Koonung Heights Uniting Church
Service of Worship at Home
Pentecost – 24 May, 2026 – 10am or whenever possible
You may like to light a candle during your time of worship.
Feel free to text the Peace to other members of the congregation.
Introit: O breath of life – (TiS 409)
O breath of life, come sweeping through us, revive your church with life and power;
O breath of life, come cleanse, renew us, and fit your church to meet this hour.
O breath of love, come breathe within us, renewing thought and will and heart;
come, love of Christ, afresh to win us, revive your church in every part.
Candle Lighting:
As we light this candle
we acknowledge that the triune God is with us.
God in our midst, come close to us,
and help us come close to you,
and even if just for a moment,
may you be the focus of our attention.
Holy Three in One, One in Three,
be with us in this time together.
Acknowledgement of Country:
This is God’s land and God’s Spirit dwells here.
I acknowledge the Wurundjeri WoiWurrung
People of the Kulin nations,
traditional custodians of this land under God.
I pay my respects to elders past and present,
and to all future leaders and generations.
Call to Worship:
As we gather together in this place,
let us strain our ears to hear the rush of wind, the crackle pop of fire.
We listen for your call, God of spirit and flame.
We take our place in your unfolding creation.
Rejoice, for God’s spirit flows among us!
Rejoice, for today the church embraces transformation.
In the midst of rebirth, we join our voices in praise!
Let us worship God.
We Sing: Let all creation dance – (TiS 187)
Let all creation dance in energies sublime,
as order turns with chance, unfolding space and time,
for nature’s art in glory grows, and newly shows God’s mind and heart.
God’s breath each force unfurls, igniting from a spark
expanding starry swirls, with whirlpools dense and dark.
Though moon and sun seem mindless things, each orbit sings: ‘Your will be done.’
Our own amazing earth, with sunlight, cloud and storms
and life’s abundant growth in lovely shapes and forms,
is made for praise, a fragile whole, and from its soul heaven’s music plays.
Lift heart and soul and voice: in Christ all praises meet
and nature shall rejoice as all is made complete.
In hope be strong, all life befriend and kindly tend creation’s song.
Prayer of Praise and Confession:
Spirit of God, you blow mysteriously
in our world and in our lives.
We give thanks for the way you surprise and enliven us,
just when we need it most.
Spirit of God, you bring light to our world.
We offer our thanks for light shining in otherwise dark places.
May your light inspire us to be people of light.
Spirit of God, your grace flows among us,
within communities and especially where evil and hatred threaten to prevail.
For this we are in awe and offer our thanks and praise.
May we know your Spirit deep within.
Spirit of God, you invite us to wonder.
Yet we confess that we find more comfort in the mundane.
We lean into the familiar and treat the amazing
as suspicious or even threatening.
We long for routine to keep us safe from pain,
and we’re willing to give up joy in exchange.
Reshape our hearts for possibility.
Awaken our senses to your wondrous work in the world,
and give us the courage and will to follow you. Amen.
Words of Assurance (from Psalm 104):
The psalmist writes,
‘O Lord, how manifold are your works.
In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
When you give to them, they gather it up;
when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
When you send forth your spirit, they are created;
and you renew the face of the ground.’
It is through this same creative, renewing Spirit
that we experience God’s grace.
We give thanks as a renewed, forgiven people!
Passing the Peace:
On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit enabled people from different nations and languages to not only speak to one another, but to understand one another. Friends, in many ways, celebrating Pentecost is celebrating God’s ability to forge connection and peace among diverse people and nations. As renewed, forgiven people, let us share the radical and unifying peace of God with one another now.
The Peace of Christ be with you
and also with you.
A Time for All:
Today … a story. A Church for All by Gayle E Pitman, illustrated by Laure Fournier (Chicago: Albert Whitman & Company 2018).
Sunday waking
Day is breaking
Let’s go to our church for all!
Church bells ringing
Joyful noises
Choir singing
Laughing voices
Candles glowing
Banners flowing
Come enter our church for all!
Weak and healthy
Neat and messy
Poor and wealthy
Plain and dressy
All-embracing
Spirit-gracing
Each one at our church for all!
Bodies wriggling
Mummies reading
Children giggling
Daddies pleading
Toddlers flailing
Babies wailing
There’s room at our church for all!
