Acts 8:26-40 NIV

 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian[a] eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet.

The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.

“How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:

“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,

    and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,

    so he did not open his mouth.

In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.

    Who can speak of his descendants?

    For his life was taken from the earth.”

The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?”  And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.  Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

Last week Mark mentioned in his sermon, getting into good trouble. Todays’ text is such a good illustration of that. The phrase good trouble was part of a quote we heard often repeated on the news when Representative John Lewis passed away.

“Get into good trouble, necessary trouble.” I have another favorite John Lewis quote I want to share this morning.

“Nothing can stop the power of a committed and determined people to make a difference in our society. Why? Because human beings are the most dynamic link to the divine on this planet.”

We are linked to the divine. What a comfort that is when our world gets crazy, to remember that we are linked to the divine.

Acts 1:8 gives us a clue to the main focus of the book of Acts. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

We know that the book of Acts is sort of a sequel to the gospel of Luke. In Acts we see the early church spreading first among the Jews, then to the Gentiles, and then Paul spreads the gospel and plants churches in Asia and Greece.

Jesus told His followers to remain in Jerusalem until they were baptized with the Holy Spirit. I have been on a journey this year, discovering new details in old texts so I invite you to go along with me. 

In Acts 2:2 speaking about that baptism, the bible says “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.”

If we move forward to Acts 17:6 we read “While they were searching for Paul and Silas to bring them out to the assembly, they attacked Jason’s house.  When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some believers before the city authorities, shouting, “These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also,”

In just a few chapters we go from a houseful of Jesus’ followers to turning the world upside down. This happened in a time when there was no mass communication, travel was on foot, by donkey, by chariot. This is the beginning of the story of the church, a story that continues today. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we are a part of that story.

The only way the church could have grown so fast and reached so far is through the Holy Spirit, through people being linked to the divine. We speak of the Holy Spirit as being our advocate. Jesus, himself was our first advocate and when He ascended He left us a second advocate. Jesus speaks to God for us. The Holy Spirit speaks to us for God. The Holy Spirit consistently points us back to Jesus – to what He did for us, how much He loves us. The Holy Spirit most often seems to speak us into doing things that are at odds with our culture. That Spirit is our link to the divine! That is what happened in the text we read today.

So lets look at the main characters. There are three.

The angel of the Lord who directed the steps of the other two people in this story. While this spirit is hardly mentioned, without the Spirit, nothing else would have happened.

The second character we see is Philip, who was part of a group of 7 men chosen by the disciples to serve, and to be a part of this group The apostles must have seen something special in Philip. The gospel was spreading and it was causing good trouble. This is where Paul became involved with the persecution of the early church. This group of people chosen with Philip, included Stephen who was stoned to death and who to the very end, preached Jesus and interceded for the very people who were killing him. All but the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Philip was one of these men and here is where today’s text happens. Remember that Philip was a Jew and in his culture, you didn’t associate with people who were of different cultures because it could defile you.

The third character is an Ethiopian eunuch. Castration was a common practice and the price you paid for a cushy job that kept you around the royal family. We know that he is educated because he is in charge of the treasury and he is reading. We know that he is a person with money because he has traveled a thousand miles in a chariot from Ethiopia to Jerusalem and back. That journey would have taken about a year.

So we have all of the characters on stage. The Spirit, Philip, and the Ethiopian eunuch.

What is not in the text is why this man traveled all that way to worship – what motivated him, and what happened when he got to Jerusalem.

We can assume some things because of the history of the time and because of what we know of the Jewish faith and the rules for worshiping in the temple.

The culture of the day meant that having offspring was so important. More than once, the bible gives a list – a genealogy to show the lineage of a person. Having many sons was a mark of honor. This black African man will have no sons. He has reached the top. He is in charge of the treasury of the queen so he has money and power but no one to pass it on to. We don’t know from the text, but maybe we can speculate that whatever motivated him to make this long and dangerous and difficult journey was a hunger for something that money and power could not give him.

There were rules for worshiping in the temple and the rules had a purpose. You couldn’t just show up and talk to God because of sin. Some kind of cleansing had to happen. For example, Mozaic law said that if you touched a dead body, you had to stay away from the temple for a certain amount of time. 

But some of these rules permanently excluded people. One of these was castration. A Eunuch could not ever go in to the temple.

So, he turned the chariot around and headed back home. But on the way, he is poring over the scroll of Isaiah. The words “Who can speak of his descendants? may have spoken to him. Has it ever happened to you, that you are reading the bible and it seems as though a particular passage is speaking directly to you? This is from Isaiah 53 and if we read a little further in Isaiah, in 56  he would have read “Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.”

For thus says the Lord: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

How sweet those words must seemed to this lonely man.

We can picture this all happening. The Spirit told Philip to go to this place on this road and then the spirit speaks to Philip again. He tells him to go up to this chariot and stay near it. The wording is weird to me here and it seems like a possible explanation for the phrasing is that the chariot was moving! Philip had to run up to the chariot and keep running along side. It wasn’t until verse 31 that Philip was invited up into the chariot.

I have to stop for a moment and think about what a beautiful picture  this is – here we are riding our chariot through life, looking for answers and the Holy Spirit CHASES us down and finds us!

So Philip basically tells the Ethiopian the good news of Jesus Christ and his immediate response was to want to be baptized!

There is a theory that religion is an extension of culture. That everyone is on their way up the mountain – their culture just means they use different paths to get there. The Buddhists have the eightfold path. The Hindu way to God is the four pillars. Every other religion is based on a man who says – here is the way to God.

But Jesus says, “I am God and I have come to find you.”

You can research and find out that most Hindus live in southeast Asia. Most Buddhists live in east Asia. Most religions stay geographically where they started. No other religion looks like Christianity. Christianity is all over the world. Because the gospel stands above culture. The Holy Spirit can build Christianity within any culture. And in the book of Acts we see over and over how the Holy Spirit nudges people towards people of other races, other cultures, whether they are close by or like the Ethiopian, geographically far away, and without the Holy Spirit, people would have stayed in their own little corner of the world.

Religious rules that place requirements on who can come in, how they have to dress, what they look like, how they navigate their daily lives – those rules exclude people from worship. The Holy Spirit moves past and through all of that.

Think of it like this. If God came down and said here is a list. Do all of these things and you will have salvation, then salvation would be something we accomplished for ourselves. It would be about nothing but laws, lost of rules. To become a Christian, you would have no culture. Everyone would need to look alike, dress alike, speak alike. He gave us the ten commandments. We couldn’t even keep ten laws.

But that isn’t how it works. It is not based on how strong we are, what we look like, how well we obey rules. In 2nd Corinthians 12 Paul writes “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

The gospel is not for people who are strong; it is for the people who know they are not strong, so that we know we are saved by grace and valued by God’s love.

Now the Holy Spirit didn’t just send Philip to this specific person at this specific place. If the Ethiopian man had gone to the temple, he would have experienced church, Jewish style. But he would not have heard the message his heart was in dire need of. The Holy Spirit put this man on this road and had him reading this text at just the right time. He was reading from the heart of the bible. He was divinely placed in a geographical place and a spiritual place and an intellectual place to hear about the servant who became the sacrifice for all of us. The man from Ethiopia understood sacrifice.

Everything comes down to this. We, meaning ALL of humanity, every race, every culture, could not achieve salvation on our own and because God desires that NO one perish, we are given the great commission – to make disciples for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Not for the uniformity of the world, not to make us all look and sound alike, but to bring us back into relationship with God. No one group gets to claim what that should look like.  Through the Holy Spirit, the gospel transcends differences and levels the playing field. We are all, like the eunuch, excluded from the presence of God because of our sin.

The work of Jesus Christ on the cross, the substitutional sacrifice, makes us holy. We can’t do it ourselves any more than the eunuch could have changed his condition. If you KNOW someone has died to save you it changes you and it changes how you relate to that person. The Ethiopian man went home forever changed and because of what might look like a chance encounter on the road, the gospel spread to Africa. In fact, there are 11 churches carved into the rock in the town of Lalibela in Ethiopia. They date from the 7th to the 13th centuries. Because of this divine link, Ethiopia became one of the earliest nations to adopt Christianity.

If we continue to listen for and then obey the nudges of the Holy Spirit, who knows what the Holy Spirit might do through us. The sky, or Heaven…is the limit. Amen?

Father, we thank you that Your spirit wants all racial and cultural barriers removed and that through the power of the Holy Spirit that lives in each one of us, we can break those barriers. We pray that we will listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit and obey so that we, in response to all that Jesus did for us, will be able to live as a changed people, working for peace and healing and justice in this world as we follow the footsteps of Your son, who came not to be served but to serve and gave His life for all of us. In His name we pray. Amen.

I don’t know, what I don’t know.

Scripture

John 2:13-22

Jesus Clears the Temple Courts

13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”[a] 18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

Prayer

Father, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts, lead us to life with You in the center.

Sermon

Our church is so blessed. We have heard Mark exhort us to love one another and then show us what the bible says that looks like. We have heard Bob speak on seeking peace and truth and how the only place we can find it is in the hope we have in Jesus and that love trumps knowledge. We have heard Cheryel speak about our wilderness places and how God grows us there and the checklist that Jesus gives us for how to live. I look at this wealth we have, being able to listen to all of these teachings. I think about how many years I have been in church and heard The Word and you would think that I would be ready to take the quiz and get my degree in being a Christian. As I get older, I find that I know less and that knowing becomes less important than just walking and talking with God. 

The last time I spoke, it was on a reading from the book of Mark. Mark was action. Mark was all about what Jesus was doing. Today We are in John and John is all about who Jesus IS. 

This week, I read a quote that stuck with me and I want to share it with you. I do not know the author.

“Father forgive me for the times I desired a seat at a table you would have flipped”

I wanted to speak on this passage, not because I understand it, but because I don’t.  This passage jars like no other I have read in the bible. This is angry Jesus. How do I reconcile all of the pictures I have of Jesus. The first bible song I ever learned was Jesus Loves Me! Jesus who tells stories to make us think. Jesus who healed a leper. Jesus who laughed at the wedding and then turned water into wine. Jesus who walked on water and summoned the little children to come to Him. Jesus who willingly died on the cross for each of us. It is just hard for me to picture this angry Jesus. I read commentaries. I read and re-read the passage. I read the text surrounding the passage. and you know what? All I got was MORE uncertain!  Angry Jesus.  What am I supposed to do with that??

I tend to read references to the Jews and especially to the Pharisees as though they are bad. This passage at first glance seems to point to Jesus indicting the Jews and Pharisees for their abuse of the temple. I don’t think it is a difficult assumption to make. Even in bible story books for children with illustrations, I can remember Pharisees being portrayed with squinty evil eyes and leering smiles. And it seems like it was always the Pharisees that were questioning and plotting against Jesus. I always considered them “others”. Not us. Not like me.

The line in this scripture: “Zeal for your house will consume me” comes from Psalm 69 which is attributed to David who was…a Jew. 

What I have come to realize, is that I cannot fit Jesus into the Jesus shaped box that I have. Do any of you have one of those?

We can make the argument that the poor were being taken advantage of in a place of worship.  But who were the poor? Many were non-Jews relegated to the outer courts.

We can even talk about the fact that Jesus did not have a raging fit. He took the time to make a whip out of cords. I wonder if He was thinking while he made that whip, about exactly what he was going to do and why He was going to do it.

We can talk about this being the event that put Jesus on a trajectory that led to His arrest and crucifixion which was ordained to happen.

