Worship
Service for July 16, 2023
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Praise be to God who reigns above the
heavens.
P: Praise be to God who dwells within our
hearts.
L: Let the majesty of creation worship in
reverence.
P: Let each man, woman, and child pray in
faith.
L: Come, ye thankful people, come!
P: Praise be to God.
Opening Hymn – Come, Christians, Join to Sing #150/225
Prayer of Confession
Most holy and merciful God, in
Your presence we must face the sinfulness of our nature and the errors of our
ways, intended and accidental. You alone
know how often we have failed by wandering from Your paths, wasting Your gifts,
and underestimating Your love. Have
mercy on us, O God, for we have broken Your requirements for justice and
overlooked opportunities for kindness.
Humble us with Your truth and raise us by Your grace that we may more
nearly be the people of Christ and the witnesses of Your Spirit. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: There is no greater joy in the heart of
God than the moment when a son or daughter opens to the gift of
forgiveness. God’s Spirit reaches out to
assure us of welcome in Christ.
P: In the name of Jesus Christ we are God’s
by grace. With great joy we are made
alive. 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
How
we struggle, O God, with when we should act and when we should simply be still
and listen. Each day we are tempted to over-schedule,
overwork, and overdo, even as we long for more intimacy with you. Remind us that in our prayer and study we are
also doing your will, and that resting in your presence is both a gift and a
privilege. Help us to look for and find
you in the faces of others, the laughter of children, the glory of a warm day,
the smell of freshly cut hay, and the taste of summer fruit. As we are renewed in your presence, may we
become ambassadors for your good news, helping to show others that all of life
is not just about work, but also about rest and renewal in you.
There
is evil at work in us, O God; evil to destroy, to disregard, and to hate. Help us overcome our hatred with love. Help us overcome violence with peace.
We
pray for the hungry, the poor, the lonely, and the oppressed. Even as we work to help improve the
conditions of others, may they also find solace in a sense of your presence,
knowing that they are never alone. We
also pray, O God, for those who are ill and facing surgeries, doctor visits, or
medical conditions that frighten them or inhibit their regular routines.
We
especially pray today for…..
In
this quiet place, O God, hear the beating of our hearts and the stirrings of
our spirits as we lift up our own burdens and worries to you.
Knowing
that you hear us, Lord, we pray in confidence and boldness together say……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 – Christ is Made the Sure
Foundation #417/403
Scripture Reading(s):
Isaiah
55:10-13
Matthew
13:1-9, 18-23
Sermon – Listen! Hear
"Listen!
Hear" These two words stood
out to me the moment I read the passage.
They are words meant to prick up your ears, words meant to jolt us out
of whatever else we're doing, whatever else we're thinking about or worrying
about, and get us to pay attention.
Listen!
Hear” In this parable, Jesus has
a word for us today that feels particularly important, particularly urgent to
get across. It's a message that's
central to the gospel that Jesus preached and lived out among us, and it's a
good message as a charge, an encouragement, and a blessing for us.
If you haven’t figured it out already, the
Bible isn't always easy to interpret.
Often, it's pretty difficult.
We're talking about texts written thousands of years ago by people who
didn't speak our language and are from a completely different culture. Sometimes people say that Jesus' parables are
simple truths written in simple language that anyone can easily understand; to
which I say, have you actually read Jesus' parables lately, and closely? I don’t know about you, but I don't think
that anyone's doing me a favor in telling me that any of this is easy to
understand. It’s not. So, if you sometimes find the Bible difficult
to interpret, take comfort: it IS hard to interpret sometimes. Often, actually.
Here’s one rule that I use for reading Jesus’
parables and most of scripture: if I interpret it in such a way that there is
nothing surprising or even shocking about it, it’s time to go back and read it
again. Jesus’ parables and often the
rest of scripture serve a purpose a little like that of a Zen koan or a riddle – those
‘riddles’ like, “Does a tree make a sound when falling, if no one is there to
hear it?”
The point of a koan isn't that there's a correct answer that
springs instantly to mind. A koan isn't supposed
to inform you; it isn't supposed to give you information that will increase
your feeling of mastery. If anything,
it's the opposite of that. It pulls our
minds in to confound them, and that kind of dislocation from our usual ways of
thinking helps us to open up and let go of our usual ways of thinking. A koan
doesn't inform; it transforms
you as you wrestle with it.
