Worship
for the Lord’s Day
July 26,
2020
A Note
before we begin this day’s worship:
We will continue to worship from home
until further notice. However, we’ve added
video of our normal PowerPoint for the hymns with Bob Morris playing the organ
at Bethesda and a video of the sermon for your worship experience.
Some additional announcements:
Our VBS program; Creation –
God’s Great Big Beautiful World will run through Aug. 5. It has been well received and more kids are
enjoying the kits, although we had a slow start. Kids between Kindergarten and 5th
grade can continue to come by the churches at Olivet Presbyterian Church in
West Elizabeth, PA on Wednesday between 1-3pm and at Bethesda United
Presbyterian Church, Elizabeth, PA between 3-4pm.
Garrett
Little will be celebrating his birthday on August 5. It is a milestone birthday for him because
last year he got to ring the bell at Children’s Hospital to celebrate his
remission from Leukemia. His favorite
things are Wendy’s Chili and Frosty. I
thought it would be great to help him and his family celebrate his birthday by
giving him a bunch of Wendy’s gift cards.
If you are able, please let me know.
Our
Sessions will meet via Zoom on Aug 11 at 7pm.
Hopefully, we’ll have more to report after their next meeting.
Finally,
with sadness we had to say goodbye to our Bright Beginning Preschool Staff at
Bethesda; Founding Directory, Jennifer Wooley and her Assistant, Amber
Mayersky. We are currently delaying a
fall opening due to unknown protocols needed for a safe opening for our staff
and children, what the school districts will do, and these staff changes. Keep our departing staff, community children
and parents in your prayers. We do hope
to have a new staff onboard shortly after the new year of 2021 to plan on a
full opening by the next school year. If
you know of any possible candidates, let us know.
Be
patient. We will be together again,
soon! Until then, let’s begin:
Opening
Prayer
Our
gracious and ever loving God, we rest in the knowledge
of the wonderful works You have done for us, and of the deep and abiding love You have for us and for all God’s people. Search our hearts. Fill our soul with Your indwelling Spirit who whispers to our soul that all will be well if we but trust in You. Shine Your light before us, that we may see our path to You and to Your kingdom on earth. AMEN
of the wonderful works You have done for us, and of the deep and abiding love You have for us and for all God’s people. Search our hearts. Fill our soul with Your indwelling Spirit who whispers to our soul that all will be well if we but trust in You. Shine Your light before us, that we may see our path to You and to Your kingdom on earth. AMEN
Prayer
of Confession
We
pause this morning, O God. We live in
the midst of great and abiding love, but also in the midst of deceit and lies. May we be found faithful in all we do. May we speak the truth in love and live lives
of love each day. Too often we seek You
in the spectacular and otherworldly. May
we see the many in-breakings of Your kingdom in the everyday, ordinary things
of life: in mustard seeds and yeast, in the treasures of the fields and fish
gathered in nets. May we be able to
answer with a full-throated yes when asked if we have understood Your teachings
and Your call. Forgive us our many ways
of misinterpreting Your words of wisdom, O Lord, and restore us to Your
side. AMEN
Words
of Assurance
When
we are not sure how to pray, or if we are even able to address God in prayer, the
Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.
Know that no matter what, nothing, absolutely nothing in all creation can ever separate us from God’s presence and God’s love. AMEN
Know that no matter what, nothing, absolutely nothing in all creation can ever separate us from God’s presence and God’s love. AMEN
Affirmation
of Faith – The Apostles’ Creed
I believe
in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ His
only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost; born of the Virgin
Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He
descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended
into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from
thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy
catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.
Pastoral
Prayer
For we ask this in Jesus’ Name, Your One and Only Son, who taught us to
pray saying; 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. Forgive us our debts as we
forgive our debtors. And lead us not
into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. AMEN.
Scripture
Readings
Old
Testament: Psalm
105:1-11
1O give
thanks to the Lord,
call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples.
2Sing to
him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wonderful works.
3Glory
in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.
