Sunday, November 20, 2011

November 20, 2011

Morning Prayers

Let us pray to the Lord our God, who seeks the lost sheep, binds up the injured, and

strengthens the weak.

For Bill,Steve, LaTaunya, and Brenda, our Regional Pastors, and for all who serve your church.

in every place.

Lord, have mercy.

For the leaders of the nations and all in authority, and for mercy, justice, and peace.

Lord, have mercy.

For good weather, abundant fruits of the earth, and peaceful times.

Lord, have mercy.

For our city and those who live in it, and especially for those who serve our cities and townships (and of those, especially our own Russ),, and for our families, companions, and all those we love.

Lord, have mercy

For all those in danger and need: the hungry and the thirsty, strangers and the naked, the

sick and those in prison.

Lord, have mercy.

For those who rest in Christ and for all the dead.

Lord, have mercy.

For our deliverance from all affliction, strife, and need.

Lord, have mercy.

God our shepherd, who raised your Son from the dead and made him king of all creation,

hear the prayers we offer this day and enable us to see your glory in the face of the poor;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Gospel Lesson Matthew 25:31-46

Mt 25:31 ¶ "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.

32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,

33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.

34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;

35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,

36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.'

37 Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?

38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?

39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?'

40 And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'

41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;

42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,

43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.'

44 Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?'

45 Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.'

46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

Hear what the spirit…

Sermon “The King and the Nations”

Do you know “Rent?” It’s one of most successful Broadway musicals in the last 40 years, and it’s actually a reworking of Puccini’s “La Boheme.”

Only instead of Paris in the late 19^th century, it’s set in NYC in the late 20^th century. And instead of tuberculosis, the plague that is taking the lives of all their friends is AIDS.

There are some great songs in that show—some that you’ve probably heard like “Seasons of Love.”

But, the song that’s been in my head this week is titled, “What You Own,” which pokes fun at American consumerism:

“You're living in America

At the end of the millennium

You're living in America

Leave your conscience at the tone

And when you’re living in America

At the end of the millennium

You are what you own”

And, because they are dying of AIDS, the song concludes:

we’re dying in America

at the end of the millennium

dying in America

to come into our own

and when you’re dying in America

at the end of the millennium,

you’re not alone.

I get this feeling every year about this time. After the Christmas ads and decorations have been in full swing about a month.

After watching ads for cars in bows which cost more than our first house--and we’re not that old--I get a little queasy. When you’re living in America on either side of the millennium, you are what you own--or at least what you buy, indeed!

I get that feeling because we have evolved to the point where we celebrate our Lord’s birth by engaging in the sin of idolatry.

Idolatry is the sin of holding other gods before the God who has created us, redeemed us, and sustains us. Idolatry is a denial of the truth of creation.

Instead of knowing who we are by the God in whose image we are made, we are known by what we own.

Idolatry.

What would you guess is the number one theme in all of scripture? Anybody?

According to Jim Wallis, it is idolatry. And the second most frequently occurring theme is poverty. Could there be a connection?

Of course, there is a connection! The balance between idolatry and poverty is obvious.

The effects of idolatry on the “haves” is that we become more oriented to things that capture our worship and less oriented to God, and certainly less oriented to the poor, leading to an impoverishment of the soul.

And the effect on the poor is that other idolatries--idolatries of survival, power, and violence--move in to fill the void of God. And if you don’t believe this is true, look, not only at America, but throughout the world and see if this is not the case in Israel and Palestine, Jordan, in Darfur in Sudan, in Iraq.

And so, with each passing moment, the haves and have-nots move farther from each other and more dis-oriented toward understanding each other.

Each moment we sink further into idolatry, we are less able to know God and less able to know God in each other.

Less able to know God in the faces of the folks who will get their holiday meal from the Grace Episcopal’s food pantry instead of the grocery store.

Less able to know God in the inmates in all the correctional facilities in in our county.

Less able to know God in the people living and dying with AIDS in and among us.

Less able to know God in the guy at the bottom of the panhandler whom we turn our head to avoid.

