This Sunday, we had a guest preacher: our new Regional Canon, the Rev. Marissa Rohrbach. As Regional Canon, Marissa is our primary contact with the Bishop’s Office and the wider life of the Church. In her sermon, she spends a little while introducing herself and her role, before turning to the Gospel reading for the day.

Our world is not at all a perfect place. Our lives are full of broken habits and mistakes. But God’s love has been poured into our hearts, again and again and again. And so we have peace in our hearts, when we know that we are loved by God. We have the strength to carry on, because God has not left us comfortless. We have the power to love, because it is God’s love that works in us and through us in the world.

I’ve always found the titles of the What to Expect When You’re Expecting series to be so funny. Sometimes it feels like the only useful advice I’ve ever gotten in life, let alone as a parent, is to expect the unexpected. It certainly would have been good advice for the disciples, as they gathered on Pentecost Day.