Next week (June 1) we will meet together for communion at Bethesda United Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth at 11:15am with a time of fellowship prior to worship.
Worship
Service for May 25, 2025
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: God holds out to us the promise of a new
life.
P: Life as unpredictable, as unrehearsed, as
explosive as life at the very beginning.
L: God calls us to respond to this gift with
creativity, with joy, and with courage.
P: In worship, we can begin to accept this
gift of new life. Let us worship God
together.
Opening Hymn – Joyful, Joyful,
We Adore Thee #464/90
4 vs.
Prayer of Confession
Keeper of heaven and earth, guardian
of our coming and going forth, of our times of tender reflection and our
moments of turmoil. Our life is
fragile. We violate each other in
personal relationships, as nations, as inept keepers of life’s beauty. Sharpen our sensitivities. Stir in us preference for listening over
speaking, for tenderness over aggression, for solidarity and community over
alienation. Deepen for us the meaning of
the resurrection, that we not only speak words of transformation but embody
those words in our lives. (Silent
prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Your past sins are forgiven, your future
will be fruitful and Christ’s words will become your personal benediction:
“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your
joy may be full.”
P: 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
Almighty and eternal God, you have
revealed yourself to us through the power of the Holy Spirit. That Spirit reaches into the depths of our
souls to teach us right from wrong, good from evil. Your Spirit speaks to our spirits and makes
us yearn to worship You and follow after Your call to us. Hold us firm in faith, so that we may know
You in all your ways. Enlighten us to
Your truth, so we may witness to Your eternal glory. Keep us in Your holiness, so that we may
literally glow with Your love.
Continue
to work Your powers of peace in the world.
Where there is injury, let us sow pardon and truly embody the gift of
forgiveness, love, compassion and mercy to others as You have been to us.
Holy God, on
this Memorial Day weekend, we give You thanks for our small towns of West
Elizabeth and Elizabeth and for this great land of the United States, with all
its liberties and its many blessings. Today
we especially give thanks for those who served their country in its hour of
need, and for our fallen soldiers, who have given their very lives in that
service. May we never forget their
sacrifice.
Lord,
watch over those military men and women on American and foreign soils who
continue to serve our nation today, who knowing the real and potential dangers
of their work, nevertheless stand ready to preserve the cause of freedom with
the devotion to duty and those who served before them.
Grant Your
continued Divine care over the family members who are called upon to watch and
wave good-bye to their loved ones as they go to their duty as members of our
nation’s Armed Forces. Also honor their
devotion and their sacrifice.
We
also pray for those who are struggling this day for multitude of reasons. We pray for….
Hear
also the silent prayers of our hearts today.
Grant us, O Lord, the wisdom to take our
sufferings and turn them into hope. We
pray together the prayer your Son taught us, 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 – I Sing the Mighty Power of God #288/128
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Psalm
67
Second Scripture Reading – John
14:23-29
Sermon – Christ’s Peace vs.
World’s Peace
(John 14:23-29)
“Peace
I leave with you; my peace I give to you; I do not give to you as the world
gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled;
and do not be afraid.” What exactly is
this peace that Jesus gives? In his
letter to the church at Philippi the Apostle Paul described the peace of God as
the peace that surpasses all understanding. Is this the same peace that Jesus offers, this
peace that surpasses understanding? It
reminds me of the Vacation Bible School song, “I’ve Got the Joy in My
Heart”. It’s the kind of song that can
very easily become an ear worm. “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my
heart (where?) Down in my heart
(where?) Down in my heart. Down in my heart to stay.” Do you remember the second verse? “I’ve got
the peace that passes understanding down in my heart, (where?”) Down in my heart (where?) Down in my heart. Down in my heart to stay.”
The
reason that that particular ear worm won’t leave me alone, is the “where” part
of these lyrics. I’ve got the love of
Jesus, Love of Jesus down in my heart, down in my heart, “where” down in my
heart, where, down in my heart to stay. When
we hear down in my heart we tend to think of emotions, and feelings. But the heart hasn’t always been thought of as
the source of feelings and emotions. Way
back in the 4th century BCE (Before the Common Era)…the Greek philosopher
Aristotle identified the heart as the seat of intelligence. Observing that the heart is the first organ
formed in the embryo of chick’s eggs, Aristotle surmised that the heart must be
vital for life itself and life meant that which makes us human, our ability to
think. All the other organs simply existed to serve the heart. Indeed, the ancients didn’t really know what
brains were, except for being the mushy part encased in the skull, which they
surmised must have some sort of role akin to the lungs and served only to cool
the heart.
