to church early yesterday to decorate with the Pentecost art projects; now, the 9:45 group got to do it.

At 10, we could see that the center of the road was dry, so I decided that at 10:30, I'd give it a try.  And I was successful!

It was a small group at church--just 35 people gathered to celebrate one of our high holy days.  But I wasn't surprised.  If I had no preaching responsibilities, I'd have stayed home too.  I was pleased with my sermon.  I began by talking about the other great festivals of the church and where we find ourselves in them.  I talked about the book of Acts making me feel inadequate.  I don't want to go out into all the world with just the shoes on my feet.  I mentioned much of what I wrote about in this post yesterday.  And then I thought, am I throwing out the book of Acts?  I talked about visions, about needing new visions.

I talked about the royal wedding, and how nice it was to see my Facebook feed fill up with people who were rapturous about the wedding.  I talked about how we need visions like the one of the royal wedding, visions of love and happiness.  I talked about the invitation of God to a world that's more like the royal wedding than like the usual anger and sadness that fill up our days.

I'm happy to say that it was much more eloquent as I was saying it.  Two people told me that I helped them understand what Pentecost was all about.  I think that's good, although I was giving a somewhat alternate approach, what with my wondering what the Church would be like if we hadn't had a book of Acts, if we had no Paul.

I was glad I made the effort to get to church.  It was good to declare that God has a grand dream for all of us, a vision much richer than any of us can imagine.