Worship
for the Lord’s Day
Sept 13,
2020
I’m currently on
vacation, but here is today’s worship service, “pre-recorded”, lol.
Be patient. We will be together in worship again, soon! Until then, let’s begin:
Opening Prayer
Gracious God, we thank You that You receive us not according
to our failing goodness, but according to Your overflowing grace. You receive us as we are. You show us what we can be. You have come to us in Jesus Christ to share
our common lot and reconcile us to yourself.
Sweep over us with Your Spirit, change us by Your love, that we may sing
with joy before You, and live to Your glory in the world. AMEN.
Hymn All Hail the Power of Jesus’
Name
Prayer of Confession
Christ Jesus, our
teacher and our friend, we have not listened for Your word amide the clamor of
words all around us. We are more pleased
to repeat familiar tunes than to listen for new melodies and strange
harmonies. We try harder to defend what
we think we know than to reach for that which is beyond our grasp. Slow to trust, afraid of the unknown, we are
cautious to hear and do Your will. We
pray for ears to hear the cries of our neighbors and for hearts which resonate
with Your Spirit. Silence us and
instruct us until we learn afresh to sing the songs of faith, hope, and
love. AMEN.
Words of Assurance
We are God’s by
grace. With great joy we are made alive
in Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God. 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:
(Continued prayers for
all those affected by the Coronavirus, for our schools, for our national
leaders.)
Jesus Christ, light of
the world, we dare to bring our whole selves before you this morning, asking
that you shine your purifying light on us once again. Illumine the dark corners no one else sees –
the shadows of doubt, the pockets of loneliness, the specters of fear, the
gloom of discouragement. Lift our face
to behold you in the full radiance of your light, that something of your
perfect love, truth, and peace may radiate into our lives and awaken us to the
full truth of who we are, by your grace and in your mercy.
Gracious Lord, shine your healing light into every place of
darkness and despair, we especially pray for those living in our cities and our
children who die at the hands of violence, we pray for those caught up in
alcohol and drug abuse, we pray for those who are sick and need your healing
powers.
Help find a way, Lord,
to ease the suffering of the world, to find a way towards peace and to bolster
the good works that others share.
We also lift up to you our friends and loved ones…
We ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior 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.
Hymn Fairest Lord Jesus
Scripture Readings
Old Testament: Psalm 114
1When
Israel went out from Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange
language,
2Judah
became God’s sanctuary, Israel his dominion.
3The sea
looked and fled; Jordan turned back.
4The
mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs.
5Why is
it, O sea, that you flee? O Jordan, that you turn back?
6O
mountains, that you skip like rams? O hills, like lambs?
7Tremble,
O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob,
8who
turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water.
New Testament: Matthew 18:21-35
21Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of
the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven
times?” 22Jesus said to
him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. 23“For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a
king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand
talents was brought to him; 25and, as he
could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and
children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. 26So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have
patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him
and forgave him the debt. 28But that same
slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a
hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you
owe.’ 29Then his
fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will
pay you.’ 30But he
refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the
debt. 31When his
fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they
went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. 32Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked
slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had
mercy on you?’ 34And in anger
his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire
debt. 35So my heavenly
Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or
sister from your heart.”
Anthem –
Sermon – Just like the hymns, you can click on the
sermon title to hear/watch a video of today’s sermon via YouTube.
(based
on Matthew 18:21-35)
To Jesus, life in the community of
believers is the most important thing in the world, and those who want to be
members of it are called to do everything in their power to nourish and
strengthen the bonds of their love for one another.
Nothing
is to get in the way of that, not their quarrels with one another, not their
rivalries, not their tendency to put each other down, not even their blatant
sins. All of these things are normal
parts of being in relationship with one another, but none of these things are
supposed to get in the way of forming a loving community, Jesus says in
Matthew. If one of them goes astray,
they are to leave the rest of the flock and go find the lost one; if one of
them does wrong and separates him or herself from the community, they are to go
and try to bring them back.
As
Peter has listened to Jesus and his parables or stories about community and
everyone’s responsibility in that community, he becomes concerned. Specifically, he becomes concerned about
what, exactly, is required of him in all this.
He is looking for some kind of guideline, a limit to how far he must go
with this relationship business. You
know, he’s a fisherman. He’s a man who’s
used to being out on the water where it’s quiet. A man who’s used to conversing with his
shipmates only when necessary. He is
used to people doing what their supposed to be doing and getting on with
it. If there’s a problem, it’s usually settled
in the normal guy way – you have a fight – somebody wins, somebody loses and
you get on with it.
He’s
probably not used to this touchy-feely stuff that Jesus has been talking
about. However, he is trying to
understand it all and he pretty much has it down that the macho thing is out
and there’s more to it than all that. But
now he needs to know how far he’s got to go with all this. “Lord,” he asks Jesus, “how often shall my
brother sin against me, and I forgive him?
