Worship
for the Lord’s Day
Christ the King Sunday
November
22, 2020
Announcements:
·
The
sessions of both churches met via Zoom on Tuesday evening and it was
unanimously decided to move back to on-line only worship until at least
the first of the year due to the increased cases and positivity rate of COVID-19 in our area. We do so sadly,
but want to ensure that all of our members and friends that normally join us
for worship stay safe and that our gathering does not in anyway contribute to
one single person getting sick.
·
We
know and understand that this decision will not make anyone happy, but I’m
prepared to do everything in my creative power to somehow lighten the burden of
the holidays with some fun and enjoyable ideas that will be coming to you in
the coming week and throughout Advent and Christmas. So, stay tuned.
For now; let’s begin our worship service together:
Call to Worship
Hymn: Come, Ye Thankful People, Come (first
and last verses)
Prayer of Confession
Words of Assurance
Our creator God sees our hunger and gives us food. Christ, the healer, touches our wounds,
offering comfort and blessed relief. The
Spirit blows through us, cools our fever, and eases our pain. God sees and touches and heals our
wounds. 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:
We pray for our family and friends, for our country and the
world and for all those in need this day.
(A time of quiet personal prayers can be offered)
In Christ we are one and in His name, we pray…
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 We
Gather Together (all
3 verses)
Scripture Readings – Today’s Sermon Video
includes the following Scripture Readings.
So, if you’d prefer to listen to it, scroll down and click on the
highlighted Sermon Title.
Old Testament: Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
11For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my
sheep, and will seek them out. 12As shepherds
seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek
out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been
scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from
the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on
the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of
the land. 14I will feed
them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their
pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on
rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make
them lie down, says the Lord God. 16I will seek
the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured,
and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I
will feed them with justice. 20Therefore,
thus says the Lord God to
them: I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. 21Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all
the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, 22I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged;
and I will judge between sheep and sheep. 23I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and
he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. 24And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall
be prince among them; I, the Lord, have spoken.
New Testament: Matthew 25:31-46
31“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels
with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will
separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the
goats, 33and he will
put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you
that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world; 35for I was
hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took
care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 37Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that
we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to
drink? 38And when was
it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you
clothing? 39And when was
it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you
did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to
me.’ 41Then he will say to those
at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire
prepared for the devil and his angels; 42for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and
you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a
stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing,
sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw
you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not
take care of you?’ 45Then he will
answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least
of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the
righteous into eternal life.”
Sermon –
(based
on Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24 and Matthew 25:31-46)
This
Sunday is known as Christ the King Sunday and, in my opinion, is one of the
most difficult to preach if you are a lectionary preacher. It is the last Sunday of the liturgical year
before you begin Advent, the anticipation of Christ’s birth. However, in the three-year cycle of the
lectionary readings, I like this passage from Matthew best.
Ezekiel’s
prophetic words against Israel’s false shepherds and his vision of the faithful
shepherd are often read and preached at ceremonies for new church leaders –
ordinations, seminary graduations, and installations. The prophet’s words preach well on such an
occasion, reminding both candidates and congregants what faithful shepherds do
– they gather the lost who have become scattered, provide food and drink, bind
up the injured, and strengthen the weak.
It is a moving vision of what a faithful pastoral leader should do, set
against its stark contrast of the faithless shepherd who cares only for
himself.
But
that familiar use of the 34th chapter of Ezekiel should not obscure its fuller
context and what it may have to say to us.
Ezekiel is trying to tell us that there is actually a far more radical
vision of a time to come when God will directly act as the faithful shepherd
alone. However, in verse 23 it says that
“I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed
them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd.” David, Israel’s most prominent king, remembered
as the shepherd boy who came to the throne with God’s blessing has long since
died. So, who could this passage be
referring to? Christian interpreters
down through all of history have seen Ezekiel’s faithful shepherd as Jesus
Christ, the second David, the perfect Son of God. Therefore, an appropriate passage for Christ
the King Sunday, indeed.
There
are however, a couple of common misconceptions regarding this passage that need
to be cleared away first. One is that
this passage is a call for pastoral leaders who are faithful shepherds. Certainly, not a bad idea, but not what this
passage is about, and two, what’s known as a Christological reading of the
passage, meaning that this is one of those prophetic passages in the Old
Testament scriptures that point to the Christ and should be interpreted only in
that manner (again, not a bad idea, but not what this passage is about).
This
vision of the faithful shepherd is first a warning about what can happen to
religious institutions, churches and denominations as well as those who hold
office within such places that claim to speak for God and mediate God’s divine
grace. No one but God, speaks for God
and God alone is the mediator of grace.
