Today we gather together at Bethesda at 11:15am. We will also enjoy Holy Communion together.
Worship
Service for February 2, 2025
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: God has called us to share the good news
of God’s love.
P: But who am I, that God should call me?
L: You are a beloved child of God.
P: But I am weak I’m not a great speaker or
preacher.
L: God is with you; don’t be afraid.
P: Lord, help me trust in Your presence. Help me serve You. AMEN
Opening Hymn – Great is Thy Faithfulness #276/139
Prayer of Confession
All too often, O God, we have
not recognized the mission You have committed to us – transforming the world,
or at least our small portion of it, in the name of Christ. We have trusted in our ability to get things
done rather than in Your power. We have
trusted in our wisdom instead of the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. May we always seek Your will above our own wills. May we always pray for Your strength and aid
in all we do. Turn our hearts, minds,
and wills completely to You that we may serve You at all times and in all
places. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Friends, hear the Good News! We are saved by the reconciling work of Jesus
Christ!
P: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven. Thanks be to God. 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
Holy God, through our prayers, we gain strength to do Your work. Through our prayers, we serve as channels for
Your grace to this troubled world.
Through our prayers, we share in the restoration of all things in
Christ, that Your reign may come. Teach
us, Lord, to pray and to do Your work.
Give us the strength to do whatever You would have us do. We recognize that without the help of Your
Spirit we cannot even say, “Jesus is Lord,” much less bring others into Your
kingdom. Let our common prayer today bring
us uncommon faith and a willingness to do whatever You ask us to do. May the power of Your Spirit guide our every
word and action. Fill us with Your
Spirit, that our prayers and works may proclaim Your glory and work to the
coming of Your reign.
Heal us, O God,
of all our afflictions. Heal our bruised
hearts, our aching bones, our tired minds, and our shriveled spirits. Heal our diseases and anxieties, heal our
loved ones and neighbors far and wide.
Today, we especially lift up to You….
Hear our
prayers, O Lord, those that we have given voice to and those that we now pray
to You in silence.
Gracious God,
lead us by Your Holy Spirit and guide us each and every day. May the prayer of Your son not only reach Your
ears as we pray them together, but may they also teach us more and more how to
be obedient to You. 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 – God
of Grace and God of Glory #420/435
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Jeremiah
1:4-10
Second Scripture Reading – Luke 3:1-18
Sermon – “The Making of a Prophet”
Have
you ever found yourself thinking about your life, only to say suddenly, “How in
the world did I end up here?” Are you
doing or did you do what you’d always dreamed of doing? Like when you were a child dreaming about who
you might be or what you might do when you grew up, did you become that, did
you do that?” We often say that God
works in mysterious ways and we can see the evidence of that in our lives.
At
an Indian mission in South Dakota, there are banners hanging up all over the
place which say, “The sign of God’s presence with you is that your feet are
where you did not expect them to be.” (Repeat)
That sounds about right to me.
When
I was 9, and 14, and even as late as maybe 19 years old I had always dreamed of
being one of three things – a farmer, an artist of some sort, or a music
teacher. I don’t really know why about
the first two. I didn’t grow up on a
farm and artistically speaking, I wasn’t that great. I did however, love music and I really
thought I’d end up being a music teacher.
Oddly enough, growing up what I did in my spare time however was draw up
business ventures and figure out how to make them successful and after my first
drafting class in junior high started drawing architectural housing plans.
So,
looking back on my life and my original goals/dreams, how I ended up here is
truly God working in mysterious ways.
When I felt that God was calling me to ministry, I was nearly done with
college, completely without direction as to what I’d do with my life, except
that I’d gotten really involved in my home church and they saw in me, someone
called to ministry.
Many,
maybe even all, of God’s faithful saints must have asked themselves these same questions.
When
God called Jeremiah, he, too, was not so eager to stand before the people and
preach. He said something like, “Good
Lord, I’m only a boy. I can’t speak.” He was one among many who hesitated and
stalled and resisted.
Moses
made excuses when God called him, so much so that God finally became angry with
him. Isaiah hesitated and said that he
was unclean like everyone else. Ezekiel
required quite a bit of persuasion. It
has been so with many who yielded their lives to enter ministry. Most, who hear God’s call, have some sense of
the responsibilities involved, and of the possibilities for rejection and
hardship.
It
seems Jeremiah must have been a private, thoughtful person, for whom standing
before the people had little appeal. But
God had known Jeremiah, from his very beginning. God knew what Jeremiah could do. Indeed, God
had created Jeremiah, not just to be a pastoral leader in the church, but God
called Jeremiah to be a prophet. With
the gifts that God had given him, Jeremiah was born to be a prophet.
I
think we can understand how a person was born to do a particular thing. We have all known someone who was so connected
with their vocation, with their work, that we cannot imagine that person doing
something else. Can you imagine Mozart
not writing music? Can you imagine
Einstein not unlocking the riddles of creation? Can you imagine Frank Lloyd Wright not
designing? Such people would not be
fully who they are without doing what they were born or created to do. In their vocation is their freedom, their joy,
their wholeness.
I
think we see that even more clearly when we read about John the Baptist. He was born to be a prophet. He was heralded as God’s chosen forerunner to
Christ even before he was born.
For
the purpose of our scripture readings today, God created both Jeremiah and John
for a particular vocation. And in the
call, God began to make Jeremiah and John aware of it. Both men were quite young when they started
preaching to the people, probably 18 or 19, when God began to move in them
deeply for their calling. God also calls
the not so young. Moses was pushing 80
when God moved in him. So was Abraham
when God called him to leave Padan-aram and find a place to settle where his progeny
would create a whole nation.