The Jewish people welcomed gentiles into the outer court of the Jerusalem temple so that box that informs what I have always understood as the role of “The Jews” in the New Testament and their treatment of Gentiles gets a little blurry. If the Jews welcomed the gentiles which we know just means anyone who is other than Jewish, into the holiest place in Judaism then why would I think that the focus of Jesus’ anger was specifically the Jews?  Is that because I assume that the people selling doves and changing money were Jewish?  Nowhere does it specify that. It gets a little confusing when you remember that the Jews from the old testament are commanded to love the poor, the widow and the resident aliens. Gentiles would be the resident aliens. Maybe we need to take more than a second look at some of these passages.  We don’t know, because we are not told, but it is plausible that Jesus was not the only one who looked on what was happening in the church with dismay.  

I am not certain. And I think it is fine to be uncertain. Not about bedrock beliefs. I believe all of the parts of the Apostles Creed. That lines out our basic theology. But we learn who Jesus is and who we are through the parables and the writing of the gospels and the Epistles. How often have we read about Jesus saying, I know you have heard – fill in the blank, but I say – usually something that makes the hearer question their understanding of something they had thought they had a grasp on all of their lives. We read these scriptures through the lens of the present and we each bring our own emotions and life situations to these readings. without having a clear picture of the people who were hearing the words in their time and we, well at least I, nod my head and think “I get it. I understand this.” And then I move on.

One of the most comforting conversations I have ever had with a pastor was at Walk to Emmaus years ago. It was a time when pastors were available for you to talk with and to pray with you. I had questions. And they were serious questions that weighed on my heart. I was shaking even as I asked. Because they had to do with my dad and heaven. My dad had not stepped foot in church for years unless someone was getting married or buried.  I poured my heart out and was all set for this poor pastor, bless his heart, to give me the answers. Back then I believed that pastors had the equivalent of the Teachers manual of the bible. You know – the one that has the answers in the back?  But that was not the result. This poor guy looked at me when I was finished and it took him a few moments to answer. I know he was thinking hard about this. He knew that his answer was going to have a direct effect on my faith. When I think back, I think, what a burden I placed on this poor man’s shoulders. He took my hand and he quietly said, “I don’t know. But I will pray with you.” I would like to tell you that the words he prayed are still with me but I could not tell you a single word he said before we ended with Amen. What I do remember is that in that moment, I realized that there are some things that I just have to trust God about without having certainty. And that sometimes the most profoundly comforting thing that can happen to us is to have someone hold our hand and admit, that they don’t know either.

So maybe not understanding this angry Jesus is actually a good thing. Maybe being uncertain is a gift I can offer to God because as long as I am uncertain, God can still teach me. As long as I am willing to look at the tables I wish I could sit at and ask the question, is this a table Jesus would flip? Maybe I have a better chance of navigating this earthly world and holding on to the hand that I need most – the hand of our savior, Jesus.

Because Jesus constantly challenges us by refusing to fit in our Jesus shaped box. As soon as I think I KNOW who Jesus is, He comes knocking on my heart either through a part of a scripture that I have glossed over, or through a friend saying something that makes me rethink my certainty, or a quote pops up that just will not get out of my head until I figure out why it is sticking. In those moments, I get a fresh perspective on my faith.

We all have different relationships with different people. There is our family who knows one aspect of us. Maybe a best friend who sees us as being like minded. Co-workers see the professional. We show more or less of our true selves as relationships and trust grow.  The more we get to know someone, the more comfortable we are and the more apt we are to be ourselves. The more comfortable we are with being ourselves maybe the more we learn about the other person and…ourselves. The more time we spend with Jesus, the more open our hearts become to who He is and who we are IN Him. 

You see, I think (I think! I am not certain) Jesus wanted to make a point in a very dramatic way. He was saying you are not worshipping God. You have made the church into a collection of rules and business that copies the world instead of being a place to gather and manifest the kingdom of God on earth by loving, healing, feeding, teaching, worshipping, and caring for the widow, the poor, and the resident alien. The problem is not so much what you are doing. The problem is where is your heart?? Maybe He was saying that sometimes, you have to get rid of the things that are weighing you down, that are of the world, before you can rebuild not in the Jesus shaped box you wanted, but in the much bigger kingdom that He is bringing to earth and that He alludes to when He speaks of the temple you destroy, that He will raise again in three days. There was a Jesus shaped tomb that He knew was waiting for Him but He also knew that He would not be staying there. Every time we try to make Jesus stay put, He gets up to some kind of saving business that changes us and blows our little box to pieces.

Romans 12:1-2 says  I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Paul doesn’t say, read the book, write a five page book report and you will graduate. He says we are to be transformed by the renewal of our minds, testing and discerning. Lucky for me at least, there is not a time limit on that assignment. It is not an end, it is a process.

So here is my challenge to you. Read a parable this week. Any parable. Read it carefully and intentionally and ask questions. What am I missing.  I will even give you an example that challenged me. In the parable of the prodigal son, Luke 15: 20-28 (excerpted.)

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate.  For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

 â€œMeanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on.  ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

“The older brother became angry and refused to go in.

I have always focused on the younger son and how wonderful it was that he is redeemed and restored to his family. I always thought the older son was a bit of a brat, sort of throwing a fit because of how it all played out. The part I never payed attention to is the dynamic that happens in 22- through 25. The dad had time to call the caterer, hire a band, invite all his friends before telling his older son.  I am not saying the older son was all sweetness and light. But reading this little detail makes me think maybe he had a little bit more of a legitimate right to his feelings than I previously thought. I always had a picture of the father as a metaphor for God, welcoming the repentant sinner with open arms but what if the dad was supposed to be just a guy who thought he was doing the right thing but in the process of regaining one son, completely lost another? I completely dismissed that aspect of the story because I was focused on one thing and I was certain I understood. What if the focus of this parable is what did the father miss? What are we missing? Who have we not counted? And just to throw another little detail question in there…where is mom? No mention of her anywhere. How often do we do something with loving intentions with an unexpected result because we missed something?

What table have you wished to sit at? What would you bring to that table? Who would NOT be sitting there with you? What box have you tried to fit Jesus into? Who are the resident aliens in your life that you are commanded to love? As we walk through Holy Week and follow Jesus to the cross, I would leave you with this thought. If you were one of the disciples walking this last week of Jesus life and you knew He would be leaving, what would you ask Him?

In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed, Father if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Dad if there is another way, let’s do that. He finished with not as I will but as you will. 

Jesus took his gift of questions to His Father, and still, trusted. Isn’t it funny, that the disciples – Jesus’ bffs, missed this exchange because they fell asleep, but we get to witness this intimate conversation between the Father and the Son!

Prayer

Will you pray with me?

Father we thank you for Your gift of Your Son who is still teaching us how to live. We thank you for the gift of Your living Word that sometimes comforts and sometimes shakes us to the core. We thank you for reminding us to pay attention, to stay awake, even as we fall asleep and miss what you are trying to say. For those moments, Father, we thank you for your unending grace and trust that you will not leave us asleep, that while we now see through a mirror darkly, you will make all things clear and right in Your time. We thank you for time knowing that you want everyone to come to you and Lord, I know I am one of those who needs that extra time. We thank you for Your church and how you are constantly challenging us to seek You because of all the things we are unsure of we know that Your son is the way, the truth, and the life and we can cling to His hand in the midst of our uncertainty. Wake us up, flip our tables, turn our attention back to You. This week, we remember just how far You have gone to make sure that we know you – all the way to the cross and through the grave to Your Glory. May that always and forever stop us from thinking we are standing firm and put us on our knees before You in awe of that amazing love. May we always, in our uncertainty, trust in You.

Amen

Scripture

Mark 1:29-39

And immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.  Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her.  And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons.  And the whole city was gathered together at the door.  And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.  And Simon and those who were with him searched for him,  and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.”  And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.”  And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Sermon

Good morning! Thank you Mark for all that you do and for sharing your pulpit.  Thank you David for working to keep our technology able to connect with our community! I miss seeing all of you face to face and I am so hopeful, as more and more people get vaccinated, that our numbers will go down and we can resume meeting. If you have not gotten signed up for vaccination and need help with the process, please contact me and I will help. We miss being together! If you are joining us online this morning, thank you. Say hello back in the comments! 

If you watched the last time I spoke here at Powderly (and if you didn’t it is still on our Powderly Facebook page for January 3rd) You know that I spoke about Ephesians 3 and the work of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. You know from that scripture that we are all chosen, adopted, accepted, redeemed, and helped. God loves us so much that He didn’t leave us standing alone, waiting to be picked. Waiting to be part of a family. 

But chosen for what? I know God picked me for something! I am on the team now, but what do I do? Follow Jesus!

Today we are going to be talking about the reading from the book of Mark. Because the gospel of Mark is all about what Jesus is doing and if we want to be like Jesus, one way to do that is to learn about what He did.

 The four gospels give us different pictures of Jesus. Each writer had their own perspective and focused on a way to see Jesus through their eyes. 

John walks us through how Jesus is the Son of God. Matthew talks about Jesus’ kingship. Luke shows us more of the human side of Jesus. But Mark? Mark is like an action movie version of Jesus. He doesn’t even start with the birth narrative. Mark jumps right in with Jesus being full grown, baptized, tested, and then zooms right into His ministry. We don’t even have a commercial break with time to make some popcorn. If you take your eyes off the reading for a moment, you may miss something! In fact, as you read the book of Mark, you will come across the phrase “and immediately” about forty times. 

Jesus calls his disciples and starts healing and preaching. Mark 10:45 gives us a hint at the theme for the whole book of Mark. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

So, by the time we get to today’s verse in Mark, Jesus has already been baptized, spent forty days in the desert, walked a lot of miles, called his disciples, preached with authority, healed the sick, and cast out demons. I don’t know about you but I’m tired just reading all that and we are still only in Mark 1! 

But Mark seems to be making a point with all this activity and immediacy. Jesus’ ministry is more than parables and words. It involves all the ways in which He makes God’s Kingdom visible. He lets us see what God’s reign looks like and the real effects that it has on the lives of people. People are delivered. People are forgiven. People are restored to community. People are healed. 

Right before our reading today, Jesus was in the synagogue teaching and he cast out the demons from a man. Now He is at the home of Simon and Andrew and he heals a woman with a fever. In a way, that shows us that ministry has a wide range. From teaching, to healing, to visiting, to men, to women and so much more. At sundown people found Jesus. Jesus didn’t need to go out and find people – they came searching for Him, knowing that He was the forgiveness, the deliverance, the restoration to community and the healing.

Later we find Jesus withdrawing even from His friends, to solitude to pray. Throughout the New Testament Jesus often prays.  What a wonder that conversation with God must have been. I wonder if words were even needed. Sometimes we just need to sit at God’s feet. 

The disciples found Him and Jesus was ready to move on with His ministry. He could have stayed there and people would probably have continued to find him. The needs of the people were great. But it would seem that the example of ministry here is that it is not cemented to one place or to one specific group of people. Jesus knows his purpose. 

Let’s back up a bit, to when they first arrived at Peter’s house. The reading says that immediately they told Jesus about Peter’s mother-in-law and He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them. Jesus ministry was not just words and parables, remember? Jesus was all about hands on. In Jesus’ time, people believed that illness was often closely connected to sin. So to be ill was suspect. “How did you sin that God would do this to you?” In our time, fever is often no big deal. You take some medicine and you get better. But in Jesus’ time, they had no baby aspirin or tylenol or antibiotics. Fever would have been more serious. So what doesn’t seem like a big deal to us as we read this,  may have had a completely different view for the people of that time. 