As many as seven times?” Now, Peter may even have had a slight sarcasm
in his voice when he asks this. Even
seven times sounds like a lot to him.
But
Peter gets no credit for his generosity in this, sarcasm or no. Instead, Jesus says, “I do not say to you
seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
(Or in some other gospel accounts of this passage – seventy times
seven), which is about the same as saying that there is no limit to
forgiveness, that forgiving those who sin against you is not something we ever
get done with but something that goes on forever; that it is not a favor we
bestow for a specific number of times, but rather a way of life that never
ends.
The
difficulty is that I don’t think human nature is wired so readily to forgive
easily. Most of us are willing to get
burned once, a lot of us are willing to even get burned twice, but the third
time, sorry, we tend to back off. Let
only seven times. Or even more
ridiculously seventy-seven times or at the most ridiculous - counting out
seventy-times seven times. It’s as if we
have this little calculator in our heads, keeping track of how much we are
putting into our relationships versus how much we are getting out of them, and
not many of us pursue those with a negative balance. Isn’t that right?
When
someone lets us down again and again, we tend to turn our attention
elsewhere. We prefer cost-efficient
relationships in which there is a better rate of exchange, in which what we
give and what we get are more nearly even.
No one wants a one-way relationship, in which one person does all the
giving while the other one just gets and gets and gets.
That’s
the part of us that Jesus is speaking to in today’s reading, the part of us
that – like Peter – wants to place a limit on our involvement with people who
run up debts with us. We try to be
patient. We try to stay open to them,
but surely there has to be a limit.
Well, Jesus answers Peter’s question with a story. It’s a story about a king who wishes to
settle accounts with his servants, many of whom owe him money. He’s a king who keeps good books, who employs
several accountants to keep track of who owes him what, and several jailers
even, to lock up those who cannot pay.
On this particular day of reckoning he apparently starts at the top of
his list, because the servant who is brought before him owes him an outrageous
sum of money – 10,000 talents. I have
read that 10,000 talents is equivalent to anywhere between about 100 million
dollars to one and a half billion dollars in today’s money. To be honest, I can’t imagine how a single
individual could possibly owe so much to
another.
Clearly,
the servant cannot pay that amount, so the king orders him and his family to be
sold. The price they will bring will not
begin to cover their debt, but the king is in the business of cutting his
losses, and selling the servant is less expensive than keeping him around,
evidently. Realizing that the jig is up,
the servant falls on his knees and begs, promises to pay everything he owes if
the king will just be patient.
It’s
an absurd promise. He needs to come up
with millions upon millions of dollars.
He will never be able to pay what he owes, but to everyone’s surprise,
the king is moved, both by the servant’s plight and by his plea, so he has pity
on him and releases him, forgiving him the whole debt – millions of
dollars. He accepts the risk of
remaining in relationship with him. For
reasons known only to himself, he cancels his servant’s debt and gives him back
his life again, out of the goodness of his heart. He does except something in return,
however. And we’ll get back to that in
just a moment.
Now,
can you imagine being forgiven such a large debt. What is the biggest debt you’ve ever
known? It’s probably your house; a
mortgage. Imagine that life has gotten
tough and you aren’t able to come up with the mortgage payment, the bank calls
and wants their money. You make an
appointment to come into the bank and speak with the bank manager. The bank manager hears about your plight, you
promise to pay even though you don’t have a job. You’ll find the money somehow. The bank manager feels sorry for you and
doesn’t just say…Okay, I’ll be patient and wait for your payment when you can
make it. Instead the bank manager feels
sorry for you and says; I’ll tell you what, don’t worry about the money you’ve
been late in paying, in fact, don’t worry about what you still owe us at
all. We’re just going to cross out your
debt and you can start over. You don’t
owe the bank anything.
How
would you feel, leaving the bank that day?
Well,
this servant has a chance to return the favor by forgiving one of his own debtors,
a man who owes him about 100 denarii – or about three thousand dollars in
today’s money – but within moments of being forgiven himself, he fails to do
the same thing. Instead, he grabs the
man by the throat, demanding his payment and when the man says the very same
thing to him that he said to the king – “Have patience with me and I will repay
you” – it doesn’t go over so well. And
the man is thrown into jail.
Now,
somehow, the king gets wind of what he has just done and does the same thing to
him, revoking the mercy he showed before and sentencing his servant to life in
prison. “You wicked servant!” he says to
him, “I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me; and should you
not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?”
Why
does this king do this? Because he
expected a different result from the servant.
On
the surface, this is basically a lesson or parable about the Golden Rule: Do
unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Or to put it more bluntly: Do unto others as you would have God do unto you, because if you do not
forgive your brother or sister from your heart your heavenly Father will have
you hauled off to jail and throw away the key.
However,
I think there’s more to this parable than that.
