Worship
Service for September 12, 2021
Click here (when highlighted) for the YouTube link for the recorded service.
Prelude
Announcements:
·
Please feel free to join us for in person
worship at Olivet (West Elizabeth, PA) at 9:45am or at Bethesda (Elizabeth, PA)
at 11:15am.
·
We will have a joint service together today, Sept
12 at Bethesda at 11:15am followed by a provided luncheon – Potato Salad, Green Salad and various hoagies from DeCarlo’s.
·
We will have another joint service together on
Sept 19 at Olivet followed by a provided breakfast – Fruit, Donuts, Bagels and
Cream Cheese.
·
Both Congregations will have a Congregational
Meeting following their worship services on Sept 26.
Sounding of the Hour (at Bethesda only)
Call to Worship
L: Wisdom cries out in the streets.
P: We hear and struggle to understand.
L: Come and listen to the words of life and
love.
P: We hear and proclaim our faith in the one
who brings life.
L: Let us worship the God of life and wisdom
whose words guide our life on the right paths.
Opening Hymn – All Hail the Power of Jesus’
Name
Prayer of Confession
Wisdom cries
in the streets, but we do not listen or understand. The words of Your law are spoken, but we
rarely pay heed or obey. You call us to
declare who Jesus is for us, but we can’t seem to get the right words out. Our tongues engage before our brains do. We want so much to be a people who are
faithful to Your word and led by Your guidance, but we are so easily distracted
by the cacophony of words and sounds.
Forgive us when we are quick to speak and slow to understand. Forgive us when we do not hear Your wisdom in
all the ways You speak to us. Forgive us
when we do not even try to truly understand when it means to be Your
disciples. Lead us back to the path of
wisdom and life, that we may truly live.
(Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Those who listen to the words of wisdom
will be secure and live in ease. Know
that our God never ceases to reach out in love and forgiveness, guiding us on
the path of life and righteousness, calling us to claim our true identity as
disciples.
P: By grace we have been saved through
faith. Thanks be to God. AMEN.
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/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
Choral Anthem – “Shine, Jesus,
Shine”
Pastoral Prayer
With our hearts, minds,
and souls we praise you, O Lord, for we are fearfully and wonderfully
made. How grateful we are that you love
us with a love that will not let us go even though we have, by design and
default, resisted you. What is it about
us that causes such resistance? We know,
O God, even as we ask, that it is the rebellious spirit within us. Help us.
Don’t leave us to the consequences of our own foolishness.
On this particular
morning, Lord, we are mindful of the horrific attack on our own soil that
occurred 20 years ago. We mourned the
loss of life, we wondered what had happened in the world that could cause such
hatred. But, while we are intent on
mourning our own losses, vowing to never forget, we do often forget about the
loss of life that occurs every day in other lands, that bombings and warfare
have become a way of life for many other peoples. So, Lord, we pray for peace. We pray for your hand to stretch out over our
land and across the globe to bring about peace with one another. Show us the way, show us how to cross the
line, to cross the divide, to cross the chasm that keeps human beings from
living in harmony with one another.
As we pray for the world,
we also pray for one another. Hear our
prayers this day as we pray for our loved ones and friends. We lift up to you….
And in this time of
silence listen to the beatings and groanings of our heart’s desire and
replenish us, O Lord.
We pray these things
now in his precious name, who taught us to pray boldly together…
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 – Take
My Life and Let it Be Consecrated
Scripture Reading(s):
OT – Psalm 19
NT – Mark 8:27-38
Sermon –
Jump
(based on
Mark 8:27-38)
How many of you are familiar with
comedian Yakov Smirnoff? When he first
came to the
Smirnoff was, of course, joking but
we make these assumptions about Christian Transformation, too—that people
change instantly at the moment of salvation. Different traditions call it different things,
transformation, repentance, a
Unfortunately, there is no such
powder and disciples of Jesus Christ are not instantly born. They are slowly raised through many trials,
sufferings, and temptations, through victories and triumphs, through Bible
Study and Prayer, through fellowship, and encouragement. But how many of us right now actually
participate in those things on a regular basis?