What did Jesus do? He took her by the hand and lifted her up. That phrasing reminds me of Moses in Exodus 14:16 “Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground.”

It reminds me of John 12:32 “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.”

What was the woman’s response? She began to serve them. 

I thought about gratitude and I get curious sometimes, about the origin of words. So I looked into how we got the phrase “thank you”. It comes from the word “think” meaning I will remember what you did for me. In Portugese, the word is obrigado which means an obligation or “I am in your debt. In French, the word is Merci which means I am at your mercy. 

And so we serve. As the hymn says, we serve a risen savior. If we follow the example of Peter’s mother-in-law, we don’t just serve Jesus – we serve them! All. Each other. And I want to thank you! I want to thank our pastor Mark and his wife Marion who have continued to serve throughout the pandemic. I want to thank David for being so faithful to keep us able to reach out online. I want to thank those of you who have continued to help with Meals on Wheels, with the food pantry, with keeping our finances straight, ordering supplies, for texting out the prayer chain to keep people informed, for keeping communication open for Celebrate Recovery. I want to thank our other lay speakers. What a blessing. I want to thank those of you who have checked on each other and encouraged each other and lifted others up. I know that I am leaving some folks out.  I want to just celebrate you for serving in whatever way you have been a disciple and it doesn’t have to be an official activity. It may have just been being Jesus for someone in a moment of need. 

Because that is how we make the kingdom of God visible in the world. We are all chosen, adopted, accepted, redeemed, and helped and so we respond with saying Thank you, I will remember what you did and are doing for me. I am in your debt, Jesus, because you have had mercy on me. We know that in our own power, we can do nothing that will have any lasting effect, and so we pray, because we need that connection to God. We need God to take us by the hand and lift us up so that we can see how and when to serve each other because in serving each other we are living out discipleship. We are doing what can seem like a new thing, but maybe it is not so much new, as being restored to who we were created to be. 

We can look at this as four relationships in order. Our relationship with God (our faith), our relationship with others (community), our relationship with the world (stewardship) and our relationship with ourselves (wholeness) When those relationships get out of order, we have problems. When we serve out of obligation, we are servants, but when we serve out of discipleship, we are living out the gospel. We are living to the one who created and chose us, we are in community with all others who like us, were created in Their image – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are caring for the rest of His creation, and we are growing ourselves to be whole and towards holiness – human in the way we were always meant to be. We are accepting God’s invitation to take part in His kingdom.  We are saying a loud and heartfelt THANK YOU! 

Amen? Amen.

Ephesians 1:3-14

1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

1:4 just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.

1:5 He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will,

1:6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace

1:8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight

1:9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ,

1:10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

1:11 In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will,

1:12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory.

1:13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit;

1:14 this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

Sermon

This reading in Ephesians is so beautiful that you could just read it and soak it in. As you read, you can almost feel the joy and praise in Paul’s heart as he wrote this letter to the church at Ephesus. So this morning I want to unpack some of this letter, but I hope that you will go back and just read it through to yourself at some point and substitute your name for the words “us” and “our” as you read it. Just to get a little perspective.

So let’s look at these verses because there is a lot of theology in here. Just to break it into pieces we will look at verses 3 through 6 as being the work of God the Father.

3-6 Work of God the Father

The Father has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. What kind of blessings? Where are they? We are thankful for so many things. For our family, for our home. For food on our table. But those are all earthly things. They are external and can be lost. But how much more thankful for a new heart? How much better than earthly food is to be filled with Christ, something that is never fattening, will not raise your Cholesterol, and you will never need to eat again! And it cannot burn up, be stolen, or be broken. We can have it always and forever!

There was a story that I heard once about an elderly couple who were found dead in their apartment. An autopsy was done and it was discovered that the couple died from malnutrition. What a sad story, a poor couple, with nothing to eat. What is even sadder is that they later found over 40,000 dollars squirrelled away in a closet in their apartment. They had all the resources they needed but they lived as though those resources didn’t exist!

We are blessed by God, chosen, adopted and redeemed! Not someday when we get to heaven but right now, it was done before the foundation of the world! 

Some of us may be dying of spiritual malnutrition, not because we don’t have resources, but because we have left them in a closet! We take them out on Sunday for church or when something catastrophic happens. But the resources are always there 24-7.

Paul wanted the church at Ephesus to understand that these blessings were available to them as they are to us, and they and us are to apply them to our lives every day, all the time! To apply them, We need to understand them. Paul says we need to know who we are in Christ. The first thing that Pauls says we are is:

Chosen! 

Some of you may have been athletic when you were young. The only athletic thing I could do was run. I was 5’ 10’ in Junior high school and a lot like an Irish Setter puppy. My limbs grew too fast for me to get the hang of using them. When it came to playing games that included choosing sides, I was often the last one picked. Everyone knew I was a klutz. For a kid, that is painfully humiliating. The few times that someone was kind enough to choose me, I was so very grateful. So, what does this mean to us? I would love to say that being chosen gave me that extra boost of self-confidence and I played the kickball game of my life but while I certainly tried harder because I didn’t want to disappoint my friends, I was still a klutz. But I was in the game.  

It doesn’t matter how many times you have messed up, you were picked by God. It doesn’t matter if you think you have nothing to offer that God can use, God picked you! It doesn’t matter what you do for a living, how much money you have or don’t have, how smart you are, how old you are, or even how clumsy you are. God picked you!! The only time I can remember being picked first, it was because my best friend was one of the team captains and when she picked me first, I knew that I mattered more to her than winning the game. I was valued. I was important to her and it had nothing to do with how athletic I was. God picked us. You are valued by God. It wasn’t because of you. It wasn’t because you earned it. YOU are in the game! Now once I was chosen to be on the team, I still had to actually play. I was picked but my response was to participate. I had to participate in what the team was doing. 

What did God choose us for? It wasn’t for kickball. What did the letter to Ephesus tell us? “tto be holy and without blame before Him in love” And here is where it gets a little confusing. Maybe confusing isn’t the right word. Mystery. This is part of the mystery. On the one hand, you were chosen for no reason. Yet, you were also chosen for a reason – to be holy and blameless. Now I know personally that there is no way I can be holy and blameless on my own. Far far from it. But we will talk more about that a little later. 

First, let’s see who else does Paul say we are in Christ? 

We are adopted. 

In biblical times, when Romans adopted someone, they first had to free them so they were a citizen. Sometimes there would be no heir so adoption was the only way to continue the family line. Once adopted, they brought all their possessions and descendents with them and they became heirs with full access to all that being a member of the family included. As a parent, you know that whatever you are doing, your kids have access to you, like no one else does. It doesn’t matter what you have going on in your life, if your kids need you, you will drop what you are doing and get to them. That is the kind of access we have. We are not just on the team, we are in the family! Paul tells us in Galations 4:7 “Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” Just think about that for a minute. You have the ear of the creator of the universe! Abba, papa, daddy, you have His heart, you are on His mind. He picked you, He adopted you, and you are family!

So are you spending time with Him? Like a family member? Are you submitting to what He has for you? Because God is always doing something, and you are on the team. When you are family, you pay attention! You think about your family. You are in the family. You are invited to participate in what the creator of the world is doing! 

Something else to think about. That person that cut you off in traffic? They too are chosen. That person who doesn’t look like you, dress like you, live like you? They too are adopted. That makes them your family. Your brother or sister. They too are invited to participate in kingdom living! Maybe part of that holy and blameless stuff has to do with that…how we treat our family.

Why did God adopt us? Paul says because it pleased Him. God chose you and adopted you just because it pleased Him!

What is the next thing Paul says we are in Christ?

We are accepted! 

Not only are you in the family. You are not the black sheep of the family! 

See, I think that some of us think that God sees us as that person no one wants to pick for the team. Some of us think that God sees us as that one family member, who when they walk in on a holiday, everyone inwardly groans.. That perhaps God sees us as that one annoying neighbor, who when their number shows up on caller ID, everyone acts like they had their phone turned off.  We may think even when we pray, that we are heard as that great aunt that tells the same stories over and over. No! 

That may be hard for some of us to really take in. Maybe you feel like you have let Him down one too many times. Maybe you think you made too many wrong choices. Maybe you have been lonely and you are starting to wonder if He is even there! But precious people ,we are clothed in Christ. God sees us as acceptable because of Jesus.

You may think, “I am a sinner, how can God love me?” But there is another thing that Paul says we are in Christ! And that brings us to verses 7 and 8.

7-8 The work of God the Son

We are redeemed! 

Remember earlier, I said that in Roman adoption, a slave had to be freed before they could be adopted? A Roman would have to purchase a slave and go through the legal process of freeing that slave in order to adopt them. Redemption comes from the Latin word redimere, a combination of re(d)-, meaning “back,” and emere, meaning “buy.” Paul uses the word redeem to describe what God the Son did for us.We were slaves to sin and God went through the legal process to buy us to set us free!

These verses tell us what He bought us with.  We are told in the old testament that the punishment for sin is death. In the old testament it was the sacrifice of animals but that only covered sin. It was temporary. People had to sacrifice every year. In the new testament, we learn of the Messiah, who went to the cross to pay for the sins of all of us, once and for all. We are set free, but not to do whatever we want. We are set free from the bondage of sin. We are set free from the Law and guilt. We don’t have to try to work our way into heaven, never knowing for sure if we have done enough, never knowing for sure that there isn’t some sin that we forgot about. Never knowing for sure if we have pleased God. God the Father chose you! God the Father adopted you! God the Father accepted you! And through God the Son, He redeemed you!

13-14 The work of the Holy Spirit

We Have help!

All the way back to creation, we see that God steps into chaos and creates something beautiful – “the world was without form and void and then  the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water.” That same spirit of God that moved upon the face of the water is moving in our world and that Spirit steps into our chaos, and makes us into something beautiful. Through His grace, we trade ashes for beauty! That same spirit, when you first believed, when you heard this gospel, this good news about your salvation, you were sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit, now lives within us and is our helper, our comforter. The work of God, the Holy Spirit, active in the world, active in us, present right now, not in some distant future, not when we all get to heaven, not somewhere beyond the clouds, but right here, right now, in you, in me. We are all chosen, adopted, accepted, redeemed. God loves us so much that He didn’t leave us standing alone, waiting to be picked. Waiting to be part of a family. 

Verse 14 says “this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.” 

Romans 5: 6-8 NIV Version says it like this:

⁶ You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  

We were powerless. But God….God demonstrated – He acted! He did something!  

In Hebrews 13:5 we are told “I will never leave you nor forsake you” 

Because of Jesus we don’t have to wonder if we are good enough. We don’t have to wonder if God loves us. We don’t have to wonder about our salvation. This is the promise of God. Through God’s grace and for His glory, God the Son, Jesus Christ is our reassurance from our Father, that with the very present help of God the Holy Spirit, the kingdom is here and we are a part of it, He will not leave us, and that my friends, is very Good News! Glory to God our Creator, Father, Savior, and Comforter!

Amen? Amen!

Call To Worship

The spirit of the Lord God is coming!
He brings good news to the oppressed, heals the broken-hearted, and sets the captive free!
The spirit of the Lord God anoints us!
We proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor!
Worship the one who clothes us with garments of salvation!
We come to worship the Lord our God!

Opening Prayer

Proclamation of Scripture
Prayer for Illumination: Guide us, O God, by your Word, and Holy Spirit, that in your light we may see light, in your truth find freedom, and in your will discover peace; through Christ our Lord Amen

Old Testament Reading

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion– to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory.