In
Jesus’ day, the brain was viewed as the location of the soul; the place where
spirits came together. The heart was where the real thinking happened. It wasn’t until late in the 17th century that
the seat of intelligence moved to our brains. So, I find it mildly amusing that Christian
children should be taught that they “have the peace that passes understanding
down in their hearts, where, down in their hearts to stay.”
This
peace that surpasses understanding, this peace that Jesus offers “is not like
the world’s peace.” Jesus says, “Do not
let your hearts be troubled; do not be afraid.”
In other words, “Don’t let your mind be troubled, there is nothing to
fear.”
These
days, the world tells us to be afraid, to be very afraid. For the most part,
the logic of the world wins out, and we are often very afraid. We worry about everything. We are afraid of stuff our ancestors never
even thought about. Some of us are so
afraid that our own images in the mirror make us worry about going outside
where others might see us. The
advertising industry has convinced us to be afraid of our own humanity, the way
we look, our smells, our skin and hair, it’s all become something we are so
afraid of that we spend billions and billions of dollars each year to look a
particular way.
If
our own image isn’t enough to frighten us into staying indoors, then the news
media has us so afraid of all the monsters that lie in wait to do the most
horrendous things to us. We are so
afraid that we refuse to let children play, even though children are safer than
they were back in the bygone days of our very own youth.
We
are obsessed with our own safety. If you
don’t believe me just try to open up a bottle of pills, between the childproof
caps and the tamperproof packaging you almost need an engineering degree
together with a strong pair of hands just to get into the bottle. And every package comes complete with its own
set of warnings.
And
what about the stock market? Back in the
day, most people never even knew what the stock market was, nowadays we spend
countless hours afraid that the markets will crash and we’ll loose all of our
money. Money! We are so afraid that we simply won’t have
enough money, this despite the fact that most of us have more money and more
stuff than most of our ancestors could have ever dreamed of having. I don’t know about you, but my grandparents
never had anything like what we have today.
They also didn’t have all the same kind of fears that we have today. Oh they had fears, don’t get me wrong, but
they quelled their fears with the sure and certain faith that it would all come
out in the end. All they had to do was
read their bibles and pray ever day.
They had the peace that passes understanding down in their hearts. Down in their hearts to stay.
We
have the news media, reporters telling us each and every day to be afraid, to
be very afraid. Terrorists, climate
change, predators, scammers, floods, wars and rumors of wars. Be afraid, be very afraid. Oh, and by the way, God is dead. Jesus can’t and won’t save you. So be afraid. The Buddha can’t save you either, and forget
about Mohammed, and all the rest of those religious folk who promised you the
sun, the moon and the stars. And while
we’re at it, what about those endless movies that portray the horrors of
falling in love, and the pain of loss? We are doomed, I tell you doomed. So, be afraid, be very afraid. Use your heads, think about it, there is no
hope, hope is an illusion. We are all
going to die. Once you are dead, you are
dead, that’s it, over, done, nada.
So,
be afraid, exercise, exercise, get healthy, don’t eat that, be afraid it’s the
only way to live longer, be afraid, take this pill and eat this food, and run,
run, as fast as you can, be afraid. Use
your head, its a big bad world out there and you need to be afraid, oh by the
way, try this, buy this, use this, put your money here, build a wall, build a
very big wall, keep them out, you know the ones, the big bad scary people who
want to come here, kill everyone, and take all your stuff; be afraid, be very
afraid.
“Peace
I leave with you; my peace I give to you; but the kind of peace I give you is
not like the world’s peace. Don’t let
your hearts be troubled; do not be afraid. ‘
So,
what is it that Jesus offers when he says,
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; but the kind of peace I
give you is not like the world’s peace. Don’t
let your hearts be troubled; do not be afraid?”