Less able to know God in anyone as we sink deeper into our various idolatries.

Last Sunday, one the folks who regularly seeks help here came to me to ask for assistance. I caught this person in a lie last year and I will no longer help her, because I don’t want to support or encourage scammers.

And yet, today’s Gospel compels me to see God in the scammers, too.

It’s a curious thing, this parable of the final judgment. The participants--the nations-- in this drama are equally clueless as to the identity of the king as seen in the hungry, the poor, the naked, the imprisoned, the stranger. Both the goats who ignored those people, and the sheep who cared for them were oblivious to the eternal implications. They both say so. The ones who did connect with their fellow humans are non-plussed about the situation.

“When did we see you, Jesus?”

The goats, the ones who failed to reach out ask the same question, but it has a totally different feel to it.

“Well, Jesus, if we had known it was you, we would have done something.”

The story is told that some years ago, an American soldier on a bus in Stockholm told the man sitting next to him, “America is the most democratic country in the world. Ordinary citizens may go to the capitol to see their representatives and discuss things with them.”

The man said, “That's nothing. In Sweden, the King and the people travel on the same bus."

When the man got off the bus at the next stop, the American was told by other passengers that he had been sitting next to King Gustav Adolf VI.

It’s hard to see a king in an ordinary person, but that is the point. And the sheep do it without trying to or even realizing it. We can only expect to encounter God-in-Christ in the faces of ordinary people if we immerse ourselves in the worship of God and God alone. If we take seriously the words in the first creation story--we are made, each of us, in God’s own image.

Even then, it’s hard. It’s hard to see the face of God in the sex offender released into our neighborhood. It’s hard to see the face of God in the guy who scams churches for money. It’s hard to see the face of God in the faces of those living or dying with AIDS--or folks dying with anything.

But, seeing the sacred in all the world is a beautiful thing. Seeing Christ in people with disabilities changes things. Seeing Christ in the hungry changes the reality for both us and them.

Look in the mirror when you get home today. Do you see a sheep or a goat? Perhaps, more importantly, do you see God? That may be the most crucial matter. Because loving one’s neighbor as yourself, involves loving yourself. And loving one’s own self involves acknowledging that you are made in God’s own image--just like everyone else.

Go check the mirror for God. God’s already checking for you, and calling to you from the lives of others. You don’t prepare for this exam--God prepares you. Connecting with the God in ourselves and others is a first step out of idolatry.

Everyone you meet--on the street or in the mirror--is made in God’s image.

What do you think?

Offertory Sentences and Prayer

This Sunday, you are invited not only to make your regular gift in the offering plate, but an estimate of your giving for the coming year. May both be offered in the same spirit: the product of much prayer, thought, and with great joy. Let us present our present and future gifts together.

Great and loving God, we are thankful all you have given us. Help us today to see your world as one of abundance, not scarcity. Help us to give of ourselves in time, talent, and treasure. May these gifts for now and the year to come bring blessings upon your world. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Benediction

Go in peace; love and care for one another in Christ's name,

- and may our Lord and King watch over you,

- may our shepherd and our shield defend you,

- and may our rock and our fortress, our judge and our hope keep you safe and strong within his life-giving word now and forevermore. Amen

November 6, 2011

Morning Prayers

Ever living, and ever loving God, we come today in thanksgiving for this day. For the joy of gathering in this place to praise your name. It is good to be here, God.

We come seeking your wisdom and guidance always, but especially this day. Pour out your spirit on us that we may do your will and see your call for this congregation. Help us, no matter what decisions we make, to know that you are with us and that you call us to love one another.

We come seeking guidance for our nation. We pray for our President Barack, our Vice-President Joe, our Senators Rob and Sherrod, and our Representative Jim. Give them wisdom, mercy, and compassion in all they do.

We come seeking guidance for our state and our city. Bless all who will vote on Tuesday with your wisdom as we choose the paths for our future.

We come as a people who are not whole. There are sick among us and known to us, and we pray for their healing--both those we have named aloud, and those whose names we call out to you in silence.