If the only reason to forgive my neighbor is to save my own neck, to
secure my own forgiveness, then it’s not something I am doing out of love but
rather out of fear, and that doesn’t sound like Jesus to me? Making us do something out of fear?
No. It makes me think that we’ve got to look
below the surface of this parable to discover what this lesson is really all
about.
When
I’ve been forgiven, and I mean really forgiven, it’s like someone has taken a
big pink eraser and scrubbed my record clean, it’s an incredible experience,
because I know that I don’t deserve it.
I did something wrong. But
surprisingly, I wasn’t the one that fixed it.
It came from someone else who said, “Don’t worry about it. I forgive you.” It came as a free gift from someone whom I
have hurt, but who has decided that what is more important than getting even is
to remain in relationship with me.
That
is, as best I can say it, what real forgiveness is all about: pure,
unadulterated grace. But anyone who has
experienced the genuine article knows that there are also a lot of imposters
around. People overlook one another’s
faults or make excuses for them and call
it forgiveness. They hide their
feelings in order to avoid a fight and they call that forgiveness. They
learn how to say things that sound forgiving and call it forgiveness, while their actions bear absolutely no
resemblance to their words.
There
is a lot that passes for forgiveness that really isn’t forgiveness at all, but
rather a kind of indifference, in which we dismiss people from our lives by
“forgiving” them and then have less and less to do with them until finally
there is nothing left between us at all.
Because once we ourselves have
experienced real forgiveness from someone else, how could we deprive anyone else
the same experience? It’s not that they
stopped looking at the ledger with your sins on it. They really, honestly, threw it away and
forgot that one ever existed.
And that’s what the king does in
this parable, “I forgave you all that debt when you pleaded with me,” he says
to his wicked servant. “Should you not
have shown mercy on your fellow slave as I had mercy on you?” The king who quit keeping score on his
servant wants to know why his servant missed the significance of what had
happened to him.
Somehow, when the king released him
and forgave him his debt, he didn’t get it.
He thought he had gotten away with something. He thought he had pulled a fast one over on
his king. He thought that the king was
soft to buy such an obvious lie. “Lord,
have patience with me and I will pay you everything.” Somewhere between 100 million dollars and 1.5
billion dollars. Yeah, right…He could
never repay what he owed. He knew it and
the king knew it, but if making the king feel sorry for him meant that he didn’t
have to pay, what did he care?
He missed the experience of
forgiveness altogether. It never
occurred to him that he was not being let off the hook. It never crossed his mind that what was
really happening to him was that he was being forgiven from the heart by
someone who understood the enormity of his debt, but was willing to let it all
go, to stop keeping score, to erase the debt.
Why? For the debts’ sake? No, in order to restore their relationship,
so that they could get to know each another again, so that there was no wall
between them, so that the debt didn’t keep them from being in relationship with
one another.
That is what real forgiveness is all
about. The only reason for any of us
ever to forgive each other is because we want the relationship back again,
which is hard to do when you’re keeping score.
As long as you are focused on what someone owes you, you tend to spend
your time figuring out how to get paid back, or proved right, or protected from
further harm. But once you have forgiven
your brother or sister from your heart, there is time to get to know one
another again.
And that’s what the servant
missed. He had missed his own
forgiveness, so of course, he could not forgive anyone else. By the end of the parable, Peter thinks he’s
gotten the message: Do unto others or the king will do unto you – only that’s
not the message of the parable at all.
The message of the parable is: Do unto other as the king has already done unto you. Because it’s not about earning your
forgiveness, or letting others off the hook so that you will be let off the
hook yourself.
It’s a matter of understanding that
you have already been forgiven, that someone to whom you owe everything – your
life and breath, the color of your eyes, the amount of hair on your head, your
fondness for garden fresh tomatoes, your pleasure in the moon and stars, all
the loves of your life – someone who has given and given and given to you and
who has gotten precious little in return has examined your enormous debt in
great detail and knows from your credit rating that the chances of repayment
are…zero. God who knows all of that and
yet has taken your score card and torn it in two for one reason and one reason
alone: because He wants to remain in relationship with you, and wants you to be
free to respond.
When someone like that has stopped
keeping score on you, you feel sort of foolish keeping score on the people in
your own life. You feel sort of petty,
wanting to write them off after seven times, or
after seventy-seven times or even after seventy times seven times, for
that matter, when you consider how many times you have been forgiven
yourself. Once you’ve let that sink in,
once you’ve really taken that into your own heart, how can you – how can any of
us – pass up a single chance to do the same?
Better yet, how could we not respond
with joy and laughter, with mercy and hope to the one who has forgiven us.
Thanks be to God.
AMEN
Hymn I Sing the Mighty Power of God
Benediction
Glory be to the
Creator, who gives us life? Glory be to
Christ, the servant of love! Glory be to
the Spirit, who empowers us forward! AMEN.
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