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When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place,

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and suddenly from heaven there came a
sound like the rush of a violent

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wind. Take a deep breath of
Pentecost wind, Church, and let it

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go. Take another deep breath of
God's disruptive Holy Spirit, wind, and

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let it go. And let's pray. Joy of Heaven. The indwelling of

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your Holy Spirit is our blessing and
our power to day. Keep filling us

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with your spirit, that this community
of faith would be able to hold the

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fiery plans and the surprising hopes that
you have for us. May the words

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of my mouth and the meditation of
all our hearts be acceptable in your sight,

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O God, You are our rock
and our redeemer. Amen. Easter

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is not the end of our story
Church. Easter is always driving us towards

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today, towards Pentecost and the power
of the Holy Spirit that fills the room.

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Pentecost, the marvelous feast day of
the Church, when we celebrate the

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life changing, earth shaking, seismic
and surprising gift of the Holy Spirit.

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I heard a marvelous preacher years ago, doctor Jazz Scurlock, who said that

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our churches are full on Easter Sunday
because people think Easter is the end of

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our story, the highlight, the
pinnacle, when in fact, Easter is

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just the beginning. If we stay
in Easter, doctor Jazz said, we

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stay at the empty tomb. But
we have to get from that empty tomb

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to the upper room, because the
upper room is where the spirit comes,

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like a rush of wind, like
tongues of fire. It is in the

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upper room where the Church is born, the upper room where God's power is

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poured into us. The upper room
where Paul says, we have died to

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sin and come alive to God in
Christ Jesus. That is our good news

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story, dying to sin and coming
alive to God in Christ Jesus through the

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power of the Holy Spirit poured into
us at Pentecost. So happy Birthday,

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Church, I'm so glad you made
it here online and in the sanctuary.

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To celebrate the continuation of the resurrection
story. We plant our feet in the

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second chapter of Acts this morning,
where without warning the Bible says, suddenly

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there came a sound like a violent
wind. Violent winds force us to seek

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shelter. They shake windows and tear
up buildings, They make trees double over,

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toss around anything not fastened down without
warning. The Bible says, suddenly

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God's Pentecost Spirit comes and shakes things
up, and the people never see her

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coming. The spirit is surprising,
disruptive, unexpected. The people full of

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this spirit begin to speak in other
languages as the spirit gives them ability.

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So the day of Pentecost is disruptive
and beautiful. We in our own multicultural,

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multi ethnic, multi lingual Riverside church, we resonate with the beautiful diversity

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inherent in the Pentecost story. Multiple
language is spoken, people from every tribe

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and creed, universal peace and harmony
and understanding that is Riverside and that is

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who Riverside aspires to be. We
spoke last week about the right now and

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the knot Yet, the in between
place where followers of Jesus both exist in

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a groaning world, even as the
Spirit is here filling us and keeping us

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upright. We live in the right
now and the knot Yet, And so

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we lay this beautiful Pentecost story from
the Book of Acts alongside by Paul's letter

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to the Church at Rome, because
both stories invite us confront us with the

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reality that we are being filled with
the spirit, even as the creation is

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groaning. We are always between the
right now and not yet. The church

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in Rome was diverse for its time, made of Jewish and non Jewish followers

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of Jesus, and for a period
of about five years the Emperor Claudius kicked

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all the Jewish people out of Rome. When they were allowed to return,

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the Jewish followers of Jesus found a
church that was no longer Jewish, not

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in custom, not in practice.
The Church in Rome had changed, and

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it had changed for good. Think
of all the ways the Capital Sea Church

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has changed in the past five years, and then think of all the ways

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the Riverside Church in particular has changed
in the last five years. Beloved members

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have transitioned to be with God.
Virtual worship is available and growing, allowing

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members to participate from anywhere in the
world. We have half as many clergy

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on staff as we once did and
a smaller membership roster. Folk we love

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have moved away and new ways of
doing and being church. Well. Some

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of those ways are starting to irritate
us, maybe rub some of us the

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wrong way, but we are not
unique in our irritation. Church. The

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changes in the Church at Rome created
a lot of tension. They experienced division

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and deep disagreement about who could follow
Jesus and what would be the proper way

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to follow Jesus. There were disagreements
about practices and power. How many people