Jesus’ parables work kind of like that; each
one ends in a shocking reversal of what his listeners expected. With that reversal, the story pulls us out of
entrenched patterns of relationship and ways of being in the world; it
dislocates us from what’s comfortable to free us to establish new kinds of
thinking and new ways of being.
If the first thing I want you to remember
about the Bible is that it's often not easy to interpret, then the second thing
I want you to take away about it is that the hard work of wrestling with
scripture is more than worthwhile. It's
not a product of our culture, so it’s not pop psychology, or pop spirituality. It has a long, ancient history, so I find
there's nothing like it to challenge our cultural assumptions about who God is,
what God wants, and what things like love and success and freedom really are. As you know, I like Anne Lamott, a rather unorthodox writer and grass-roots
theologian. She likes to say that if
what you get out of the Bible is that God hates all the same people you do,
you're in trouble. I'd probably put it a
little more positively, in saying this: God calls each and every one of us to
conversion, to amendment of life so that our life looks more like the wholeness
of the life God offers us, not just the small sphere of life as we know
it. If I come away from the Bible
feeling that the problem with the world is that there aren't enough people like
me in it, this is a good cue to keep reading, and to keep asking how God is
calling me to
conversion. And no, saying that God
wants me to stand up more loudly and firmly against everybody else's sin
doesn't count.
Now, don’t misunderstand me, I am NOT saying
that the point of reading the Bible is so that you can feel bad. If your previous exposure to the Bible and to
how people use the Bible makes you think of it as a book that's boring at best
and oppressive at worst, then believe me -- I know exactly what you mean. I've seen people try to use the Bible as a
weapon more times than I can count. I
hope that knowing that lends even more power to what I have to say when I say
that the Bible is Good News for all of God's people -- news of justice, of
peace, of true freedom and abundant, joyful living. When I say that each one of us is called to
conversion, what I'm saying is Good News: there is room in your life and in my
life for God to work more deeply. I hate
to tell you this, but you haven’t arrived yet.
There is room in your heart and in mine for more compassion, more peace,
more freedom than we'd thought, and hopefully also a lot less room for
judgement, anger, frustration, discord, and oppression. I hope that in the midst of all my flaws and
flubs, some of God’s Good News has come across.
The Good News we experience as we wrestle with scripture in community is
well worth the hard work we put into it.
That's the second thing I want you to take away from this sermon about
the Bible.
And now if you'll indulge me, I want to say a
little about why. Wrestling with
scripture intently, prayerfully, and together with a group of others regularly
throughout our lives is worthwhile because, while scripture isn't the only
medium through which we find the transformation to which God calls us, I will
say that it's one of the most important.
When I read scripture, and especially when I come to the Bible again and
again alongside other people who want to read it carefully and prayerfully, I
find myself called to decision.
The Holy Spirit of God calls to each one of
us, “God’s Spirit says to our spirit”, and each one of us makes a decision
about whether to respond and how. The
choice that Jesus prescribes for us, the choice that Jesus promises will bring
true freedom, real love, real peace, lasting justice, is a decision to follow
Christ -- the source of our identity and our only permanent loyalty, for all
things change and come to an end. Some
people call that choice being "born again," and I want to take the
liberty in this sermon to go on record as saying I'm entirely in favor of
it. Maybe not the same way that others
use the term, but you and I need to be born again -- not once, but for every
time that someone tries to tell us with words or actions that we're not God's
child, for every time that we're tempted to substitute our culture's vision of
respectability for God's dream of the mighty being brought low and the lowly
raised up, for every time we forget that God's blessings, love, and justice are
for ALL of God's children.
In other words, we need to be born again, and
again, and again; every time God’s Good News causes the need for more
transformation in our lives. In my case,
probably several times a day. Maybe
you're quicker on the uptake than I am.
But for as many years I've spent praying to God and studying the
scriptures, and for as many times as God has given me a glimpse of God's
kingdom through the eyes and the heart of his children sitting in church pews
on Sunday morning or standing over a trash can fire pit in the streets of
Philadelphia, I find all of the time that the richness of God's dreams for the
world and for each one of us in it is so great and so profound that every
further glimpse of it takes my breath away as it takes me by surprise.
