Worship
Service for April 28, 2024
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: The heavens are telling the glory of God.
P: May our worship reflect God’s glory.
L: The firmament proclaims God’s handiwork.
P: May we see each other as the handiwork of God.
L: Let our prayer and praise, our singing and
proclamation project the love of God.
P: Let us worship God!
Opening Hymn – Holy, Holy, Holy #138/3
Prayer of Confession
Loving God, we confess that at
times we do not share in the joy of the resurrection but are caught up in the
worries of the world. We confess that we
do not always live in the spirit of new life but remain discontent, grumbling
and anxious. Forgive us for not sharing
in the Good News. Forgive us when we
find it more comfortable to worry and complain than to risk the joy and
encouragement of new life in Christ.
Call us back to Your ways, O God, to seek hope and reconciliation,
restoration, and peace. In the name of
the Risen Christ, we pray. (Silent
prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: We continue to proclaim, Christ is
Risen! We remember Mary who called out,
“I have seen the Lord.” We have seen
Christ, too, in every helping hand, in every heartfelt gift, in every choice to
restore life in this world. We are
called to this new life, a life of forgiveness and reconciliation. You are forgiven; accept your forgiveness and
know that God loves you and desires great joy for your life. Walk forward on this journey of faith,
knowing your brothers and sisters are with you.
P: Let
us then continue our journey of faith and obedience, through the grace of Jesus
Christ. 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, in the beginning you created heaven and earth. And, one day, as you walked upon the land, you came upon a very fertile hill and imagined there a vineyard purple with grapes. So, with your own hands you dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; long you tended it and looked for it to yield its fruit, but it yielded only wild grapes.
No more could you have done for your vineyard, Lord. Your pleasant planting turned bitter and rebelled against you. You looked for justice, but, behold, we bore bloodshed; you looked for righteousness, but, behold, we produced a cry!
You could have become angry, Lord. You could have removed the hedge that protected the yard, that we might be devoured by the beasts. You could have broken down its wall, that we might be trampled. You could have laid it waste, and let our briers and thorns grow up; you could have commanded the clouds to withhold their rains, so that nothing would grow.
But even as you are our Creator and Sustainer, O God, you are our Redeemer. And you planted again in our midst. You set out at the center of the vineyard the true vine. And the vine has grown; it cannot be destroyed, it cannot bear bad fruit. Its good fruit hangs heavy on the branches, bearing witness to your care.
Christ is the vine, Lord; make us the branches. Whatever you ask us to be, we shall be; whatever you ask us to do, shall be done.
This truth amazes us, that you sent the true vine to save us not because we first loved you, but because you first and last loved us. By this we are humbled, Lord, for you are Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, Love that began the beginning and knows no end. Yours is the love that birthed the world and makes it grow.
Yours is the love, Lord, that changes the world, inside and out. The ones unclean in the world's eyes, your love makes clean. The ones mighty in the world's eyes, your love makes humble. The ones guilty in the world's eyes, your love ushers into paradise.
Lord, for this we praise you, that you first and last love us. Now what remains is for you to teach us how better to love one another. Teach us, Lord, the truth of life, before the hour is late; lead us, Lord, in the way we should go, before the gate is closed.
Bring us now into your vineyard, Lord. Prune us and tend us, that we may bear good
fruit. We offer you all that we are
We also come before you to ask for You to bestow grace and healing upon…
And now with one voice we pray, 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 – How
Firm a Foundation #361/408
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Psalm
22:25-31
Second Scripture Reading – John 15:1-8
Sermon – Bearing Fruit
A man named Aristides once described the
followers of Jesus Christ to the Roman emperor Hadrian in this way: “They love
one another. They never fail to help
widows; they save orphans from those who would hurt them. If they have something they give freely to the
man who has nothing; if they see a stranger, they take him home, and are happy,
as though he were a real brother.” This
recognition from Aristides came to be known as the mark of a Christian. In those early days of Christianity, as it
was developing and spreading, this is what separated Christians from the rest
of the world’s culture and standards.
And perhaps where this phrase had its roots, “And they’ll know we are
Christians by our love, by our love.
Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” So I wonder: How is it that a community of
disciples comes to love like this?
On July 4, 1965, at the Ebenezer Baptist
Church in Atlanta, GA, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke these words: To our
most bitter opponents we say, “Throw us in jail and we will still love
you. Bomb our houses and threaten our
children and we will still love you.
Beat us and leave us half dead and we will still love you. But also be assured that we will wear you
down by our capacity to suffer. One day
we shall so appeal to your heart and your conscience that we shall win you in
the process.” Which was a much more
eloquent way of saying something that sounded similar to Abraham Lincoln when
he said, “The best way to destroy
an enemy is to make
him a friend.”
So I wonder: How is it that a community of disciples comes to love like this?
A missionary working in a Christian church in
Iraq tells the true story of a woman whose son and husband were killed by a
man. When the man was caught, he was
placed on trial and he convicted of the crime. As the judge considered his sentence, this is
what the woman said: “He took my family away from me, but in spite of that I
still have a lot of love to give, and he needs to know what love and grace feel
like—so I think he should have to come to visit my home in the slums, twice a
month, and spend time with me, so that I can be a mother to him, so that I can
embrace him, and he can know that my forgiveness is real.” And I’ve seen it happen on numerous occasions
in our own country, as the media descend upon the victims of violent crimes at
the courthouse, as a verdict is handed down.
The reporter puts the microphone to the mother of a child that was
killed and the mother says even through her tears, “I forgive them.” How? How
is it that an individual disciple of Jesus Christ comes to love like this?
Well, Jesus shows us the way. It is not an easy way. The path can be tough. The choices can sometimes be difficult and
can go against all logic or reason. But
I want to read a bit more of this passage in John because John goes on to say
something important in the verses following verse 8. I’ll pick up in verse 7, reading through
verse 17.