Remind us, O God, that above all, we are not here for each other, but for all your children in a hurting world. Give us the compassion and courage to reach out to others in your name.

We lift all these prayers in the name of Jesus. Amen.

I Corinthians 13

1 ¶ If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 ¶ Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant

5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.

7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 ¶ Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.

9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part;

10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.

11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.

12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

“Faith, Hope, Love: These Three”

This passage has earned a beloved place in the hearts of Christians over the centuries--and deservedly so.

It has been called Paul’s “Hymn to Love,” “The Love Chapter,” the “Love Letter,” among many others. It has been a favorite to read at weddings over the years, although I wonder about its value for that.

You see, this passage is all about love--but not romantic or spousal love. This passage is about love in a very sick church.

Let’s look at a laundry list of problems in the church at Corinth in the 1^st century:

· item-the members were dividing themselves by the names of the one who’d baptized them.

· item-there was rampant sexual immorality in the church. It had been reported to Paul that one member of the church was sleeping with his mother-in-law.

· item-members were suing each other in the civil courts, rather than trying to remedy their disputes within the church.

· item-they were fighting over whether or not people should marry in the church. (maybe this works as a wedding text, after all)

· item-they were fighting over the role of women in the church.

· item-they were having potluck suppers but not allowing the poorer members to share in the food.

· item-they were fighting about which kinds of service (and which gifts of the Spirit) were superior to others.

And that’s just some of the high points.

And Paul begins to address these problems by talking about the gifts and the body.

The gifts given by the Spirit are not ranked--they’re just different, like the eye is different from the hand. He writes, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you.’”

That reminds me of something Joey Jeter wrote in his book Re/Membering. He writes that when we speak of the church and re/membering the body of Christ at the table, the opposite of re/membering is not forgetting, its is dismembering. For any part of the body to say to another--either with words or feet--“I have no need of you,” is to dismember the Body of Christ.

God has so arranged the body that different parts have to work together in order to function.

After describing how the different gifts can function together, “He asks, “are all apostles? Are all prophets” are all teachers?” and so on. And then he says to strive for the greater gifts.

Which brings us to this chapter, and the greater gifts are faith, hope, and the greatest of all, love.

Let me say that entire series of sermons have been preached on this one chapter--so I can hardly do it justice. Let me just lift up a few points.

1. While this letter was written to a sick church, we are not a sick church, at all. Crossroads? Yes. Sick? No.

2. Paul writes that even if you have all the gifts available to you--like speaking in tongues, prophecy, faith to move mountains, giving away everything--all this, but without love, it means nothing. Nothing we can do in the church, whether it be ministering, being a trustee, a Sunday School teacher, a musician matters if we don’t do it with love. Jesus said all the law and prophets hung on two commandments--Love God, and love neighbor. So it is in the church. Without love, we are nothing.

3. Love is patient; love is kind. If these two descriptions of love were all we had, it would be pretty good. Can we approach all our interactions in the church with patience and kindness? I believe we can.

4. Paul writes about what love is not. Not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude or insistent in its own way. To love is to acknowledge that we won’t always get our own way.

5. Love bears all things and endures all things--and dare I say it--endures together, even when we--no, especially when we disagree.

The greater gifts are these--faith, hope, and love. We are here because our forebears had faith and hope when they first me in the blockhouse and made their journey down the generations to this beautiful place. Without faith and hope, they would never have dreamed that the people who call themselves Disciples would still have such a place in this city. But, I suspect that in addition to faith and hope, they also had lots of love in all their dreams and decisions. Were it not for love, we would not be here. May it be so for us today, and wherever God calls us to be in the future.

Offertory Invitation and Prayer

The invitation to give comes from Jesus, who said, “Give, and it will come back to you.” Sounds like a good investment, don’t you think?

Giving God, Thank you for all your gifts. Bless these that we return to you, and bless us always to your service.

Benediction

Go out into the world in peace, knowing that you are children of God, called to be the church in all that you say and do. Comfort the afflicted, welcome the stranger, and above all, love. Love.

Love. Amen.