I
believe that there can be no peace in the world as long as we are afraid. Fear makes us forget who we are and whose we
are. Fear makes us forget that we are
richly blessed. Fear makes us forget
that we live in relative safety. Fear
makes us forget what we believe. Fear
makes us forget who and what we love. Fear
makes us forget to think. Fear makes us
forget to breathe. I also believe that
the memory of who we are calms our fear and that this is the only hope we have
of ever finding any peace in the world.
When
I am afraid, I mean really afraid, I often forget who I am. The person that I am, is not angry, or
greedy, or violent. But given enough
anxiety, fear or terror, and I will react angrily. Take away the familiar, push me beyond my
comfort zone, expose me to strange and foreign ways, and I will become anxious.
Threaten me with poverty and my fear of
poverty will inspire me to be greedy. Threaten me or the ones I love with violence,
and my fear of losing my life or my loved ones will embolden me to resort to
violence.
When
the ground beneath our feet begins to shift it can cause us to forget who we
are and unless we take a deep breath, we might just forget the SPIRIT that
dwells in, with, through, and beyond us.
Jesus believed and taught a new way of being in the world. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, Jesus
understood himself to be intimately related to the very SOURCE of his BEING. Where others had looked to the source of their
being and seen a CREATOR to be feared and obeyed, Jesus looked to the source of
his being and saw a CREATOR who takes delight in creation; a CREATOR so
intimately connected with creation that it is impossible to see where creation
ends and the CREATOR begins. I and the
CREATOR are ONE.
Our
God dwells in the midst of us. If we
breathe deeply and feel the rhythm of the ONE who breathes in us we can begin
to remember who we are. I am convinced
that the peace we so long for in this world will only be realized when we find
peace in ourselves. We are wonderfully
made. Ever evolving humans in an ever-changing
cosmos. As conscious beings we are an
integral part of a magnificent creation, the source of which flows in, with,
through, and beyond us.
Jesus
taught a way of being that encompassed the SOURCE of our BEING as part of the
ONENESS of all creation, and encouraged us to embrace the peace that this
knowledge brings. When we are grounded
in who and what we were created to be, it quells our fear and we are better
able to respond to the fears of others in ways that will help them to remember
who they are.
Fear
is the enemy of peace. Jesus knew this. Why else was he constantly telling people not
to be afraid? From the advent of his birth,
even the angel came and told Mary and Joseph, “do not be afraid.” Even to the shepherds out in the fields,
keeping watch over their flocks at night.
The angel appeared and told them to not be afraid. From Christ’s advent, all the way through to
the end of his life, he heralded the opposite of fear – peace.
So,
Sit up, take a long slow breath in….now, let it out….
Have
you ever noticed how difficult it is to take a long slow breath when you are
afraid? Panting, gasping, sometimes even
holding your breath all have more in common with fear than breathing deeply. Perhaps our bodies really do know best because
when we do breathe deeply it has a calming effect. Pay attention to your breathing. Really, I mean it pay attention to your
breathing. Take a few moments, right
here and right now and just breathe.
I
recently came across this explanation of breath and God.
Moses
asked God what his name is. The name
recorded in the original Hebrew was Yaweh.
But the original alphabet in Hebrew had no vowels so it was represented
in writing as YHWH. Over time, they
added vowels, an a and an e. But
scholars and Rabi’s noted that the letters YHWH represent breathing sounds. When pronounced without intervening vowels,
it actually sounds like breathing. YH
(inhale); WH (exhale). Try it. YH WH.
The
very act of breathing is speaking God’s name.
A baby’s first cry speaks the name of God and the last breath we take,
breathes the name of our Creator.
So,
the next time anxiety and fear threatens to make you forget who you are,
breathe, notice each breath, and slowly you will begin to remember who you are
and more importantly, whose you are. Slowly,
you will feel the presence of the ONE who lives and breathes in, with, through,
and beyond you. This is the peace that
Christ gives.
Thanks
be to God. Amen.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
With
these gifts we give of ourselves to the world you have created, to the love you
have poured out, and to the work of Your Holy Spirit alive in us today. Grant us your mercy that we may be
strengthened to walk in your ways, even as you walk with us. AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – Spirit Song #384 Brown
Benediction –
God of
infinite peace, loving presence, and dazzling surprises, allow us to take risks
we dare not try alone. But You guide our
hand, our lives, and our way forward. We
go in peace seeking Your wisdom and strength.
AMEN.
Postlude
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