Prelude Melodia Africana I by Ludovico Einaudi
Opening Words by David Usher
Open your hearts to the wonder of worship.
Open your minds to the eternal quest for meaning and truth.
Open your eyes to the miracle of creation.
Open your arms to the embrace of your fellow men and women.
Open your souls, and let the divine sweep in.
Chalice Lighting (you may wish to light a candle in your own home at this point. I will be lighting my chalice for worship at 11.00 am on Sunday morning) words by Cliff Reed
We kindle our chalice flame.
By its light we meet each other
face to face.
In each other’s faces
may we sense another light,
the one divine Light
that glows within us all.
Opening Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love,
Be with us as we gather for worship,
Each in our own place.
Help us to feel a sense of community,
Even though we are physically apart.
Help us to care for each other,
In this world in which Covid has not yet gone away,
And the clouds of war and climate change overshadow us.
May we keep in touch however we can,
And help each other,
However we may.
May we remember that
caution is still needed,
that close contact is still unwise.
Help us to be grateful for the freedoms we have
and to respect the wishes of others.
May we hold in our hearts all those
Who are grieving, lost, alone,
Suffering in any way,
Amen
Reading: from Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians: 5: 16-23
Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.
Alternative Lord’s Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love, here and everywhere,
May we be aware of your presence in our lives.
May our world be blessed.
May our daily needs be met,
And may our shortcomings be forgiven,
As we forgive those of others.
Give us the strength to resist wrong-doing,
The inspiration and guidance to do right,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
We are your hands in the world; help us to grow.
May we have compassion for all living beings,
And receive whatever life brings,
With courage and trust.
Amen
Reading from Welcome the Holy Spirit by Richard Rohr 20th May 2024
The gift of the Spirit is God’s own power to love unconditionally—and to transform the world by that power.
This gift of knowing the Spirit, of being able to love as God does, is the same gift we need today. We see the world on the brink of destruction, yet we are too often apathetic about it. We hear of wars and famines, yet we choose to ignore them. We watch the earth degrade around us, and we simply adjust our thermostats. Too many of us just want to be left alone, not bothered by someone else—not even God—making demands on us. All of this is evidence of something missing in our lives, and reveals that we do not really know the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit is always a gratuitous gift. It’s always an unmerited favour. It’s always pure grace. Like wind, it cannot be seen. Like smoke, it cannot be controlled. The Spirit is elusive, blowing where it wills. Yet like fire, the Spirit can be felt. The Spirit is experienced as the warmth of God’s love. And like blood, it is experienced as an inner vitality. The Spirit is supremely intimate, yet supremely transcendent.
Prayer At Every Moment by Cliff Reed, from Spirit of Time and Place
Loving Spirit,
you are with us at every moment of our lives.
You are with us in the womb’s warm darkness;
you are with us in the rude shock of birth;
you are with us in childhood’s Eden.
In the turmoil of youth, you are with us;
in the transition to adulthood and its duties;
in the search for a life-companion to share the journey.
You are with us in the fearful responsibility of parenthood,
and in the letting-go of our children as they grow;
you are with us as we take our place among the elders
of family and community.
In the coming of the twilight, you are with us,
and in the return to the Great Mystery.
You are with us at every moment;
you are with us in our worship, here, now.
Help us to know it.
Amen
Readings from Beliefs of a Unitarian by Alfred Hall and Unitarian? What’s that? by Cliff Reed
When Alfred Hall wrote Beliefs of a Unitarian in the first half of the 20th century, most Unitarians would definitely have identified themselves as Christian. About the Holy Spirit, he wrote, “It was a supreme moment in the history of religion, when Jesus declared that God is Spirit, whose presence does not depend upon the existence of any particular temple and who can be worshipped anywhere in spirit and in truth. So to the Unitarian the Holy Spirit is the ever-present Living God himself, who sustains the universe and dwells in the inmost spirit of man, and not a separate person or activity of the Godhead … God is not a distant, mysterious being … for in him we live and move and have our being.”
