Worship
Service for October 29, 2023
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each of you.
P: And also with you.
L: I will bless the Lord at all times. God’s praise shall continually be in my
mouth.
P: Our souls make their boast in the
Lord. Let the humble hear and be glad.
L: When the righteous cry out for help, the
Lord hears them and rescues them from all their troubles.
P: The Lord is near to those who are
brokenhearted.
L: Our God saves those who are crushed in
Spirit.
P: Praise be to God, now and forever and
ever. AMEN.
Opening Hymn – Praise to the Lord, the Almighty Hymn #482 Blue
Prayer of Confession
Creator God, we confess this
day to engaging in the habits that diminish the bounty of Your creation. Not satisfied with the goodness of Your holy
temple, Your seas and mountains, Your rain and soil, we have fashioned a system
of sustenance that seems good to us, but cannot be sustained. Be merciful to us, for we have sinned. Answer us with awesome deeds of deliverance,
O Hope of the Earth. Give us vision and
prophetic spirit. Renew our vocation, as
stewards of Your creation. (Silent
prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Do not lose heart. Those who humbly admit their sins find favor
with God. For God answers prayer, and
forgives transgression. Believe this
good news: We are forgiven and freed to newness of life.
P: Enrich us with wisdom, and bless us with
growth, O God of our salvation. 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
Patient God, we find it
so easy to give lip service to the commandment to love. We can say we know of Your love and that we
respond in kind, but we far too often do not respond in loving ways toward
others. We write checks to support
ministries of compassion without ever truly feeling the deep compassion that
service demands. Dig deeper into our
souls, O God. Expose the vain
selfishness and the fear that seem to block true discipleship. Engage us in ministries of justice in which
the kind of love that you call us to have is required, not just in spoken word
or in our offerings of monies, but in our very passionate nature. Free us and inspire us to love all persons,
those whom we would deem unlovable, and those whom we find it easy to
love. Help us love ourselves, respecting
ourselves in gratitude for the gifts You have given to us; then move us to use
these gifts in service to you.
This day we lift up the
world to You in an expression of peace.
Find ways that the leaders of the world can come together and find
pathways toward peace. We especially
pray for Ukraine and Russia, for Israel and Hamas, and other areas of conflict.
Looking closer to home,
we earnestly pray for the welfare of our beloved family and friends – those who
are facing surgeries, illness, difficult diagnoses, or those who are
recovering. We especially pray for….
Now, Compassionate and
Ever-loving God, hear also the prayers of our hearts in these moments of
silence…
We ask these things in
the name of Jesus the Christ who taught us to pray 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 – My
Faith Looks Up to Thee Hymn #383/539
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Psalm
90
Second Scripture Reading – Matthew
22:34-46
Sermon – “The Two Great Commandments”
This section of Matthew consists of a
number of encounters Jesus had with the Pharisees, the Herodians, and Scribes,
and the Sadducees. Each of the
encounters were meant to trap Jesus in a compromising position with either the
Jewish leaders or with the Roman sympathizers.
Of course, Jesus discerned well what they were doing and chose to
respond differently than any of the groups had imagined.
The first encounter was with the
Pharisees and Herodians, the spiritual and political leaders, who asked him about
authority. They wanted to know by whose
authority Jesus was speaking and doing such miracles. They ended up arguing with one another. The second encounter was one with the
Sadducees. Much like the Pharisees, they
were a small elite sect within Judaism.
They comprised the upper echelon of the social and economic status
within Judaism. Their beliefs often clashed
with those of the Pharisees, particularly over religious law. The most significant difference between the
two was in regard to the resurrection.
The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection from the dead. And of course, because of that, they posed a
rather silly resurrection question about marriage to Jesus. Again, he wouldn’t take the bait and chose to
answer in a surprising way.
This morning’s question put forth to
Christ was done by the Pharisees themselves.
They had watched as their student’s and the Herodians were unable to
match wits with Christ. They watched as
the Sadducees fell to Christ’s superior wit.
So, they themselves, decided to approach Jesus. One of them, a lawyer, decided to test him,
“Which commandment is the greatest?” he asked.
Christ’s response silenced even the
Pharisees. And it should silence us, as
well. It should silence us into truly
thinking about how we conduct our lives.
Jesus wasn’t able to pin the Greatest
Commandment down to just one. Instead,
he chose two of them, as if they were one; as if they were nearly equal. These two commands are part of one another.
First,
he said to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,
and with all your mind.” Then he said, “And a second is like it: love your
neighbor as yourself.”
