Unfortunately, there will not be a YouTube link to today's service. But the service and sermon are below.
Worship
Service for April 24, 2022
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Come together, joining hands and hearts.
P: Let our hands be links of chain which hold
our lives together -
L: a silver cord of strength, a ribbon of
love and faith and community.
P: Come together, joining hands and hearts.
L: Let the Spirit of God and the human spirit
flow in each one and through us all
P: as we gather here to share this time and
space
L: and as we walk together on the journey.
Opening Hymn – Jesus Shall Reign Hymn #375
Prayer of Confession
O God of
Comfort and Justice, forgive the suffering we have caused others: the malicious
comment or hasty word that, once spoken, cannot be recalled, the
self-indulgence that ignores real need, and the violence we wish upon our
enemies. Forgive us, too, for blaming
You for the evil we could have avoided or prevented. And pardon our blasphemy that uses You to
explain that which we don’t understand.
Guide us to an understanding of You, not as a source of our troubles,
but as “our refuge and strength, a very present help in touble.”
(Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: In the act of suffering, Christ absorbed
our sins. In unfailing love, He forgive
our heartfelt failures. In Christ’s
resurrection, God promises acceptance, assures pardon, and affirms eternal life.
P: Our sins are forgiven. Thanks be to God!
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
Choir: Alleluia #1
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
Surprising,
resurrecting God, even now a week after Easter, we walk past your Son’s burial
place, hoping to peek inside, to reassure ourselves that he has, indeed, been
raised from death. We have our moments
of incredulous disbelief. There are
moments when we still wonder, ponder, question and doubt. But in the end the proclamation of the church
is our own as well – ‘Christ is Risen - He is risen, indeed.’
That same risen Lord who taught us, still teaches us and rose from the
grave, bids us who have witnessed his vindication to go into the world as his
disciples, loving others as he loved us.
For this gift of love that is beyond our full comprehension, we give you
– Great God in heaven – thanks.
Because the tomb is vacant, we can yearn for your heavenly city, but
we also long for an end to suffering here on earth, for the needs we shared
with one another just moments ago. We
lift our voices up to you, knowing that your care for us and love us so.
We pray for….
For other needs that we cannot share out loud, we ask for you to hear
and listen to the murmurs of our hearts in this time of silence.
All these prayers we
offer in, through, and under your Mercy, who is our risen Lord Jesus Christ who
taught us how to pray saying 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 – Rock
of Ages Hymn
#342
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Nehemiah
8:8-12
Second Scripture Reading – Luke
3:7-11
Sermon “Breaking
Bread with our Ancestors: Food in Generosity” Part 1
Breaking
Bread with our Ancestors:
Food
in Generosity
(based
on Nehemiah 8:8-12, Luke 3:7-11)
Our Old Testament Scripture reading
comes from Nehemiah. In my opinion, it
is one of the most fascinating stories in the Old Testament. As was often the case throughout their
history, the people of Israel had been exiled from their land, this time by the
Babylonians. The city of Jerusalem was
completely destroyed during the invasion in 586 BC. About fifty years later, the Babylonians were
conquered by the Persians through the military wit and power of Emperor
Cyrus. Under his reign the first of the
Israelites were given permission to return to their homeland. Nearly 100 years after the original exile,
Nehemiah leads the third wave of a large majority of the Israelite exiles to
return during the reign of King Artaxerxes and only then does the
reconstruction of Jerusalem actually begin.
One of Nehemiah’s concerns was that
the people of Israel had completely given up on their worship of God. They had forgotten God’s commands, God’s
promises, God’s ordinances for how they were to live their lives. So, in the public square, Nehemiah had the
people of Israel gather and the Torah read to them aloud. Dramatically, during these public readings, the
people of Israel mourned, cried, and recommitted themselves to the Law of God
and to renew their worship and belief in Yahweh, the God of their ancestors.
After having done so, Nehemiah
declared a feast day and told the people of Israel to eat and drink from the
fruit of their land with gladness, to be generous to those who had nothing
prepared and to send out portions of their harvest, to rejoice in their
recommitment to God’s Word.
I have always imagined a great horde
of people going back to their homes, taking out the old recipes, teaching their
children the meaning and purpose of festival foods, preparing extra portions
for them to spread to neighbors and people across the street, to the town
beggars, the orphans and the widows.
It was part of this imagination that
got me to think about my Sabbatical journey and project, Breaking Bread with
our Ancestors, which I have broken down into 5 sections. Food in Generosity, Food in Abundance, Food
in Scarcity, Food in times of Feasting, and Food in Conflict. Today is about Food in Generosity, but before
I get to that, I’d like to talk a little bit about the whole concept first.
There’s something about food that hits
all the senses – there’s touch; we tactically feel our food – holding a loaf of
bread – the density or lightness of it, the crumb or the moistness. Then there is the smell; who can resist the
smell of cinnamon buns baking in the oven, or even the smell of a pot roast
cooking long and slow filling up the house with the wonderful aroma. Then there is hearing; the sound of sizzling
bacon on the stove, the clatter of pots and pans, and the whirling noise of the
mixer. Then there’s seeing; if those
other senses haven’t already started the saliva glands from going into action,
the sight of our food surely begins the process. Even the pictures of foods in magazines or on
TV can get us started, can’t they? And
finally, the taste…whatever the texture you find most appealing hitting your
tongue and washing your tastebuds with that deliciousness. For each of us that euphoria of taste is
different. For me, a creamy cheesecake
can send me to another world, a different place and time.