Hands receiving
Hands connecting
Hearts believing
Hearts accepting
Feel the spirit
Can you hear it?
It’s here at our church for all!
We Sing: Where the Spirit is – TiS 421
Where the Spirit is there’s freedom. Where the Spirit is, there is life!
Not by the world can our freedom be nourished, not by our things, only by Spirit.
Practice, my children, to live by the Spirit, drop all your masks, take freedom’s clothing!
Where the Spirit is there’s freedom. Where the Spirit is, there is life!
Heaven on earth, here we live, free to love and to share, carried by joy.
Practice, my children to live by the Spirit, daring today to taste God’s future.
Where the Spirit is there’s freedom. Where the Spirit is there is life!
Wounds will be healed, eyes will be opened, imaging God, reflecting Jesus.
Practice, my children, to live by the Spirit, heaven is here time made eternal.
Where the Spirit is there’s freedom. Where the spirit is, there is life!
Bible Reading: Acts 2:1-21
– The Coming of the Holy Spirit
1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
5 Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?
9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs – in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”
Peter Addresses the Crowd
14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Fellow Jews and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
17 ‘In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit,
and they shall prophesy.
19 And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
20 The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
Bible Reading: John 20:19-23
– Jesus Appears to the Disciples
19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”
20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
Reflection (Avril Hannah-Jones):
I want to begin this Reflection by thanking the members of Koonung Heights Uniting Church for welcoming the members of North Balwyn Uniting Church here to worship with you. Pentecost is, of course, the best day for us to worship together. We celebrate Pentecost as the birth day of the one holy catholic and apostolic church and as the festival of the courage of that church. In the reading from the Book of Acts that we hear every year on this day, there are at least two miracles. The first is that everyone gathered in Jerusalem heard Jesus’ disciples speaking in their own heart languages, their mother tongues.
The explanation of that miracle includes what I think is the funniest verse in the Bible: ‘Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.’ But the disciples speaking in other languages, as the Spirit gives them ability, is the lesser miracle. The greater miracle is that the disciples are speaking in public at all, as the Spirit gives them courage. From staying in ‘the room upstairs,’ presumably hiding from those who had killed Jesus, the disciples suddenly take a public stand with Peter raising his voice and addressing those of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem. Pentecost is the anniversary of the Holy Spirit pushing the disciples out from behind a locked door, down from an upper room, and into the world.
In comparison to the courage Peter and the others needed, two Uniting churches worshipping together may not seem to be brave, but it is. Most of us appreciate worshipping in ways and places that are familiar. We go to the usual building, sit in the same places, sing familiar hymns, pray in familiar language. Today, members of NBUC have come to a different building, joining with a congregation that worships in subtly different ways. Members of KHUC are welcoming strangers who may behave differently (they may even sit in someone else’s pew!) and are listening to an unfamiliar minister on Heather’s third-last Sunday here. By doing this, we are all in small ways practising living by the Spirit.
Having talked a little about the Book of Acts’ description of Pentecost, I want us to turn to the version we hear in the Gospel according to John. Today’s gospel reading also tells of the coming of the Holy Spirit, but with gentle breath rather than tongues of fire. It is ‘Pentecost’ for introverts rather than for extroverts. Quick note: the word ‘Pentecost’ is a version of the Greek word for ‘fiftieth,’ the fiftieth day after Passover, which is when Luke’s story of the coming of the Holy Spirit takes place. In Jesus’ time, the fiftieth day was a celebration of the giving of the law to Moses on Mount Sinai; it was also called the ‘Festival of Weeks’ because it occurred a week of weeks, seven weeks, after Passover. Jews from all over the Mediterranean world came to Jerusalem to celebrate, which is why people of so many different languages and ethnicities are in the city when the disciples start to speak.
In contrast, the gospel’s story of the coming of the Holy Spirit takes place on the very day of Jesus’ resurrection. The disciples, who accompanied Jesus throughout his ministry, saw his miracles and learned from his teachings, have not yet come to complete faith. The author tells us that even after seeing the empty tomb, Peter and the Beloved Disciple had not understood that Jesus must rise from the dead. After they left, Mary Magdalene saw the risen Jesus who told her: ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ She went and announced to the disciples that she had seen the Lord and told them what he had said to her.
