Hi everyone,

Welcome to worship for this Pentecost Sunday, landing on May 24, 2026!

The bulletin for this service can be found here. You can use it to follow along with the service, or alternatively the words that you need to know will appear on your screen. The full sermon manuscript is also found in the bulletin as well as on this page below the video.

For an enhanced worship experience online, you are invited to have a lit candle in your space for the duration of the service, and extinguish it near the end of the service when the altar candles are extinguished. You are also welcome to participate in communion if you are comfortable, by having something small to eat and drink prepared for that part of the service. Further instruction will be given then.

May the Spirit of all holiness and grace fill you with God’s strength, compassion, and love!

Almighty God, by the power of your Spirit, speak to us in the language of our hearts, that we might hear and see you with understanding and answer your call with confidence, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

So I’ve been back from a short week off for like a full 7 days now and I still don’t think I’ve recovered yet.  Nothing really bad happened or anything, but it’s just that it was very tiring.  Oh, so very mind-blowingly tiring.

In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, I took last week off because I had volunteered to help chaperone our oldest son’s band on their trip out to the Musicfest Canada’s Nationals in Ontario.  This wasn’t a competition per se, but more of a ranking and learning system for some of the better high school bands across the country.  Their band was planning this trip for a while, since they got the invite to go about a year ago.  And the excitement among the kids was so evident in the preparations, the meetings, and even in the fundraising, which I guess might have contributed to how very fatiguing the trip was.  I knew there was going to be a good number of students going, but I guess I wasn’t totally prepared for just how many there would be.  The final count was like 60 kids spread over 8 chaperones.

That’s not that bad, you might think, that’s like an average of 7 and half kids per adult.  But still, that meant the group consisted of almost 70 very different and unique personalities, individual energies, and a wide range of needs and wants and apparently, triggers.  Again, like I said, nothing really bad happened.  There weren’t any full-blown fights or any major conflict or anything like that, not that I saw at least. But as you would imagine, things weren’t always exactly smooth sailing for the whole 5 days of the trip.  There were a couple of rough patches here and there.  We found ourselves at times on troubled waters.  And of course, occasionally some feelings were rubbed the wrong way.

But in spite of all that, the kids stuck through it.  I mean it’s not like they really had a choice as they were roughly 3,411 kilometers from home (I counted on the way over), so they were kind of confined to the trip and with each other.  Having said that though, I was actually impressed with these kids, these very different kids from very different upbringings that have very different socio-economic backgrounds and were so very different in their levels of coolness.  I was impressed in that, in the midst of all of their differences, they got along pretty well.  A lot better than I ever would have ever expected, at least.

I mean sure, this is a group of over-achieving students from Burnaby that we’re talking about, so of course, at least 90% of them are Asian, so any racial tensions could be taken right out of the picture.   But really, their ethnicity or where their parents may have come from was just a small, small, tip of the iceberg of difference that they faced amongst each other.  I thought I could recognise and pinpoint the different personalities too from my days of growing up in the Lower Mainland.  Like I thought I knew who the rich kids were and what they’ll be like, or the popular kids, the athletes, the studious ones, the clowns, and all those other stereotypes we might have dealt with in our pasts or even through the media.

But from what I saw, on the most part these kids put all that aside and were united by this one common thread: that they were this accomplished high school band, all with their own parts to play and contributions to make, together wanting to make music that can be shared with the world. It didn’t matter what instrument they played, how old they were, or where they fell in the social hierarchy that I was a part of for so long.  All that didn’t matter to them as much as playing good music together did.

I don’t know, it was all quite… harmonious.  Pun very much intended.

I’ve never been in band like this in school or anything, so I can’t really compare from experience.  But the level of commitment I saw from these kids really was inspiring.  Not just to their craft of their own instrument, whatever that was, but again to the relationship, the comradery, the teamwork among their bandmates that allowed them to be the best they could be.

So strong was this bond that it crossed all these barriers and labels that much of society has created to separate and divide us from each other.  So tight was their connection that they saw past the images and facades of the teenage life and learned to accept each other as they are or aren’t or even as they hoped they would be.  So important was their community that they learned to cohabitate in… peace.

And while I didn’t expect to get some theological learning on this trip, it was proven yet again that God works in mysterious ways.  Because to me, what I saw in these kids was the Spirit of peace that was breathed upon the disciples by Jesus, and then was manifested as flame in that same group just a few weeks later on the day of Pentecost.  That flame ignited their hearts, purified their community, and showed them how to tear down the walls that divided them. 

The walls of language.  The divisions of culture.  Even the separation of time.  All removed completely from this community and left them as united.

See this festival of Pentecost was a big deal back in those days.  Happening 50 days after the Passover, it was one of the few harvest festivals the ancient Israelites observed.  And like all the other festivals, people from all over the known world would gather at the central hub of worship and Jewish identity in Jerusalem to give thanks for another year of providence and God’s grace. 

And this is the backdrop in which the disciples find themselves, together with their freshly minted replacement for Judas Iscariot, Mattias.  Not since that night that Jesus was arrested had they been as complete and whole as they were now.  Complete and whole, but surrounded by diversity, difference, and the hustle and bustle of that festival life.  Although they were numbered as 12 again, significant in their Jewish numerology in symbolising community, good order, and fullness, they might have felt still a bit incomplete without Jesus at the helm.  While they were reunited with their call as Jesus’ disciples and apostles in the world, they were separated from everyone else like a horse with no name.  Even though they were literally at home, they may have identified themselves as outsiders without a leader.

And it’s in that, in the diversity, in the segregation, in the reasons to be isolated even when not alone, that the Holy Spirit appears and fills the hole that was left by Jesus not just with love and faith, but with a common and shared purpose of community, relationship, and unity.  The unity that bridges differences.  The relationship that teaches us to serve and live with and for others.  The community that shows us and all people how we belong to the one body of Christ: welcomed, redeemed, and saved by God.

So just as my son’s band, while numbering a lot more than the 12 disciples, were able to see past the diversity, put aside their differences, and communally lifted up and honoured each other’s unique contribution to the melody of their music and life in general, so can we, as disciples of Christ and by the power of the Spirit, learn to live together, work together, and be together as God’s children in a world in such need of a Saviour.

See, this is what I believe this day is all about.  That we be reminded of how to see and recognise the Spirit at work in our lives.  That we be open to how the Spirit is present among us, among our community, and in all people whether we like them or not.  That we be able to hear the song of love and grace, filling us in our weakness, emboldening us in our strengths, and revealing to us our place in this body of Christ, where we can positively contribute to the betterment and healing of the world with the proclamation of the promises of God, the peace of Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit, with, among, and through us all.

So on this Pentecost Sunday that leads us into the season after Pentecost, may we see our role in God’s plan, how we fit in Christ’s family, and how we are gifted and empowered by the Holy Spirit to serve, to live in community, and to love one another in right relationship.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.