They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. For I the LORD love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the LORD has blessed.

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations. 

Epistle Reading

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil. May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this. 

Gospel Reading

John 1:6-8, 19-28
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,'” as the prophet Isaiah said. Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing. 

Sermon
Last week at Powderly and Chicota, I talked about how God calls us in the wilderness and how we are also voices that cry out in the wilderness. I talked about how waiting can be hard and we think sometimes that God is silent and far away. But we are reminded that God waited a thousand years after King David and four hundred years after the last prophet Malacchi to bring a messiah. 

The voice in the wilderness tells us to prepare the way of the Lord. 

This week, we get some insight into how to do that.

Sometimes, all we have are our words. But words can be powerful.  John knew this. He was a master at telling the story of Jesus in a way that would make Jesus live for those who listened.

William Barclay speaks of how words to the Jews, were more than a mere sound. They had life and power. He has a quote in his commentary on John about “a man who performed a heroic act and found it impossible to tell his fellow tribesman for lack of words – whereupon there arose another “afflicted with the necessary magic of words”, and he told a story in terms so vivid and so moving that the words came alive and walked up and down in the hearts of his hearers.”

The old testament is filled with the power of words. Remember when Isaac blessed Jacob instead of Esau, there was nothing he could do to take that blessing back. The words had gone out and begun to act. We see in creation, the Word of God, in action. All through Genesis we read “And God said..” And it was so. Words have power.

In our old testament reading we can pull out some wonderful words. Those words were meant for a people that had been in exile and now are returning to a home they no longer know. Remember that their entire existence was tied to being God’s people and living in the land God promised them. They were not just exiled from their geography. They lost their identity! They are navigating uncharted waters. Isaiah uses words like comfort, build up, raise, repair. Words of hope for a future. A cycle of wilderness and homecoming. Isaiah tells the people that their descendants will be known among the nations so the blessing is not just for the hearers, but for future generations. For a people that has been living in exile, these must have been hopeful words indeed!

Then we move to the gospel of John and John tells us of one who is not the light, but comes to testify to the light. When the priest and Levites – the church folks…asked John who he was, he had an answer ready. That answer was interesting. Instead of saying who he was, he told them who he was not. And knowing who we are not is on the way to knowing who we are.

We are not the Messiah. We are not prophets. But we can bind up the broken-hearted that are placed in our path. We can show those who are bound that they will be released and if possible? Hold the gate open. We can live in a way that points to the light, to the One who is coming, who’s sandal, like John, we are not fit to untie. Cycles of wilderness and homecoming, light and dark, crucifixion and resurrection,  and how we are to live between. 

There are at least one hundred references to light in the bible. 

Genesis 1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good”

Isaiah 42:16  And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.   

John 12:36   While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them.
Ecclesiastes 2:13 Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness.

Matthew 6:22-23 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

Psalm 119:130 The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.           

This year things are different. We decorate our sanctuary, anyway. Family can’t gather the way they usually do. We can decorate our trees and our homes, anyway. This year I put my Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving. We often have the lights on in the evening. I needed that extra cheer this year. I needed that extra light! And if I needed that light, how much more do people who are suffering this year. From Covid, from isolation, from loss of income, from anxiety about the future? 

Christmas may LOOK different this year. Church may look different. But as we look forward to the celebration of the birth of our Savior in a dark and broken world, let us remember that in Him there is hope. In Him, there is light. We are called to be sons of that light. Christians called to be little Christs. We are to give birth to the Savior within ourselves. 

So what is on the outside may be pretty. The lights on our tree, the decorations in our church, are traditions that mean a lot to us. We look back to Christmas past, to when we were kids, or to when our children were small. Maybe there is a silly gift that has been passed on through the years, a special ornament, a special dish that your family always has to eat. Those things are a part of our stories, the words that conjure up pictures of our lives.

For many people, the reality of Christmas doesn’t measure up to the picture in their minds or on tv. This year especially, Christmas is not what we have been used to. For many, this year, Christmas will mark a time of grief. 

Those pictures we hold dear in our hearts of Christmas are not bad. The building we worship in, the hymns we miss singing, being able to gather and eat together, none of those things are bad. 

But they are not the light. So if those things are temporarily missing does that mean we stop pointing to that light? That we don’t celebrate Christmas? That we stop being the church? No! We just find new ways.

The church is bigger than the building, and the light is greater than the dark.  

Psalm 126  says When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.” The LORD has done great things for us, and we rejoiced. Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the watercourses in the Negeb. May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves. 

Galatians 6:2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Micah 6:8 “what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

And our reading from Thessalonians: Rejoice always, and pray without ceasing….test everything; hold fast to what is good

We bear the seeds for sowing, and come home with shouts of joy.

The letter to Thessalonica is a happy letter. The church that Paul and Timothy planted there was growing. The members were loving on another, they were holding to their beliefs even under persecution. So Paul writes to encourage them. He commends them for their good example, reminds them of Christ’s return and then goes on to list the ways that they can grow more and more in their faith until that day comes. Paul never says, hey Thessalonica, you are good. You are done. Nope. He tells them they are doing good and then he gives them homework! What that looks like may change with the seasons of our lives but we never stop growing. We are never done with our homework, not until, what did Paul say? “May your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” 

We are in uncharted waters. You. Me. Even our pastor. He went to school to learn how to preach to filled pews. To gather people together in fellowship. To do – what? Pastoral care. No pastor, preacher, or priest, trained for how to do church in the time of covid. This means that we are ALL learning as we go along. We are all in the wilderness. We all need the light to help us find our way. So let’s light up our homes, light up our sanctuary, Be the light for each other, because in the light, in the sowing of the seeds that have been planted in us, is where we grow closer to and more like Jesus and that is where we will find joy. Just this morning I read Adam Hamilton saying he was ending his sermon today with this question and so I am shamelessly stealing it. Emmanuel means God with us – who has been Emmanuel to you? Who have you been Emmanuel for? God is drawing near. Let’s get ready!

Blessing

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen

Music – Judy Moffett

Call To Worship
Leader: God says, “Comfort, o Comfort my people”
People: We are busy, worried, stuck in traffic!
Leader: God says, “Get up to a high mountain and shout the good news!”
People: We trudge along, looking for joy in long held traditions!
Leader: But through it all, we are carried in the bosom of God”
People: We wait with patience, for God is with us even now!

Opening Prayer

Presentation of Advent Liturgy

Readings

Speak: Comfort, O Comfort my people, says your God” Isaiah 40:1

Light the second candle – the candle of peace

Read: Isaiah 40:1-11

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever. Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” See, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

Reflect: Isaiah calls the people to get up to a high mountain. For generations, people have cried out as Isaiah does that the paths are crooked, the valleys too far down, the mountains too high. We fear stumbling on uneven stretches of the journey. What if we could see it all from God’s perspective, that through it all God is the source of eternal peace?

Do: Each time you set out on a road or a pathway today, pause and ask God to grant you peace. Driving to work, walking into the office, or taking the dog for a walk, remember God’s promise of peace.

Pray: God of our journeys, whether we walk with purpose or wander without clear direction, whether we are in a valley or on the mountaintop, grant us your eternal peace. Amen
Proclamation of Scripture 
Prayer for illumination
May our hearts rejoice, as we recall God’s deeds in the reading of God’s holy Word. Amen

Epistle Reading
2 Peter 3:8-15a

But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him.

Gospel Reading 
Mark 1:1-8

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'” John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 

This is the Word of God for the people of God
Thanks be to God

Music Judy Moffit

Sermon

We are moving deeper into the season of Advent on the church calendar. A time when we look forward to the birth of the savior. We have an opportunity this year, as in no other, to reflect on what this really means to each of us personally. What happens to our faith in that Savior, when everything we are used to, is stripped away. What if face to face church is shut down again before Christmas. We are so tied to our traditions that sometimes the traditions seem more important than Jesus himself. We get comfortable and I don’t know about you, but I like comfort.

What traditions are we hanging tight to and what does it mean? I love this little church. I love that we help our community. I love that the people of this congregation are willing to give, of their time, their tithes, their talents. to help each other and to help others. We are held together with the glue of our relationships, our community, family, and faith. These are days when some of that glue seems to be a little thin sometimes. Not because we lost our desire. But we lost our normal ways of living those things out. We can’t hug, we can’t sing, we have to be careful about gathering. We can’t enjoy a meal together as a church without risk.

Have we measured faith by how many Sundays someone shows up at church? What happens now if we can’t always physically be in the building? If we can’t meet for church we may need a new yardstick.

In the text from Isaiah, A voice cries out “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord”. Not from a place of comfort, prepare the way of the Lord, Not from a place of affluence, not from a place of certainty, not even from a place of strength. IN THE WILDERNESS.

I have never seen a pretty building called wilderness. I have never been in the wilderness and found a cushioned pew to sit on or a pastor wearing a suit and tie. Nowhere in scripture will we find the words thou shalt gather in a building and listen to a sermon and leave your tithe. This is what I require of you. Amen. Nowhere. I’m not saying that we should not come to church if we can safely or that we should not come to church when covid is under control. We were made to be in community.

So what does the reading today tell us we should be doing in the wilderness? Prepare the way of the Lord.

And where did John the Baptist appear? In the wilderness. People were flocking to this odd fellow wearing animal skins and eating bugs,  to be baptized, to repent, and to be forgiven of their sins. Flocking to the wilderness.
A voice says “Cry Out!” And I said ”What shall I cry?” 

Advent is a time of waiting, a time of hope, a time of preparation, and a time of anticipation. We have certainly been waiting. And hoping. Maybe we are running a little thin on anticipation.

But God waited a thousand years after King David to bring the messiah. 400 years after the last prophet, Malachhi prophesied. And then everything that happened was just one surprise after another. God didn’t go down the list and decide on a candidate for the mother of Jesus on the basis of status. She was not a church leader or a megachurch pastor with a huge budget and tons of programming. The mother of the savior of the world was not chosen because her family was financially or socially positioned to be able to provide a good home, a proper Jewish education. This young woman did not live in a cultural city with opportunities for growth and the most up to date medical care available.

The baby Jesus was not born in a hospital. He was not even born at home. In terms of what we think would be needed in getting ready for the birth of a new baby, they would not seem to be prepared! The first people to be told of His birth were not the local leaders of the synagogue so that they could spread the word to the people, plan a church dinner and welcome Jesus into the community. It was shepherds. Poor guys that spent all their time with sheep, probably didn’t smell very good, certainly could not contribute much to fund the ministry of Jesus. Because of the way they lived, they probably could not even go to temple so they were not even regular church attenders!

The actual birth of Jesus takes place and the first visitors to journey to bring Him gifts are some sketchy pagan dream interpreters – not the Methodist Ladies group!

Then there is a census and God sends Joseph and Mary and the infant to Egypt – the very place that God has saved his people from.

We read and re-read the birth narrative every year, we decorate our trees and we have our pretty manger scenes that are all clean and shiny. (Can you imagine what you would look like and smell like after riding a camel across the desert??)

The people of Isaiah’s time cried out and God heard them and spoke and took them home. 

