Worship
Service for September 22, 2024
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Happy are those who follow the ways of the
Lord.
P: God’s ways are just and merciful.
L: Those who follow God’s ways are
continually nourished in faith.
P: In all that they do, they prosper.
L: Come, let us open our hearts to God’s
compassionate love.
P: Let us celebrate God’s mercy and justice.
Opening Hymn – Praise My Soul,
the King of Heaven #478 Blue
Prayer of Confession
O God, we live our lives as
best we can – dealing with difficult relationships and situations, putting
failures and disappointments behind us, and moving into each new day with as
much energy, goodwill, and optimism as we can muster. But here, right now, we seldom have the right
answers, we seldom seek Your higher wisdom in our lives, we just move
ahead. Forgive us for not asking for
Your insight. Fill us with Your wisdom,
that we may live lives of goodness and peace. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: This day the Lord reaches out to you in
healing love and compassion.
P: We
give thanks to God, receiving the blessings which God has given us. AMEN!
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
Hymn – How
Great Thou Art #467/147
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Psalm
1
Second Scripture Reading – Hebrews
11:1-11, 17-25, 29-40
Sermon – By
Faith
(based on
Hebrews 11)
A couple of weeks ago I began a series
of sermons of the passages that have meant the most to my own faith journey,
Scripture passages that have been instrumental in a transformational moment in
my life. For the past two weeks I
concentrated on passages that came out of my Confirmation Class, passages that
made me think, wonder, explore, test, and yes, even doubt a little bit about
the interpretation and understanding of scripture by my early teachers of
simple Bible Story lessons. But, I came
out believing even more. It taught me
critical thinking and contextual analysis of scripture. But it wasn’t all just head stuff. Several passages hit home about disobedience
and sin, about cruelty and consequence as did others passages that spoke about
divine love and acceptance, about mercy and justice.
Such
is the case from this passage in Hebrews, one of my favorite passages, as it
puts into context the purpose of those old Sunday School lessons and
stories. But it also gave me a sense of
that Great Cloud of Witnesses that surround us all. Each one of us bears the echoes of great
people in our lives. Each one of us
bears the mark of someone who touched us in a powerful way. It might be a mother or father, a
grandparent, or an aunt or uncle. It
could be a neighbor who took you under his or her wing, or a teacher, a mentor
that saw something in you that they helped nurture and positively
influence. The blessings of such people
walking with us on our journey cannot be underestimated.
Such
people come as mentors and partners.
They come willing to give of themselves, and they come eager for you to
grow into who you are meant to become.
For me there were many such people for I have been most dearly and
richly blessed by family and friend mentors along the way. I think of my grandmother who mentored me in
gardening and in understanding the concept of forgiveness. I think of my mother who taught me
unconditional love and perseverance; my father who taught me loyalty and
sacrifice; my sister whom I will always admire for her intelligence and
bravery; and I think of my early Christian mentors like Linda Jaberg and Chris
Glaser who taught me the importance of justice and equality. And there are so many others…
I’m
gratefully blessed that most of those mentors are still here with me, but as
I’ve gotten older, more and more of them will leave to experience their own
rewards in heaven.
I’d like to tell you about a few of
those mentors along the way – people of faith that shared their wisdom and
their lives with me. At about the same
time period as my Confirmation Class – maybe a year earlier or later, my mom
decided to go back to work. But rather
than do a boring office job, she decided to open up her own business, a gift
shop. An old barn and farming estate
near our home was turned into a retail outlet called the Village Barn
shops. Often during the summer days,
rather than sit still in the old Chicken Coop where mom’s shop was located, we
were sent off on our own to explore. One
of the stores there was a gallery that presented people’s paintings and other
works of art. I remember the first time
I met her, the woman who ran the gallery.
She had long salt and pepper wind-whipped hair that looked like she’d
just come from a walk on the beach. Her
flowing gowns of various sheer layers were mismatched in color and style. Her beads and jewelry were clunky and made
clacking noises as she moved. But just
the aura about her was mesmerizing. She
warmly welcomed me and offered me to sit by her. We chatted amicably; me a precocious
12-year-old and she an aging woman of 70 or 80.
She asked me a ton of questions and listened intently to anything I
said. She told me about her life. She had traveled the world, seen wars in
Ecuador, been through times of famine in India, had built wells in Africa,
harvested bananas in Panama. She talked
about growing up in a castle and living in a mud hut. She spoke about sailing on the ocean and
climbing mountains. She spoke about
seeing Polar Bears in the Artic and Lions in the Serengeti. She was an amazing storyteller, and I went
with her in her memory or in her fantasy with each tale. I went to her shop every chance I could,
hoping to hear more of her stories. One
day she told me about her faith in God and how God had saved her from an
abusive childhood to a rich life of excitement and wonder. How God was in and part of everything, that
God’s stamp was on the most delicate flower and in the heart of every child.
