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Music

12:50

Good morning we'd like to say welcome to everyone out there in internet land. Whether you're watching on your computer, your tablet, your phone or your Dick Tracy to a wrist TV, welcome, like to say Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. And it's really I'm really excited to do the call to worship this morning because we can actually respond. So please join with me, in your bulletin. 

Come Holy Spirit come. Come as holy fire and burn in us.

Come as holy truth and teach us. Come as holy forgiveness and free us.

Come as holy life and dwell in us. Come Holy Spirit and increase in us your gifts of grace.

17:26  

So great to hear from the choir. And in just a couple of weeks when it gets a little bit warmer, we're going to open the windows, we're going to open the doors, and we're all going to raise the roof.

17:45  

If you're here for the first time, worshiping with us live or outside under the windows, or as john said, on the internet or on your tablet, we welcome you. We hope you'll come back soon and often. And pretty soon we'll be hugging you. And right now we're hugging you in our hearts. Traditionally, in this church, we probably don't make a huge deal out of Mother's Day or Father's Day because we consider every day all peoples day around here. But this year, seems like Mother's Day has a little bit of special pop or kick or something to it. We were without our families, whether they were Blood Ties or assumed ties are gathered ties. This entire year. A lot of us lost our parents, God knows we lost time with our parents. And we lost you know, parental figures, many we've lost until we see them in the next life. So we thought today, thanks to Robert van, Mary, that we we have these beautiful, beautiful flowers and vases in the back. And if you would take one with you when you go and share it with someone who has been a parental figure in your life. I would say that even to this day at age 61. I am the child of many mothers, not all of them female. And I think that there ought to be somebody somewhere you can share this way today. So I hope you'll take advantage of that. We have a lot of stuff and we've been trying to put it in the bulletin insert and on the internet. And we're starting to make our emails look a little bit better, but just be patient with us. But meanwhile, we have a few things to announce this morning, Kathy.

19:38  

Good morning people. Now you have your homework for the week, which is to read this large tome of all of the announcements that we have. However, today you will notice that we can read in today's bulletin that this is the time leading up to the Pentecost special offering the first Of which our programs for youth 40% of that will remain here in our church. Now we're doing something different this year, the SAM committee voted unanimously that all of our 40% this year is going to go to the big buddy program of Delaware and otzi. Go County. This program offers a risk at risk young people, both boys and girls ages five to 18, the opportunity to have one on one relationship with a big buddy volunteer. Each week, the SAM team will give you more and different information. So what's happening today? Today is a mystery quiz. whether you realize it or not, our church has had a relationship with a big buddy program. And I'm not going to tell you who it is. Can you identify this mystery person in our church? Here are some facts. This person has been a big buddy in odd seagull county for 12 years. This person has worked with four boys over that 12 year period for different lengths of time, but always one on one. None of these boys had any male figure in their home. What activities did this mystery person in our church do with these boys? Here are just a few of them. There will be more specifics later. Found a bike through the police department. They give away bikes that are just left lying around. This little buddy learned to ride the bike. They listened. They talked. They share books about animals. They hiked they learned how the road a boat. Who am I a member of this congregation? You'll find out next week. So be sure to come plus more information about the big buddy program of Delaware and otsego County. Thank you.

22:36  

Thanks, Kathy. And I invite you to write to read the announcements and writes them to if you want during the sermon. Just don't let me see you doing it. Sue has some amazing news for the morning.

22:59  

Good morning with the leadership of Kim jastremski and in cooperation with the origins cafe, the Living Waters team had a highly successful tamale fundraiser, we raised over $2,000 for our families in Honduras.

23:24  

That's the kind of fast good announcement I like. Let me also say that after the postlude today there's going to be a brief congregational meeting. And if any of you have come to our session meetings lately, I run a tight ship. So it will be a brief congregational meeting I invite you to please stay. Most of the things are in the bulletin. There's a couple of Bible studies they're going on on Saturday at 930 and Sunday with Cindy right before church that are go ongoing in the week. There is also on Tuesday and environmental racism seminar that you can see online at 7pm information in the bulletin. Of particular note, there's a couple of LGBT plus q plus and friends activities coming up on May 15. Kate khemka, who's not here today because the kayo a campground is having their opening weekend and she's exhausted but Kate and Carmen are hosting a bonfire on May 15. We'd love to see you all there. starts at 530 to nine o'clock. At the kayo a campground ground in Richfield springs on ostrager. Road, we'll send around another announcement. And Tamra Reverend Tamra wanted me to mention and you'll see it also in your bulletin that for the very first time the Little Falls community is having a pride fest on June 12 at 9am. I'm going to be there I hope a lot of us will be there to support that Community Edition announcements. joys and concerns to share this morning.