4Seek
the Lord and
his strength; seek his presence continually.
5Remember
the wonderful works he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered,
6O
offspring of his servant Abraham, children of Jacob, his chosen ones.
7He is
the Lord our
God; his judgments are in all the earth.
8He is
mindful of his covenant forever, of the word that he commanded, for a thousand
generations,
9the
covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac,
10which
he confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant,
11saying,
“To you I will give the land of Canaan as your portion for an inheritance.”
New
Testament: Romans
8:26-39
26Likewise the Spirit helps us in
our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit
intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27And
God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the
Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28We know
that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called
according to his purpose.
29For those whom he foreknew he
also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he
might be the firstborn within a large family. 30And
those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also
justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.
31What then are we to say about
these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32He who
did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with
him also give us everything else? 33Who
will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34Who is
to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the
right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35Who
will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it
is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted
as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37No, in
all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I
am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor
height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Sermon
– Just a note: You can click on the sermon
title and hear/watch me give this sermon via YouTube from my home office.
(based on Romans 8:26-39)
In the middle of what we’ve read from
our Romans text, the author seems to believe that everything has already been
said, that it is quite obvious, a conclusion has been drawn, so what more can
be said? Who will separate us from the
love of Christ?
“Nothing” writes Paul. “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor
depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love
of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”.
As I’ve mentioned before, this is one
of my all-time favorite Bible verses. It
resonates with such pure and simple hope.
It gives power and assurance to all those who feel separated, who feel
outcast, unloved, and forgotten. (sigh)
And yet, there is a pulsing question left unspoken in this passage that I
grapple with, all the time. What about
all the things that do separate us from that love?
A number of years ago, I used to lead
Youth Mission trips to Alaska, taking groups of high school students for two
weeks away from home and familiar territory.
They all came from different backgrounds and different Presbyterian
Churches in our presbytery. During those
trips and our preparation for them, I got to know each of the students
personally. I heard about their doubts,
their frustrations, their joys and their sorrows back home. One of the girls on our second or third trip
broke down in tears on our last night in Alaska, afraid of coming back home. She told us about her home life, about her
conscious decision to be a Christian against her parents wishes, to be active
in her church and to go on this mission trip in spite of her parent’s
intolerance, ridicule, and neglect. She
talked about how difficult it was to be a Christian in that kind of atmosphere
and how it separated her sometimes from Christ’s love, because she felt unloved
at home.
Who will separate us from the love of
Christ? We, us human beings will, at
times – when we relate to one another in unhealthy ways, like when we embellish
stories with assumptions and half-truths, when we foster mistrust based on
race, gender, age, or when we use violence towards one another.
Who will separate us from the love of
Christ? We will. Separation from God is what original sin is
all about. God designed creation to live
in harmony – plants, animals, wind, water, people. But, unfortunately, harmony was broken, and
creation and creatures became separated from one another and from God. Christians believe that in Jesus Christ God
has shown us how to reconnect – how to bridge that separation – which is why
Paul claims that because of Christ, we know that nothing separates us from God.
But, I think it’s often a matter of
perspective.
Isaac Asimov tells the story of Rabbi
Feldman in his book Asimov Laughs Again.
This rabbi was having trouble with his congregation. They could agree upon nothing. Even the Sabbath itself became an area of
conflict. The president of the
congregation called for a meeting to settle all the areas of dispute, once and
for all.
The rabbi, the president, and 10
elders met. One by one the issues were
addressed, and on each issue, the rabbi was a lonely voice in the wilderness.
The president of the congregation
called for a vote. The slips were
collected and the president announced that the vote was 11 to 1.
The rabbi said, “you think because of
the vote that you are right and I am wrong?” The rabbi called on God to send a
sign that the rabbi was right. As he
spoke, a bolt of lightning struck the conference table and broke it in two. The president and the elders fell to the
floor. The rabbi just stood there with a
smile on his face.
Slowly, the president got up and
spoke, “All right,” he said, “11 to 2.