I’m sorry if you are now already
hungry.
But, that’s just it….food has a way of
transforming us; it has a way of hitting the very core of our being, of who we
are. It can take us back to our
grandparents’ kitchen, or to a time when the kids were home and racing about,
to traditions, to family dinners and the shared stories at the table.
I was serving my very first church as
a Student Pastor in Southeast Ohio. We
were having a church dinner with Ham, Beans, and Potatoes – a very traditional
Presbyterian Church dinner. Right? I was in the kitchen with one of the
members. I watched her cut the large ham
in half, place the two halves in the roaster and pop it in the oven. Curiously, I asked her, “Why did you cut the
ham in half?” She looked at me somewhat
confused by my question. With her mouth
open in wonder, she cocked her head and said, “I don’t honestly know. That’s what we always do. That’s what my mother did, so that’s why I
do.” Her mom was sitting there slicing
the potatoes. “Mom, what did you always
cut the ham in half?” Her mom replied
with a slight grin on her face, “because, years ago, the oven wasn’t large
enough for a whole ham.”
And
sometimes that’s how tradition is born, generation after generation.
For my
Sabbatical, I wanted to see where the convergence of our food, faith, family
and fellowship merge when it comes to our traditions. For us, here in Southwestern PA and from
where I grew up on the eastern side of the state, our heritage is mostly from
Europe. So, I wanted to see where those
food, faith, and family traditions began.
To discover what we’ve kept over the centuries, what we’ve changed or
transformed over the years, what we’ve merged with other traditions, and even
what we’ve forgotten. I certainly won’t
get to every culture and country where we form our roots, but maybe
someday… I’ll have at least gotten to
and experienced a good many of them.
It is
my firm belief that we can’t chart a future, if we don’t know and appreciate
our past. Looking at the broader
picture, I think that we’ve been so far removed from our past at this point in
the US, that we no longer know or appreciate where we came from, we’re not
passing on our stories as often, the sacrifices that our ancestors made, the
memories that they brought with them to the New World and the course of things
that they put into motion. We are the
inheritors of all of that and I think we need to continue to acknowledge it and
understand it if we have any hopes of building a future, even as new peoples
come from cultures and backgrounds that are different from our own to integrate
with us. Because we don’t share our own
food, faith, and family stories as often, I think we’ve lost our ability to
empathize with the struggles of others who come new this country, bringing
their own traditions and stories with them.
After
nearly 150 years outside of Israel as exiles, Nehemiah had the scriptures read
aloud to the people and made them remember where they came from, what their
ancestors had believed and followed, what sacrifices they had made and the
stories that they now share.
Food
in Generosity is today’s topic. The
Bible implores us in both the old and new testaments with a generous heart to
share with others. To take what we have
and to be generous with those who have little or nothing. We can do that in a number of ways. We can make an extra casserole for the person
down at the end of the street who just lost his wife from cancer. Or buy an extra portion of a ready-made meal
at the grocery store and take it down to them.
We can bake a batch of Chocolate Chip Cookies or buy a pack at the
neighborhood bakery and take them over to the new resident that just moved in
across the street. We can gift an extra
portion of that zucchini or tomato harvest to our next-door neighbor. We can invite someone to dinner or invite
them to stop over for a cup of coffee, even if it is just to sit on the front
porch and watch the world go by. We can
share our stories and journeys with others and, even more importantly, listen
to them tell you about their own. This
is our human connection with one another.
It is where we find our touchstones with each other and how we find
commonality that makes us friends, neighbors, family.
I was
conscious of the way I broke up the 5 sections of this project. I didn’t arbitrarily come up with the
sections. The Bible speaks quite clearly
about all five of them. I did however,
somewhat arbitrarily come up with the countries that each section corresponds
to. I chose Portugal and Spain for Food
in Generosity. I chose the UK and France
for Food in Abundance. Belgium,
Netherlands, and Switzerland in Food during times of Feasting. Italy and Greece for Food in Scarcity. And Poland, Ukraine, Bosnia, and Serbia in
Food in times of Conflict. For somewhat
obvious reasons, I probably will not get to the last four countries, but we’ll
still make the connections found there.
Today,
during our Fellowship time, I’ll talk about the connections I made regarding
Food in Generosity and the countries of Spain and Portugal. Amen
Offertory – Alleluia, Alleluia
Doxology
Prayer of Dedication
We dedicate our lives and all that we have, O God, to the work of
life, of love, and of peace. Receive our
gifts and lead us in wisdom and courage.
MEN.
Closing Hymn – Lift High the Cross Hymn #450
Benediction –
Go forth
today in joy! Let your voices ring with
victory; for Christ is Risen! Happy
Easter. AMEN.
Postlude