25:06  

Janine for the amazing for the brain a week.

25:29  

Lucy is turning 90. So for those of you listening, Janine was expressing thanks and joy and excitement for the support at the rally last weekend. Jeannie, I think I think there's a reading list online to follow up if you want to learn more about the issues raised in the rally. And Lucy is turning a very, very young 90 right away. And I think a couple other birthdays have happened recently to along those lines, Karen.

26:04  

That's great. So if you didn't hear this, and you're listening online, the reading list I referenced is there's some in the back. And there's some on the side as you come in if you want one and you're listening online, let Karen my hand No, and I'm sure she can, she can get it to you. Other joys, concerns announcements.

26:34  

So again, if you're listening Carolyn Marie turn 90. Just recently, and as she told me this morning, she is still celebrating. So it's it's great to see you here any other joys concerns to share this morning. Karen has good news for us. So Karen says and I think we all feel this way. We're seeing people coming back every week that we haven't seen in a long time. And it is an incredible joy. I just want to add one of my own. This weekend, we we had this reading group. And sometimes the books are short, sometimes they're very long. And there's that. But we have about 30 or 35 people now who are in a great debate, sometimes one on one, sometimes the whole group online about all kinds of deep issues about spiritual life about a Christian community. And it has just been a joy for me. It's not just our congregation, we have lots of folks coming from other churches in and out and it's it's just it's been a beautiful thing. So that that's a real joy. Anything else we should mention this morning. So let's pray. As we've been taught to pray and as we can pray together, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Leaders not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen.

33:08  

There are many different ways that we worship together and praise God, we gather, we pray, we reflect on the word. And we make presentations of God's ties and our offerings. And of course, that last thing we've had to figure out how to do differently because we don't pass the plate but instead you find plates at the entrances as you come in. And then of course, there's music. And I am so thankful as I'm sure you are to the bell choir to the chancel choir to Julie and to Peter. And now we come to that time in our service where we are slowly and cautiously introducing very short congregational singing. So I direct you to your bulletin where you will find alternative words to the doxology particularly selected for this morning as we think about spring and about mothers and about community.

34:51  

Join with me in prayer. Creator God, we thank you for all the blessings you have given us. Our lives, our time and our possessions, except our gifts, that they may be a blessing to others. Amen.

39:25  

Morning. This is x 1044 through 48. While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues, and extolling god. Oh, I forgot. I can take this off. Sorry. Then Peter said, Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

42:15  

So thank you, Julie, and Peter and the chancel choir for setting the mood. So last fall in a day that was every bit as beautiful and crisp and cold as today called by my standards. And I was driving down Highway 80. And as you note down the side of the lake and I was high as a kite. I was listening to the kind of music that we heard this morning. And I did something that you know, I regretted for a few days after that, which is I stopped and went for an extra row. I'm an obsessive scholar, I love rowing in a boat backwards where I can't see what I'm doing in a boat that's too skinny for me to be in. And I find it the most beautiful thing in the world. So I had an extra hour no one was around, I probably broke all the rules of our Rowing Club and just went out by myself. And it was glorious out there. The water was like glass. The conditions were perfect. There was no when the mist had lifted, the sky was blue. They were two Eagles flying north from Brookwood point, it was so clear that these Eagles I could see the whites of their feathers in their eyes reflected down in the water. And I felt about as close to God as a sinner like me is ever going to get. I might have even said a prayer out there, I'm not sure. And then with precious little warning, the boat flipped over. And I was instantly facedown. I had been super cool and tied my shoes super tight. So I was facedown in the water. And my shoes. Were still tying me into the boat. And as I went over, I clearly remember thinking I have been warned about this, but I never thought it would happen. And I also remember thinking, you know, this is so beautiful. If this is the way I'm gonna go. Thank you God. But I wasn't ready to go yet. There was no one around though and I wasn't all that close to shore. And it had been 40 years since I was a lifeguard. My life jacket didn't inflate. I think I had it on backward. I stopped you know, I stopped feeling my hands and my feet. I was numb. I was scared. I was freezing. I was exhausted all in a matter of minutes. You know, I'm pretty sure that our brothers, those apostles way back in the day right after Jesus was killed, felt some of that same kind of numbness and fear and surprise and exhaustion. They still felt beauty, I think just like I felt. And of course, they felt all his emotions 1000 more times than I felt flailing around in the water out and like at Sega. But the, the apostles, I think were functioning on autopilot a bit after what had happened. they stumbled back not to a church, but to an anonymous safe house, the Scripture tells us, they locked the door, and they probably finally fell down maybe one on top of the other. In troubled sleep.

