June 8th, 2025 (Pentecost Sunday) - "Let Everyone Praise the Lord!" - Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris

Matt Nelson: Welcome to the Sermon podcast from First United Methodist

Church in downtown Bentonville.

If you have questions related to what you hear today or just want to

find out more about the ministries at First United Methodist Church, please

visit us online at FUMCbentonville.org or check us out on Facebook,

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Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris: I got a wow

amen from behind me and I would echo that.

Amen.

Welcome to First United Methodist Church here in Bentonville.

My name is Michelle Morris and I am the lead pastor here, and it is

a joy to welcome you and worship today on this Pentecost Sunday.

And we are starting a new series called Making Room, and we will be talking

about how we make room for more people among us over the next three weeks.

So with that in mind.

Let us hear.

Now, this story from acts to the story of Pentecost.

When Pentecost Day arrived, they were all together in one place.

Suddenly, a sound from heaven, like the howling of a fierce wind filled the

entire house where they were sitting.

They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire, a

lighting on each one of them.

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages

as the Spirit enabled them to speak.

There were pious Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.

When they heard this sound, a crowd gathered, they were mystified

because everyone heard them speaking in their native languages.

They were surprised and amazed saying, look, aren't all the people who are

speaking Galileans, every one of them, how then can each of us hear

them speaking in our native language?

Ians meetings and mite.

As well as residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia.

Pontus and Asia Frisia and Pia, Egypt and the regions of Libya bordering Sini

and visitors from Rome, both Jews, and converts to Judaism, Creon and Arabs.

We hear them declaring the mighty words of God in our own languages.

This is the word of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

Let us pray.

Lord, open our hearts, our minds, and our eyes that we might see and know

the word you have for us this day.

In your holy name we pray, amen.

So this past week, a group of us gathered to work on music for worship in both

spaces, and some of that was working on, of course, original songs for both spaces.

I have such incredibly talented musicians in this church.

We all benefit from that, and it seems a sin to me that we wouldn't

give them space to create music that can not only serve our church,

but also serve the greater church.

So I love it when we get together and do that kind of work.

But I'm actually gonna talk about when we took a break from that work, but we

decided to go have breakfast together and Ken was very generous to drive for us.

His car actually fit all five of us that were there.

And so we all piled into Ken's car and we went and had breakfast together and

then a couple of people got coffee to go and it was me and Ray and Ashley.

Sitting in the backseat and Ashley is holding two cups of coffee

as we're driving down the road.

And I start looking for the cup holders, right?

And I said, Ken, where are your cup holders in the backseat?

And he said, oh, there are no cup holders in the back in this car.

And I said, oh, what?

And I said, how can you not have cup holders?

He said, listen, there's a real advantage to that because I can tell my kids

they can only have water in my car.

I was like, okay.

Okay.

Okay, but.

I will admit I drive Toyotas and Toyotas take cup holders very seriously.

In my five person holding car, there are eight cup holders, and in my Toyota Sienna

that I drew for many, many years, many.

My seven person holding van had 17 cup holders.

Now that may be an excessive number of cup holders, but I loved that we had

room for all of the possible drinks that we would want to have, right?

There was excessive room for us to share in that together we start

a new worship service today at 10 10 following this service, and

many people have asked us why.

Why are we starting a new service?

Well, let me first give you a math problem.

Both the nine o'clock service and the 11 o'clock service have

consistently been welcoming 200 or more people into their space.

Yeah,

the sanctuary holds 375 200, fit nicely in 375.

This room comfortably seats.

One hundred and eighty five, two hundred plus people in here, as those

of you that have been worshiping in here, know, uh, gets a little crowded.

So part of the reason that we are adding another service at 10 10 is

to make room for the current people who are here, but we are also making

more room for more who can come.

This for us is truly a Pentecost moment.

Pentecost is about making more room in God's story.

That is what happens in the story that I just read for you today.

These Galileans were the carriers of the gospel, and had they continued

to share it only in their language, we would not be sitting here today.

But because of that Pentecost moment, and in truth in Greek,

we're not exactly sure what happens.

We're not exactly sure if the Galileans were empowered to speak many languages

or the people who were present were empowered to hear in their language.

It may have been a mix of both.

I like to, I've used this before and I've said.

It's like the Star Trek universal translator, right?

People are speaking in one language, but on the other side of the translator

they're hearing in their language.

So sort of that we think is what happened at Pentecost, but we're not

totally sure about the mechanics.

It is after all a miracle.

But we do know that the result of Pentecost is that more people

heard and understood the gospel and that following that moment after

Peter had finished his sermon.

3000 people were baptized, was the biggest expansion of the church in

a single moment, up to that point.

And we really are founded on Pentecost theology now, not Pentecostalism,

although no shade to the Pentecostals.

In fact, um, Methodism is one of the denominations that gave rise to the

Pentecostals if you didn't know that.

And we're grateful for that expression in Christianity.

But what I mean when I say Pentecost theology is particularly that making room

for cultures and ways of understanding and worshiping and praising God.

All the diversity of that, all the diversity of people and their expressions

and understandings of worldviews, their languages, and cultures all at work.

And this theology is deeply founded in our faith.

First, it is found throughout the Bible.

I have already read you the story of Pentecost, in which God brought

so many people together from different cultures and nations, but

it is also echoed in the prophets.

For instance, it's in Isaiah two.

It's in Isaiah 56, 7, in which, uh, God proclaims my house will be known

as a house of prayer for all people.

The same sentiment is reflected in Psalms 86 and one 17.

The gathering of the Nations in worship of God is in that ultimate vision that God

has for God's people in Revelation seven and 15, and then of course it is in the

great commission that Jesus gives all of us go and make disciples of all nations.

