The prayer you won't get to hear for another 200 years

We have entered the long Season After Pentecost (some churches call it the “Trinity Season”). The season is calculated based on where Easter falls each year, itself a calculation based on the first full moon after the equinox (Cartoonist Dave Walker at right can explain this).

What all this means is that there are Sundays and weekdays with assigned biblical readings and prayers from the prayer book that we almost never get to hear.

In fact, the first of these prayers won’t be heard again in church on a Sunday for another 215 years. The next time Easter will be early enough will be March 23, 2228.

This year we begin the Season after Pentecost with the prayer and readings for “Proper 3,” which is church-speak for starting three weeks into the earliest possible date for Pentecost. Had Easter come three weeks earlier (like in 2228) we would have started on the Pentecost readings and prayers three weeks ago. Since we are not going to hear these prayers for a very long time on a Sunday, today I am offering you these prayers that you didn’t get to hear.

And since this coming Sunday is Trinity Sunday, you don’t get to hear the prayer for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost either. So here are all four Sunday prayers – or “Collects of the Day” that you won’t get to hear:

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Proper 1    Week of the Sunday closest to May 11

Remember, O Lord, what you have wrought in us and not what we deserve; and, as you have called us to your service, make us worthy of our calling; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Proper 2    Week of the Sunday closest to May 18

Almighty and merciful God, in your goodness keep us, we pray, from all things that may hurt us, that we, being ready both in mind and body, may accomplish with free hearts those things which belong to your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Proper 3    The Sunday closest to May 25

Grant, O Lord, that the course of this world may be peaceably governed by your providence; and that your Church may joyfully serve you in confidence and serenity; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Proper 4    The Sunday closest to June 1

O God, your never-failing providence sets in order all things both in heaven and earth: Put away from us, we entreat you, all hurtful things, and give us those things which are profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Wear red on Pentecost!

Pentecost Sunday is the birthday of the Church, the day the Holy Spirit filled the first followers of Jesus with fire, and then sent them out into the world to fill the world with their unstoppable Spirit.

As the biblical account tells us in Acts 2:1-21, flames descended but did not burn them. They were filled with a Spirit that could not be turned and could not be quenched, and they changed the world.

It is traditional to wear red on this Pentecost. Please come and wear your red. Come be a part of a wonderful baptism of an infant, hear the Word spoken to us, and then celebrate once again at the Holy Table.

Fill the world with your flame. Come.

Holy Spirit, red stoles, white ribbons and our first Pentecost picnic

This morning, at the 8 am service, we could hear the roar from across the street as graduating students, and their friends and families, began lining up for the "Final Exercises" of commencement at the University of Virginia.

A goodly number came inside for our early morning service, many wearing UVa colors and regalia. Megan Seston, the president of our Canterbury Student Fellowship and a graduating 4th year student, was already in her commencement garb.

It was an epic day.

Later in the morning, nearly 100 St. Paul's folks showed up at McIntire Park for our first-ever Pentecost picnic (a few photos here from the picnic). Associate Rector Ann Willms was the celebrant and I preached a few words (see below). The photo at right shows Ann talking with Wayne Nolen, left, our Altar Guild director. The chalice and paten in the foreground are Ann's.

It was a poignant day.

We served as a distribution point for hundreds of white ribbons as part of the campaign at UVa to bring attention to the issue of domestic violence especially against young women. We pinned the white ribbons on our red Pentecost clergy stoles, and the white ribbons stood out on the black commencement gowns in our midst and across the street. All told, 25,000 ribbons were given out.

The Holy Spirit wind was everywhere this Pentecost.

Blessings to all.

The Holy Spirit everywhere and in everyone

Here is my sermon from today. It is based on Acts 2:1-21 and John 14:8-17, (25-27). Enjoy your Pentecost, and to our University of Virginia graduates and their friends and family, congratulations!

Come Holy Spirit Come

Last week, Associate Rector Ann talked about what she misses most about her previous life as a physician. She got me thinking about what I miss most about my previous life as a journalist. I devoted 25 years of my adult life to newspaper reporting, and ink still runs thickly in my veins.

What I miss most is chasing stories with a pen and notebook.

What I loved most was going out and talking with people from every imaginable background and in every imaginable situation. There is no better front seat on the world than in journalism.

Ann mentioned last week her privilege as a physician was in seeing humans from the inside out. As a journalist, I saw humans from the outside in.

I still do that. Journalism and the priesthood are not as far apart as you might think.
What struck me then, as now, is how God is with people; how God finds people in every circumstance; in the joys and triumphs, in the tragedies and calamities.

And what strikes me over and over is how God speaks to people in their own language, through their own culture, and in ways that will touch them here if they are listening here.

The breadth and depth of humanity is almost too huge to comprehend, and yet I have no doubt that God finds each and everyone one of us no matter where we are from, or who we are, or what we are experiencing. God is in every city, every village, and every room before we get there; and God will be there when we leave.

Today we celebrate Pentecost. Today we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit.
This feast day is really a celebration of how God finds us and speaks to us in whatever circumstance we dwell. It is God who finds us, and not the other way around. God in Holy Spirit finds us and will touch us here (the heart). If we are listening here (the heart) we just might catch it.

Sometimes the Church portrays Pentecost as filled with noise and chaos and clanging gongs – and hordes of people speaking in tongues.

But if you read the story in Acts carefully, what really happens is the Spirit descends on the people and there is a sweeping away of confusion.

The Spirit brings clarity amidst the diversity of the human condition.

The first thing that the disciples mention about their experience of Pentecost is that they could understand each other no matter what language they speak.

Before Pentecost, they couldn’t understand a word each other has to say, even when they speak in the same language. Now on Pentecost they understand each other perfectly even when they speak in different languages.

The chaos and arguments they’ve had no longer matter. All of the pettiness no longer matters.

Whatever their personal failings, whatever faction or clique they belong to, none of it matters.

And they know what they need to do. On this first Pentecost, they leave the safety of their hideout and go out to proclaim by word and deed the healing grace they’ve received from God through Christ who they now know as the Holy Spirit.

From this moment on, they – and we – are born as one with the Body of Christ, and we become the hands and heart of the Risen Christ in the world. We signify that through the words and symbols of our baptism.

The promise to a small group, these first disciples, is now the birthright of all people everywhere – no one to be excluded, each of us to be given the ability to hear the Holy Spirit, each in our own way.

Yet there is a challenge that comes with Pentecost. It is the challenge of our baptism:

To paraphrase the prayer of St. Francis, the Holy Spirit comes not just to console us, but for us to console others; not just so we will be understood, but that we will understand others; not just so we will be loved, but so that we will love others; and not just so we will be forgiven, but so that we will have the power to forgive others.

The Holy Spirit truly comes so we may receive these extraordinary gifts, and comes also so that we will share these gifts with the world around us and beyond us.

That is our task, that is our mission. There really is no other. In the words of the prophet, and proclaimed by Peter on that first Pentecost:

“This is the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day.”

That day is ours, my friends. Claim it and be glad in it. Amen

The Spirit of Pentecost

May the dove of peace be with you this day.

May many blessings follow you always.

May the Holy Spirit guide your path, give you strength, and kindle your heart for the journey that is yours -- forever. Amen.

 

Pentecost icon from Mexico