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Worship
Service for November 24, 2024
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Long ago God spoke to our ancestors many
times and in various ways through the prophets.
P: But in these last days God has spoken to
us through His Son, through whom He created the worlds.
L: He is the one God and has been appointed
heir of all things.
P: He is the reflection of God’s glory and
the exact likeness of God’s own being.
He sustains all things by His powerful word.
L: When He had made purification for the sins
of all, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High.
P: He was made greater than the angels, just
as the name God gave Him is greater than theirs.
L: To Him, and to God, the Father, by the
power of God the Holy Spirit, belong all our worship and our praise.
Opening Hymn – Lead On, O King Eternal #447/724
Prayer of Confession
We praise you God for the gift
of your Son. But even as we express our
appreciation for His Lordship, we also admit our independence often makes us ignore
His authority over our lives. Forgive us
when we live as if we are subject to no one but ourselves, as if judgment is
the only authority that matters, our desires the only ones that count. Forgive us for how we ignore Your word and
neglect Your law. Forgive us for how we
blind ourselves to the demands of Your holy will, for how we fail to do that
which has been commanded by You. Grant
us mercy, O God and mold us in the image of Christ. Help us to be your obedient servants. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: In deepest mercy, God has rescued us from
the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son,
in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Sisters and Brothers, our sins are forgiven,
live in peace.
P: Alleluia and 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
Almighty God, you are
the great I AM, the beginning, the middle, and the end of all that was and is
and ever will be. We praise you for
being our all-in-all, our model for perfection, our source of all creative endeavors,
the fulfillment of all longing, the hope for lasting peace.
In our prayers today, we lift up to you…
As we bid farewell to
another church year, we thank you most especially for Jesus, your Son.
In his conception, the womb became a sacred space.
In his birth, the dark world was enlightened.
In his dedication, the temple was blessed anew.
In his early life, childhood and youth were honored as a
time for preparation and growth in wisdom and knowledge of You, our One and
Only Lord.
In his ministry, the world was set on its ear. The old became new, the outcasts were
welcomed, the sick were healed, the ignorant were informed, the innocent were
protected from harm. And all who could
hear, received good news.
In his death – cruel as it was – sin’s back was broken and
the fissure between God and humanity was perfectly repaired.
In his resurrection and ascension, believers received the
promise of eternal life, a life of glory lived in your presence.
In this moment of silence, we offer up to you our most
sacred, quiet truths…Hear us, as we pray…
Today we embrace Christ once again, the one who loves us,
frees us, and commissions us to do your work on earth. We give thanks for the reign of Jesus Christ,
in whose perfect name we pray together 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 – Soon
and Very Soon Hymn #747
Brown
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – 2
Samuel 23:1-7
Second Scripture Reading – John
18:33-37
Sermon – “Thanksgiving for the King of Kings”
Thanksgiving
for the King of Kings; not of this world
(based
on 2 Samuel 23:1-7, John 18:33-37)
The peasants wait nervously outside the
palace to learn the identity of their new ruler. The tribe sends its wisest elders to choose
their new chief. The whole of Roman
Catholic Christendom looks for white smoke to come out of the chimney of the
Vatican indicating a new Pope has been named.
Every four years Americans step into the voting booth with naïve hopes
that with this new leader happy days will be here again. The whole world looks for a good king or
queen, a chief, a Pope, a president, and a brighter future.
Coronations, the celebration that
crowns a new king or queen is often the highpoint of their reign. King David for example embodied the hopes of
all Israel when he sat on the throne in Jerusalem. David’s promise was evident as he received
anointment from Samuel, slew Goliath, and befriended Jonathan, the son of the
old king. People sang ballads about the
daring escapades of this one who was called “a man after God’s own heart.”
It was a kingdom where might was used
for right, justice was for all, and shining knights, like angels in armor,
battled to snuff out evil. For one brief
shining moment this was to be the “happily ever after.” At his best, David was the most splendid king
who ever sat on any throne, a king with high hopes and great dreams.