45:48  

I think they were grateful to be alive. And I think they were very chasing that they didn't realize the cost, the traumatic cost of this new religion that they had found. I imagine them asking themselves how stupid they were to put their trust in a modest human man who left them abandoned, holed up and hidden, with nothing, and no one and zero protection. But and there's always going to be a but to this story on a beautiful spring day like this. The story of what happened next, in those few days is reason that I believe, as much as I love the beauty of the Old Testament. As much as I'm moved by the parables. What happened in the book of Acts, and I love the name of the of the book, the Acts of the Apostles, not the thoughts of the apostles, but the Acts of the Apostles. What happened to them next, almost in the blink of an eye, if you believe this book, these men went from bumbling, ineffective, doubting themselves, really, one could say in their world, they were complete losers. Certainly not on an upward career trajectory. They went from that to the founders of a world religion, to the founders of a peace movement, in a matter of days and weeks. So anyway, while they are lying around, stunned and wondering, will we have a church? Who will be in it? Will anyone come? Will we live? Will we pick up and go forward ever again. The Bible tells us that holy fire and rain poured down all over them. Like a long dead power plant creaking to live that sparks going off in the air all around them. These man these men, and the women around them, I believe two were jilted by some kind of out of body experience. And just like that, like snapping fingers, these men hesitant, doubting, depressed, exhausted, at the end of their rope, instantly began to heal the sick, to cast out demons. They testified loudly. And truly, they went to jail gladly. They banged on the wall. So the Scripture tells us they sang hymns of praise. Even though their voices may be like ours, haven't been heard in a while. And they had to hear themselves sing again. For the first time after this world ending tragedy. They sang so loud, they converted their jailers. They gave folks like Martin Luther King, unlike us, a playbook that has lasted for an eternity. You know how this happened? I'm not totally sure we aren't given a ton of clues. To be sure Jesus did tell these men to go back to Jerusalem and wait for God to act. He told them they would be baptized by something called the Holy Ghost through the Holy Spirit. And they would be clothed with power from on high. But he had told them a lot of things before and they weren't sure they didn't know what it meant. They didn't know at this point. If it was a crackpot theory, or it was gospel truth. There's no hint in the text. Although we sometimes hear this in the modern world. That because these men were dumb or had no other options, or because they were easily swayed or fooled. That they accepted Jesus. People sneered at them and said they had no other options. They were down and out. So why not believe. Whatever the case, I'm sure there were doubts everywhere they went back to their safe house and waited. And in a very short order, they got a well documented, very well documented crash course in shock and awe. on Pentecost, which is the Jewish holiday festival, about I think it's about 50 days after Passover, they felt when they felt fire, and something got a hold of their tongues. They spoke in Egyptian, they spoke in Arabic, they spoke in Latin, they didn't know what they're saying, but the crowd with them definitely did.

50:47  

Jews from all over stopped in their tracks, listening to a gospel that was spoken in their own tongues. Nobody was left out. Everybody was forced to leave every assumption they had ever heard are made about church or the gospel at the door. The ancient words came true, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesied. The apostles own tongues those days, reverse the curse of the Tower of Babel. And so it began the unbroken and direct line to us from the apostles right back to this church this morning. 3000 people were baptized that day, not at all. Unlike the baptisms that happened, not so far from here, in early camp meetings, with people on their knees, feeling the Spirit. And what happened there with those bumbling guys, on that day spread like wildfire, down through the centuries down through cultures, cultures more removed from each other than we can even describe to this day. Folks who wouldn't dream of speaking a word of Hebrew. Now worship the God of those Hebrew apostles. And they do so every day in almost every language on this planet. Now, what's interesting to me is this happened with a holy spirit that wasn't all love and peace and wind chimes and Woodstock. It was if you read it, you feel you know, your head, snap back against the wall. According to the text, the Spirit came howling and blowing and burning out of nowhere, with the force that I associate with newborn babies on a bad night, or wild animals, with the exhaustion and surprise that mothers feel, even on Mother's Day.

