You can join us on Facebook Live at 11:15am (or just watch the video from Facebook at any time). Today we celebrate the sacrament of baptism.
Worship
Service for March 26, 2023
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Coming from places near and far, perhaps
having seen better days,
P: God bids us to celebrate this day, a day
full of new possibilities.
L: Coming with our breath taken away by
grief,
P: the Holy Spirit breathes new life within
us, renewing our connection to God and with one another.
L: Coming to worship seeking a hope that will
endure,
P: Christ unbinds the fetters that hold us in
death, speaking in word and sacrament, and building community for holy service.
Opening Hymn – Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley Hymn #80
Blue
Prayer of Confession
Forgive us, O God, when we see
the world through rose-colored glasses rather than as it really is, much less
the way You seek it to be. Forgive us,
Holy One, when we forsake lively and risky faith calling us to be
agents of change in our world for the bland conviction that all will be
well. Renew us with Your grace and
ground us with Your Spirit, that we might be empowered to live by word and
deed, as testimonies to the power of Your love over the grave. In Jesus, we pray. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: In the spirit of repentance, in the mercy
of Almighty God, we are forgiven.
P: In Christ Jesus, our Savior, we rejoice
and give thanks!
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
All-knowing God,
you are the Lord of the church, you see our sins, faults and failures. And although we ask for forgiveness, allow us
to see the sin in our own lives before we judge others too harshly. Allow us to acknowledge the gift of grace
you’ve given to us in your son, Jesus Christ.
All-knowing God, we
ask that you fill the leaders of the nations and the leaders of our communities
with so much of your love that all people would be able live without fear of
improper judgment, and the nations would know peace.
All-knowing God,
you know every hurt we suffer in body, mind or spirit. Use your wisdom and guidance to bring health
and healing to all who are ill or suffering from disease. Bring comfort to those who worry or are
anxious.
All-knowing God,
you knew us before the foundation of the world and chose us to be your
own. We thank you for the lives and
influence of those who have gone before us in the faith. Help us to imitate them in the way of love
and forgiveness so that others will see you through us.
All-knowing God, we
especially pray for….
All-knowing God,
hear the prayers of our hearts in this moment of silence…
O God, we place our
very lives into Your hands knowing that you judge us only based on the gift of
grace offered to us through Your son, Our Savior, Jesus Christ who 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 –
Jesus Paid It All Hymn
#305 Brown
Sacrament of Baptism:
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Psalm
130
Second Scripture Reading – John
11:1-45
Sermon – Two Sisters
For many of us our first introduction to Lazarus’s
sisters, Mary and Martha, came from Luke’s account of them hosting Jesus in
their home for a visit. A quick review
of that story could lead one to suppose that if you’re an energetic servant,
worker-bee, like Martha, then you are a second class Christian -- that the real
Christian is to be like Mary who did nothing but sit at Jesus’ feet and listen
to Him. But I’ve suggested, in the past,
that we miss the point of the story in Luke if we downplay the Martha types in
the body of Christ. I’ve always felt
that Martha got a bad rap in that telling of the story about the two
sisters.
The point of the story has never been that Mary
types are better Christians and Martha types aren’t quite as good and should be
more like Mary. It’s important for us to
note a few details in the Luke account before we go on. First, it is Martha’s home as noted in Luke
10:38: “Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a
woman named Martha welcome him into her home.”
This is rather remarkable in and of itself as women were not normally
the ones to own property. So, we can
assume something already about Martha – she is an intelligent, enterprising,
powerful female who both owns a home large enough to host Jesus and his
disciples, as well as a hands on worker who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty
in the kitchen.
Mary,
on the other hand, does nothing to help in the preparations. Instead, she is at the feet of Jesus,
listening to him teach and tell stories.
This does not sit well with Martha and she complains directly to Jesus,
“Will you please tell her to come in here and help me?”
Jesus’
answer is what has been misconstrued because He tells Martha that she is
“worried and distracted by many things, while there is only one thing, and Mary
has chosen the better part.” (Luke 10:41,42)
The point of the Luke 10 story of Martha and
Mary is to recognize our priorities and how easily we can be distracted from
what is most important. Do you really think Martha wasn’t just as eager to sit
at Jesus’ feet as Mary was? Certainly. But she was tied up in knots over making sure
that her guests were welcomed properly, and that a nice dinner was prepared for
them. If Mary would only help her, maybe
she wouldn’t be so upset and distracted.
Jesus wasn’t just their friend, he was also a teacher and his role was
to teach. Not only is he a teacher, but
he is THE teacher and felt that Martha was getting her priorities mixed
up. But to dismiss hospitality and
service as unimportant just because, in this particular instance, they should
not be our first priority, is to do injury to the very example of our Lord
Himself who showed His love often in very humble, servant ways.
It’s
important to put all that into perspective when we encounter these two sisters
again and come to our story in John 11.
Because we get a whole new and different perspective of them in this
story.
The story of Jesus visiting Bethany again in
John 11 begins with a message being sent from Mary and Martha to Jesus while He
is on the east side of the Jordan engaged in ministry. The message was that
their brother Lazarus is sick. Implied
is that He is sufficiently sick to warrant an emergency plea for Jesus to come
to Bethany immediately. But, surprising to His disciples and probably the
messenger, Jesus deliberately delays two days in going to Bethany.
Then, after those two days, He tells His
disciples that He is going to Judea, which would mean Bethany since it was on
the road to Jerusalem.
Reading
from verse 17, “When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in
the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near
Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and
Mary to console them about their brother.
