Worship Service for October 8, 2023
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Welcome to God’s house, a place of faith.
P: From our homes, we come seeking God’s
word.
L: Here you will find nourishment and hope.
P: But may we also learn lessons of courage
and peace.
L: Here you will find rest from your
struggles.
P: Lord, prepare our hearts to receive Your
words that we may leave this holy house of faith and return to our homes,
encouraged and challenged to be Your people.
AMEN.
Opening Hymn – Spirit of the Living God #322/389
Prayer of Confession
Most merciful God, we confess
that we have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed; by what we have
done and by what we have left undone. We
have not love You with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as
ourselves. We are truly sorry and we
humbly repent. For the sake of Your Son
Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us, that we may delight in Your
will, and walk in Your ways, to the glory of Your name. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Hear the Good News: Paul writes to
Timothy; “Do not be ashamed of testifying to God, who saved us and called us
with a holy calling, not in virtue of our works but in virtue of God’s own
purpose and the grace God gave us in Christ Jesus years ago.”
P: By that grace we are saved. Let us believe the good news of the
gospel. In Jesus Christ we are forgiven. 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
You
have called each of us, gracious God, into relationship with you. As we grow and change, your words continue to
challenge us, to confront us, to judge us, to love us. Thank you for the gift of your Holy Word to
us in our lives.
You
have called each of us in your Word-Made-Flesh self, who was willing to bear
the reproach of those in authority in order to serve the least, the last, and
the lost. He spoke your healing,
redeeming, gracious words into reality.
Thank you for that gift of Your Word in our lives.
You
continue to call to us in the needs of those around us; and so we offer our
prayers for all who are in any way burdened, disillusioned, or suffering. Hear our prayers of concern for the world,
for the establishment of peace, for the ease of suffering and pain from
drought, disease, political strife and conflict. Reach out now to our own country and its
leaders. Allow them to be wise in
decision making and compassionate to those in need.
Lord,
hear our prayers for those near at home and their relationship with you. Allow them to feel your presence and know
your amazing grace. We lift up in prayer
to you this day….
Also
hear these prayers, those quiet prayers of the heart, as we pray to you in
silence….
Most
Holy God, Speak your word of judgment and grace anew in our hearts, that we may
offer worship acceptable to you. In
heart, in voice; in challenge, in healing; in hearing, in responding we stand
now and ever, under your mercy praying the Model Prayer your Son taught to 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 – Precious Lord, Take My Hand #404/684
Scripture Reading(s):
Isaiah
5:1-7
Matthew
21:33-46
Sermon – Bearing Fruit (based on
Matthew 21:33-46)
My grandmother lived on the hillside of a housing development in
the town of West Chester, developed just after WWII. It was a small Cape Cod style home with a
large backyard that had multiple levels to it.
Over the years my grandmother built stone walls, with steps and paths,
leading to gardens planted on that hill.
Growing up, my sister and I would often accompany our grandmother in her
constant quest for more stones. Every
now and then she’d stop her VW bug and shout at both of us to help her put some
big rock into her car. When we’d get
back to her house, we’d carry the stones to the backyard and she’d eye each one
carefully, eventually choosing where each stone would go.
On one of our outings, we had come back with a few stones as
usual, but there was one particular stone that she seemed to be perplexed about;
where it would go. She tried it on one
of the walls and then tossed it aside.
She tried it on another wall and tossed it aside. Over and over again, she’d try it, toss it
aside and shake her head. Finally, near
one of the steps, she started tearing down one of the sections of the wall
completely. When all the stones were in
a large pile, she took the stone that she’d kept trying and tossing aside, laid
it down at the base of the wall and started using the other stones to build up
around it. In her eyes, as the base of
the wall by the steps was the perfect spot for that stone.
Jesus quotes to the chief priests and elders from Psalm 118,
describing how a stone that builders rejected becomes the Lord's cornerstone. Psalm 118 is used as part of the closing
liturgy at the Passover Feast when God’s people were again chosen to covenant
with God as a nation. The Passover Feast
commemorates the night before they left Egypt after generations of slavery.
Let me read it to you: Read Psalm 118
Jesus uses this verse from Psalm 118 in Matthew to signify his
own tragic rejection and to foretell the coming of God's kingdom.
How many of you have cats at home or have had a cat as a
pet? Cats aren’t terribly obedient,
they sort of do what they want when they want to, because they operate under
special cat rules that aren’t the same as yours or mine. And believe it or not, that’s what Jesus was
trying to get to in this awful parable about the wicked tenants. God made rules for us to live by because of
who we claim to be. We claim to be
Christians, or believers, in Jesus’ day, they claimed to be Jews. And by so doing, we’re supposed to live by
the rules that God made for us because it’s who we are. But instead, we lived by rules that are
counter to who we should be. And God has
finally gotten tired of it.
If you study the Old Testament you can see how often God comes
back to the people of God and says, “Okay, you did it again, you went against
the laws that I made to protect you.
Okay, you did it again, you went against the rules that I laid out for
you so that you could enjoy life and not worry about anything. Okay, you did it again, you’ve done things that
you weren’t supposed to have done. It’s
okay. I still love you. But could you come back and just be who you
are called to be; my faithful followers?
