To make things new that never were - Walter Brueggemann

A prayer from Walter Brueggemann from his book "Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth" for Pentecost Sunday:

We name you wind, power, force, and then,

imaginatively, "Third Person."

We name you and you blow...

blow hard,

blow cold,

blow hot,

blow strong,

blow gentle,

blow new...

Blowing the world out to nothing to abundance,

blowing the church out of despair to new life,

blowing little David from shepherd boy to messiah,

blowing to make things new that never were.

So blow this day, wind,

blow here and there, power,

blow even us, force,

Rush us beyond ourselves,

Rush us beyond our hopes,

Rush us beyond our fears, until we enact your newness in the world.

Come, come spirit. Amen.

"To Make Things New That Never Were" - Walter Bruggemann

We name you wind, power, force, and then,
imaginatively, "Third Person."
We name you and you blow...
blow hard,
blow cold,
blow hot,
blow strong,
blow gentle,
blow new...
Blowing the world out of nothing to abundance,
blowing the church out of despair to new life,
blowing little David from shepherd boy to messiah,
blowing to make things new that never were.
So blow this day,wind,
blow here and there, power,
blow even us, force,
Rush us beyond ourselves,
Rush us beyond our hopes,
Rush us beyond our fears, until we enact your newness in the world.
Come, come spirit. Amen.

The Fiftieth Day

Today is Pentecost Sunday.

Pentecost literally means "fiftieth day". For the Jews, it was related to the harvest festival of Shavuot, the fiftieth day after the exodus where they received the Ten Commandments.

For Christians it marks fifty days after Easter Sunday, the day the Holy Spirit came and visited those 120 fledgling followers in the upper room who gathered to simply wait and pray.

What did they pray? Who knows. It was around nine in the morning, so they probably were practicing fixed hour prayers. Maybe the Shema. Perhaps the Lord's Prayer. It was precisely in their liturgy, "same-ness", and repetition they had done thousands of times before that something extraordinary happened, interrupting their flow (similar to the dedication of Solomon's temple). It was the day of promised power filling each of them, not just the apostles or Peter, but rather every person in that room, male and female, leaking lines from the book of Joel. New tongues unspoken now spoken that all outside could hear in their own language and even dialect. Isn't it beautiful that God didn't perform a miracle and cause all the foreigners and visitors to suddenly comprehend Hebrew as if it were their native tongue? The curse of Babel was repeated, but this time around it came as a blessing, uniting instead of dividing, each listening ear comprehending the truths of God in ways they never had quite heard before. He was calling in a culturally honoring way each tribe, tongue, and nation, reminding them of the dignity of their culture, reminding them the treasures that each unique people have to offer that none else could. This is the birthday of the Church.

Would we also learn to wait. Would we also learn to pray. Would we learn to push through the disciplines and find tongues of fire in them. Would we learn to also go outside our Upper Rooms. Would we also learn to live in a power beyond our own. Would we learn to speak the languages of those around us and affirm their goodness.