Click Here when highlighted for the YouTube link.
Worship
Service for September 25, 2022
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Let us rejoice, for morning has
dawned. A new day has been born and we
are newly alive to enjoy it.
P: We know the beauty of God’s creation and
the wonder of the human family. We
remember those whose love has shaped our lives and those whose struggle for
justice has been unsleeping even in night-times of loneliness.
L: We gather in our church to worship God, to
share prayers and gifts, to pledge ourselves to God’s work in the world.
P: May God bless us, so that what we do in
this time together may be honest, sacred, and filled with hope.
Opening Hymn – Praise, My Soul, the King of
Heaven Hymn #478 Blue
Hymnal
Prayer of Confession
Gracious God, in our wanderings
and selfish desires: we have forsaken fellowship with our families, our
friends, and our neighbors; we have neglected our sacred communion with You,
choosing worldly pleasures and desires over truth, justice, and righteousness. In a world of plenty, we have hoarded our
earthly blessings, rather than storing up our heavenly treasures. Free us from such bondage, that we may truly
reveal the presence of Christ in our lives.
(Silent prayers are offered)
AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: In faith, we call out to a loving and
forgiving God, seeking to put aside our old life and put on Christ. God surely answers our prayers. In the name of Christ Jesus, our sins are
forgiven.
P: 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
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
Gracious and loving
God, our souls sing as we contemplate your awesome beauty, your matchless
grace, your all-encompassing mercy, your unparalleled love. We thank you for being who you are to us, a
God who relates to us even when we are undeserving and whose bond with us is so
strong that even our rebellion does not create an irreparable breach between
us. Like the apostle Paul, we too are
convinced that nothing can separate us from you through faith in Jesus Christ –
not life or death, not angels or principalities, not earthly powers. Nothing in the heavens, nothing on earth,
nothing in the future, nothing in our past, nothing at all can separate us from
the love you have for us in Christ. Your
Son is truly our Savior. What a blessing
beyond words this is.
He reaches out to us at
all times in life. Sometimes we hear his
call clearly and strongly, reaching out our own hand and heart to take
his. Sometimes that call is muffled by
the world around us, by circumstances that seem hopeless and beyond
repair. Even then, as silent as the call
might be, our spirits feel it’s tug and we are eventually found.
Thank you Lord for
never abandoning us, even when you seem very far away and distant. We also gives thanks for your love and care,
as we pray for our own loved ones.
Continue to reach out to those who are alone, who feel abandoned right
now. Comfort those who are in distress
and hurting. Surround those who are ill
with your compassion, understanding, strength, and healing. We especially pray for….
In this time of silence
we ask that you look deep within our hearts, minds, and souls; strengthen us
Lord, for our daily living. Give us
comfort in the areas of our lives that need tender care and peace in the areas
that are in turmoil…
We pray these things
because Jesus is Lord and he taught us to pray together 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 – There’s
a Wideness in God’s Mercy Hymn #355 Brown Hymnal
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Jeremiah
32:1-15
Second Scripture Reading – Luke
16:19-31
Sermon – Go Deeper
Jesus
begins his parable of the rich man and Lazarus by highlighting in graphic
detail the gap that exists between the two – the rich man lives in sumptuous
affluence, while just outside the gates the poor man sits, dogs licking the
sores on his body. The rich man goes to
bed each night having had his fill of food while the poor man goes to bed
hungry. To make matters worse, the rich
man pays absolutely no attention whatsoever to the poor man’s plight. He doesn’t find him a nuisance; doesn’t have
him carried away or even shoved along to beg at someone else’s gate. No, the rich man completely disregards
Lazarus. Doesn’t give him the time of
day.
Jesus
continues the story by saying that the poor man dies and is carried to
Abraham’s side; a metaphor for heaven or the eternal home of the righteous. Then, some time later, the rich man also dies
and goes straight to hell. There he
suffers terribly. On the distant
horizon, the suffering rich man sees the beggar, Lazarus, enjoying the bliss of
heaven and calls out Abraham, pleading for him to send Lazarus on a mission of
mercy to cool his burning thirst.
Abraham
and the rich man have an exchange. Put into
succinct words, Abraham says to the rich man, “You had your chance in life and
you blew it. Now you have to pay for
your cruel and selfish neglect. And it’s
not only you. Your ignorant and
insensitive brothers, who are still living, are currently going in the same
direction. Moses and the prophets made
it perfectly clear what should be people’s duty in life, but your brothers have
hardened themselves to such counsel, just like you did. Forget trying to warn them because it won’t
do any good.”
A
story like this should give most of us pause because the truth of the matter
is, in terms of relative affluence, we’re the unnamed rich man. Therefore, we need to sit up and pay very
careful attention to what Jesus is telling us here. Oftentimes this parable or story is used to wag
fingers at the unrepentant, to show that there is truly a hell for sinners and
there is truly a heaven for the righteous.
Preachers that love to point fingers at sinners find this parable to be
their favorite. It gives them the
ammunition they need to prove that heaven and hell are real.
But
I want us to go deeper than that. Yes,
heaven and hell are real and there are eternal consequences to our behavior
here on earth. But the point of the
story wasn’t about heaven or hell. Jesus
was trying to get the listeners to understand the here and now consequences of
our behavior. To see the sharp contrast between
the unknown rich man and the poor suffering beggar.
