Worship
Service for January 28, 2024
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: God’s works are great!
P: Open our hearts and spirits to see Your
works, O Lord!
L: Come, let us worship the Lord who has
saved us!
P: May our lives reflect the wondrous love of
God that all may see and know of God’s greatness. AMEN.
Opening Hymn – Holy, Holy, Holy #138/3
Prayer of Confession
We think we know so much, O
God, and with our meager knowledge we presume to judge others. We arrogantly announce our own righteousness
without a compassionate thought. We proclaim
Your word when it suits us and often only to those with whom we want to
associate. We shut others out because of
our faulty judgment and our blindness.
There have been so many times in which our humble help would have been a
blessing to someone, but we have placed our comforts before serving
others. In the competing voices of
today’s world, we have turned around and around, trying to find the way to
live. Help us, merciful God, to again
listen to You. Help us to truly open our
heart to You. Remind us again of Your
great love and presence in our lives.
Forgive us our foolishness and our stubbornness. Create in us new spirits, filled with Your
love, offering peace and hope to all. In
Jesus’ name we pray. (Silent
prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Quiet your hearts, beloved of God, for God
is speaking to you with love. Rest your
spirits, struggling ones, for God will surround you with peace. Open your lives to God’s power and presence
and do not be afraid.
P: God is with us, now and for all time. Thanks be to God!
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
Holy God, you have sanctified the earth with
your Holy Birth in Jesus Christ. The
heavens with the stars declared your glory.
Humanity has been restored once more to a oneness in you. And yet we fail to recognize it. We fail to respond in kind to this gracious
gift.
Lord, we ask that you hear us; hear our
heartfelt praise, our alleluias and our deepest joy as we celebrate together in
this hour of prayer and worship the gift that you gave to us so long ago. O Lord, also hear our pain, understand our
suffering, and heal the wounds of our spirit.
Where there is pain; let us be the soft place
of listening and understanding. Where
there is an infection of evil; let us be the balm of healing. Where there is conflict and strife among
others; let us be the first to offer an open arm to re-embrace those who have
been estranged from us. Where there is
even more conflict among nations and enemies; let us be the voice of reason and
a kind word. Lord, where there are
people who feel lost and afraid; let us be a place of shelter and calm for
them. Where there are illnesses and
diseases that break a person’s spirit; let us be the strong shoulder for crying
on, a listening ear, and a gentle spirit.
We pray this morning for those whose names we’ve offered aloud. We especially pray for…
As we prayed this morning, names immediately
came to mind that we didn’t ask aloud for us to be praying for them. Hear now those desires in this moment of
silence.
Lord, hear our prayers this day and turn your ear to our cries. We unite with one voice 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 – O
Love that Wilt Not Let Me Go #384/606
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Psalm
111
Second Scripture Reading – Mark
1:21-28
Sermon – “A New Teaching”
What
struck me in today’s reading from Mark was the idea that Jesus taught with authority,
unlike the scribes, as it says in verse 22.
And that what he was teaching was a new teaching, as it says in verse 27. Separating these two statements, a man appears
in the synagogue who had an unclean spirit within him; in other words, a demon
or multiple demons as they use the term “us”.
Having acknowledged Jesus as the Holy One of God, Jesus rebuked the
demon and forced them to come out of the man.
There
are so many things within this short passage that raise questions. First, if the people in the synagogue were
astounded at Jesus’ teaching, because he taught with authority, unlike the
scribes; what were the scribes teaching?
And how were they teaching, if it also wasn’t with authority. Second question it raises for me is that this
demon acknowledges who Christ actually is; in fact, it might be the very first
public confession of Christ being the Holy One of God. If so, why would Jesus rebuke this
demon? What exactly is an unclean spirit
to the people in the days of Christ? And
third, how is this casting out of a demon that Jesus performs, a new teaching
for the people of the synagogue? What
does that mean?
The
only way to get to those questions and answer is to pretend to tell the story
to someone who had not been there. A
first-person response to what took place on Sabbath at the
synagogue in Capernaum, a city on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.
Were you at the synagogue in Capernaum today? No, well let me tell you as clearly as I can
what happened. I can only explain that
something occurred that has never, yes, never ever happened before in our
hometown synagogue where our people “gather together.” What took place is unlike anything our rabbis
have instructed us in over the years. This
was far beyond any of their teaching and authority.
Sabbath worship started out like a routine, very normal
gathering. We all came with the usual
expectation. Now don’t get me wrong, our
rabbis are faithful interpreters of the Torah as they instruct us in the Word
of the Lord, but their teaching does get to be routine. They read the holy scriptures and tell us the
same thing that we’ve learned over and over again. There is nothing new to their teaching. It follows the same traditions, acknowledging
the old rabbis teaching and interpretation that we’ve studied in the past. So, everything was progressing as usual, the
prayers, the Psalms, the reading of the Torah, when a newcomer “immediately”
entered the synagogue, went to the bema (the pulpit), was handed the day’s
Torah reading and began teaching and instructing us, dare I say, with a new “authority”.
His authority was not as our scribes,
you know the men of the book, who have been instructed to expound on and teach
the message of God. They’ve only learned
what they were taught by the great teachers before them. This man, this rabbi, taught like a man who
knew the words with first-hand knowledge.
