Pastor John’s weekly email has provided some important thoughts about the season we’re entering — the long season after Pentecost — clarifying that we are not now moving into the season of the Spirit, as though we focus on the Father in one part of the year, the Son in another, and now the Spirit. Indeed, if we’ve been listening closely, we have heard much about how the persons of the Trinity are united and inseparable.

Helping us to remember this, the first Sunday after Pentecost is observed as Holy Trinity Sunday. I’ve become accustomed to thinking of this season after Pentecost as the growing season of the church.  It is a long season of readings and teachings that help shape our faith and discipleship, forming and transforming us as children of God. But before we go there, we pause to simply worship the One who creates, redeems, and sustains us.

Today’s readings each highlight something about the way we know God, not just zeroing in on one or another of the three persons of the Trinity, but emphasizing also their unity and their eternity. From the Hebrew scriptures comes the voice of Wisdom, another of the personifications of the presence of God, singing of that eternal presence from even before the laying of the foundations of the earth. (Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31) The psalmist praises the One who sets everything in order in the grand universe, and who, as God, remarkably cares even for we who are Not-God. (Psalm 8)

In the apostolic writings, St. Paul recaps in a nutshell his understanding of the mission of Jesus and its relationship to some of the other ways we know and experience God and Spirit. (Romans 5:1-5) Finally, the gospel from John captures words from Jesus, declaring the continuity of teaching and mission that is his with the Father and is carried on by the Spirit. (John 16:12-15)

Choral Music:

As we move into the summer months, we’re grateful for the individuals who offer their talents in leading our worship and providing special music. Alisha leads the singing today with two contemporary songs:

• Introit: “Surely the Presence of the Lord Is in This Place” – Lanny Wolfe — In the past couple of weeks, this song has been the soundtrack for the slide show of scenes from our various activities of worship and ministry this past year, all of them signs of the presence of God. Well, even though our activity level may decrease a bit during the summer, “the presence of the Lord is in this place” — surely.
  
• Prayer for Illumination: “We Are Waiting” – Greg Scheer — Each of the stanzas is devoted to a person of the Trinity, recognizing how we attribute the acts of God to these persons as they have been made know to us.

Organ and Instrumental Music

• Prelude: “Alleluia” – W. A. Mozart — Matt B. brings his French Horn this morning to play an arrangement of this familiar section from Exsultate Jubilate.
• Offertory: “Holy, Holy, Holy” – Dennis Janzer — Janzer gave this piece a title as a recessional; but lighten up the registration and provide a little ornamentation, and it becomes a spritely dialogue on the familiar hymn.
• Postlude: “Creator God, Creating Still” – Charles Callahan — This piece is published under the common title for the tune it’s based upon, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” (St. Anne). New Century Hymnal uses this tune to support this text, our closing hymn.
  

May 28th, 2010 Subscribe to the RSS feed!