How many of us actually engage in dialogue and serious questions about
our faith, about what we believe and how that converges or doesn’t with the
world we live in? True life change only
begins at the moment we start questioning things, and it takes more than just
time. It’s about training, it’s about trying,
it’s about suffering and rejoicing, it’s about studying alone and with a group
of people that you can dialogue with, and yes, it’s even about dying.
What do you think of or feel when
that last part is included? Well, just
like us, Peter did not want to hear such things either as Jesus spoke plainly
to his disciples and began talking of death.
Peter took Jesus aside and rebuked him. Why? Because
Peter believed that the
Okay, now for a moment I would like
you to listen to this story with new ears and see Jesus through the eyes of
Peter and the rest of the disciples. For
just a moment I want you to get rid of all your notions about who Jesus is. Take away from your mind that Jesus was the
Son of God. Strip from your memory that
he died on the Cross and rose from the dead. Forget that Jesus ever said love your enemies
or love your neighbor.
Now I want you to think of Jesus
only as a military leader like Colin Powell or Douglas McArthur. Imagine that your country has been invaded and
has been ruled by godless men for generations. Sense, now, that various factions have tried
to hold uprisings but have failed. The
tension though is now mounting and you believe that the time has come for a
serious battle. You are about to conduct
a revolution. That was the mindset of
the people of Christ’s day; a political revolutionary mindset, with the
trappings of a religious flavor to it. You
and this band of radical ruffians are going to attempt to overthrow this
government by a sudden violent strike. The
odds, of course, are stacked against you but you have a very strong belief that
God is on your side despite the overwhelming odds.
Now you’re thinking like Peter and
all the rest of the disciples. Jesus
comes before his disciples and lays out his military strategy. Jesus says. In essence, “We are going to march into
Jerusalem and I, your General, will suffer many things. We are not going to get any help from our
Jewish brothers the Elders. Even the
Chief Priest and the Sadducees will not join us. Our government the Sanhedrin is corrupt and
can be of no help to us. We are going it
alone and I will die in this battle.”
On this day Jesus spoke plainly to
his disciples about the events soon to transpire and even though it was plain
language it was not plain enough. Peter
was not able to shake his understanding of Jesus as his General so he pulls
Jesus aside and rebukes him. He says,
“Sir, this is not a very good military strategy. You are not going to die, don’t say that. It’s not good for morale. It’s not good for the troops to hear you say
such things. We are counting on you to
see us through to victory. We are going
to be there with you and we will fight to the end and we will throw these
godless Romans out of
It is fascinating to note that just
before Jesus rebukes Peter he turns and looks at his disciples. It’s as if Jesus is putting two and two
together and realizes the disciples all feel the very same way, Peter is just
their spokesman. I think it is a
perilous moment in the life of Christ. He must dispel this error from their minds and
teach them the meaning of his mission. So,
he rejects Peter outright calling him a tool of Satan and says, “You do not
have in mind the things of God, but on human things.”
To address the confusion Jesus pulls
his disciples together and brings them before a crowd. And in front of the crowd he corrects the
disciples’ aspirations for privilege, rank, and power and he gives them this
simple little directive: “You must take up your cross and follow me.”
We’ve all heard that before. We’ve all heard about taking up our crosses
and bearing such burdens. We all know
that Jesus wanted us to identify with what he was about to do. To understand the depth of his sacrifice and
the depth of the sacrifice as Christians we all must make. That was Jesus’ metaphor.
However, this morning, I would like to
offer you a new one, because I don’t think we get it. I think we have a tendency to act as if our
Christianity is some sort of club, but nothing more. That the cross has become just a symbol of
that club. So, I have a new image in
mind for us. Not one to take the place
of the cross, but rather an image to lay in your mind beside it. An additional metaphor that might make more
sense to us today.