It is also deep within our denomination of Methodism.

Methodism believes in universal grace.

We believe that God loves all people and God's grace is open to all people.

That has resulted in an expression of being a global church.

You can find United Methodists around the world.

And in a couple of weeks, several of us will travel down to Hot Springs for

our annual conference where we will vote on some constitutional amendments

that will actually allow for greater expression of different cultures.

We will vote on regionalization.

Which will allow Africa and the Philippines and Korea to be able to have

their own stances on social issues that are not set by the United States, but they

can create their own social principles and have some own individual reflections that

truly more deeply reflect their cultures.

And yet we will stay united as one denomination, which is central to

John Wesley, who, who is our founder.

Who wrote in his sermon a Catholic spirit, uh, these words that are so

true to who Methodism is today and has been always, he was saying this, of

all of the diversity of Christianity, though we cannot think and like, may

we not love alike, may we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion.

He knew it was fine to disagree about so many things and have different

expressions and different ways of understanding God as long as at the

heart of it we were worshiping God and that gave rise to this phrase that

sometimes you'll hear in Methodism, in essentials, unity, in non-essentials

liberty in all things charity.

That is how we come to be known as a big tent denomination.

That we allow a diversity of thought, a diversity of culture, a diversity

of language, a diversity of reflection of who we are, which is then picked up

beautifully by this church, which is restated and proclaimed in the welcome

statement that we passed a few years ago.

First United Methodist Church of Bentonville welcomes

all because we believe the communion table is God's table.

We invite everyone into our church family.

We welcome and celebrate every race, gender, gender identity, sexual

orientation, marital status, age, physical and mental ability, national origin,

economic station, and political ideology.

We come together in action and outreach.

Aspiring to follow Jesus's example of radical hospitality.

Love and grace as a transformative movement in our community.

If you are new to us, then I hope hearing these words helps you know if you have

that question in the back of your head.

Am I really welcome?

Here you are.

You are welcome here.

And I have to say I experienced that in so many ways in this congregation,

but at that time where we were working on music, it was lived out.

Because we have wonderful leadership from Ken in our contemporary space,

and we have wonderful leadership from Ray in our traditional space.

Of course, both of them were there and working on contemporary music and

working on traditional music, and we were going back and forth in those

spaces and collaborating, and then we were gathering around the same table

and sharing stories of favorite movies and how we understand God and reflecting

on all of that and creating music.

That reflects different styles of worship and the same heart, and I

guess I saw that most clearly in one song that we were working on.

That ends up being a contributions of five different people who range

in age from their twenties to their sixties and are made up of men and

women, and are made up of people who go to different worship services.

Those differences don't matter when you are of one heart, but

the differences do matter that they can still come to the table.

So at 10 10, we have no idea how many people are gonna show up.

Could be a hundred, could be three.

Wherever two or three are gathered, God is with us.

Right?

And we don't know what kind of space that will be meaningful for, but

here's my guess as to what will be helpful in adding the 10 10 service.

'cause it's 10, 10 to 10 50.

It's a little more compressed time.

So here's some guesses based on conversations that we've had of

who we will be able to welcome now into that space First.

Current people from this service who would maybe like a chair.

I mean, 'cause sometimes there aren't one, so, so if you'd like

to have a chair come on to 10 10.

We know that that may be a safe space for people who are dipping their

toe either into Christianity for the first time, or who are dipping

their toe back into Christianity.

Because they have been hurt, because the service will look different.

This service and 11 o'clock are structured very similarly to the way most Christian

worship services are structured.

This one is gonna have a little bit of a different structure to it.

That's in part due to the time and because we're know, we're trying

to reach a different people.

So it may be a safe space for some folks that need to dip

their toe back into Christianity because of its compressed time.

In quieter space and potentially smaller space.

Uh, people who have anxiety or a DD may find that that's a

better service matching for them.

People who cannot sit still for a long period of time, that

may be a better space for them.

It may work good for stressed out parents who aren't interested in connecting

through a Sunday school class, but would love to be able to take their

kids to Sunday school and then come in here and catch their breath in worship.

We are likely gonna pick up some people who are leaving yoga, and some

people would love to go to brunch a little bit ahead of the crowd.

And let's be honest, some people who would like to sleep in an hour longer

regardless, regardless of their reason, it's a reflection of their

life and everyone ought to be able to bring their life to God.

Everyone needs a place where they can do that.

So officially what we've done is create up to 745 places for 400 people.

That's an excessive number of cup holders.

But shouldn't everyone be able to pull up a seat?

Shouldn't everyone be able to take a seat for the journey?

And when they take that seat, shouldn't they have room to

drink from the cup of salvation?

Shouldn't they have room to experience God's grace?

Shouldn't everyone, everyone have a place?

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Matt Nelson: Thanks for listening to the Sermon podcast from First United

Methodist Church in downtown Bentonville.

If you would like to let us know you were here, follow the link below to connect.

To participate in worship through giving, you can give online at fumcbentonville.org

or on Venmo @FUMCbentonville.

FUMC Bentonville welcomes all.

Because we believe the communion table is God's table,

we invite everyone into our church family.

We welcome and celebrate every race, gender, gender identity, sexual

orientation, marital status, age, physical and mental ability, national origin,

economic station, and political ideology.

We come together in action and outreach, aspiring to follow Jesus' example of

radical hospitality, love, and grace, as a transformative movement in our community.

Please join us for worship on Sunday mornings at 9:00 AM, 10:10 AM, and 11:00

AM, live and on our YouTube channel.

Grace and peace.