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Worship
Service for October 9, 2022
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: In a world of pain and trouble, we need a
place to heal. Here and now, we have
come into the presence of God our healer.
P: God is our rock and our refuge.
L: Let the old and the aging, the young and
the innocent, the confused and the lost, turn to the Lord in hope.
P: God is our rock and our refuge.
Opening Hymn – Spirit of the Living God Hymn
#322/389
Prayer of Confession
O God, we remember times of
blessing in our lives: when we have been released from suffering and despair,
when we have been freed to reclaim life and hope; but we also remember times of
hardship: when we have been cast out into deep waters, bent over by the weight
of pain. O God, it is hard to claim the
hope and promise of the past in the presence of today’s troubles. Meet us today with Your good news that we may
be renewed by the power of Your presence.
(Silent prayers are offered)
AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Give praise to God, who accompanies us on
our journey, who hears our cries and anguish, and who remains faithful and
answers our prayers. Give glory to God who brings life out of death, and joy
out of sorrow.
P: Thanks be to God for this saving grace! 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
O God, our strength and our shield, we gather today to
worship the grandeur of the created world and our place in it. You have created
us to till and keep your garden and we thank you for the privilege of being
stewards of all that you created. As we
sing and worship, make us mindful of the perfection in which the world was
created. As it is in our power, make us
agents of reconciliation. Make us people
who not only speak words of peace; make us peaceful people. Make us people who not only speak words of
hope; make us hope-filled people. Make
us people who not only speak words of love; make us loving people. As we hear the words of life in Scripture,
song, and sermon, may the seed of the gospel take root in our lives and may we
be the people you created us to be.
Heavenly Lord, we seek
answers to life’s most difficult questions when we gather together in praise
and honor of your name. Know that our
questions come with great wonder and awe at who you are and whose we are. In our journey’s to find the right path for
each of us, we have stumbled and fallen, risen and been renewed. We have found and treacherous paths and have
sailed on smooth seas. In this morning’s
worship we have named loved ones and cherished friends that are currently in
need of smoother waters and calmer seas.
We pray for…
In this time of silence
hear also the words and meditations of our hearts.
In Jesus’s name we 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 – Precious
Lord, Take My Hand Hymn #404/689
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Jeremiah
29:1,4-7
Second Scripture Reading – Acts
2:42-47
Sermon –
The First Church
(based on Acts 2:42-47)
Last Sunday
we had an opportunity to participate in an unusual worship service for us. We sat around the table in our Fellowship
Hall, ate together, worshiped, broke bread and had communion with God and with
one another. It was as close to what the
early church would have done shortly after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension,
followed by Pentecost when the Christian Church began living into the Great
Commission given to them by Christ.
We read this
chapter and verse from Acts together using the Lectio Divina style of reading
and responding to scripture. You had an
opportunity to listen to it and think about it.
You also had an opportunity to respond through three different question
prompts; picking out the words, phrases or images that stood out for you, what
light the passage might have shed on your life or our lives as the church, and
what might God be calling you or asking us to do in light of this passage. This morning I want to delve a bit deeper
into the meaning and understanding of what was happening with the Christian
movement among the Jews 2,000 years ago versus where we are today in that same
Christian movement.
One
afternoon, a seminary professor by the name of Mike Graves was out golfing and
got paired with a couple of guys he didn’t know well. In casual conversation they covered a variety
of subjects between holes until they finally got around to talking about their
professions. When Mike mentioned that he
was a seminary professor, a couple of them talked about the church they
attended. Graves asked them about their
practice of taking communion and what it was like in their church, how they
would describe it. One of the golfer’s said
it was “a holy time, a quiet time, somber, kind of like a funeral.”
And often it
does, doesn’t it? I remember the first
church where I was ordained, there was a ritual for communion. I don’t remember the instructions, but Mike
Graves wrote about similar instructions that were given to him when he preached
at another church.
“After the
sermon, when the minister has given the invitations, the elders approach the
communion table. Stay on the lower level
until the minister removes the covers from the elements. Then step us so you are all on the same
level. After the minister blesses the
bread and the cup, the minister will serve elder #3 and elder #4, then elder
#1, and #2. Elders #1 and #2 keep the
trays, pause for a second while the remaining elders get more trays. Elders #1 and #2 will step down and serve
each side of the sanctuary. Elder #4
will serve anyone who is unable to come forward. Elder #3 stays behind the communion table and
watches over everyone serving and replaces trays as necessary. When elder #4 is finished serving they will
return their communion tray to the table and assist elder #3 as needed.
When elders
#1 and #2 are finished serving they return to their spots at the communion
table. The minister will then serve the
elders communion. When the elders have
been served, elder #1 will serve the minister.
After all the communion elements have been returned to the table, a
Thanksgiving prayer will be said by the minister. Elder #2 and Elder #4, exit to their right
and elder #1 and elder #3 exit to the left.”