Rob Bell, in his book Velvet Elvis
tells this story, “Several years ago my parents and in-laws gave our boys a
trampoline. A fifteen-footer with
netting around the outside so kids don’t end up headfirst in the flowers. Since then, my boys and I have logged more
hours on that trampoline than I could begin to count. When we first got it, my older son, who was
five at the time, discovered that if he timed his bounce with mine, he could
launch higher than if he was jumping on his own. I remember the first time he called my wife,
Kristen, out into the backyard to watch him jump off of my bounce. Now mind you, up until this point he was
maybe getting a foot higher because of his new technique. But this one particular time, when my wife
was watching for the first time, something freakish happened in the space-time
continuum. When he jumped, there was
this perfect convergence of his weight and my weight and his jump and my jump,
and I’m sure barometric pressure and air temperature had something to do with
it too, because he went really high. I
don’t mean a few feet off the mat. I
mean he went over my head. Forty pounds
of boy, clawing the air like a cat thrown from a second-story window, and a man
making eye contact with his wife and thinking, This Is Not Good. She told us she didn’t think our new trick
was very safe and we should be careful.
Which we were. Until she went
inside the house.”
He goes on to say, that it is on
this trampoline that God begins to make more sense to him.
So, in addition to the image of the cross, I give you the image of the
trampoline. When we jump on a
trampoline, we see the need for springs.
The springs help us make sense of the deeper realities of our faith. But it’s only in jumping that we get to test
those springs, see how it works, understand how deep, how high we can jump.
So, in order to become a follower of
Christ, we need to learn how to jump. And
the more we jump, the more we understand the deep richness of the mystery of
God. The more we jump, the more we
glimpse the truth of what God has to offer us.
The more we jump, the more we flex and stretch, the more we see our own
roles in this journey of faith. We’ve
become to comfortable, not jumping. We’ve
become too comfortable just bouncing along allowing the outside world to
dictate to us how we should respond.
If you just want a club, you’ve got
one. You come to church on Sunday
mornings, when we have our meetings at 9:45 or 11:15 am. The doors are open, the leader is standing up
in front. We announce that the yearly programs
have started running, as usual, just like we did them last year or the year
before, thanks to a couple of dedicated volunteers. And at the end of the meeting, we say AMEN; I
agree with that, and we all go home, until the next time we gather.
Unfortunately, the cross has become somewhat
meaningless; a symbol of our meeting place and time. A symbol of our group, but not a whole lot
more.
This, right here, why we gather,
isn’t a club.
This is about our spiritual journeys,
the understanding of why Christ was called Messiah by Peter, why he and the
rest of the disciples still didn’t quite get it, and why we need to constantly
figure it out for ourselves. Where are
you on that journey?
There is no Christian powder that
makes instant Christians. Maybe it’s
more like French cooking that requires a lot of steps and meticulous attention
to the details. Whatever it is that
makes you claim Christ as Messiah like Peter did, I want you to learn how to
jump. I think you need to test your
faith. I think you should stretch what,
how, why, you believe. I think you need
to take seriously, the claims that Jesus makes, what he teaches, and the parts
that we are supposed to play in this journey.
As we begin a new church year, Jesus said, “Take up your cross and
follow me.” And I’ll add just one more
recommendation to go along with that that, “jump.”
AMEN.
Offertory
Doxology
Prayer of Dedication
God, we hear and we respond to
Your words of wisdom, Your words of call and life. May these gifts, not only of our money, but
of our very selves – our words, our thoughts, our actions – be acceptable to
You, and help spread Your words of life and love. Amen
Closing Hymn – I Sing the Mighty Power of God.
Benediction
Go forth with the words of
wisdom crying in your ears. Go forth
with the songs of hope singing in your heart.
Know that you are called to be faithful followers of the One who will
always be near you, will always guide and encourage you to walk the path of
life. AMEN.
Postlude
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