A case in point: today’s
parable of a farmer who goes out to sow seed.
What's so surprising about that?
Farmers sow seed all the time; every springtime year in and year
out. There’s nothing new here. And you don’t need to be any smarter than a 5th
grader to know what a plant needs to grow and won’t be surprised to hear that
seed cast in the middle of a road, or on the rocks, or among thorns just
doesn’t grow. There’s nothing new
here. But this parable contains not one,
but two surprises to jolt us into openness to the work of God’s Spirit among us
and in our world.
Listen! Hear
It’s not at all
surprising that most of the seed didn’t grow.
What’s surprising is that the farmer chose to sow it there. This isn’t a rich man we’re talking about
here: this is a poor farmer, a tenant farmer who can barely eke out a living
for himself and his family if he not only makes wise choices about where to
sow, but also is blessed with good weather and a great deal of luck. Farming is tough work. Good seed is hard to come by; the wise farmer
makes sure to entrust the precious grain he has to only the best of soil. But not this farmer in this parable, this one
tosses seed about while standing in the closest thing he can find to the
parking lot at Wal-Mart, where the pigeons and other birds will eat it if
thousands of feet and truck tires don’t grind it into the pavement first. In short, this farmer behaves as though that
which was most precious is available in unlimited supply. What on earth is he
thinking?
Here’s the real shocker: God blesses a farmer
like this beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.
Normally, the farmer who reaps a twofold harvest would be considered
fortunate. A fivefold harvest would be a
cause for celebration throughout the village, a bounty attributable only to
God’s particular and rich blessing. But
this foolish farmer who, in a world of scarcity, casts his seed on soil
everyone knows is worthless is blessed by God in shocking abundance: a harvest
of thirty, sixty, and a hundred times what he sowed.
In the years that I’ve been here, I’ve
refused to spend time talking about scarcity; scarcity of money, of talent, of people,
of resources, about guarding closely what's precious because it seems to be
rare. If we had spent our years together
with predictions of peril and doom at every corner and opportunity, we would
have had years of anxiety and constant unrest.
Instead, I’ve always wanted God’s creative and life-giving vision to
energize us so that we could live more deeply into God's dreams for us as
individuals, in community, and for the world.
Even now, at a time of scarcity, I firmly avow that this is the Good News
God has for us.
Listen! Hear – What does this morning's
gospel say to us, in a story that suggests that God is like a farmer who tosses
seed into parking lots for the pigeons to eat, and in the surprising harvest
that grows? It says that Isaiah's prophetic
word is coming true:
Ho [in other
words, Listen!], everyone who thirsts,
come to the
waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and
eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and
without price.
Why do you spend your money
for that which is not bread,
and your labour
for that which does not satisfy? ...
For as the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return
there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and
sprout,
giving seed to
the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes
out from my mouth;
it shall not
return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that
which I purpose,
and succeed in
the thing for which I sent it.
For you shall go out in joy,
and be led back in
peace ...
and it shall be to the LORD
for a memorial,
for an
everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
-- Isaiah 55:1-2, 10-13
The kingdom of God has come among us. God has blessed us richly, and God’s people
have been entrusted with that which is most precious in the world. But ironically, these priceless commodities
only gain value – the seed of God’s word only bears fruit – when God’s people
scatter it absolutely heedless of who is worthy to receive it. I firmly believe that the seeds we’ve sown
over the years have borne fruit and those that haven’t yet, will bear fruit one
day.
Listen! Hear – We are called to treat God’s
love, God’s justice, and God’s blessing, precious as these are, as if they were
absolutely limitless in supply for one simple reason:
They are.
They really are. I believe that
with all my heart, and I want you to hold on to that, too.
Thanks be to God. AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
We dedicate our lives and all that we have to
the work of life, of love, and of peace.
Lord, receive our gifts and lead us in wisdom and courage. AMEN
Closing Hymn – O Love that will not let me go #384/606
Benediction –
With
extravagant love, God embraces you in the love of Jesus Christ. Let us also love one another. Therefore, go out today and serve the Lord in
wonder and joy. AMEN.
Postlude
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