God calls us in the wilderness. He doesn’t call us because of how good we are, or how nicely we are dressed, or how often we attend church. He calls unlikely people to do surprising things, and just when we think we know the rules and that we are doing pretty well, He tells us all our shiny clean is like filthy rags and He sends grace to us. Just when we think we have positioned ourselves where He wants us, He says go to Ninevah and save your enemies. Just when we think we have reached an age where we are too old for ministry, He sends a pastor who nudges you out of your comfort zone and you find yourself speaking in front of the church. Just when we think our exile or wilderness is going to last forever, God gathers us in and speaks Jesus into being in our lives. As soon as we think that too much time has passed and we have gotten comfortable with or just accepted that this is how things are done, He sends an angel to a poor girl and everything that we thought we knew of God is re-imagined. 

Before Jesus, people put God in a box that they could understand. and God took that box, dumped it out and showed the world that He is so much more than we can fit in a box, or a house, or even a church. Here we are thousands of years later and we are still putting God in a box.

The people who heard the words of the prophet Isaiah knew about being kept outside of the box. They had been in exile and now they are leaving their place of exile and returning home. But who are they now? Their lives have changed. They have changed. They married, made a place in the Babylonian society. Figured out ways to live their “new normal” lives in quarantine. They have gotten comfortable in their wilderness. They have gotten used to a society that is all about power and wealth and doesn’t care about the fringe. Now they ARE the fringe. So maybe this return is a little scary. Isaiah gives them words of comfort. God will gather His lambs. 

So maybe one challenge for us this year is to listen for the voice calling in the middle of our pandemic wilderness. Listen for the God who transcends boxes as He calls to us and gathers His lambs. Comfort! O Comfort my people! 

Going forward, how do we prepare the way of the Lord? How do we become the voice that is lifted up? What valleys can we raise and what mountains can we lower to allow God’s voice to come through to ALL His people – to speak Jesus into the lives of all? What can we learn from this time? What voices will we listen to? If we need a new measuring stick what will that look like? 

This Advent season let us be learning, praying, seeking God. Maybe because of Covid, we are not as busy as usual. Maybe Christmas is going to be quiet this year. There may be more solitude than we would like. Let’s use some of that quiet time to ask questions. Start a prayer journal. Do an internet search on a book of the bible. Try typing something like “Jonah outline” in the search box. Look for commentaries on the birth story so we can look from a different perspective – fresh eyes on something that is so familiar. Learn something new. Bring it back to your church family. When we can all safely gather together again, will we as a church be the same? Will that be a good thing? Can we find new ways to connect? I believe we can because we already have! It may seem like this is lasting a long time but remember, God doesn’t want anyone to be left out. Remember the epistle reading. Time is different for God. God isn’t asleep at the wheel. He is waiting for US.  

We are to be “waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God” I thought that phrase was interesting. Isn’t that a picture of preparing for the birth of a child? You do all the things you need to do to be ready and then you still have to wait for the actual birth. The Kingdom of God is coming and the Kingdom of God is here. We wait for it as we become it. We hope for it as we see glimpses of it. We are on our way back to God and like excited children, during Advent, we keep asking “Are we there yet?” 

God is drawing near. Let’s get ready!

The lectionary notes this week contained something that I loved and want to share with you. 

“So, they cried out. And God heard.
And God will bring them home —not necessarily to the home that they envisioned, but to the home that God envisions—the community that God calls us to create. The relationships that fulfill us and connect us—this is the home we seek, all of us. And it is the home we find in Jesus. The child in the manger and the savior on the cross speak of home to us. Home is where we are loved and healed and heard.”

Loved, healed and heard. Those are such beautiful words. It is even more beautiful to experience those things. When God’s people cried out to Him, He heard them and through His great love, He healed them and brought them home. The world cried out to God and He heard and through His son, He poured out His love on us and is bringing us home. We cry out from the wilderness and God responds. We respond by lifting our voices and our lives in praise and making space for others to have that same beautiful relationship. 

My prayer for all of us in this season is that we stop worrying about the box, stop worrying about our traditions, stop worrying about what we have lost. Let us see what we can learn to be in a new way without losing the core of who we are and what we believe, May we feel loved, healed and heard by each other and by God who has been speaking with and to us from creation and still speaks and listens. May we all share a part of that glorious conversation. Amen

Father, as we prepare for the celebration of the birth of Your son, our savior, help us to learn to listen to each other, not just with our ears, but with our hearts because how can we help to heal our world if we don’t understand where the broken places are. Show us how we can connect with each other better as a community as we also draw close to you so that you can draw others. Father, as we grow and learn to listen and heal, help us understand this love that you have given us. We need your grace, we need space to understand how each of us is to live to be found by You, at peace. Sometimes our striving seems more like wandering so help us to keep our eyes on this tiny baby who is the way, the truth and the life that leads us home to you. Amen

Would you pray with me?

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever. Amen

Benediction
Wait for the Lord! God’s righteousness will appear!
We move forward in faith and hope!
Be patient, for God is slow but gracious
We move forward with joy and gratitude!
Make a straight path for the Lord our God!
Through advent, we journey toward Christmas!

Blessing Numbers 6:24-26

‘“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”

All Saints Day
On All Saints Day, we remember all those who have gone on to glory before us. As followers of Christ, we grieve our losses but not the same way that people who have no hope grieve. Looking back on the lives of people who were faithful, helps us to be faithful, even when things seem hopeless. Our reading from Joshua is an example of remembering God’s faithfulness in the past, and how it helped the ancient Israelites and now, helps us to live into the hope of the future in the kingdom of God.

Leader: Come give thanks to God!
People: God’s steadfast love endures forever!
Leader: With holy hands, we are protected!
People: God turns wastelands into beautiful gardens!
Leader: Give thanks to God!
People: God’s steadfast love endures forever!

Opening Prayer
Father, we come to you this morning in gratitude for all the ways your grace has touched us. We celebrate the simple things, a cup of coffee, friends, a sunset. We pray that we will never again take for granted being able to come together to worship you, a hug, a handshake. Oh God of light, you see us as we are, our perfectly, imperfect selves and you love us all the same and invite us, over and over, to meet with you, to trust you, to surrender to your providential care. You are the creator of all, the keeper of promises, the power that uses ordinary things to accomplish your will. Amen
Prayer for Illumination
Prepare our hearts, O God, to accept your Word. Silence in us any voices but your own, so that we may hear your Word and also do it; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Old Testament Reading Joshua 3:7-17

And the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses.  Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: ‘When you reach the edge of the Jordan’s waters, go and stand in the river.’”

Joshua said to the Israelites, “Come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God.  This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites.  See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you.  Now then, choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe.  And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the Lord—the Lord of all the earth—set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap.”

So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them.  Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge,  the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho.  The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground

Epistle Reading 1 Thessalonians 2:9-12

Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you. You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed.  For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children,  encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.

Gospel Reading Matthew 23: 1-12

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples:  “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.  So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.  They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

 â€œEverything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries[a] wide and the tassels on their garments long;  they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues;  they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.

 â€œBut you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers.  And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah.  The greatest among you will be your servant.  For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

This is the Word of God for the people of God
Thanks be to God.

Joshua was the real deal. He had been an aide and companion to Moses from his youth. When the Israelites turned away from God and Moses, Joshua remained a loyal servant to both. He was not involved in the worship of the golden calf and he was one of the only spies sent into the promised land ahead of the people, who returned. At the end of Moses’ life, God chose Joshua to lead the people into the promised land.

The Israelites have wandered, fought, wandered some more. Now they are about to finally move into the promised land. They might have been relieved, maybe rejoicing. They break camp and make the fairly easy trip to the Jordan river only to find that it has flooded! Normally the Jordan river is about 100 feet wide and 3-10 feet deep in the area where the Israelites crossed but it was harvest time so it was wider and deeper and turbulent. This is all approximate, but it gave me a picture in my mind of the Israelites, full of hope and excitement. A long awaited promise about to be fulfilled.

What do they see? A rushing, flooded river. There is undergrowth that is now covered with water, trees, all kinds of things to get snagged on. The current is rushing. They were there for several days so you know they had to be discussing it among themselves. What about our older folks? What about our sick people, our children? What about our possessions? Their initial excitement has been dampened because the goal that appeared to be within reach, just became impossible to reach.

We can relate to these poor folks and put ourselves in their place. How often have you faced a “personal Jordan”? You can see freedom but it is unreachable. How often have you felt like you were stuck and God’s promises felt like they were on the other side of a very deep and wide chasm? We want to walk by faith. We want to have hope, but we are lost in our own wilderness.

We can’t cross the chasm on our own power. What did Joshua and the Israelites do?

Joshua listened to the Lord. He took his eyes off the chasm and he focused on the ONE who could part the water.

Joshua brought others along with him. He shared his faith with the people and his life testified to that faith.

Joshua trusted God, even as he was looking at what seemed like an insurmountable obstacle.

Joshua obeyed God, even when he could not see the outcome, even when things looked hopeless. 

There was beautiful symbolism in the instructions that were given. They were instructed to carry the Ark of the covenant ahead of the people. Why would this be important? Hebrews 9:4 states that the Ark contained “the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant.”

 The stone tablets were a symbol of God’s relationship with the Israelites, that they were set apart. The manna is a reminder of God’s provision. The dead stick that grew leaves shows God’s ability to use whatever He will to display His power. Covenant, Provision, and Power.

The top of the Ark is described in Exodus 25:17-22  “Make an atonement cover of pure gold—two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide. And make two cherubim out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover.  Make one cherub on one end and the second cherub on the other; make the cherubim of one piece with the cover, at the two ends.  The cherubim are to have their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim are to face each other, looking toward the cover.  Place the cover on top of the ark and put in the ark the tablets of the covenant law that I will give you. There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the covenant law, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites.

Psalm 80:1 Hear us, Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock.
You who sit enthroned between the cherubim, shine forth

The cover of the Ark was gold and God would meet them between the Cherubim. It was called an atonement or the mercy seat. This gives us a picture of a foreshadowing of Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, who died as an atonement for our sins.

God would go before the nation into the promised land, and with God’s Covenant, Provision, and Power, the people would follow. 

This news is as the letter Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, encouraging, comforting and urging all of us to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory. In our reading from Matthew, Jesus is speaking to people who have grown up, knowing the story of Joshua and the crossing the river Jordan into the promised land. They know about the mercy seat. Jesus speaks of another seat. The Moses seat. This was a special chair of honor in the synagogue, reserved for the one who taught with authority. This teacher had the same authority as Moses, to interpret the law. Jesus told the people to be careful to do everything the teacher said, but not what the Pharisees do. There is such a glaring contrast to what Paul said in his letter about them not being a burden to anyone – In Matthew, they (the Pharisees) tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. 

I have been watching a show called Anne with an E on Netflix. It is loosely based on the Anne of Green Gables books. Something will happen and the character will have what seems like an over the top reaction. Then there will be a flashback, as the character remembers a specific incident from their past that explains their reaction to the present situation. I told my husband one night as we were watching, that I wished we had those little flashback film bites when people act in ways that surprise us so we could understand them better. 

What expectations do we place on others and how they live out their faith without knowing how life has molded them? Do we encourage and comfort? Or do we add to their burden.

James 1:22 reminds us to “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only. Otherwise, you are deceiving yourselves.”

Reading and saying the words is not difficult. Doing what the Word says is not always so easy, or even so clear. Especially when we are faced with obstacles that seem beyond our human ability to overcome. What do we say when someone else is dealing with something that seems like a wild raging river to them? Do we quote scripture to them and tell them to just have faith? 

Humility, Trust, Obedience, Covenant, Providence, Power, Encouragement, Comfort.

Those are the words that lead us through these texts today. They describe the enduring love that God has for us and they give us a picture of how we can better love each other, the way we are loved. They help us to see past words, past the facade that we show the world, past just reading our bible and bring us into closer relationship with God and with each other. 

