I had the opportunity to welcome five classes of third graders (their teachers & some parents) from the Stevens school here on Thursday. These classes came to this Meeting House as part of an educational tour of Rocky Hill that also included stops at the Center Cemetery, the Academy Hall Historical Building, & the River Landing.

Louise Butts welcomed another five classes of third graders from the other Elementary School in town – West Hill - on Friday. This church’s Associate Pastor has completed these tours in prior years but with Donna away on vacation it fell to Louise and me to make the 15-20 minute presentations to each of these ten classes over the course of Thursday & Friday!

Several of this church family’s children were present for these tours. It was a very good & a very high energy event!

The children asked lots & lots of good questions throughout our presentations about the history of this building, the reasons that some of our ancestors first gathered a church here, and what it means to be a “Congregational” church – both in the 1700’s and even today!

And in getting familiar with this church’s history I have learned that it was on December 19, 1720 that just 23 inhabitants of this part of town petitioned the Town Meeting in Wethersfield to grant some land for church use. And even after Wethersfield said “yes” - it took seven years before the church finally got organized on June 7, 1727. (Some things haven’t changed at all – some things in the church still take a long time to get done! )

The school children I met with all knew that this church’s first building was located in the town of Wethersfield, because the town of Rocky Hill hadn’t been officially formed yet. The first meetinghouse was located somewhere on the other side of the Academy Historical Building - in the area where the Company 1 Firehouse is now located on Old Main Street. The name of that first church was “Third Church of Christ, Wethersfield, Stepney Parish” or “Stepney Parish” for short!

It wasn’t until 1895 that this congregation was renamed “Rocky Hill Congregational Chuch.” It was in 1959 that this church added United Church of Christ to its name. The United Church of Christ was a new denomination that emerged in 1957 when four different strands of Christian tradition decided to join together.

I’m sure that some of you already know many of these facts… And I’m sure that even more of you know that was in 1808 that this meeting house (in which we worship today) was built and dedicated… (The children looked around this space and said, “is this really the same building that was here in 1808?” And when I said, “yes” they were really quite amazed and in awe! Many couldn’t believe that this place could be more than 200 years old! )

I imagine that it must have taken a great deal of courage for a group of 23 people to even imagine gathering and forming a new church in the year 1720…

It must have taken a great deal of courage and a lot of trust for those 23 folks to go to the town to ask for land so that they could gather together a new congregation…

I’m guessing that that group may have experienced a powerful force and perhaps even saw tongues as of fire dancing above their heads, for it certainly must have taken the Holy Spirit to inspire them to do such a thing…

Fifty days after that first Easter I imagine that it must have taken those first disciples a lot of courage and a lot of trust and the powerful movement of the Holy Spirit for them to stand up and begin doing something new.

Up to that point they had been waiting in Jerusalem as the risen Christ had instructed them… They had been living their lives in “waiting” mode - waiting for the promised arrival of the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus had promised would come to help them… In those days since the Resurrection those disciples and friends had gone about their daily lives, they had gone to Temple regularly, they had celebrated the regular Jewish holidays as before & they had been waiting as they had been instructed...

Nothing had suggested that they might have to move out beyond the safe confines of their familiar Jewish friends and neighbors to bring the Good News of Jesus, to anyone else… Yet all that changed on that first Pentecost…

The arrival of the Holy Spirit that day to those devoted followers of Jesus, the newly resurrected Christ, was an important foreshadowing of what was to come… When the followers received the ability to speak in the tongues of another tribe or of other nations – they were thrust into a new place. Peter was quick to stand up and address the crowds that gathered… Peter wanted them all to understand that what they were experiencing was not folks who had been out drinking all night but rather the fulfillment of ancient prophecy!

Peter wanted the folks gathered to understand that with the arrival of the Holy Spirit that many more folks would be able to hear & understand the Good News of Jesus Christ… When the Holy Spirit came upon those disciples the awesome power of God was revealed again to each of them. How else could they explain how they were filled with new gifts & speech that would allow them to speak to folks from all around their world!

That first Pentecost was not just any ordinary day!

Before that first day of Pentecost was over the church had grown from 120 folks to more than 3,000 people! As one preacher puts it, “Shy people had become bold, scared people had become gutsy, and lost people had found a sure sense of direction. Disciples who had not believed themselves capable of tying their own sandals without Jesus discovered abilities within themselves they never knew they had…. They had sucked in God’s own breath and they had been transformed by it. The Holy Spirit had entered into them the same way it had entered into Mary, the mother of Jesus, and for the same reason. It was time for God to be born again – not in one body this time but in a body of believers who would receive the breath of life from their Lord and pass it on, using their own bodies to distribute the gift.” (p. 144, Barbara Brown Taylor in her sermon, “The Gospel of the Holy Spirit” in Home by Another Way.)

Pentecost reminds us here today that we worship an awesome God. We are reminded here today that the Holy Spirit moves among us and has the capacity to change us in some pretty remarkable ways!

On Pentecost Sunday we are invited to renew our faith in a God who pours out Spirit upon all flesh, upon our sons & our daughters, upon young and old men and women… On Pentecost each year we too are reminded that dreaming dreams and seeing visions are only some of the ways that God’s Spirit moves in our midst and changes things!

We celebrate & recognize Pentecost Sunday each year and some call it the birthday of the Christian Church for clearly it can be seen as one of those watershed moments which precipitated and energized the new church to be born again. Even as we remember that first arrival of the Holy Spirit, we also celebrate the ongoing ways & the current evidence that the Holy Spirit is alive & well & moving amongst us still…

As a church in a transitional time we hopefully know something of the power of the Holy Spirit in our midst… This is a church in the midst of a time of change… The Search Committee is moving along well and invites your comments today about the draft Church Profile they have prepared – their work is founded upon the assumption that the Holy Spirit moves among us still & will bring this church the next pastor. You are all God’s people - open to the inspiration and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit… You are a people who dream dreams and have visions of a future, as yet unclear but coming into focus…

The church was born on the day of Pentecost when the gift of the Holy Spirit was universalized. On Pentecost the disciples became apostles sent out into the world. On this day each year we are each reminded that the mission of the church is delegated to each & every member of the church…No one is to be denied their part as a member of God’s people… Everyone is welcome to become an active participant in God’s mission to the world…

When we say, “come Holy Spirit, come” we need to mean it because that Spirit is here for the asking.

The Holy Spirit is here to empower each of us to act in the world…

May we be ready to go out filled with the power of that Spirit to discover our place in God’s divine love & mission to the world… Amen