7If you abide in me,
and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for
you. 8My Father is glorified by this, that you bear
much fruit and become my disciples. 9As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my
love. 10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in
my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you,
and that your joy may be complete.
12 ‘This is my commandment, that you love
one another as I have loved you. 13No one has greater
love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does
not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I
have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go
and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever
you ask him in my name. 17I am giving you these
commands so that you may love one another.
He paints a word picture for us: I am the true
vine….you are the branches…those who abide in me and I in them bear much
fruit…As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in
my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his
love. In the very next verse, the
primary commandment becomes crystal clear: This is my commandment, that you
love one another as I have loved you.
Jesus is talking to the whole community of his
followers. Jesus is talking about the
fruit of love born by the church.
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church will meet this summer here in Salt Lake City. And other denominations will gather at
various times for their national conferences, as well. Each of them will record the list of
statistics that measure the effectiveness of a church. Each of them will celebrate new mission and
new ministries that have blossomed and grown since the last time they were all
together. Each of those denominations
will worship God and find fellowship in their common bond with one another. They will also fight over economics and
theology; where to put there shrinking dollars and what interpretation of
scripture they will follow.
But most importantly, all of them (and I do
mean ALL OF THEM!) will lament the loss of membership. The scattering of the sheep that have gone
after other pastures. They will hold
prayer vigils, prayer walks, discussion meetings about how to win people back
to church or how to evangelize our neighbors down the street. And I can assure you that none of them, not a
single one of those national conferences in prayer meetings or discussion
groups, will come up with the right answer.
William Barclay once wrote: “Love is the
binding power which holds the whole Christian body together. The tendency of any body of people is sooner
or later to fly apart; and love is the one bond that will hold them together in
unbreakable fellowship.”
I’ve mentioned this before, but I think we
(the collective we as Christian people) have lost our capacity for love. Barclay had it right; the tendency of us
human beings when we have formed a body of people is to eventually break away
or “fly apart” as he put it, unless there is love; which will hold them
together in unbreakable fellowship.
So
where does this kind of love come from that allows the bearing of so much
fruit. Well, it comes from the
Father. In fact, do you remember what 1
John says about God? 1 John says that God is
love. Therefore, love has its source in
God and it flows through Jesus Christ to his followers, and through his
followers to one another. The vine
nourishes the branches and the branches bear fruit.
And make no mistake about it, to love like
this is not a matter of trying harder—or creating a new program—or launching a
new Bible study. To love like this is a
matter of abiding in Christ—of staying connected to him—of living with him in
such an intimate relationship that our desires are so in tune with Christ that
whatever we ask will be done for us.
And when we abide in Christ, his words live in
us—and we simply love – love like no other. And by the way, where is the best fruit found?
The best fruit is found closest to the
vine, where the nutrients are the most concentrated. That’s why the farthest branches are pruned
away. So, the nearer we are to Christ,
the more we love.
Apart from the vine, we can do nothing. But we’re not made to go it alone—to trust in
our own strength. Apart from the vine,
we can’t bear the fruit of love and if we can’t bear this fruit —we shrivel
up—we wither on the vine—and about the only thing we’re fit for is the burn
pile.
No matter how well we love, there is always
more fruit to be produced—and the way to increased fruit production is careful
pruning. The pruning part is God’s
doing. Afterall, God is the vinegrower
whose job it is to prune the vine to make the vine even more productive.
This means that if we as a church are ever
going to love in the deep and radical ways I talked about earlier, pruning is
required. We have to deal with our
resistance—our self-centeredness—our cowardice—our fear.
And this pruning has to take place within us
individually in the depth of our own souls because resistance is found there as
well. And this pruning can be a painful
process. Walter Wink writes about his
own spiritual journey in an article published by Christian Century: Once,
during a particularly intense period of what is euphemistically called growth,
but which feels closer to cooking in the fires of hell, I told my spiritual
mentor that I couldn’t stand it anymore. She said, “Good, you’re just where God wants
you,” and curtly turned away. I chased
after her and told her in no uncertain terms that hers was not exactly a
pastoral response. “Then write a
dialogue with God,” she [said].
I grabbed my notebook and immediately began
writing a dialogue with God, who, in conscious imitation of my mentor, said,
“Good, you’re just where I want you.” I
continued to cook, and in retrospect can see how essential it was that the
fires of purgatory smelted me this way. No
one would voluntarily enter these fires; God had, as it were, ambushed me, and
I simply had to ride it out.
I realized later that I was free to abort the
process at any point. Something in me
stayed with the process simply because God was in it.
Wink concluded that this pruning business can
get a lot more painful than anything I’ve ever known. But when the branches are pruned—they can be
used to build the inferno in which we can be cooked, and cleansed, and slowly
shaped into human beings who love deeply and radically—just like God.
I need to ask you the following questions for
you to think about this week: As our discernment process continues, How can we
have the love that Christ has? How can
we love like that? And because it is
part of the process, where do we need some pruning? How will we abide in Christ, the true vine? And finally, what kind of fruit and how much
fruit are we going to bear?
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Gracious
God, you open your hand in blessing and give us life. Signs of your love surround us. Take these gifts we offer and use them for
the glory of your name. Make us living
symbols of your compassion for this world.
However we are able, may we reach out in love and mercy to help bring
your healing and light to this world. AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – Seek Ye First #333/713
Benediction –
Beloved
children of God, love one another well.
Abide in Christ’s generous love. Be
born in the Spirit of grace. Live in the
fullness of hope. Grow into branches
bearing the fruit of love: peace, joy, hope, faith. Remember that the greatest harvest is the
harvest of love. Go in peace. AMEN.
Postlude