But those dreams didn’t last, like all
other earthly kingdoms. By the end of
his reign, David was king of a divided, disorganized, and disintegrating
kingdom. His reign was a series of
tragedies: David’s sin with Bathsheba and the orchestrated murder of Uriah, the
rape of his daughter Tamar by his son Amnon, the rebellion against him and the murder
of his son Absalom, continuous fighting between the tribes of Israel, and wars
with the Philistines.
Finally,
David was judged too old to go into battle. The round table cracked. The shining moments brief. The glimpses of glory fade. All kingdoms of this world are destined for
collapse.
Even
King David comes to the end of a disappointing reign, and yet his farewell
address is not sorrowful. In 2 Samuel
23, we hear his last words.
The
one dream that didn’t die was of a king yet to come. One will come from David’s line who will be a
king like David at his best. David spoke
about who this king would be, but when the King of all kings did come, we might
wonder if David would recognize him, because he was a king like no other.
Pastor
Peter Fribley wrote: “How can you be king who ruled with stories? Who walked to work and slept beneath the
stars? . . . How can you be king who refused kingdoms, claimed no crown, walked
to work, thumbed a ride into town?”
Jesus
is a king unlike human rulers, who seek power and pleasure, who want celebrity
and comfort. And unlike human kingdoms,
the kingdom in which Christ reigns is a realm with no boundaries, no
limitations, and no end.
Today,
each year, we celebrate Christ the King Sunday, just before Advent. It isn’t an ancient holy day. It was first proclaimed by Pope Pius XI in
1925 to reassert the primacy of Jesus’ lordship over the rise of nationalism
and authoritarianism in European politics.
Which is great, but it wasn’t that simple because just asserting the
primacy of Christ the King over the politics of the age didn’t stop the
historical horrors that would unfold across Europe. Less than a decade later, that same Pope would
come to an established agreement with the Nazi party. This agreement was a treaty that required
Bishops to swear an oath of loyalty to the German government in exchange for
protection against persecution and freedom of ecclesiastical administration. The only problem was that within two years,
by 1937, the government began violating the agreement, essentially opening the
political door to the church for Hitler’s version of nationalism.
Questions
about God’s kingdom and its relationship to human governments are among the
most contentious and difficult questions in the history of Christianity. Reasserting Christ as King over the politics
of this world seems to be an appealing solution. But, does it really have the result we want?
Those
of us who are Christians can’t ignore the politics of our own age, but we can’t
give into the temptation of making God’s Kingdom merely into a “spiritual”
kingdom either.
We
heard the story of the first king who tried with all his humanity to be the
best king ever, but failed. And now, from
the gospels we hear another story – the encounter between Pilate and Jesus.
Diana
Butler Bass writes:
One
man is the Roman governor of Judea, and the other is Pilate’s prisoner and
whose fate is in his hands. The two men
stand-in for the political powers they represent. This is a face-off between the Kingdom of Caesar
and the Kingdom of God.
When
a defeated king was brought before Caesar, the ritual was straightforward:
Submit and surrender his kingdom to Rome. This involved a good deal of groveling,
including kneeling and pleading for mercy. If you were very lucky, Caesar (or his
representative like Pilate) would only take your crown and not your head.
As
the episode opens, Jesus has already been bound and beaten. Pilate has the
prisoner brought to him for questioning. But the session quickly turns into the more
powerful man taunting the weaker one. There’s
nothing sincere here. Pilate looks at
the bleeding Jesus and sneers — as an insult to both Jesus and the Jews — Are
you the King of the Jews? You can almost
hear what he was thinking: What a pitiful excuse of a King. But what would one expect from the Jews?
Jesus
tried to dodge the question, in the same fashion that he often dodged insincere
questions during his entire ministry. But
Pilate wasn’t satisfied and asked again. I’m not a Jew. Your authorities have handed you over to me.
What have you done?
And
Jesus answered: “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from
this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to
the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is
not from here.”
One
word appears four times in his answer: from. In Greek, this little word is ἐκ.
My
kingdom is not from…
If
my kingdom were from…
my
followers would be fighting to keep me from…
my
kingdom is not from here.