Cliff Reed, at the beginning of the 21st century, wrote, “Unitarians do not see any differentiation between the Holy Spirit and God, and use the words more or less interchangeably. We conceive of the Spirit as the active divine presence in individuals and communities, as the divine breath that gives us life, as that ineffable factor that binds us together.
The Spirit, for many Unitarians, is the divine mystery moving among us and within us as we work and worship. Indeed, for many, God as loving, creative Spirit is their primary concept of the divine.”
Time of Stillness and Reflection Holy Spirit: for Whitsunday by Cliff Reed, from Sacred Earth (adapted)
Holy Spirit, Breath of God,
that came to prophet and apostle,
come to us, we pray.
Pour down on us
as life-giving rain,
make our souls bloom
like the desert.
Rest upon us
as tongues of fire,
kindling our souls
to be beacons of hope.
Come to us as guide,
leading us into all truth,
as Jesus promised.
Come to us as comforter,
raising us when we fall
crushed by an unforgiving world.
Come to us as advocate,
witnessing to love’s endurance,
when doubts oppress.
Come to us in the silence…
[silence]
Holy Spirit,
touch us with your liberty,
give us the right words to speak.
Make our spirits one with you,
our very selves the vessels of
your being.
Amen
Musical Interlude I Giorni by Ludovico Einaudi
Address Gifts of the Spirit
Last Sunday was Whit Sunday, or Pentecost, when, according to the Book of Acts in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit came down among the early Christians who were gathered in Jerusalem: “suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit…”
We are Unitarians, and most of us do not believe in the Holy Spirit as one person of the Trinity. Nevertheless, as we saw in our reading from Alfred Hall, Unitarians have seen the Holy Spirit as, “the ever-present Living God himself, who sustains the universe and dwells in the inmost spirit of man” and a more contemporary Unitarian theologian, George Chryssides writes of the Spirit as something “[which] can move through the power of men and women’s individual consciences; it can be seen in nature; it can be apprehended in the teachings of sages and prophets and indeed even people.” And Cliff Reed refers to the Spirit as, “the divine mystery moving among us and within us as we work and worship.” He comments, “Indeed, for many, God as loving, creative Spirit is the primary concept of the Divine.” Even St. Paul, who was largely responsible for moulding early Christian doctrine, wrote in his first Letter to the Corinthians, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”
The Quakers too, believe in the Spirit as an inward Light. There are several beautiful advices in their Advices and Queries, which refer to this:
“Cherish that of God within you, so that this love may grow in you and guide you. … Treasure your experience of God, however it comes to you.”
“Be aware of the spirit of God at work in the ordinary activities and experience of your daily life. … Are you open to new light, from whatever source it may come?”
“Each of us has a particular experience of God and each must find the way to be true to it. … Remember that each one of us is unique, precious, a child of God.”
Today I am going to explore what the Spirit might mean to us as 21st century Unitarians, and also what gifts the Spirit might have for us. Many Unitarians, of course, do not believe in any divine being at all, and so will not agree with my belief that the Spirit does dwell in each one of us, in our hearts, waiting to be listened to. I can only share what I believe. I love Quaker Stephen Allott’s description of the Spirit, “What manner of spirit are we of? Have we any connection with the spirit which descended on the upper room, sounding like a ‘mighty, rushing wind’? Do we look to be swept out of our comfortable existence by an invading power which comes, as Jesus said, no one knows whence? Or do we look rather for a gentler movement within? Do we say, it was this Spirit of God which breathed into our human clay to make us living souls? It is there, in our humanity, but mixed with passions which confuse its purpose, limited by the tunnel vision of the self. Occasionally a blinding flash may come from without and someone is jolted forwards; but the Spirit’s normal method is a quiet insistence, a still small voice barely audible amid the turbulence of earthquake, wind and fire.”
Two lines of this particularly speak to me: “it was this Spirit of God which breathed into our human clay to make us living souls” and “the Spirit’s normal method is a quiet insistence, a still small voice barely audible amid the turbulence of earthquake, wind and fire.”