The
connecting bond between these two commands is love. And yet, that concept is more than we can
possibly fathom. In fact, Jesus says
that all the rest of the commands “hang” on these. In doing some exegetical work on this word, “hang”,
or krematai in the Greek, Terence Donaldson, a doctoral candidate wrote
his thesis on this word in Rabbinical Studies and noted that the word was often
used the same way Matthew used it in other rabbinical literature. In each case a relationship is posited
between one aspect of the Torah and another which is dependent upon it. In other words, Jesus “hangs” all the rest of
the law and the words of the Prophets on these two commandments. The entirety of the given law to the people
of God are dependent on loving God and loving neighbor. Another scholar speaks of it as a chain with
Loving God at the top of the chain and Loving Neighbor at the bottom of the
chain, all the rest of the commandments are dependent on those two links in
order to be part of the chain. All of
this means that God created absolutely everything out of love. The light that shines in the day and the moon
that shines as night, the stars that amaze our children and make us breathless
when we try to grasp the infinity of it all.
The water that flows down a mountain stream as fish like salmon brave
the journey home to spawn, water that surges in the ocean depths with behemoths
like humpback whales who frolic and live there.
Water that rains down to nourish the earth that brings forth the trees
and plants, each bloom and blossom. Each
bird that flies above the landscape, that soars in the air; every tiny insect
that crawls or burrows beneath the surface to every elephant that stomps on the
earth was created by God. Even the
strangest among them; birds that swim, fish that walk, mammals that lay eggs,
and males that give birth. All created
by God in amazing and pure love.
And
it was all made for us, for our living and growing, for our enjoyment and
enlightenment. A Creator who loved us
more than anything else in all of creation.
Which means that God also created you and me out of pure love.
You were not created to be a play toy or an
experiment. But you were created out of
love, to be loved. And here’s the
challenge; and to love in return. Not
just God, who created you, but the other command that goes along with it – to
love one another, as well.
I
think it is in this part of the command that we fall short. For us, as Christians who stand on our faith
and our beliefs, it’s easy for us to say that we love God, that we love the
Lord, that we would do anything for God. But, I think it is more difficult for us to
always be generous, kind, humble in our thoughts, words, and actions toward
others. And perhaps that’s why Jesus
paired them together. One easy, one more
difficult.
To be perfectly honest, we, as Christians,
aren’t very good at being charitable people when it comes to matters of the
heart. Richard Rohr, one of my current
favorite Christian writers wrote, “Christianity is a lifestyle – a way of being
in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into an established “religion”
(and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist,
selfish, and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is
one’s “personal Lord and Savior”… The world has no time for such silliness
anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.
The central command, the first and most
important, that Jesus referred to in this passage, was given to all three
religions of this monotheistic faith: Love the Lord your God with your entire
being, and your neighbor as yourself.
Jews, Christians and Moslems – all three were given this same great
command.
We struggle with the same sins that everyone
else struggles with. We struggle with
the same inner battles, the same heartaches, the same demons. Maybe, just maybe we’ve learned over many,
many years of struggle how to cope with them better, how to ignore the voices
that lead us down an instant gratification and easier road. But we are no better than those who are still
struggling and still perhaps losing in those struggles.
These challenges are not meant to be an
indictment against you, but rather as a serious consideration for us to take a
closer look at what Scripture tells us, what God wants from us, and how we are
actually living.
There is too much hatred in the world. Look around, it’s everywhere. On the news, in our city streets, at
shootings, massacres, and wars being waged around the globe. There is only one way that this will
end. And that way is for the cycle to be
broken.
We cannot expect someone who has known misery
and heartache and pain, who has not found or known the love of God through the
actions of God’s people, to suddenly wake up one morning and think, “Oh, maybe
I’ll be nice today.” It’s not going to
happen. It has to start with us. It has to start with the people of God who
refrain from judging others, who refrain from speaking badly about others, who
refrain from idle gossip and slanderous speech.
It has to start with us, truly taking this commandment that Jesus spoke
about, to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, to heart as a challenge for
better behavior on our part.
There is too much hatred in the world and the
only way that it will end is if we take Christ’s commandment to heart as a
challenge to do better.
The connection that Jesus made when asked the
question about which commandment is greatest, reaches back to the purpose of
the cosmos, when God out of pure love created the stars, and it settles in the
heart of who you are, of whose you are.
God created you out of love and joy.
And Jesus asks us to give love and joy back to God and to one another.
AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Generous
God, receive these gifts, only a portion of all You have given to us. Receive them as a sign of our gratitude for Your
many blessings: food and shelter, family and friends, and all we need to
sustain daily life. Receive these gifts
also as a sign of our commitment to serve You through our worship, our words,
and our actions. Strengthen us always to
do Your work in the world that through us others may come to know Your love and
grace. AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – Song of Hope Hymn #432 Blue
Benediction –
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and
strength. Go forth into this aching,
hurting world with God’s love, offering healing, hope, and peace to all. Go in peace and may God’s peace surround you,
always. AMEN.
Postlude
