Pentecost Sunday - Galatians 3

1. A Prayer for the People of God
O God of glory,
your Son Jesus Christ
suffered for us
and ascended to your right hand.
Unite us with Christ and each other,
in suffering and in joy,
that all your children may be drawn
into your bountiful dwelling.
Amen.

2. The Church Calendar
May 31

3. Coronavirus Sunday #12
The COVID-19 Calendar

4. Sunday
PENTECOST

5. Pentecost is the nosiest of all Christian
holy days—a party, the “birthday of the
church,” celebrated with banners,
red balloons, and cake. We hear rushing
wind, tongues of fire, and cacophonous
crowds. We re-enact Acts 2 in multiple
languages, reminding us that God sent all
humankind a gift—the spirit with its
promise of peace and portents of salvs for
the healing of the earth.
DIANA BUTLER BASS

6. Alleluia! The long awaited day of the Lord
is here! But this week, names:
A man, panting, running, and fighting
for his life. “I can’t breathe; I can’t
breathe…” and, then, no breath.
A thousand names in print takes our
breath away. 100,000 stopped breathing.
A celebration, a birthday?
No thank you.
DIANA BUTLER BASS

7. George Floyd (1974-2020)

8. As many of you are were
baptized into Christ have
clothed yourselves with Christ.
There is no longer Jew or Greek,
there is no longer slave or free,
there is no longer male and female:
for you are one in Christ Jesus
GALATIANS 3:27-28

9. For you are all children
of God in the Spirit.
There is no Jew or Greek,
There is no slave or free,
There is no male and female;
For you are all one in the Spirit.

11. Silence is not neutrality. Silence is not
a shield. Silences relinquishes your voice
and opinion to others, enabling those
who seek power through division,
disunity and deceptions.
Silence is the approval that allows
dark deeds to exist in this world.
Silence is complicity to the darkness.
In things that matter,
silence is surrender.
MLK JR.

12. Letter From a Birmingham Jail
Excerpts

13. Moreover, I am cognizant of the
interrelatedness of all communities
and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta
and not be concerned about what
happens in Birmingham. Injustice
anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere. We are caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality,
tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly,
affects all indirectly.
MLK JR.

14. Letter From a Birmingham Jail
Excerpts

15. For years now I have heard the word
"Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro
with piercing familiarity.
This "Wait" has almost always meant
"Never." We must come to see,
with one of our distinguished jurists, that
"justice too long delayed is
justice denied.” We have waited
for more than 340 years for our
constitutional and God given rights.
MLK JR.

16. Letter From a Birmingham Jail
Excerpts

17. …when you are harried by day and
haunted by night by the fact that
you are a Negro, living constantly
at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing
what to expect next, and are plagued
with inner fears and outer resentments;
when you are forever fighting a
degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--
then you will understand why we
find it difficult to wait.
MLK JR.

18. Letter From a Birmingham Jail
Excerpts

19. There comes a time
when the cup of endurance
runs over, and men are
no longer willing to be
plunged into the abyss of despair.
I hope, sirs, you can understand
our legitimate and
unavoidable impatience.
MLK JR.

20. Letter From a Birmingham Jail
Excerpts

21. there are two types of laws:
just and unjust. I would be the
first to advocate obeying just laws.
One has not only a legal but
a moral responsibility to obey
just laws. Conversely, one has
a moral responsibility to disobey
unjust laws. I would agree with
Saint Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all."
MLK JR.

23. Racism breeds death, either visibly for all
the world to see, or silently, hidden
beneath the statistics and the excuses.
May the Spirit empower us to face this
reality and not turn away: racism is as
virulent as covid-19, infecting people who
seem to have no outward symptoms,
until behavior reveals
their disease. The vaccine for racism
is justice, the cure is equality,
and the prevention is love.”
STEPHEN CHARLESTON

24. Pentecost this year is not as much
party as protest. To name is to mourn
the loss of individuals with gifts and loves.
But Pentecost calls us to take another step
beyond our personal laments and to be
found together
in a shared name – child of God.
We stand together, in the same family, the
same name, with and for and
(even) as victims of the violence
sadly endemic in this broken world.
DIANA BUTLER BASS

25. We are all Ahmaud, we are all George, we
are all the thousand, we all the 100,000.
What happens to one, happens to us all.
We are not separate, not really. The fire of
God has burned into the world, reducing
to ash all division.
A new human family has been born:
sons and daughters dare to prophesy; old
and young dream dreams;
and slaves, men and women alike,
announce God’s justice in the world.
DIANA BUTLER BASS

26. Sunday
PENTECOST

27. A Prayer of Pentecost
Spirit of truth: guide us into all the truth;
consume the lies that shroud the world in hate;
pray in us with sighs too deep for words;
and let the victim’s voice ring out
with hope for a new world;
through Jesus Christ,
who goes to the
right hand of God.
Amen.