Pentecost and Ecology
PENTECOST SUNDAY
Acts 2:1-21 or
Prayer of the Day: Mighty God, you breathe life into our bones, and your Spirit brings truth to the world. Send us this Spirit, transform us by your truth, and give us language to proclaim your gospel, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
“May the Lord rejoice in his works….” Psalm 104:31.
Here the psalmist prays that God may rejoice in God’s works-a puzzling expression. We might wonder, to whom is the psalmist speaking? Who other than God is capable of causing God to rejoice in God’s works? Yet the expression is problematic chiefly because we protestants tend to view prayer as a one way transaction. We pray, praise, supplicate and lament. God is the recipient who may or may not respond in a way we desire, hope or expect. As the Psalms demonstrate, however, prayer is dialogical. To be sure, the complete range of human experience of awe filled worship, longing, despair and hope are given full expression in the Psalms. But the voice of God is also heard encouraging, rebuking and instructing. The voice of the wicked and the oppressor are also heard. It is occasionally difficult to discern who is speaking in the Psalms. Sometimes this unclarity results from difficulties in translating them from the original Hebrew. But for the most part, the alternating voice in these prayers reflects the Hebrew understanding of prayer as a boisterous and uninhibited interchange. The Psalms are as messy, conflicted and mysterious as life itself.
So what does the psalmist mean in praying that the Lord will “rejoice in his works?” Read more
Peter's Outer Cape Portico 