Again and again, God forgave the Israelites. And you know, the rules weren’t that
hard.
Honor your father and mother, remember the Sabbath, don’t kill,
don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t want something that isn’t yours, believe in God
and God alone, and so on and so forth.
How hard are they? They
aren’t hard!!
Jesus teaches that God wove a moral order into the
universe. This is not to say that God
merely gave us a set of rules to follow robotically. God did not give Moses the Ten Commandments
to turn us into rigid, unreflective rule followers.
Instead, those ten laws, and the hundreds of directives found in
Leviticus, are examples of what it can look like, in various circumstances, to
live a caring life. That’s why Jesus
summarized the law as the law of love.
Love God with every fiber of your being.
Love your neighbor like the quality of your own life depends upon their
well-being. To live fully and
meaningfully in this world involves caring for others.
And yet, time and again, we broke not just the rules, but the
spirit of the rules as well. At this
point in the book of Matthew, Chapter 21, Jesus is entering his final few days
before he knows that the cross will become inevitable. Jesus realizes that all of his teachings
about compassion, mercy, love, healing, they are still falling on deaf
ears. So, he brings it home to them in
this parable about the wicked tenants.
A landowner buys land and then hires tenants so that they can
work it. Now, when the harvest is over,
the tenants have sold the entirety of the crop and have a nice amount of
profit. Now, the rules in this game are
that they owe the landowner his profit.
He gave them a place to live, he gave them a living doing what they
loved to do (farm), he paid them well for their work. All he wants are the profits from the sale of
the crop. And what did they do? The messengers that came to pick up the
profit were beaten or killed. What? Well, that’s not how the game is played. That’s not part of the rules. Okay, the landowner thinks, I’ll send more
messengers. And the same thing
happens. Finally, he sends his son,
saying, “They will respect my son. They
wouldn’t dare hurt or kill him.” But in
their twisted sense of how they think this game is to be played, the tenants
somehow get the idea that if they kill the son, the property will become
theirs. Now, logically, that doesn’t
even make sense, the owner is still living.
By killing the son, it doesn’t make you the heir.
But these tenants have played the game their own way for so
long, that they’re just making things up now.
And Jesus says, “Enough. I’m done
playing the game with you. I’ll play the
game with someone else who is willing to obey the rules.” Jesus warns that the kingdom of God will be
taken away and given to a people who will produce fruit if they cannot. Jesus makes it clear that the people of God
are to have fruit.
The Gospel writer Matthew uses fruit throughout his writing as
well as in today’s scripture reading, as a symbol for the works of the people
of God. It echoes and furthers our
scripture reading today from Isaiah. Jesus
preaches that one should produce fruit worthy of repentance. Meaning that if you are truly repentant, then
your life will show it. Jesus also
preached that the tree that bears bad fruit should be cut down. It is not worthy of being considered a fruit
tree at all, if it can’t yield fruit worth eating. And most importantly to keep it simple, every
good tree should bear good fruit and every bad tree will only produce bad fruit.
Ultimately, God is the source of fruit in a Christian's life,
but we can certainly do some things to increase the harvest. Because fruit is really the by-product of a
healthy plant; fruit for the Christian is a by-product of right living under
God's grace. God will produce fruit in
our lives if we honor God in the garden of our souls. We can do this by remembering to do three
things; seed the garden, weed the garden, and feed the garden.
Seed the garden well. Before a plant can grow and produce fruit, a seed must be
planted. This planting of seed refers
not only to the initial beginning of one's journey with Christ. God wants to plant orchards in new fields of
our lives. In each of us, there are new
gifts waiting to be discovered.
Are there times in your life when you have consciously made an
effort to cultivate a new talent for the purpose of giving it to others?
What new area of your life have you committed to God in the last
six months?
What have you done for God lately?
Weed the garden often. Every
gardener spends time weeding the garden. The weeds of bad habits can sprout and quickly
creep up the wall of our lives. In his
autobiography, Benjamin Franklin tells of his efforts to eliminate the bad
habits that plagued him. Franklin
concentrated on twelve bad habits in his life and charted his progress,
focusing on a different habit each week in a twelve-week cycle. He returned to this cycle at different times
in his life, attempting to keep his garden weed free.
And finally, feed the garden every day. We all need to
spend time with God if we are to produce fruit. We are fed through activities such as
corporate worship, Bible study, and quiet time with God in reflection and
meditation. If we work at keeping our
garden in order, the tremendous resources God has given us can produce
abundantly more than we ever dreamed.
Thanks be to God. AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
We come before you, all-giving God, rich with
the gifts you have given to us, rich with the love you have lavished on us,
rich with the blessings your Son has brought to us. The gifts we offer you here speak not only of
our gratitude for your love, but also of our commitment to seek anew and
continuously to grow in our discipleship.
Bless these gifts, and us as givers, to the work for which you have
called us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
AMEN
Closing Hymn – In Christ There is No East or West #439/428
Benediction –
Friends, Let the light of
God’s love shine on you, in you, and through you as you go into God’s world to
serve God’s people. Go in peace. AMEN
Postlude