The reading from Joshua tells us that there will be obstacles in life that we have no control over. We can trust God’s covenant, providence, and power. The reading from Thessalonians reminds us that there may be criticism, but we can be encouragers and comforters because we are called to live lives worthy of God. Remember Micah 6:8 “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. The reading from Matthew tells us that the greatest thing we can do on this earth is to serve God and others because Jesus Christ served God and all of us.

If you can’t see the other side of the river, let God take the first steps and follow Him and that is how we all cross the Jordan river into the promised land. 

Amen

Pastoral Prayer
Father, we ask that for those who have endured loss, that you wrap them in the grace of your comfort. For those who face hardship, we ask that you help them to rest in your providential care. For those who feel helpless, we ask that your power and glory be made manifest in their lives so that all can testify about you. We thank you for all that you have done, are doing, and will bring to completion, in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ who taught His disciples to pray.

Benediction
Leader: God reminds us that He is always with us!
People: We lift our voices in praise!
Leader: Through God’s grace we are formed!
People: All who humble themselves will be exalted! Amen

Call To Worship:
Leader: God is ruler of the earth!
People: God, the giver of life!
Leader: The mountains tremble and the oceans roar!
People: But God is more powerful than all the earth!
Leader: Come now into God’s abiding presence!
People: Show us your Glory, O God, our rock!

Opening Prayer

God of Abraham, God of Moses, God of the early church, like all who came before, we come now, to worship, to pray, to spend time with you. Speak to us this morning, open our hearts to the world around us and to each other. Show us how to love as you love, how to be your people, so that your kingdom will be made visible to all the world through us and draw others to you. We ask in the name of the only one who is worthy, Your son, our savior, Jesus Christ.

Scripture Reading 
Prayer for illumination
May our hearts rejoice as we recall God’s deeds in the reading of God’s Holy Word. Amen

Old Testament Reading

Exodus 33:12-23
Moses said to the LORD, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people’; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.” The LORD said to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The LORD’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.” And the LORD continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.”

Epistle Reading

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead–Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.

Gospel Reading

Matthew 22:15-22
Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

Leader: This is the word of God, for the people of God. 
People: Thanks be to God

Sermon

Our first scripture reading from the old testament begins with Moses talking to God. To give us some context, Exodus is all about Redemption. God heard the cries of His people and rescued them. It’s about Covenant. God makes a binding agreement with His people. It’s about God’s presence. In the beginning of the book, God hears the cries of the people. In the middle, he is on the mountaintop, closer than He has ever been but still a ways off. By the end, God is dwelling in the camp with the Israelites. Moses believes that God’s presence is what sets the nation of Israel apart from every other nation. Moses is traditionally said to be the author of the first five books of the bible. The only person mentioned more than Moses is David. We get to read about Moses from his birth to his death and during that time he plays a lot of roles. In our reading this morning, he has just been through some crazy stuff. He was up on the mountain spending time with God and down in the valley the folks had talked his brother Aaron into melting down all their jewelry and making a god they could see and touch because they had been left alone for a while and their faith wavered. I don’t want to sound too harsh even though it was a very big deal. We are not so different from the stiff-necked people of Exodus. How often do we waver in our faith when it seems like the world is attacking us and God seems distant. We try to fill our lives with things that are temporary, and sometimes they work, for a moment. This crowd had just come out of slavery in Egypt, saw Egypt punished with plagues, seen the red sea parted and so far they have not starved while they are camping in the desert. After all that, they broke the covenant they had with God. We humans forget the good God does pretty quick.

There is a quote and I don’t know the author. but it says “It’s ironic, how we often forget the things worth remembering, but remember the things worth forgetting.”

Moses came down from the mountain carrying the law on tablets and was so mad when he saw what they had done that he smashed the law. Then a very odd thing happened. He burned their golden idol down to ashes and mixed it with water and made them drink it. I don’t know the significance of that little incident but it hit me that what they worshipped even for a short amount of time, became part of them. What we worship, even for a short time, can become part of us.

When Moses confronted Aaron, Aaron gave what must be the weakest excuse in history since Adam blamed Eve after he bit the apple.

“I just threw the gold in the fire and out came this calf” I can picture Moses rolling his eyes…

Moses looked around and something besides just the mysterious appearance of a metal chunk of beef was going on. The bible says that “Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies.”

Moses was shepherding what tradition estimates as two to three million people. This is to be the nation of Israel who God brought out of slavery in Egypt and made His own. If we assume that two to three million people have gotten out of hand, Moses has to pull something major out of his hat to get them back on track. A good sermon was not going to get their attention. He drew a sort of line in the sand and called the believers to him and told them to move through the people killing those who did not choose to show up. The story tells us that about three thousand people were killed. This seems extreme and it is one of those bible bits that I personally have trouble with but if nothing else – it tells us that it highlights the magnitude of the problem . The future of the Israelites as a nation was at stake. 

So we have an idea of where we have been and we maybe see ourselves in different parts of this Exodus story.

Maybe you have worshiped something besides God or at least put something worldly above God, and now some remnants are sticking to you and you need some cleaning up.

Maybe you have forgotten some of the good things God has done and are wondering where is He? Is He even listening??

Maybe you did something and you know it was wrong, but instead of owning up and making a change, you made a lame excuse.

Now we come to the part of Exodus in our reading today and there is one little word that I want to focus on.

Moses said to the LORD, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people’; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’

Yet is a beautiful word. I hated it as a child because it was usually preceded by the word not. I even dislike it as an adult sometimes when I pray and the answer is not yet.

Yet…

One of my favorite poems by Emily Dickinson is Hope.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

The bible is full of “Yets”.

Lamentations 3:19-26

“The thought of my suffering and homelessness
    is bitter beyond words.
I will never forget this awful time,
    as I grieve over my loss.
Yet I still dare to hope
    when I remember this:

The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
    His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
    his mercies begin afresh each morning.
I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my inheritance;
    therefore, I will hope in him!’

The Lord is good to those who depend on him,
    to those who search for him.
So it is good to wait quietly
    for salvation from the Lord.”

Habakkuk 3:17-19

“Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    he enables me to tread on the heights.”

Jeremiah 50:33-34

“This is what the Lord Almighty says:

‘The people of Israel are oppressed,
    and the people of Judah as well.
All their captors hold them fast,
    refusing to let them go.
Yet their Redeemer is strong;
    the Lord Almighty is his name.
He will vigorously defend their cause
    so that he may bring rest to their land…’”

Moses was nearly killed at birth, a murderer, slow of speech and yet his obedience to God saved the people of Israel.

Aaron made lame excuses and was unable to stand up to people, and yet, he helped Moses lead and eventually became the high priest of the nation of Israel.

God’s people forgot all the things God had done for them and they turned to other things, yet when they repented God was with them.

We are stuck at home, some of us alone, yet, we are still here and we have safe places to stay, food to eat, family and friends that love us.

We are not all able to come to church on Sunday and we miss singing and worshiping and eating together, yet, we have a pastor who has kept us connected and our church still works to bring the kingdom of God alive in our community. We may not be able to sing in church, but the birds are still singing outside.

There is a bad virus floating around and a lot of political turmoil, yet, here we are, on a beautiful Sunday morning, worshiping. The sun is shining, the seasons are still changing, and we are still here. Worshiping with friends, whether they are physically present or with us via the internet.

All the world fell short and sinned, and deserved death, and yet, God sent His Son to suffer and die so that we would be restored to God and as His redeemed people, we live in a world that is completely contradictory to what we are told in the Word, yet, we offer grace and love and a better way to ALL!

Life comes with problems and pain, yet there is joy and healing. 
Life comes with wildfires and hurricanes and floods, yet, there are opportunities in all those disasters, for God’s people to show His love to those who are hurting and in need.

Life comes with questions and doubts and grief, yet we have a God that we can draw close to for comfort and shelter and grace and hope.

John 16:32

“A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home.
You my closest friends on earth will leave me [Jesus] all alone.
Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.”

Jesus knew we would have need of a yet

John 20:29

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed;
blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

It is interesting that we fast forward to the book of Matthew and Jesus is in the temple. A gold object figures prominently in the scene. The Pharisees and Herodians are united only by the fact that they both do not like this troublemaker Jesus.  So the question is tricky. If Jesus says the taxes are lawful, he offends the Pharisees. If he disagrees with the tax, the Herodians who are loyal to Rome are going to pass on what Jesus says and the Romans will handle the problem.  Instead of giving a direct answer, Jesus asks them to show Him the coin. They brought Him the coin. Who’s face is on this coin? Some people point to this passage to say that politics and religion should be separate. Some people say that Jesus was saying that it is our Christian duty to support the government. 

Often, when I read parables, the meaning seems pretty clear. Neat and tidy. But when we look deeper, there is always more to think about. So why is the physical properties of this item important? If we keep in mind our old testament reading and remember that God gave the Israelites the law and one of those laws was that you shall not make any graven images. This exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees points out that they actually possess and are displaying that very thing, in the temple! This raises the stakes a bit. Where is their loyalty? To money or to God? It also reminds us of the very beginning or our creation, when God said let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.

The same question that the ancient Israelites had to answer, the same question that the Pharisees had to answer, and the same question that we have to answer today, is Whose image do you bear? Whatever we render unto Caesar, or to the retirement fund, or even to the offering at church, we can never afford to forget that we belong entirely to God. We were redeemed with the blood of Jesus.  We belong to the God of  “Yets”.

And yet is not the only special little word in the bible. The phrase “but God”, like the word yet, changes the dynamics. The world did this, yet I will worship God. The world broke my heart, but God redeemed me.

Genesis 31:42
If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, you would surely have sent me away empty-handed. But God has seen my hardship and the toil of my hands, and last night he rebuked you.

We mess up. We worship wrong things.  We forget Who we belong to, But God. Joseph knew about that. Joseph could say that his brothers “intended to harm him, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

If a couple of little three letter words can change something broken into something beautiful, imagine what the many words we choose to use with others can do.

May we always remember to look for the “yets” that God provides and if someone needs one and can’t find it – may we be the yet that they need!

Prayers and concerns

Morning Prayer
Father this world can be hard, yet there is so much beauty and we thank you for all that you have provided for us. There is pain in the world, but God, you never leave us alone, leave us the same, leave us hopeless. We lift up all that we have mentioned and the things that are deep in our hearts. You know us, inside and out and we ask that you give us grace, give us peace, give us strength, and give us a deeper relationship with you. Even if you are silent, yet, we will worship you because you are the God to yesterday, today, and all of our tomorrows. 
 
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.

Benediction
Leader: Go, showering the world with acts of faith!
People: We go forth to serve as a labor of love!
Leader: Be steadfast in hope and love!
People: We depart with joy, trusting God’s guidance each day!

“May the LORD keep watch between you and me when we are apart from one another.”

Exodus 12:1-14, Romans 13:8-14, Matthew 18:15-20

Centering Words

We are called to love one another!

We are called to answer God’s invitation!

We are called to walk in the light of God’s love!

Opening Prayer

Father, we ask that you open our hearts and our minds, that rather than just listen to a sermon, we would hear what YOU would say to us this morning and help us to walk in your light throughout all of our days. Amen

Call To Worship

Leader : Prepare for the exodus!

People: We are ready for the journey to freedom!

Leader: Leave the darkness behind!

People: We are ready to live in the light of God’s love!

Leader: Come into the holy life! The life of community!

People: We are at home with Jesus in our midst!