We do not know whether the disciples believed Mary Magdalene when she, apostle to the apostles, announced the resurrection. Probably not, since in today’s reading, we find the disciples still gathered in fear behind locked doors. We are not told how many disciples are hiding, nor are we given any names. This frightened group represents every disciple of Jesus who has ever lived, including us. Into a scene of fear, Jesus enters and says: ‘Peace be with you’.
Jesus shows the disciples his hands and his side, and they rejoice. They see for themselves the risen Lord whose resurrection Mary had announced; whether they had believed her, they now know that Jesus has been raised from the dead. He enters the room that they are in, even though the doors are locked; the disciples can see that his resurrection has given Jesus victory over physical limitations. Yet when Jesus shows the disciples his hands and his side, they can see that the wounds of crucifixion are still open. The risen Christ remains the wounded one; the one whose death, in this gospel, is glory. It is this man, tortured and killed, who offers the disciples, hiding in fear, the greeting of peace. Death has turned into peace, and the disciples’ fear turns into joy.
Jesus breathes on the disciples, giving them the Holy Spirit, as God breathed into the nostrils of Adam to give him the breath of life at creation. New creation is brought about by the resurrection. With his breath, Jesus tells the disciples to ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’. God the Holy Spirit is as close to us as the breath in our lungs. This is why today’s story is Pentecost for introverts. The Holy Spirit is not coming in an extravaganza that leads onlookers to wonder whether the disciples are drunk. The Holy Spirit comes as quietly as our breath. It is no coincidence that every type and form of meditation and mindfulness tells its practitioners to begin by paying attention to our breathing. Be quiet, focus on your breathing, in and out. When we do that, we are not simply becoming attentive to the present moment; we are entering into the peace of God who gives us the breath of life.
‘Peace be with you,’ Jesus tells his disciples. Not peace as the world gives, but the peace that passes all understanding, being at peace with God and at peace with one another through God. This is why Christians so often greet each other with the sign of peace. By saying, ‘Peace be with you,’ we affirm that nothing can divide us before God. But Christ’s appearance not only brings the disciples joy and peace to enjoy within the Christian community. The disciples are also commissioned; Christ’s resurrection brings responsibility. Jesus’ death was a pouring out of love and compassion for the whole creation; now the resurrected Jesus calls on the disciples to share this love and compassion with the world. They are given a mission, and the gift of the Spirit is given so that they can be to the world what Jesus was in his own life and death. The disciples who were meeting behind locked doors in fear are being sent out to live with the same courage that Peter demonstrates speaking to the crowds in the Acts reading.
With this gift of the Spirit, the disciples are to do the work of God, including the forgiving and retaining of sins. That sounds strange: ‘If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ I do not believe that this means that the church has the power to refuse to pardon people’s individual transgressions.
Instead, I think this saying means that the role of the Christian community, sent by Jesus as Jesus was sent by the Father, is to reveal the nature of God and God’s love to the world. The presence of the love and compassion of God will reveal sinfulness, illuminating all that is not godly in our lives and our world. Some people will embrace this revelation. Some people will refuse to enter a relationship with the God of limitless love, and so, as the author of this gospel wrote, ‘this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness’. Some will come to the light; some will turn away. The role of the church is to witness to and reveal the love of God in Jesus Christ, leaving the consequences of that revelation to God. The gift of the Spirit enables the community to live this life of witness, to carry out the commission that Jesus gives.
We, like those very first disciples, have been commissioned to share God’s self-sacrificial love and light with the world, not to stay frightened or rejoicing behind closed and locked doors. We have been called to make our faith public. This is not always easy in a country like Australia, which is only happy for people to be religious if that religion is kept behind closed doors. Too often, churches have accepted the Australian argument that we should stay in the private sphere. But today’s gospel story tells us that we have been commissioned by Jesus to publicly meddle. This often takes courage. There are always going to be people who, when Christians speak out for love and justice, will sneer and accuse us of being filled with the new wine of wowserism, do-gooding, or wokeness. We have seen how the current President of the United States, for instance, has responded to the Pope speaking up for peace.