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were unhappy enough people that Paul wrote
this letter after the beautiful and disruptive Day

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of Pentecost in an effort to unify
the church. Paul was concerned because he

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had a vision. He knew this
amazing, powerful, one of a kind,

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multicultural community of faith could be the
launch pad for the spread of the

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Gospel if they could live upright and
spirit filled lives in a world groaning with

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labor pains. If the Church at
Rome could pull together and allow the vision

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of the not yet to supersede the
reality of the right now. Paul believed

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the message of the good News of
Jesus Christ could get as far as Spain,

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but he needed this church at Rome
to be what he knew they could

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be. The Creation is waiting on
us, he wrote in verse nineteen,

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waiting with eager longing for the children
of God to reveal themselves. Waiting on

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us, Paul wrote, to be
who God created us to be. Jesus

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became human so that we might become
what he is. Jesus became human so

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that we might reveal ourselves as children
of God. In the early pages of

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his letter, however, Paul records
the right now reality, and that reality

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said that the nations and the people
were trapped, trapped in a spiral of

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sin and selfishness. Paul said,
we find our ultimate significance in things we

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have created, rather than in God. But because of what Jesus did with

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his life, death and resurrection,
we have another choice. We have another

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chance at a place in God's family, and a chance and a new future

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if we want it. The Spirit
comes to disrupt sin and selfishness. On

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Pentecost, we recognize that we've been
rescued and set free to be part of

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God's multi ethnic family. Paul's message
to the church is a message about how

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to be God's multi ethnic family.
To take a deep breath and settle your

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body. Because family might be a
loaded word for some of us, it

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can be difficult to hear Paul lift
up right relationship using the language of family.

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Family is challenging and beautiful, safe
and not safe, calm and stressful.

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But these family images are used so
often in this book that we love

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that I've come to believe the writers
knew exactly what they were doing in leaving

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us with this emotionally charged metaphor.
With these labels of family, siblings,

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parents, and children. Paul must
have known that these labels would invite us

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to struggle with our own feelings about
family, what worked, what didn't work,

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and what is still hurting. What's
important to know about God's family is

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that every day we get a chance
at a new and transformed life. Every

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day we get a Pentecost invitation to
be filled with God's spirit. The question

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is will we be part of the
family, the one that Paul describes.

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Will we live in upright and spirit
filled obedience to God following the example of

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our big brother Jesus, the one
Paul calls the first born within our large

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family. Paul is inviting the children
of God, the Family of God,

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the Church, the New Church,
into the fullness of new life, despite

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our pattern of sin and despite the
truth of evil in a groaning world.

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How because we've got Jesus, Not
because we have a particular title or role,

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or lead a certain committee or ministry, but because we've got Jesus Jesus

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who took on a human body and
tied his life to our life. Jesus

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who set us free and gave us
life, Jesus who sent the Spirit to

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shake u loose and fill us up. The Day of Pentecost opens us to

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the new movement of the Holy Spirit, a movement where we know all of

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the delicious things the readers shared with
us. We know that nothing will separate

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us from God's love. We know
we are more than conquerors. We know

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that we've been adopted, and we
know the Spirit will help us in our

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weakness. But and this is the
part I love about the Spirit, we

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do not know specifically or precisely what
any of it will look like in the

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end, and we hate that.
Oh my God, we don't know where

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she will blow us or where we
will land when the wind dies down.

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But if we are feeling caught in
the sound of something like a violent wind,

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if we are experiencing disruption, in
the fires of unanticipated opportunities to be

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God's church, if our astonishing past
is taking hands with an indescribable future,

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then we just might want a check
to see if the Spirit is moving.

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We just might want to cultivate our
joy in the unexpected. We just might

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want to pray to God for increased
comfort in being tossed around, because the

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creation is aching, it's groaning,
it's actually in pain waiting for us,

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waiting for the children of God to
take their place. And while Paul is

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counting on the church in Rome,
God is counting on the church on Riverside

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Drive, and on every follower of
Jesus to reveal themselves as the children of

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God. May we be filled this
Pentecost Sunday with enough of God's Holy Spirit

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to hang on and see what the
end will be in the midst of her

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disruption. Maybe, just maybe we
will help shake some stuff up to then

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to God be the glory. Amen.