53:10  

But importantly, to me, at least, this fire and rain, they felt this force of God came with a wild joy of an obsessive God, who loved its creatures. And it came with risk to huge risk of a create creator, letting us letting us figure out how to react to this whirlwind. The clues are there the evidence or an x? I recommend it to you. It's short. And on that day, when they were set on fire these men and women, and when they were fools for love, because they were fools. Everyone said so. And their passion set off this chain of events that we can hear and is still alive for us on this quiet, beautiful Sunday morning. For us in this church on this day, what happened that day was particularly important because Peter, and I think he stood up on a chair. And he said, What Susan just read to you that he realized for the first time because only because of that fire and that rain and that intense experience that knocked him back against the wall. That God doesn't play favorites anymore. That God loves every nation, every tribe loved the Gentiles as much as the Jews. And that was the biggest, most controversial thing that had ever been said in any religious life. Anywhere to that point. When Peter blurted out that everyone who received the Holy Spirit could be baptized whether Jew or Gentile. He had no church authority. To do so, the presbytery didn't tell him the substitute interim part time pastor didn't tell him, Peter without asking anyone open the church door to those who had been shut out. The sinning disgusting. If you read some of the translations, the heathen, the alien, the abject, unregenerate center until that point, he took the idea of exclusive religion, which was generally some but not all, and turned it on his head. He said, as Susan read for you, can anyone with hold the water for baptizing these people, these offensive aliens, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have, and they were all baptized right then and there. Now, Peter got in huge trouble for this. Peter was always in trouble. His Jewish apostle brothers told him he was an unholy jerk. And the translations come pretty close to actually saying that. They said he had crossed the line between God's people and other people, between the pure and the impure, who should be tossed out of the place of God. And again, I think he's stood on a chair doing the best he could to explain, you know, and this is a guy who has made a lot of mistakes before, saying that he had seen a vision that God cared for all creatures, all people, and that God alone, God alone, not any human, had the right to call those creatures clean or unclean, blessed, or condemned. And that new rule that Peter announced, easy to say, but hard to follow, would in fact, change the world and will change this church, as we go forward. Like us in this church today, the apostles had to go through fire and rain. It was beautiful, even if it was painful, to accept that the Holy Spirit may blow us down, where we don't want to go and touch people we don't want to touch. And that our only right choice, and God has given us free choice on this. But our only right choice is to open ourselves to that spirit, whomever it touches, and wherever it goes, in the future of this community in this church, we can impose all our plans, all our judgments, all our arguments, all our decisions on what this church is or is not for the next day, week, decade. But today's lesson tells us that the Holy Spirit leads us in those decisions, and not the other way around.

58:01  

And if we open ourselves to the spirit, what is going to happen to us is just as likely to be wild, as tame, is just as likely to be new as the old way. The story of Acts is a radical story. You know, you don't have to read it, but I suggest you consider it. And it says if you want to stay alive, if you want to live as a community of Christ. The decision is very simple, but still hard to do. You have to rip off the roof of this church. You have to open ourselves to whatever fire and rain comes in with the Holy Spirit. We have to feel it and we have to receive it. That comes with new birth. On this Mother's Day. It comes with a new way of being church which we are already seeing this year, whether we like it or not, and is one of the lessons and reasons of this pandemic. And it will take us places in our worship of the God we all adore. And it will let us feel things and see things and say things and hear things and do things that we have never seen or felt before. May God be with us because the old ways are over. Amen.

1:03:24  

Will you pray with me, do your God open our hearts to your spirit and power moving around us and between us and among us. Help us to step back.

1:03:42  

Listen. Feel your glory revealed in our love for both friend and enemy. Help us to be a community transformed by Justice and compassion in ways old and new and in the healing and care for all that is broken. In Jesus name we pray amen. Thank you, Peter, as always, if you'd stay in your seats we have I believe, john, we have a quorum, don't we? We have more is Tom heights here who is better counter than anybody? So john and Tom, do we have a quorum? Okay, that's great. So, very briefly, the nominating committee and those on the nominating committee who are here, would you please stand?

1:07:55  

whether you want to or not just briefly, guys, so the nominating committee and many who, who who are here and a few who are not have worked long and hard to put together the pastor nominating committee, who will seek a pastor who hopefully will guide this church into its next era. The nominating committee did everything it could. We have nine proposed members to select folks who are brand new members and folks who've been here forever. We we have a representation in this slate of folks from many walks of life who are here all year and who are not. And this proposed slate is as follows for the past or nominating committee, Carol FET. Carol beachy, Richard Blaby, john Craig, Deb Dalton, Doug lumen, Karen my hand, Katherine Moore, and Robert Nelson. Each of these folks has agreed to serve to work diligently on this incredibly important search for this community that we love so much. So I'd like to entertain a motion from the floor to accept this slate as our pastor nominating committee tours to begin work immediately. May I have a motion?

1:09:18  

Okay.

1:09:19  

Is that you, Tom? May I have a second? Okay, Carolyn Marie. Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? None opposed for the record. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you go out into this beautiful Mother's Day.

1:09:44  

If the session and the new PNC can stay for just a few minutes in the sanctuary, that would be great.