Neither
age nor sophistication makes much difference to God. Amos, another prophet, was a simple farmer and
a shepherd. The disciples, who we’ll
talk about next week; they were fishermen, tax collectors, radicals.
These
are the kinds of people God calls for high purposes: the weak and the foolish,
the low and the despised, the very young and the very old. It is as Paul wrote to the Church in Corinth,
“Consider, brothers and sisters, how you were called; not many of you are wise
by human standards, not many influential, not many from noble families. No, God chose those who by human standards are
weak in order to shame the strong…”
This
is an amazing reality, that God has a habit of using folks just like you and me
to change the world. Even more amazing
is God’s patience in calling us, a patience deeply rooted in God’s steadfast
love. God answers every excuse, every
self-serving attempt to exempt ourselves from service.
Many
of our excuses are self-serving, aren’t they? It seems easier to stand on the sidelines, to
not get involved, or have our routines interrupted. It’s so much safer to not put ourselves out in
the open, exposing ourselves as the weaklings or novices we really are. At times, we go so far as to give up the
greatest joys, being involved in the most exciting endeavors, all for the sake
of our comfortable, safe, boring routines.
Well,
we know what a poor trade that is. And
so does God. God knows all of us exactly
as God knew Jeremiah, and God answers each and every one of our excuses for one
simple reason: God has a purpose. We
human beings, created by God, are here to serve that purpose.
What
is that purpose? God’s purpose in
creation is abundant life, new life, redemption. We are here to see that life abounds, just as
a gardener seeks to nurture a fruitful garden. Just as an artist hopes to enhance the senses,
bring beauty into the world, It is a
mighty purpose, a wonderful vision.
Understanding
that, it only makes sense that God strives earnestly, continually to turn us
around, to awaken us to the purpose for which we were created. God turns us around one person at a time, like
Jeremiah.
Never
doubt that a small group of committed individuals can change the world, for it
is only such groups that have ever changed the world. God calls us one person at a time. God uses particular people, like Jeremiah and
John, to prophecy, to preach and to teach, to act by God’s leading, to act as
they were born to act, as odd or as eccentric as they might be. That is how both Jeremiah and John understood themselves.
They believed that they were a
mouthpiece for God, a messenger, who reported what they sensed God was trying
to say to the people.
As
people of faith who have been called by God, we are messengers, evangelists,
bearers of the Good News, who say what we have heard declared in the Gospel. The promise is that when God calls us, God
provides all that is necessary to fulfill the call. God provides an infusion of the Spirit which
energizes us, inspires us and directs us. And the objects of our calls are justice and
compassion.
Each
one of us who is a follower of Jesus has been known by God, claimed by God and
called by God, one at a time. We have
been called to demonstrate justice and compassion, to live abundantly and
enhance life wherever we are. Each one
us, too, has hesitated and made excuses on occasion. For we know well enough that answering God’s
call exposes us to risks of many kinds: danger, rejection and hardship. There are aspects of our calling we would like
to ignore.
I
came across this headline – There has never been a Conservative Prophet. Intrigued, I read further to find that it
comes from a quote by Obery Hendricks, Jr., visiting research scholar at
Columbia University, previously from Princeton and Drew. He wrote, “In our time, when many seem to
think that Christianity goes hand in hand with right-wing visions of the
world. It is important to remember that
there has never been a conservative prophet.
Prophets have never been called to conserve social orders that have
stratified inequities of power and privilege and wealth. Prophets have always been led to change them
so that all can have access to the fullest fruits of life.” I had to stop and think about that for a while.
What
we do well to remember is that we, as Christians, are called to live out that prophetic
voice, to bring about change in the world for the better, so that all might
receive justice, that all might be able to live a life of abundance and
joy. Can you imagine Jeremiah succumbing
to the invaders of Judea and telling the people, “Don’t worry, you had nothing
to do with this, continue to disobey God, go about doing whatever you want. It doesn’t really matter. God doesn’t care”? No, he railed against the people for the
disobedience. He stood up in the front
of the class and told them that they were in this exile, having been conquered
by other nations because they had not listened to God. They had not cared for the sick, lonely, poor. They had not acted justly. They had not shown mercy. They had not walked humbly with God. Therefore, they were handed over to the
powerful, conquering nations nearby.
Or
can you imagine John, well fed, dressed in a new tunic and shining robes, telling
the people – disregard the poor, they should work harder, forget the outcast,
they brought it upon themselves, for those seeking mercy or justice…they had it
coming to them, no matter what it was, for the orphan, so sad, too bad, for the
widow, just marry someone else, to the foreigner – go back from wherever you
came.
No,
instead, he enticed the people with his shaggy camel’s coat, eating bugs for
lunch, and lamenting that the people needed to repent and be washed anew in
Baptism because they had done none of those things mentioned by God as commands
to do.
Prophets
were radicals calling on the powerful and elite to find justice, to offer
mercy, to care for the widow and the orphan, to look after the poor, to tell
the truth to God’s own people.
God
created us to be prophets, teachers, healers, cheerleaders, holders of wisdom, justice-makers,
peacekeepers, and disciples, just as God created Mozart to write music.
God
created us. God calls us. God provides all that we need to answer that
calling and fulfill our purpose. And
every now and then, God gives us a glimpse of how God has been present with us,
when we suddenly realize how our feet are not at all where we expected them to
be. For this amazing grace, Thanks be to
God. Amen.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
O
gracious God of hope, bless these gifts today, use them for Your will to
further Your kingdom. May they represent
an outpouring of our love and dedication to You. In Your name we pray. Amen
Communion
Closing
Hymn – Amazing Grace #280/343
Benediction –
God did not say that it would
be easy to bring the good news to all people, but God did say that God would be
with us. So, go now in peace, walking
humbly with God. Bring the good news of
hope to all the people. AMEN.
Postlude
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