Jesus did not chastise the disciples for hiding behind locked doors. He did not ask them why the empty tomb and the news brought by Mary Magdalene had not changed their behaviour. He came and stood among them despite the barriers of a locked door and their fear, and brought them a greeting of peace, before commissioning them, recreating them, and giving them the gift of the Holy Spirit. We have been commissioned in the same way. And if we ever feel too scared to carry out that commission, if we are tempted to stay behind locked doors rather than challenging the powers and principalities of our day, we can be sure that Jesus will still come among us and say, ‘Peace be with you,’ and we will have peace.
Amen.
We Sing: Great God, your Spirit – (TiS 416)
Great God, your Spirit, like the wind – unseen but shaking things we see –
will never leave us undisturbed fulfil our dreams, or set us free,
until we turn from faithless fear and prove the promise of your grace
in justice, peace and daily bread with joy for all the human race.
Lord, shake us with the force of love, to rouse us from our dreadful sleep;
remove our hearts of stone and give new hearts of flesh, to break and weep
for all your children in distress and dying for the wealth we keep.
Help up prevent, while we have time, the blighted harvest greed must reap.
And then, in your compassion, give your Spirit like the gentle rain,
creating fertile ground from which your peace and justice spring like grain;
until your love is satisfied, with all creation freed from pain,
and all your children live to praise your will fulfilled, your presence plain.
Prayer for Others (prepared by Beth Coote):
Let us pray:
Dear Lord, as we come together this morning on this Christian Festival Pentecost Day may we be reminded of your Holy Spirit upon the apostles on the day of the Jewish Festival.
We pray for our minister, the Rev Heather Hon as she, Tony and their daughter Elizabeth prepare their goodbyes to us. A painful time of letting go; yet new experiences, new horizons and new friendships to be made. We pray that they will settle well into the Colac and Surrounds District. Uphold, nurture and love them, grant them wisdom and understanding and an abiding sense of your presence.
We also pray for Rev Avril Hannah-Jones and the congregation of North Balwyn Uniting Church. We ask your blessing on them as they continue their witness as another Christian community within Balwyn. Bless them in their endeavours.
We pray for the Pastoral Carers who administer care and concern to their fellow parishioners and outside communities. Give them wisdom and grace as they undertake their duties of friendship and fellowship in their Christian role.
We think and pray for young people growing up in today’s world of challenges that face them. May you show them love, joy, laughter, compassion, learning and an everlasting peace.
Today we think of people struggling to gain a new foothold into rebuilding their lives after the devasting fires or floods that have affected their lives. Guide and direct them in your love, Lord, and give them comfort and courage to face the challenges of each new day.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to members of the congregation who have lost loved ones this year. Dear Lord, be an inspiration to them so that they may know your presence, healing and love.
We pray for people sleeping rough in this cold weather. Give them your love Lord and keep them warm so that they may talk to you as their Friend.
Be with us now Lord as we see your beauty in the many colours of autumn and entrust us with your abundance of love, justice and reconciliation.
Amen.
Now as the Lord has taught us to pray:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name;
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.
For the Kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever.
Amen.
We Sing: Filled with the Spirit’s power – (TiS 411)
Filled with the Spirit’s power, with one accord
the infant church confessed its risen Lord:
O Holy Spirit, in the church today
no less your power of fellowship display.
Now with the mind of Christ set us on fire,
that unity may be our great desire:
give joy and peace;
give faith to hear your call,
and readiness in each to work for all.
Widen our love, good Spirit, to embrace
in your strong care all those of every race:
like wind and fire with life among us move,
till we are known as Christ’s,
and Christians prove.
Blessing and Sending:
As we leave this place,
may we go out into the world
ready to be overwhelmed with amazement.
May we clear our throats to shout good news.
May we not shy away from the fire and wind of the Spirit,
but rather, let it envelop and hone us for the work of love
that God entrust to us in the Body of Christ.
Go in Peace,
and may the blessing of God,
Holy One in Three and Three in One,
remain with you always.
Amen.
Thanks to all those who have assisted in preparation for this liturgy with encouragement, prayers and conversation. Particular thanks to Avril Hannah-Jones for sharing the story and her reflection on the bible readings. I have also utilised the following resources:
Fig Tree Worship, and Sanctified Art Special Sundays.
Story
A Church for All by Gayle E Pitman, illustrated by Laure Fournier
(Chicago: Albert Whitman & Company 2018).