In
the story Jesus is telling us that God has a deep protective instinct for the
poor, who in this story is named. There
is not a single parable in all the rest of scripture where one of the
characters is given a name, only here for this poor starving man who suffered greatly
during life. His name was Lazarus. His name was written in the Book of Life for
all eternity. And his name will be
remembered even if he was not well regarded during life, a nothing, a nobody – but,
he is remembered by name by God and in heaven.
All through the bible there are
hundreds of references that clearly attest to God’s eternal protection of the
poor. And, of course, in the life and
teaching of Christ we see this concern revealed all the time. Christ proclaims that God has a broken heart
for the unfortunates of our world and that God identifies with them, so much so
that our showing kindness to such folks – the least of these – is tantamount to
showing kindness to Christ himself.
Jesus
tells us that there will be a payday some day when God will mete out justice,
so that those who receive the short end of the stick in this life will be
blessed in the next. And those who are
blessed in this life, yet who show no compassion to the destitute will be
brought low in the next. In other words,
in heaven there will be a great reversal.
We’ve seen Jesus do that all the time in his parable about the first
shall be last and the last shall be first.
In
the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus also tells us that we as rich
men and women have been adequately warned and that we’re without excuse when it
comes to our duty to care for those in need.
From Moses and the prophets to Christ himself, God’s word has made our
obligation to the poor and broken abundantly clear. And if it isn’t clear by now, you haven’t
been listening. That is the here and now
consequence of our behavior that we’ve often chosen to ignore. As this parable says, even if someone were to
rise from the dead and point out our selfish insensitivity, we may very well
ignore what is said.
Most of us understand full well what
we’re being told in this story. The
challenge is to take what we now know and translate it into action whenever and
wherever possible. We need to look
around and see the many different faces of Lazarus that surround us –
impoverished persons who need our material expressions of support and
encouragement. They’re everywhere. We just need to open our eyes to see
them. If we don’t, Christ clearly
suggests, we’ll receive exactly what is due us.
But, here is the challenge. It’s
not just about material expressions of support.
For most of us it could be easy to write a check or hand over some money
to ease our consciousness. What’s
difficult is getting involved in the lives of those who are less
fortunate. What did the rich man do his
whole life while Lazarus sat outside his gates?
He ignored him. He disregarded
him. Maybe he threw a few bits of coins
into his bucket, but he refused to get involved in the man’s life. And when the rich man was suffering in hell,
what did he want from Lazarus? Did he
need money? Did he want lavish accommodations? No, all he wanted was for Lazarus to come and
slake his thirst with a bit of water. To
involve himself in the suffering of the rich man – the very thing that he had
failed to do during his life.
Jesus
spends more time talking about money and how it keeps us from God or on how it
should be used than on any other topic.
The real issue is about our purpose and mission in life – it’s not about
gaining happiness through storing up wealth, or gaining heaven by being able to
purchase our way in, or about having the most number of special gadgets and
toys. No our purpose and mission in life
is to use our resources to do good
in the world and to involved ourselves in those who suffer.
There are so many people in the
world today who view God as vacant and uncaring about the plight of the poor,
not because God has been deaf, dumb and blind.
But rather God’s messengers, ambassadors or even soldiers if you want to
use that term have been deaf, dumb and blind to the needs of the world. It is our job and our calling to show the world,
Christ. To be the arms and legs, feet
and hands of Christ. And we’ve done a
very poor job of it. It’s about time
that the church started acting like Christ, so that the world can find God
again.
We’ve been so concerned with keeping
doors open and the heat on that we’ve forgotten our purpose and our
mission. We are a faith community, where
we come on Sunday mornings to express that faith together, to worship God and
praise God for all that God has done for us.
But we’ve forgotten what faith is really all about.
I came across this quote from Mitch
Harrison,
“Faith is so much more than just
about believing in the things you cannot see.
It’s also about practicing detachment.
If you think about it, everything that we’re comfortable with also means
that we’re attached to it, whether it serves us positively or negatively.
Faith and Detachment can both be scary,
because they require us to step out of our comfort zones. But it’s only in those spaces where comfort
and attachment are not in the driver’s seat that offers us the opportunity for
more growth and awareness. So, the next time
you feel your faith being challenged, see it less as merely believing in things
you can’t see and more about letting go of the feeling of comfort in exchange for
the opportunity of expansion. Let’s get
comfortable being uncomfortable and expand.”
This parable or story is calling the
community of faith to be uncomfortable with what we’ve done or not done. It is calling us to a higher purpose and a more
compassionate mission to the world. In
light of that, what will we do?
Thanks be to God.
AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Holy
God of the heavens and earth, bless our offerings this day with your miraculous
power, that they will be transformed into effective usage for ministry of your
eternal grace, mercy, compassion and love.
Thanks be to God. AMEN.
Closing Hymn –
Lord, Make Us More Holy Hymn #356 Blue Hymnal
Benediction –
Friends, Live boldly,
trusting God with everything you are and everything you have. Take hold of the life to which God calls you. Go forth, rejoicing in God.
Postlude