Scripture

Exodus 12:1-14

12:1 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt:

12:2 This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you.

12:3 Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household.

12:4 If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it.

12:5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.

12:6 You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight.

12:7 They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.

12:8 They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

12:9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs.

12:10 You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn.

12:11 This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the LORD.

12:12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD.

12:13 The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

12:14 This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.

Romans 13:8-14

13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

13:9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

13:10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

13:11 Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers;

13:12 the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light;

13:13 let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.

13:14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Matthew 18:15-20

18:15 “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.

18:16 But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

18:17 If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

18:18 Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

18:19 Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.

18:20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

Sermon 

We know that the focus of the entire bible – both old and new testament, is a picture of God receiving glory by restoring fellowship between all people groups and Himself through His son, Jesus Christ. “ Bill Jones from the book “Putting Together the Puzzle of the New Testament” The readings this week have a thread of anger running through them. God’s anger at the oppression of the Israelites by Egypt, Paul mentions quarrelling and jealousy. Matthew writes a list of tools to deal with sin in the church. 

As always, I am preaching to myself. 

Exodus is part of the origin story of the Jewish people. It draws you in. There is drama, violence, heartbreak, anticipation, fear, and hope! It’s also a picture of Jesus – the blood of an unblemished lamb, sacrificed to atone for our sins. Egypt was a place that the Jewish people had lived in for so long that they lost track of time. Our reading today begins with God telling them what day it is so they will be able to celebrate the holy days. They had become so immersed in the culture of Egypt that they had forgotten who they were. We become so immersed in what is going on around us that we sometimes  forget who we are.  

Exodus is part of a story that on the one hand, we can focus on God delivering the Israelites from the oppression they were experiencing in Egypt but it can also leave us uncomfortable, because punishment is coming to an entire nation, including those who are too young to be guilty of the sin of oppression. It leaves us with hard questions. How can a loving God punish an entire nation including children, babies, who’s only fault is being born into the wrong nation – even the firstborn of the animals! The Israelites are to remember this and celebrate it! 

A question that we often ask in this life is why did something bad happen to someone who seems to us to not deserve it? Things happen that make no sense to us. It can be painful to the point of causing us to question our understanding of God. Next week you will hear about the Israelites following Moses through the Red sea. Don’t you think there were people walking through that wall of water with all different levels of faith? Some may have been smiling from ear to ear, knowing that their God is faithful! Others might have been quickstepping, trembling at the thought of that water coming down on them.  All of those people at all different levels of faith but still following Moses are going to get to the other side and they would be free. They would have to get used to their new normal. It would take forty years of wandering to do it. 

When I read the text for this week, I was dismayed at first. I admit that I am a little nervous about this talk. I wondered how I could talk to you about something that I don’t understand myself.  I prayed about it and asked God to show me what the text is supposed to be telling me. Then I started thinking about the texts from the last few weeks and so to get to where I think I want to end up I need to go back. 

Spoiler alert. There are really no answers here today. If you are hoping for answers you might want to ask for your money back now. This is my attempt to come closer to understanding. My hope is that we all might understand a little better as we walk through these texts. I would like to think that less answers and more questions is how we grow.

So let’s back up a bit and see what we can find.

In the text for the week before last, Jesus asked the disciples who people said He was. They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus told Peter that he was blessed. Peter had been gifted with a divine revelation from God that told him who Jesus is. 

Not long after that conversation, we find Peter again in conversation with Jesus.

In last weeks’ text, Matthew 16:21-28 Peter could not bring himself to believe that his friend and teacher, Jesus, would have to suffer and die. Jesus’ response was “Get behind me Satan!” In a split second, Peter went from being the rock to being a stumbling block. Peter was certain that he KNEW who Jesus is. He didn’t actually DO anything wrong. He just started to think wrong thoughts. The commentary I read, said that we, like Peter, want to find a way to Easter, without going through Good Friday.

Avoiding suffering is a natural human response. But suffering happens. We can’t stop it, we can’t control it, and often we can’t fix it. We are powerless.

Jesus chose to be obedient and to suffer and die. That suffering and death produced transformation. That transformation was Jesus’ resurrection. We can’t avoid suffering in this life. But we do have some control over how we walk through it and what kind of transformation it will create in us. Again, looking back at previous weeks  – Romans 12:2 said “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God–what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

We move to the New Testament and Pauls starts with Romans 13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. It is almost as though Paul is saying okay, ten commandments is too much for you? Here is the simplified version. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. 

In Exodus, God reminds the Israelites what day it is and then we fast forward and Paul also gives a caution about time. In 13:11-12 he says “Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light;” 

In Matthew we are given a list of steps to use as tools for resolving conflict ending with a passage we have all heard many times. “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

I have heard that phrase many times but never understood it in this context. I have heard it said in bible study, in worship, in prayer, that as long as two or more are gathered in His name He is there. Does that mean that if there is not two, Jesus is not present? No! We are told in The Great Commission “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

So in this context, we learn that there has been another shift from what the Jewish people knew of the principle of sin and punishment. They have gone from destroying an entire nation to an eye for an eye and all the other old testament rules for meting out justice, and now to a completely different way of thinking. Kingdom living is about reconciling people to each other and to God. 

Mathew gives us a few clues that are a little hard to swallow. People will sin against each other even in the church. People in the church will not always listen to each other. When we encounter a painful situation in the context of being part of the church we are to do everything we can to restore the relationship. When we have done all we can, we can trust that the author and finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ, who knows a lot about suffering and death, will be in the midst of it. 

We have questions. We suffer. We feel anger sometimes when the cause of the suffering is another person and we tend to think it is worse when the person causing the suffering is a Christian. 

Maybe you don’t feel this way but I confess that I struggle with feeling like Jonah sometimes. In my anger and hurt I don’t always want the person that hurt me to be restored. 

I’m also not fond of the idea of spending time inside a whale belly so it comes down to trust. We have to work at accepting that there is uncertainty rather than easy answers. We have to remember that God’s ways are higher than our ways. We have to wander ourselves out of that anger and suffering wilderness and trusting God, even when I don’t understand, that the Jesus who went from wilderness to mission to the cross to resurrection, will be right there in the middle of the pain, working. We have to constantly answer the question for ourselves, no matter where we are in our faith journey – who do we say Jesus is? And maybe hardest of all, we have to be willing to submit to suffering sometimes while searching for ways to find grace in the midst of it because that is where Jesus meets us. 

Are you quick stepping fearfully or trudging along wishing for the good old days,  between two walls of water? You are not alone. Have you been holding on by the skin of your faith and now you are just trying to navigate changes in a shifting world? You are not alone. Are you trying to understand what God desires from you? You are not alone. Do you feel like your faith is strong and you have it all together one minute and the next you are unsure and confused about everything? You are not alone. Have you been hurt by someone and you wonder how it can ever be fixed? You are not alone. Jesus is there – always, to the very end of the age.

The Israelites fled to Egypt to escape a famine. Then, life changed. If we have questions, imagine what it would have been like for the Israelites in this text! They are obediently fleeing from the very place that helped them to survive. They had settled in and become part of the community. There is conflicting information in the bible about the length of time the Israelites spent in Egypt. One part of Exodus says 430 years and another part says four generations, but however long it was – it was a long time. The Israelites would not have known any other home. For me, it seems difficult to reconcile this God who destroyed the first born of an entire nation with God that we see through the lens of Jesus. The Israelites were told to trust God and obey when and how they were told. They trusted and believed and obeyed and were saved. But not without some suffering. Mistakes were made, consequences came about. It would seem that like those wandering Israelites, we are still wandering and having to learn over and over again, that the world changes whether it is Egypt or Texas. Only Jesus remains the same. Yesterday, today, and forever. In Jesus we can lay down our questions, hand over our pain, and trust that He will complete what He started and sometimes it is not for us to understand. We just have faith.

Paul tells us in the letter to the new Christians in Rome, that there is a yardstick we can use to determine what God desires of us. Life was complicated then and it is sure enough complicated now, and if we are trying to discern what the right thing is in any situation, Paul tells us to measure every decision, every interpretation of the law against loving our neighbor and reconciling the relationship with them and with God through that love. 

We learn what that kind of love means by answering the question – who is Jesus Christ? Answering that question does not tell us how close we are to being justified. It shows us how wide the chasm is between us and Kingdom living and shows us the depth of our need for our savior, Jesus Christ. 

Prayer

Father, when you created man, you said “Let us create man in our image.” Help us to line ourselves up with that image. When we, like sheep, wander off, we ask that Jesus, the loving shepherd, lead us back to you. If you require us to leave what feels safe and familiar, remind us that you are present. We ask for the same blessing that you gave Peter – that we will know that Jesus Christ, Your Son is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Teach us how we should think, so that what flows out of our hearts becomes how we live. If suffering is required of us, help us to walk with grace so that even in painful times, people will see You and be reconciled to You. Amen

Benediction

Leader: Put your sandals on your feet!

People: We are ready, staff in hand!

Leader: Walk out of the darkness, into the light!

People: We enter into the joy of God’s love!

Leader: Respond to God’s call today!

People: We go out into the world with Christ’s love in our hearts!

Blessing 

2 Corinthians 13:14 says

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Go in Peace!

Matthew 14:22-33

Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

following Jesus
can get you into deep water
you think Jesus is right there with you
when whoosh, a wave slaps you in the face
and you come up sputtering
in darkness blowing all around you
kicking to the surface to search and
you know you can’t make it to shore
but you get a glimpse
a lightening flash
shows the Word
of hope
of help
of sandal shod feet
walking on wave tops
and you cry out
a small voice in the maelstrom
He calls you out and out you go
matching your feet to His
you dance
before your feet of clay turn to mud
and start to sink,
you too, rise above the churning water
but even in the sinking
a hand reaches out
and you find yourself plopped back in the boat
because no matter how deep the water
how wild the wind
the One you follow
is the way home.

Sermon July 19, 2020 God is Faithful to Move Stones

Opening Prayer

Almighty God,

the fountain of all wisdom,

you know our necessities before we ask

and our ignorance in asking:

Have compassion on our weakness,

and mercifully give us those things

which for our unworthiness we dare not,

and for our blindness we cannot ask;

through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God,

now and forever.

Amen.

“Common Book of Prayer”

Call To Worship

Leader: We are proof of the fulfillment of God’s promise; we are the descendants…too many to count!

People: Like the dust of the earth, like the sands of the beach, like the stars in the heavens

Leader: We are the descendants…too many to count!

People: From the west and the east; from the north and the south.

Leader: Too many to count!

People: From the Atlantic and the Pacific, from Antartica to Australia!

Leader: We are the descendants…too many to count!

People: From Canada to Cote d’Ivoire; from New York to Nairobi!

Leader: We are the descendants…too many to count!

People: We are blessed! To be a blessing!

Old Testament Reading

Genesis 28:10-19a

Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the LORD stood beside him and said, “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place–and I did not know it!” And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called that place Bethel;

Epistle Reading

Romans 8:12-25

So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh –for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ–if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Gospel Reading

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’’Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.””He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!

Sermon

This week, as I sat in the pew at Celebrate Recovery, socially distancing, wearing my mask. Our large group service started and since we are not singing, Mark played several music videos. The first notes started and the first video was It is Well. Not the hymn, but the newer praise version that I have sung multiple times on Sunday morning and on Thursday nights at CR. I immediately teared up. I was trying to quietly sing with my mask on and at first I managed, but before it was over I just bowed my head because I was full out ugly crying. Good thing I was wearing a washable mask and not one of those paper ones.