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while
Mary stayed at home.”
In the interest of increasing our knowledge
about these two sisters, notice the initiative of Martha to go meet Jesus. It’s strikingly similar to the previous time
Jesus came into Bethany and Martha took the initiative to invite Jesus into her
home. That’s what Martha’s do. They always take the initiative to do what
must be done. And this time, Martha’s
priorities are very clear. The man who
could have done something to save Lazarus from death has just arrived and she
needed to see him.
Now, it’s hard not to want to know why Mary
didn’t join Martha in going out to meet Jesus, isn’t it? And, if we apply the same scrutiny of Mary
that we applied to Martha in the Luke text, could we not say that this time
Mary had her priorities mixed up when she chose not to go with Martha to greet Jesus
after she had jointly sent for Him? But,
if you ever thought of Martha as shallow in her faith, take particular note of
her conversation with Jesus. Verse 21
“Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you
whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to
her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in
the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection
and the life. Those who believe in Me,
even though they die, will live; and everyone who lives and believes in Me will
never die. Do you believe this?” (And
here is where Martha’s great faith, belief and true understanding are shown)
“Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming
into the world.”
Martha
may have been busy in the kitchen when Jesus came to visit her in her home, but
here we can see that her faith is rock solid and certain of the truth. She knows from the bottom of her soul that
Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God who can do anything. She didn’t have to sit at Jesus’ feet to know
this. She saw it in the everyday faith
of her brother and sister. She saw it in
the devotion of his disciples. She saw
it in the way Jesus cared for others, healed them, and had compassion on them. She puts her trust in him so completely that,
even though she doesn’t say it outright, she knows that he could do something
amazing. “Even now,” she says, “I know
that God will give you anything you ask”.
After saying this, she went to get her sister
to tell her that Jesus was asking for her.
Again, consider the contrast between these two sisters. Martha initiates
contact with Jesus. Mary waits for an
invitation from Jesus before going to Him.
Keep these things in mind about Martha’s conversation with Jesus. Now, how does Mary approach Jesus? We’ve seen Martha’s approach.
Read verses 32-37. “When Mary came where Jesus was and saw Him,
she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother
would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her
weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed
in spirit and deeply moved. He said,
“Where have you laid him?” They said to
him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began
to weep. So, the Jews said, “See how he
loved him!” But some of them said,
“Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from
dying.” The interaction that Mary has
with Jesus is very different from the interaction Martha has with Him. Even though they use the same opening
statement, Mary’s engagement with Jesus is full of pathos and emotion. Yet, she was able to verbally express what
she, too, believed to be true. Lazarus
would still be alive had He been there before he succumbed to his sickness. Their sorrow and anguish moved Jesus. The
fully human Jesus identified with human grief to the point where He, too, was
grieving. This was a loss for Him, as
well. Lazarus was a close friend of His. For some of the onlookers, they could not
imagine that someone who loved Lazarus as much as Jesus did, would have let him
die.
Standing near the tomb in which Lazarus had
lain for 4 days, were Martha, Mary and the mourners. All of them had, separately, expressed their
disappointment or puzzlement that Jesus had not prevented Lazarus from dying. Although all of them, I’m convinced, believed
what Martha first expressed back in verse 22 “. . . I know that even now God will
give You whatever You ask,”, the level of their faith had not reached the point
of believing Jesus could raise Lazarus.
That idea was simply beyond their scope of believing. They only believed that, if Jesus had been
there before Lazarus had died, he could have prevented it from happening. However, what Jesus is doing on this occasion
was building an even deeper faith within the hearts of these people.
The writer of Hebrews says that Jesus is the
Author and Perfecter of faith. He is now
giving a profound deep faith to those who already believed as well as to those
who wanted to believe.
If you had been there with Mary and Martha and
all those mourners, and just witnessed Lazarus being raised from the dead,
having been called back to life by the man Jesus, would you have believed?
I dare say that Mary, Martha and Lazarus all
believed, even more than before.
However, I must read the finale of this story because it does not
actually end in verse 45, as our lectionary reading suggests.
Read vs. 46-50.
“But some of them went to the Pharisees and
told them what he had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a
meeting of the council, and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will
believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and
our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas,
who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for
you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation
destroyed.”
Even
faced with signs so amazing and so completely from God, politics, power,
greed….whatever you want to call it, prevented some from believing, even with
their own eyes, even as they say with their own mouths that Jesus was
performing many signs. And from that day
on, they plotted to kill Jesus.
We
read in our Bibles the miraculous signs and wonders that Jesus did while he was
alive. But, we also read in our Bibles
the many miraculous signs and wonders that God did even before Jesus came. And we read about and witness the signs and
wonders that occur every day in our own time.
But do we have the faith to see them like these sisters did, regardless
of whether we are a doer like Martha or a listener like Mary, or one of the
crowd that witnessed the tears that Jesus shed for his friend? Or are we more like Caiaphas and the doubters
that regardless of the miracles around us, refuse to see and acknowledge them
for what they are? Thanks be to
God. AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Lord,
You have called us to be the very presence of Christ in this hurting
world. We offer these gifts to You as
symbols of our willingness to spend our time, energy, and material resources to
continue Christ’s ministry of sacrificial love. Guide us in using all that we have and all
that we are to make known the great, world-changing truth and joy that nothing
in all creation can separate us from Your love in Christ Jesus our Lord. AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – I Will Sing of My Redeemer Hymn
#309 Brown
Benediction –
Friends, go now in the peace of Christ, witnessing to the miracles all around you. AMEN.
Postlude