One day, close to when school would be
starting again, she took her two aged and gnarled hands, placed them on each
side of my cheek, looked into my very soul and said, “You are a wonder, my
little friend. Don’t ever forget
it. You are a child of God.” She was the first person that ever told me
that.
I think every child should be told this, every child needs to hear it.
Nearly
50 years later, I believe that by faith she rests in the arms of God, that her
stories live on in the hearts of grown children like me who maybe saw the world
for the first time, full of wonder and possibility and came to believe and know
that they were children of God.
The
second person of faith that I want to tell you about is my grandmother. My grandmother’s mother died when she was 9
years old. Her father remarried and the
new stepmother was like many of the fairytale stepmother’s – cruel to my
grandmother. Eventually, she ran away
from home and went to live with her own grandmother. When she was in her early 20’s, a married man
came along and swept her off her feet, divorced his wife and married her. They had two children. When those children were 5 and 9, he died of
a heart attack. They had lived beyond
their means and she was left with enormous debt. She went back to work, tried to raise two
girls on her own, eventually remarried a man who ended up being a carouser and
abuser. In the 1950’s she again struck
out on her own and divorced him.
When
I was a young teenager I’d go and work with her in her garden. She used to tell me many stories of loss and
grief. Those early ones that shaped a
person, as well as later ones that proved a person’s character. My grandmother was one of the strongest and
most independent women I’d ever known, but in her garden, tilling the soil,
moving rocks, and planting flowers, there was a softer side to her too. She told me of her deep heartaches and her
need to forgive those who’d hurt her. It
was from her that I learned the art of forgiveness – how it reshapes a person’s
heart, removes the burdens of pain, and releases the soul to joy. By faith, she now rests with God, has been
made whole, and is standing in her savior’s presence full of that wonderful joy
she had once hoped for on this side of heaven.
The third person of faith that I want to tell you
about is my mom. This is a story about her and her cousin, Joanne. Just to give you some background information
about them: They are not blood-related cousins, my mother’s mother married her
father’s brother. However, they had
known each other in school from the time that they were ten. So, my mom and her new cousin by marriage
have known each other for over 80 years.
They have gone through lots of ups and downs together. Through failed marriages, difficult parents,
losses, putting up with each other’s eccentricities.
In the mid-20th Century mom became a
member of the First United Presbyterian Church in West Chester and invited her
cousin Joanne to join with her. Joanne
went to a couple of catechism classes, but dropped out. Over the years, my mother’s quiet invitation
for Joanne to join her at church continued.
She would find excuses to have her come – Visitor Sundays, my sister and
I in plays, choir, my ordination service, other special events. She would come, sit in the back, enjoy the
event, but wouldn’t return. In times of
crisis my mom would often ask Joanne about her faith. “Oh, you know I don’t believe in all that
stuff. I mean, I believe in God, but I
don’t believe it the way you do”, was Joanne’s constant refrain. From time-to-time mom would find ways of
bringing up Christianity without being offensive and would try and answer
Joanne’s questions.
At 70 years old, Joanne joined a Bible Study for
the first time, began asking my mother questions constantly and told her that
she now believes in Jesus Christ, “the way my mom does” but, at the time, felt
that she had a lot of catching up to do.
Shortly before Christmas of that year she began asking questions about
joining a church.
60 years of being a witness. Oftentimes my mother would say that she
doesn’t know why she continues to try and be a witness to Joanne. “It’s hopeless” she’d say, “I don’t know why
I do it. There’s just something that
keeps telling me to offer every now and then.”
60 years of being a witness. No
evangelism by knocking on doors. No
constant harping on someone’s inadequacies because they aren’t a
Christian. No soapbox preaching. Just this foundational, quiet witness that
took 60 years to grow. How many of us
have that kind of love, fortitude, and diligence? That’s my mother.
By faith, she will one day, too, receive her crown
of glory for the woman God created her to be.
Friends, by faith, God has called you to share your
life of abundance, to retell your stories with those you love, and to live
fully in the presence of this day in all its joys and burdens.
Thanks be to God.
AMEN
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Closing
Hymn – Lord, Make Us More Holy #536 Blue
Benediction –
Postlude
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