I think that I have been very angry about many things to do with this time of trial we are going through. The virus has taken so much. There have been blessings and I am so very grateful for them. That song has seen me through some things. When I had a cancer scare and lost all of that weight, I sang it and took comfort. It was ministering to me and a prayer all at the same time. I was claiming the promise that God would be with me through everything and at the same time asking God to continue to reassure me of His faithfulness to keep that promise. But Thursday night, all I could think was no! Father, It is not well with my soul right now. And I felt like this stone inside my heart just started to melt away. I was still sad about the things we have lost and are losing because of this pandemic. But lighter too.

Then I read the scriptures for today and the Old Testament scripture mentioned stones. When I went to the bible gateway website and put stone in the keyword space, thousands of entries popped up.

I thought about that stone inside of me and of stones in the bible. Jacob used a stone for a pillow and God came to him in a dream and told him that He would give him the land he was lying on and make his descendants many and when Jacob woke he made the stone an altar. 

Later when Jacob met Rachel, there was a well, and to water the flocks they would have to roll the stone away from the mouth of the well.

In biblical times, a punishment was to stone someone to death.

The law was given to Moses on tablets of stone.

David killed the Philistine with a sling and a stone.

Psalm 118:22 The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief corner stone.

Last week we read about the parable of the sower and it told us some seed fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil.  But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.

Matthew 7:9 Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone?

Matthew 21:42 Jesus *said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, This became the chief corner stone; This came about from the Lord, And it is marvelous in our eyes’

Jesus gave Simon the name Peter (which means rock) and said He would build his church on that rock.

Ezekiel 11:19 And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh.

When Jesus was buried and they went to look for him Mark 16:4 Looking up, they *saw that the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large.

There were many more entries but from just these few, we can see that stones were used frequently as imagery in the bible. Sometimes they were a good thing. Sometimes not so good. It depended on who was holding the stone, what the stone was being used for. Ecclesiastes says there is a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones.

I thought about my stone, the one in my heart. It served a purpose. It was protecting me from grief. It was easier to be angry about the news. To be lecturing people on why they should wear a mask. To argue about conspiracy theories. It was easier because underneath it all, I was grieving. I was grieving for people who have passed from this virus who may have been artists. Who may have died before they could tell their grandchildren their stories. Who should have died with their family all around them, loving them. I was grieving for people who have lost their jobs, their businesses, their homes. I was grieving for our lives being so changed, not being able to have bible study and sing praise. I was grieving for teachers who are my friends and one who is my son, who face terrible decisions beyond their control. I was grieving for my son-in-law who has this burden every day, working for the state and helping people negotiate the landscape of applying for benefits to help them survive, and sometimes having to tell some people no. I was grieving for my grandchildren and wondering how this will affect their lives as they grow up, with a little underlying fear as to whether they will grow up at all. I took that well of grief and put a big old stone on top of it.

All of these things, I covered with a stone.

When we allow a stone to form inside us, it may protect us from those painful feelings for a little while and we can use pieces of that stone to throw at others who do not agree with us. But a stone doesn’t make a very good pillow. You can’t drink from a well without moving the stone.

I could not move that stone on my own. I was thirsty and I didn’t even know it until the stone was moved. I was letting my heart be dead in a tomb because I was hiding from pain and I couldn’t roll that stone away on my own.

So I believe God used a song on a music video, in a sanctuary with others that were either weighed down by their own stones or bruised because of stones that had been thrown at them; to roll away a stone that needed to go. I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit and sometimes when the Holy Spirit is dealing with us, it is not altogether comfortable. Of course, there wasn’t really an actual stone in me.

Often the bible uses real tangible things to help us poor humans understand the mysterious Power of God. Paul uses the image of us being debtors, of us being children. He uses the image of childbirth. All of creation (the creation that we are a part of) is groaning in the pain of wanting to give birth to something. To this world, the way God meant it to be. And we are all in debt to God, for our very breath, for His grace, for his love. 

So the challenge to me, becomes living as a person that honors that debt, for all of us to live as people of gratitude, to be a people that allows God to remove those stones that we pile up. To let God have them. His hand is bigger and stronger than mine and in His wisdom, stones are rolled away from tombs, used to build His church, cleared from soil so that His seeds can flourish.

Because of my stone, I was stuck. Nothing was going to grow in me. I was doing exactly what I said in my sermon a few weeks ago that Jesus did NOT do. I was reacting, not responding.  I was sitting somewhere between Jesus’ truth and grace and not seeing either.

I am still sad. But I’m lighter too. God takes the stone and opens us up to His possibility that there is so much more. I am indebted to the other people who were in the sanctuary with me. I am grateful to the writer and performer of that song, even though I don’t personally know her. I appreciate Mark for choosing to play that specific video, that particular night. I am indebted to and in relationship with all of those people. Because God still moves stones, but He uses people to do it. I am even grateful for the stone because it showed me what needed to change, and it showed me where the pain was.

So, where are your stones? Is your heart hard right now? Is your fist clenched around a rock that you want to throw? Is there a rock under your feet holding you steady?

We need healing. Our world needs healing for this pandemic. We each need healing from sin, from hardened hearts,  from thinking that we can carry those stones on our own. Because in this time the church is needed, weeds, stones and all, to show that God has so much more for us, if we loosen our grip on our own hearts and let him create a new spirit within us. 

Because we are created to live in community, created to love our God and creator and we cannot fully do that without loving His creation – each other and the world. There is a well that we can drink from and never thirst again, but we cannot drink from that well if it is covered with a stone. 

My prayer for each of you this morning, is that you walk out of here a little lighter, a little more loving, and a little more open to God’s grace and healing so that we can all be a little more like the Jesus who built His church on the rock that was just a man who was willing to follow Jesus, who came out of the tomb from behind a stone and ascended to the Father so we could see the depth of what we owe, who showed us that the Father who loves us, knows our tendency to hold onto stones, but wants to give us bread, wants to give us grace. All to Jesus we surrender. All to Him we owe. 

Closing Prayer

Father, sometimes you place stones in our path

That we might walk more carefully

Learning to depend on you

Sometimes we tightly hold on to heavy stones

Of our own choosing

Help us to lay them down

So that we can come to you with open hands

For your burden is light

Sometimes our hearts become hard as stone

Soften them, so that we can once again

Drink from your well, eat the bread you provide,

And love others as you have loved us

Through the power of the Holy Spirit

Living in us

Amen

Go in peace.

I could blame it on the times or I could blame it on my own crazy brain but the scripture I used yesterday was actually the lectionary reading for today. I honestly didn’t know what day it was….Yikes!

One of my favorite authors and theologians is Frederich Buechner. I wanted to share a quote with you tonight.

“The grace of God means something like: “Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you.”
There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it.
Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.”

The party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Not a single one of you. You are all important and loved and God created the universe for YOU! Be safe. Goodnight.

I’m sorry I got behind on my Lent Musings. I confess that I have news media and social media overload. I want to see my kids and grandkids and I’ve been having a bit of a pity party. I will do better because when I do THIS better, I do better all the way around. Some lyrics have been running on repeat in my mind:
“Far be it from me to not believe
Even when my eyes can’t see
And this mountain that’s in front of me
Will be thrown into the midst of the sea”

Mark 10:32-34
Jesus a Third Time Predicts His Death and Resurrection

Now they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed. And as they followed they were afraid. Then He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them the things that would happen to Him: “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him to the Gentiles; and they will mock Him, and scourge Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.”

I have often read something in the bible and been completely bummfuzzled as to why “they” didn’t get it. They being the Israelites when God was right there, visible, a pillar of cloud. Or they meaning the disciples – who actually walked and talked with Jesus and saw him perform miracles and healings. And here we are in this reading from the daily lectionary with Jesus telling his disciples for the third time what is going to happen to Him. The immediate response? To find that, you have to read a bit more of the scripture. Then you find that James and John, the sons of Zebedee, have a request. They want to sit next to Jesus in Glory. The result? Jesus tells them they will drink the cup He drinks but it isn’t his to grant where they sit in Glory, so they are going to come to a bad end and they managed to irritate the rest of the disciples.

What struck me about this reading today as often happens, is how like them, we are. With this horrible virus, we don’t take all the precautions we should until people near us start becoming ill. Even then, we tend to move a little slowly because we think it couldn’t possibly happen to us. We see it happening other places. We see the news and still we think it can’t happen like that here or it won’t happen to us….until it does.

And here I sit, people are dying and I am rationing my favorite coffee because I know I won’t be able to make a trip to Winco for well…who knows how long. Like the disciples, I am concerned about the wrong things. Like the disciples, I need to be reminded that what I think I understand, is NOT what Jesus intended. I am often petty and grouchy and impatient and judgmental and selfish.

Thank you Father for Grace. Thank you Jesus for the work that you did through your life, death, and resurrection because without you, I would have no chance of any seat at all in glory (I’m just hoping to go skidding in before the door slams shut!). I ask that you give me more of your spirit. Help me to do better at extending the grace that you have lavished on me, to others. Amen.

when I watch the news, when I worry for the future, this blesses me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1azGmqJN7ok

Father, I come to you in prayer for myself tonight. I am feeling the stress of this pandemic. I feel myself get frustrated and irritated at the littlest provocation. I can’t speak for everyone else but so far I have been mildly inconvenienced. I can order groceries online, I can still pay my bills, so far all of my loved ones are doing ok. So I can’t help but feel that others must be feeling this so much more than I. I humbly ask that you give me grace for now and for what is ahead. I plead with you that you will help us find a way to end this and I pray that you will give your peace and comfort to those who are in situations so much wore than mine. Show us how and where and when to be your hands, and feet and heart for others and how to do that from a distance if that is where we need to be. I pray for your protection for those who because of their job or calling, can’t maintain that physical distance. Not only for their protection, but for the protection of their families. Please help our doctors and nurses to have the strength and the discernment to allow them to bring comfort to those who will obtain their final healing and come to be with you. Give them peace to deal with the losses. We love you and you have proved your love for us, time and time again, but man we need to be reminded of that love right now.
You sent Jesus to die for our sins and even as He was going to the cross, He still loved us even with our imperfection, our pettiness, our lack of compassion for others, all the human things that we so need to overcome and can’t without you. In the midst of the most stress of His life, Jesus put us first. We need your love and grace. Amen

John 11:1-45

Jesus returns to Bethany and is met by Mary and Martha. They had enough faith to believe that if Jesus had been there, their brother Lazarus would not have died. Even though Jesus knows the end of this story, he weeps with them in their pain and grief and loss. Jesus stands with us when we grieve, not to the side as an impassive observer, but as someone who like us, has been in the midst of pain and loss. But more than just sharing this pain, Jesus speaks life and calls Lazarus and us from the grave and into life with Him even as He Himself was on the way to the cross.

There is a birdhouse that looks like a church on a shelf on my back porch. Yesterday, I was putting potting soil back on the bottom shelf and realized that there is a bird nest behind the birdhouse. There are three eggs in the nest and I made sure not to touch it. Today I saw the mama fly in.

It reminded me that in the middle of all my anxiety, where for the time being, life is defined by the news, by where we can’t go, who we can’t see, and who is sick, God’s creation goes on doing life. Plants are greening up, eggs are getting ready to hatch, spring is happening.

While Lent is a time of going deeper, of taking our hearts on the walk with Jesus as his journey moves Him closer to the cross, it can’t be truly experienced without remembering that the cross is not where this journey ends. As spring follows winter, new life follows suffering, and resurrection follows crucifixion.

I will be watching to see what happens with the baby birds.

We have hope.