Olivet’s
serving of communion was a bit more relaxed, but Bethesda’s wasn’t much
different than the instructions I just read.
Over the course of time that I’ve been here, we’ve relaxed those
instructions even more. But, it is still
a far cry from the way communion was handled and distributed in the early
church, isn’t it?
Can you
imagine a couple in their home sweating about so many details when inviting
everyone to the table? “Okay, honey,
let’s go over this again. I’ll take the
pork chops, pause at the door for five seconds, then you bring the green beans
in from the right side, and on my count, we will place the food on the table at
the same time.”
Now, I’ve
watched those period dramas of the courts of England at the royal banquet table
where a server is assigned to each guest and the entire dinner is orchestrated,
but is that really how we want to serve communion? Is that really how we should find joy at the
feast of our Lord? The other thing that
has changed so much are the size of the portions we offer at communion.
Do you
remember the miracle that is told in all four gospels about the feeding of the
5,000? In the gospel according to Luke,
Jesus takes the five loaves of bread and two fish that were found among them
and “looking up to heaven, blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples
to set before the crowd. And all ate and
were filled.”
And twelve baskets of left-overs were gathered at the end
of the feast for anyone who wanted a little doggy bag to take home with
them. Well, Luke doesn’t mention doggy
bags, but there were baskets full of food left over.
How do we do
communion, we count out nearly precisely the correct amount we’ll need for the
approximate number we expect on Sunday, we serve very small pieces of
bread. Now, to be honest our bread
served here is a fantastic homemade shortbread (so we get extra points for
that, at least) but then we serve it with the barest gulp of juice in a
teeny-tiny cup to help wash it down.
There isn’t
a single reference anywhere in scripture that mentions the scarcity of food to
be served at a table where Jesus ate. In
fact, every reference to Jesus eating with others included a full dinner, a
full meal, a feast and celebration. So,
why do we do it, now?
One other
important turn of events that has occurred over the years. In scripture Jesus is known for eating with
prostitutes and sinners. He also ate
with a number of Pharisees and rulers.
The hillside of 5,000 people that he fed were probably filled with
people who had sin in their lives, who were not righteous, who were not worthy
of Christ – and yet, he communed with them or fed them at The Table.
At
Bethesda’s one hundred and twenty fifth anniversary, one of the older members
of the congregation told the story of Communion Tokens. If you remember them, you’ll know what I’m
talking about. If you don’t, Bethesda
has at least one of them in their display case in the back of the
sanctuary. Before communion Sunday, the
minister and elders of the church would go around to the membership to see if
they were worthy of taking communion. If
the person was found worthy, they were given a token which they could then
exchange for the communion bread and wine.
Personallly, I don’t know what kind of questions were asked during these
interviews, but Mike Graves writes about a similar experience he encountered.
One time I was in Michigan for
their annual Calvin Symposium on Worship, after we had introduced ourselves and
moved from one topic to another, we eventually landed on Communion
practices. One of those persons whose
tradition I no longer recall shocked us all when he said that members of his
church must be interviewed by the pastor prior to receiving communion. We asked all the questions you might imagine,
including when exactly this interview would take place, and so forth. I finally asked, “And what sort of things
would be included in the interview, what sorts of questions? Before he could answer I said, “Wait, let me
guess,” “Maybe things like whether that person had worked for immigration reform,
the plight of the stranger in our midst, work toward social justice of those
who were marginalized in our society, the plight of the widow or orphan, had he
visited those in prison, clothed the poor or fed the hungry?” The man who was being questioned at the table
looked at him like he was from another planet.
“No, nothing like that. More like
they had lusted in their heart, been unfaithful to their spouse, had they
overindulged in drinking that week?
Questions like these.”
I’m certainly glad that we know longer use Communion
Tokens, but have we fully moved on from the mentality of those tokens and what
they represented?
I can’t tell you how many non-church going people say
something to me like, the roof will cave in or lightning would strike if ever
came to your church. Just this week, a
barista at our local Starbucks on Route 51 found out that I was a minister and
I mentioned to her where I was the pastor.
With a big smile she said that her parents had been married at Bethesda. But they ended up going to a Baptist
Church. Her smile then turned
serious. And she said, “I basically got
kicked out because of my tattoos.” I
told her that she was welcome to come to our church anytime she wanted to.
We want to know and understand why the Christian Church is
no longer growing? We might not be
handing out Communion Tokens anymore, but we certainly have figured out how to
let people know that they aren’t welcomed.
One more read through of our text: Acts 2:42-47
Can we get back to that?
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Lord
of all, remind us that our offerings are like our prayers of confession: they
represent what we have to give and our willingness to give to further Your
kingdom and the proclamation of it.
Bless both the gifts and the givers.
We pray this in the name of Jesus.
AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – In Christ There Is No East or West Hymn #439
Blue
Hymnal
Benediction –
Postlude
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