From
is an odd preposition. In English, we
most often assume that it is about a location. Where are you from? is typically a query about
one’s hometown or nationality. We think
of “from” as in a place.
Maybe
Pilate was asking about location. After
all, he asked Jesus if he was a King. King
of whom? Of what realm? Where are you from?
The
taunt becomes obvious — King of the Jews? Really? A conquered people with no realm? Some kingship, mocks Pilate. Your own religious authorities turned you over
to me, to Rome. They have submitted, so
should you. Rome owns Judea and you are
already under my authority.
But
Jesus responds, I’m not from here. Even
in English, from means more than place. It
refers to the origin of something — whether place, time, or cause.
I’m
not from here. Your kingship, Caesar’s
kingship — you have no authority over me.
So,
where is Jesus from? He is NOT from this
world.
Was
Jesus pointing to Pilate when he said that? To the soldiers and police? To the religious authorities with whom he has
long quarreled? To the imperial
governor’s palace, no doubt the most opulent building Jesus has ever seen?
I
don’t belong to this world — your world of power, violence, religious
corruption, and wealth. If I did, my
followers would kill to protect both me and the privileges I convey to them. My realm is not from here, not from this. It is of something entirely different.
Pilate
thought he caught Jesus. He interrupted:
So you are a king?
Jesus
replied, So you say. But I was born to
testify to the truth.
Notice
how Jesus changed the conversation. Pilate
wanted Jesus to name his realm and his people. He wanted Jesus to be a rival king, one that
must now bend the knee to Rome.
But
Jesus didn’t want to talk about place, about any location. Instead, he switched the meaning of from, not
to indicate his place of origin, but to identify the source of his origin.
This
is easy to understand. We often talk of
something being made from another thing. In cooking, from one set of ingredients, comes
something else, a totally different dish. From flour, water, and yeast, comes bread. From chicken, water, and salt, comes soup.
When
Jesus said that his kingdom wasn’t from this world, he wasn’t saying that he
was uninterested in the world or spiritualizing it. He wasn’t denying his humanity or his own
people, the Jews. He was defying the
kingdoms of the world that were from authoritarianism, greed, violence, or the
superiority of one nation over others.
He
challenged Pilate — and Rome — by saying that his origin was truth. Jesus claimed to be from entirely
different stuff than the stuff of the Roman Empire.
Today’s
lectionary reading sadly omits the next line: Pilate asked him, ‘What is
truth?’ Jesus’ answer to that question should
be clear to readers of the gospel of John. Jesus plainly summarized the central truth of
his teaching a few pages earlier: I give you a new commandment, that you love
one another. Just as I have loved you,
you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my
disciple, if you have love for one another.
The
truth is love. Love one another.
That’s
where Jesus comes from — Love.
That’s
the realm of Jesus. And that’s the realm
of his followers. This realm, this
“kingdom,” doesn’t come from authoritarianism, greed, violence, and ethnic
superiority. It comes from God, the One
who befriends the world, who sustains us with bread and wine, and who turns
death to new life.
So,
how do we resist the Pilates of our own day?
The
Church with a capital C, hasn’t always been great at answering this question. The Church isn’t about the past. The Church isn’t about our traditions. The Church is what we do next. And what we need to do next is:
We
speak the truth in love. Stand up for
love in truth. Love and truth are
exactly what is needed in this world to challenge the evil of the days. They
are not about withdrawal, not about surrender, not about complicity. Love and
truth don’t look away. Love and truth
are where we come from.
And
we must testify to that. No matter the
cost.
Thanks
be to God. AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Holy
God, who has given us so many blessed days, we give you thanks that we may
gather ourselves to share the life you have given to us through your beloved
Son. We offer to you our gratitude and
pray that you would bless these simple gifts that they may reach all your
children who are in need. May they be
blessed as we have been blessed. AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – Come, Thou Almighty King Hymn
#139/8
Benediction –
Hear the
cries of those in need! Go into God’s
world, enabled by Christ to be in ministries of compassion for all God’s
people. Love this world as God has loved
you. Go and faithfully serve in the name
of Christ. AMEN.
Postlude