When I use the word “authority” about his teaching, he taught as
if he was one of the old masters that had interpreted the holy scriptures from
long ago. This man taught with assurance
that I’ve never heard before.
I am still in shock as to what happened next. “Immediately”
a deranged person screams out, right there in the midst of our worship. He screams out. No one in the synagogue had a clue as to what
brought forth this outburst. It appears
an unclean spirit within the man had identified this rabbinic-like teacher as
one who had authority to exorcize demons and called out to him
by name: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?” The voice was a shrill demonic-like scream. How did this spirit know the name of the rabbi
from Nazareth? Did the voice really
assume that this teacher has the authority to exorcize demonic
or unclean spirits?
The scream continued with words of blasphemy using the
name of God: “I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” We all gasped.
What blasphemy is this, we wondered?
Claiming this man to be the anointed one of God, the Messiah. How dare he do such a thing. And with that astonishment, a hushed silence
came over the entire synagogue. Well, this
rabbi named Jesus from the hill country of Nazareth sensed rightly the offense
of these words, to be identified as the Holy One of God, what atrocity! So, he addressed the possessed man and rebuked
him with exorcizing words which likewise silenced the entire synagogue, “Be
silent, and come out of him”, this Jesus of Nazareth said right there in the synagogue
on Sabbath.
What occurred next was a demonstration I have never,
ever, witnessed before. The man was
writhing on the floor like he was in conflict with the spirits possessing him. Then the voice of a demonic spirit cried out
with the same shrill demonic-like scream. The unclean spirit came out of him and he
appeared to be calm. He stood up and in
his right mind looked as normal as any of us.
Needless to say, we were all overcome and amazed and kept
saying to one another, “What is this? A
new teaching that we have never witnessed before, a man with the authority of
heaven can exorcize a demon possessed person!”
What took place we saw with our own eyes that he commanded even a host
of unclean spirits and they were obedient to him. On my oath this is what took place on this
Sabbath. I can’t explain what came over
us, but it was like we gave witness to the rabbi from Nazareth as our praise to
the one, holy and righteous God in our midst. We have no other experience like this to
compare. We have since heard that what
took place in our synagogue “immediately” spread throughout the
surrounding region of Galilee.
Pause
So, from this story, we learn that the scribes or the
rabbis instructed to teach the people, were really no more than men who learned
the old messages of the text and restated them.
They didn’t bother to look deeper into the scriptures and interpret those
words and ideas afresh. They simply gave
what they had been given. Jesus didn’t
just do that when he took to the pulpit or the bema on a Sabbath morning; he
interpreted the text anew for them with authority, as someone who knows the
text intimately. Today, preachers are taught
to not just rehash old lessons, but to interpret the scriptures new each time
it is read, to find the deep well of new meaning within the text with the help
of the Holy Spirit as we engage each Sunday with the study of the texts before
us. Jesus did exactly that, with the
power and authority of the Holy Spirit within him at the synagogue that Sabbath
morning.
The second question the passage raised for me was about
the demon acknowledging Jesus, not only by name, but as the Holy One of God. At the time, to these listeners this was utter
blasphemy and therefore a punishable offense.
It rightfully could only come from someone who was deranged, crazy, or
demon possessed. In hindsight, we know
that Jesus was indeed the Holy One of God.
Of course, Jesus knew that he was the Holy One of God, the Anointed One,
the Messiah. But it was not yet time to
reveal that. This acknowledgement would have
to wait until Peter saw it, understood it, and said it aloud to the rest of the
disciples. It would have to wait until
Mary acknowledges it, on her own, to Christ himself.
And finally, how is this casting out of the demon, a new
teaching to the people of the synagogue?
Paul Berge, professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary
writes that, “In this world of demonic powers that continue to enslave us,
Jesus has broken its hold. We too have
been rescued from the evil one and restored in our right minds through the
lordship of the crucified and risen Christ.
He alone breaks into our world of possessions to free us to live in his
authority to exorcize the powers of this age.”
For those who heard it preached in both word and deed saw it as a new
teaching. And so it is for us, as
well. The story of exorcism back then is
a story for us. We, too, can exorcize
our own demons that attempt to entrap us, enslave us to things that keep us
from following Christ, that keep us from doing what is right, that keep us from
acknowledging Jesus at the appropriate time to those who need to hear it, and
finally that keep us from bringing about the reign of God here and now.
Mark
wants to make it clear to those who will listen that the words and deeds of
Jesus are connected to God, who empowers them with authority in a kingdom that
is here, now, and forever. If the church
today is to preach, witness, or minister to the needs of a hurting world, it
must do so with an empowered authority, thus ensuring the consistency between
what it says and what it does. According
to Mark and the story of the people at worship that day in the synagogue,
people will know the difference!
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
We dedicate, O God, our lives and all that we
have to the work of life, of love, of peace.
Receive our gifts this day and lead us in wisdom and courage. Amen.
Closing
Hymn – Lord, Dismiss Us With Thy Blessing #538/237
Benediction –
Jesus comes
to us, offering healing and hope, speaking and acting with authority. Listen to him. Go into the world, confident in God’s love
and healing power. Go in peace and may
God’s love and peace always be with you.
AMEN.
Postlude