But we still have the majority.”
When Paul claims that nothing can
separate us from the love of Christ, he’s looking at it from God’s
perspective. When we look at it from a
human point of view, we see something differently. We see all the things we do or don’t do that
separate us from each other, from God, from the world around us – even from
ourselves.
Take corporate greed. It’s about people who have been entrusted
with power and responsibility, and yet have stolen millions from their
customers, employers and employees for personal greed, who have racked up
billions upon billions of dollars into their own personal coffers. I read an article the other day about the
richest people in the world – all of them corporate heads who either lead large
international companies or own those companies.
Pause
Let’s
just say for the sake of argument that you are an immortal and while the
Pharaoh’s constructed their pyramids in Giza, you decide to save $10,000 a day,
every day of your life. Nearly 5,000
years later, that’s how long it has been since those pyramids were erected, you
still – YOU STILL - do not have as much money as today’s richest
executives. That’s almost impossible for
me to fathom and wrap my head around.
How
many of these people are people of faith?
Their parents and their religious or moral education probably taught them
right from wrong. But they have become
separated – not only from those whose best interests they were entrusted with –
but also from God. It’s fine if they
treat their employees really well. It’s
fine if they offer their products at decent prices. It’s fine if they give back to their
community in proper relation to what their community has given them. But remember Jesus’ caution: “It is easier for a camel to go through the
eye of the needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God”? Greed separates us from one another. It can even separate us from doing what is
right. Who will separate us from the
love of Christ? We will – and we do.
I once had a phone – you know, the old
kind that were attached by phone wires and jacks to the wall of your house –
well, my phone had lost the little tab on the plastic end at the base of the
connection where it went into the phone jack and therefore was often
loose. Most of the time when you spoke
on that phone it would come out of the base while you were speaking. Immediately, on my end, the conversation
stopped. But if you plugged the cord
back in before the person calling hung up, you were instantly reconnected and your
conversation could go on. If you did it
fast enough the person on the other end of the line wouldn’t even know you were
ever disconnected. Sometimes our phone
cords to God are loose and falling out.
God is still and always will be on the other end, but we are no longer
connected. Who can separate us from the
love of Christ? We can and we do – for
lots of reasons.
But, Paul reminds us in the passage,
even when our phone cords pop out and we are disconnected from God, God is
still connected to us. It’s our
responsibility to plug our cords back in.
Paul knew this personally. As a young man, as a leader in the synagogue,
he hated Christians. He brought them to
the high priests for punishment. He
stood close by while Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was stoned to
death. But on the way to Damascus to
arrest more Christians, Paul, then known as Saul, encountered Christ. It changed his life – and because of that, it
has changed ours in his writings.
Few of us will ever have an experience
of connection like Paul’s. Ours tend to
be less dramatic.
Frederick Buechner, one of the top
20th Century preachers and author once wrote, “The love for equals is a human
thing…it is to love what is loving and lovely.
The world smiles. The love for
the less fortunate is a beautiful thing…This is compassion, and it touches the
heart of the world. The love for the
more fortunate is a rare thing…the world is bewildered by its saints. And then there is the love for the enemy…love
for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain…This
is God’s love. It conquers the world.”
“For I am convinced,” Paul writes,
“that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all
creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our
Lord.”
Paul believes that the words of Holy
Scripture, the words of Christ himself, and Paul’s own previous writings have
already summed it all up. What more can
be said? Nothing can separate us from
God. We might try to do it in how we
relate to one another. There might be
evil at work in the world around us. We
might even succeed in making ourselves feel that we are not connected to God
because of what has been done to us.
But, if any of us are feeling separated from God, apart from all God has
in mind and in store for us, perhaps it is only our perspective. Because from God’s point of view, there is
nothing that can separate us. AMEN.
Benediction
With
a song of praise on our lips, with the love of God in our hearts, with a
commitment to usher in God’s kingdom, with all that we are and all we can be, we
go forth with God. AMEN
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