Day of Pentecost 2024

And so may I speak in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Friends, most of the time I think we minimize the claims of Christianity and we underestimate the demands that Christ puts on his followers.

Listen again to the claims of Christianity.

That a person can become new.

That someone's character really can be changed.

That the coward can become courageous, that the hardest of hearts can soften, that a miser can become generous, that genuine forgiveness and reconciliation is possible, the sins can be removed, that a heart of stone can be exchanged for a beating heart of flesh.

The claim of Christianity is that hope is not lost, that death is not the end, that peace has won the day, that love is stronger than hate.

The claim of Christianity is that you have been made clean, that your shame has been forgotten, that your failures have been removed even from the mind of God.

The claim of Christianity is that we can be a truly unified, loving, supportive, generous community, that we can be a community in which God is found.

The claims of Christianity are breathtaking, and more often than not, we minimize them.

We trade this glorious prize for a nice Sunday morning activity with beautiful music in an inspiring building.

And at the same time, if we minimize the claims of Christianity, we underestimate the demands that Christ puts on his followers.

Jesus demands so much.

He expects us to love, to love the poor, to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile.

Jesus requires that we repent, that we change our minds, that we look foolish and admit when we were wrong.

The way of Christ is the way of death to yourself and your own desires.

The way of Christ says, I must decrease and he must increase, not my will be done, but yours.

Jesus expects his followers to bear the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

If the claims of Christianity are breathtaking, then the demands that Jesus places on his followers are terrifying.

Who could ever actually live like this?

And so we set our sights just a little bit lower.

Be nice.

Be upstanding in your community.

Make sure your life looks pretty.

No one is equipped to live this kind of life.

To love like this, to remain hopeful like this, to remain joyful and faithful as Jesus requires.

No community is capable of sustaining this way of life.

Our only hope is if God is with us.

All of this is impossible unless God were to dwell in our midst.

All of this is impossible unless God were to dwell in our midst.

Only if, as our gospel reading says today, Jesus were to send us an advocate, the Spirit of truth from the Father.

This way of life is only possible if, as our Acts reading says, God would pour out his Spirit on all people.

It's only with the Spirit of God in our hearts and in this community, it's only then that we can really and genuinely live up to the claims of Christianity and bear the weight of following God's Son.

So that is what we're here to do today, to celebrate and to pray.

May we do so quaking in our boots.

Come, Holy Spirit, and make yourself at home in this community and in our hearts.

This Pentecost, may we be filled with the Spirit of God, such that the impossibility, the impossible, becomes real.

Hearts and lives and communities transformed for the glory of God and for the good of Lancashire.

Amen.