We are all the recipients of that grace, not those that mediate it. This passage is also a reminder of the
promise that God alone is the faithful shepherd, and that faithful shepherding
means both compassion and justice.
First,
let’s talk for a moment about the passage as warning. It is a warning to all churches, religious
leaders, denominations, priests, pastors, bishops, congregations, and all other
types of religious bodies that the very structures we’ve created risks standing
in the way of God, rather than standing in the place of God, as God’s
ambassadors. That we run the risk of
pointing to ourselves as examples, rather than Christ on the cross. That we run the risk of pointing to our own
initiatives, our own good works rather than to the power of the Holy Spirit.
Ezekiel’s
words remind us that while we are called to be faithful shepherds, watching
over the creation that God made and loves, we will not always measure up, that
we will more often than not, get in the way of what God wants to do.
Having
said that, it should not cause us to despair or give up, but rather to be truly
modest in what we claim, to acknowledge that we have some truth but not all the
truth, to press the moral claims of the gospel as we see them in this moment
but to acknowledge that we see in a mirror dimly and that the truth is not
always in us.
The
modesty that we can acknowledge in our truth, frees us to be all the more
passionate and joyful about the gospel message and its life of service. We don’t need to wait until we’ve got it all
figured out, until we know the truth of God and its requirements fully. What we can do is be as close to true
ambassadors as we can, knowing that we are all recipients of God’s eternal
grace.
The
second part of Ezekiel’s passage is a reminder of God’s promise. It is a reminder that all of us who take the
role of ambassador for God, you as a church member entrusted with the task of
spreading God’s good news and me as pastor, do so only provisionally. That in God’s own time and in God’s own way,
there will be a restoration of the direct divine shepherding that will render
all our churches and denominations and pastoral vocations obsolete. That is sometimes a difficult word to hear
when we struggle so much to be faithful.
But our purpose is, ultimately, temporary.
In
that temporary time – what have you done to be faithful? I’m going to come back to that question in a
minute, but before we do, let’s take a look at a message from the Matthew
passage and see if we can integrate the two.
Do you
know why dogs and cats are so different?
A dog looks at you with those big brown eyes, cocks its head to one side
and says to itself, “You love me, you feed me, you care for me, you take me for
walks... you must be God”. A cat
however, looks at you with those piercing green eyes and thinks to itself “You
love me, you feed me, you care for me, you stroke me ... I must be God”. Generally, there are cat people and than
there are dog people. Some people like
to sleep with the windows open and some people prefer to sleep with the windows
closed. There are morning people and
there are late night people. There are
Tigger people and there are Eeyore people.
There are blue sky optimist people and there are chicken little - sky
falling down people. When it comes to
finances, some are cheque book people who record every transaction, and some
are cash people who sort of keep a close proximity of money balances in their
heads. There are type A personality
types and then there are the rest of you.
And you all know who you are.
Jesus
says that ultimately, there are only two kinds of people - the sheep people and
the goat people. Do you know which you
are? To be perfectly honest, I’ve never
liked the distinction that Jesus makes here.
For those of you who know me well know how much I love goats. I’m not in the habit of sharing baby goats in
pajamas videos on Facebook, but I have been known to watch a few of them. And for those who really know me well, know
about my experience visiting a farm for the first time when I was quite young
and seeing all the sheep. I had made
wonderfully soft sheep pictures in Sunday School with cotton balls and
anticipated cuddling up to that soft fur at the farm – only to be treated to a
very different experience of sticky, oily, scratchy wool.
But I
was looking at some internet pictures of sheep and goats and realized for the
first time that when sheep are sheered and you are only looking at the head of
a sheep or a goat, it is nearly impossible to tell the difference between them. I find out that the only real distinction
between the two when you are only looking at their heads is that sheep have a
distinctive philtrum (that little groove directly under your nose). In a sheep this philtrum separates their upper
lip, while the philtrum in a goat does not.
That is the only physical way to tell the difference between a goat head
and sheep head. Now, when you look at
their overall bodies, another more distinctive way to tell the two apart is the
orientation of their tails. A sheep tail
hangs down and a goat tail is carried up.
In
this passage in Matthew, the story is about the separation of those who will
inherit the kingdom of God and those who will not – Jesus says it will be like
separating the sheep and goats. They
often look very similar, but their actions in life speak louder.
So,
let’s go back to the question I asked after we looked at the Ezekiel
passage. What have you done to be
faithful? That is the serious question
in our Matthew passage, as well.
Hymn Now
Thank We All Our God (all 3 verses)
Benediction
You
who are blessed, inherit all that is prepared for you! We leave this sacred worship time to claim
the riches and glorious inheritance that are ours through Christ. Go out into the world to share your blessings
with all in need. AMEN.
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