Rochester, MN UCC - “The Spirit Gave Them Ability” - Acts 2:1-21

This Sunday four people, Dick and Carol Eick, Sandy Gould, and Nancy Richardson, are becoming members of our church, The Congregational Church United Church of Christ. These are four remarkable people, with diverse histories and backgrounds, who have been called by God to serve as part of our congregation. They will each bring their unique gifts to our common life, helping us to grow in our faith and ministry. This Sunday will be a momentous occasion in their lives, but it is also a momentous occasion in the life of our congregation. For we too will be changed by their joining. We will learn from them, we will be called to serve them, and to be served by them. We will rejoice in their rejoicing, and mourn with them in their sorrows. This Sunday they join a new congregation and we begin our life as a congregation made new by their joining.

 Fittingly, this Sunday is also the feast of Pentecost. It is the celebration of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles following Christ’s ascension. It was at this moment that the church was born- men and women were empowered to testify to the truth of Jesus Christ, they were enabled to understand one another across differences of background, culture, and language, and they were bound together in mutual love and service- all through the power of the Holy Spirit. This work of the Holy Spirit in binding together people of all ages, tongues, and races, to form the Church of Jesus Christ was not a one-time thing. It has carried on throughout the millennia, and we may anticipate its presence this very Sunday as we welcome these new members into the life of our congregation. We trust in this continuing work of the Holy Spirit, and we pray that we will find evidence of Her working in our hearts as we come to know and love these new members of our church, as we share with them in the costs and joys of discipleship, and as we find ourselves united with them and one another in the work of sharing Christ’s love with the world. May it be so!  Amen. 

 Rev. Andrew Greenhaw