“It was this Spirit of God which breathed into our human clay to make us living souls.” This is something I have come to believe in the last few years, through reading the works of the great Celtic poet and theologian, John O’Donohue. He wrote, and I have come to believe (because it makes sense to me) that our souls come from elsewhere, and inhabit our human bodies, and go elsewhere after death. Our souls are animated by the Spirit – it is the presence of the Spirit within that enables us to respond to the divine in the world.
Which I think is what Richard Rohr was talking about in our second reading, when he said, “The gift of the Spirit is God’s own power to love unconditionally—and to transform the world by that power.” When we allow the Spirit into our hearts (or perhaps, become able to discern its indwelling presence there) we are able to love the world and all the beings in it, and to be filled with a desire to make it better. As Rohr also said, “This gift of knowing the Spirit, of being able to love as God does, is the same gift we need today. We see the world on the brink of destruction, yet we are too often apathetic about it. We hear of wars and famines, yet we choose to ignore them. We watch the earth degrade around us, and we simply adjust our thermostats. Too many of us just want to be left alone, not bothered by someone else—not even God—making demands on us.”
Paul, in his Epistle to the Galatians, describes the gifts (or fruits) of the Spirit as, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” These Spirit-filled qualities enable us to make better responses to the world around us, to treat ourselves, other people and other living beings with patience, kindness, generosity and gentleness. And to experience love, joy, peace, a faith in something greater than ourselves, and self-control.
One of the most obvious ways in which the Spirit works within us is when we respond to something beautiful. I am sure that you have all felt your hearts lift and your levels of joy soar when contemplating a majestic mountain, or the endlessly changing sea, or the intricacies of a flower, or a man-made work of art, or the face of someone you love, or when you are listening to uplifting music or the songs of birds or to a beloved voice. I believe that this is the Spirit within us recognising and responding to the beauty of the world around us.
How can we learn to listen to the Spirit, and to recognise her at work in the world? I think that this may be attempted by what I would call ‘sacred living’. In other words, God / the Spirit / the Divine other is present everywhere, all the time. The trick of sacred living is recognising this.
Sacred living is about weaving moments of attention into our everyday lives and recognising the sacred there. It is about living with a new level of awareness. It is about going through our day paying attention to what is happening in each passing moment. It is about noticing the presence of the divine, the numinous, everywhere, in the natural world, in other people, in ourselves, and in things that happen to us. Sacred living is about rediscovering our sense of wonder and living our lives in response to that.
Coming back to Quaker Stephen Allott, whom I quoted earlier, the other sentence that spoke to me was, ” the Spirit’s normal method is a quiet insistence, a still small voice barely audible amid the turbulence of earthquake, wind and fire.” How many of you, I wonder, have become occasionally conscious of this “still small voice”, prompting you to take or eschew a particular action? Some Unitarians may be more easy with describing it as the voice of our conscience, but I believe that it is the Spirit, nonetheless.
I would like to finish with some words by Jacob Trapp, about how worship and the Spirit are connected:
“To worship is to stand in awe under a heaven of stars, before a flower, a leaf in sunlight, or a grain of sand.
To worship is to be silent, receptive, before a tree astir with the wind, or the passing shadow of a cloud.
To worship is to work with dedication and with skill; it is to pause from work and listen to a strain of music.
To worship is to sing with the singing beauty of the earth; it is to listen through a storm to the still small voice within.
Worship is a loneliness seeking communion; it is a thirsty land crying out for rain.
Worship is kindred fire within our hearts; it moves through deeds of kindness and through acts of love.
Worship is the mystery within us reaching out to the mystery beyond.
It is an inarticulate silence yearning to speak; it is the window of the moment, open to the sky of the eternal.”
May we recognise the Spirit and its gifts whenever we see, hear, or feel its quiet presence.
Closing Words
Spirit of Life and Love,
open our hearts and minds
to your presence,
all around us, and
deep within us.
May we return to our everyday world refreshed,
May we share the love we feel,
May we look out for each other,
and may we keep up our hearts,
Now and in the days to come,
Amen
Postlude Stella del Mattino by Ludovico Einaudi