August 5, 2012
The Prayers of the People
Loving God - you rain down your blessings upon us from heaven and we thank you for it. Help us, O God, to recognize the food and drink you have
provided and to gather it in each day. Feed us till we want no more....
Lord, in your mercy-- hear our prayer...
Loving God, you call us to labor for those things which endure, to work for that which truly satisfies. We pray today for this. Feed us with the bread of heaven and show us how:
to make right things that are wrong,
to give your hope to the lost
to bring your wisdom to those who are confused
to gather to you those who are need of your salvation.
Lord, in your mercy-- hear our prayer...
Caring God -- we have prayed that you might touch us and use us - that you
might feed us that we might feed others -- at this time we pray that your
healing hand and life-giving Spirit might touch those people and those
circumstances that we have named aloud in this place and in each others’ presence- and those we have held in our hearts..... Lord, in your mercy --hear our prayer...
And we remember this church - and pray that it might be a place where life is celebrated and people know and share your love. All these things we ask in the name of Jesus our Christ. Amen
John 6:28-35
28Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” 29Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 30So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? 31Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”32Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” 35Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
Working at Believing
In the church in which I was raised, we talked a lot about works. About what you had to do to be saved.
We even sang about it. I remember a couple of hymns in particular--“To the Work, to the work, we are servants of God, let us follow the path that our Master has trod.:” Another was “We’ll work till Jesus comes, we’ll work till Jesus comes, we’ll work till Jesus comes, and we’ll be gathered home.
The messages of the sermons and hymns were pretty clear. You had to earn your place in the kingdom of God
The first and most important--the pre-eminent--work was baptism. Baptism was seen in the church I grew up in as a work--something you had to do. That’s different that the way we view baptism--which is that it is sacramental and something God does in us. And the next most important thing there was to do was attending church. You had to go to church at all costs or your very soul was at stake. My late Mother--God rest her soul--loved being in church, but that’s not why she attended every single service of the church. She went because she had to. If the doors of the church were open, we had to be there--or else.
There was also the list--things you couldn’t do--like smoke or drink or dance. There was a mantra: “we don’t’ smoke and we don’t chew and we don’t go with girls that do.”
Other works, like giving, and teaching Sunday School or Vacation Bible School
The problem of works in the church is nothing new. In the early 16th century, the Roman Catholic Church was emphasizing works to a degree that was downright abusive. Indulgences were being sold to free relatives from purgatory and to guarantee one’s own salvation. Sacraments were treated as works that one had to do or put the soul in peril.
In the midst of this, Martin Luther was a priest and professor who found himself months behind in his prayers--another work he had to do. He began reading the book of Romans and rediscovered the doctrine of Grace. Luther determined that very little of what the church was teaching was important--not the prayers, not the other works and certainly not the indulgences paid to secure salvation. What mattered was receiving the grace of God made known through Jesus Christ with the grateful response of faith--with faith itself being a gracious gift of God. It’s interesting to note that nearly 500 years after Luther broke with the Catholic Church that the Catholics and the Lutherans issued a joint statement of agreement on Justification-by-Faith in 1999.
I think it’s important to take a moment every time we talk about grace to define it. Grace means nothing I can do will make God love me any less than I am already loved. Grace means nothing I can do will make God love me any more than I am already loved.
In other words, you are saved by the amazing grace of God--which is a gift. You can’t earn it--not by teaching the children, not by working at the community breakfast, not by giving to the poor, and certainly not by attending church--although, I commend you for being here in the heat today.
The crowds following Jesus demand to know what they must do to perform the works of God--literally to work the works of God. And Jesus tells them that to believe in him is to do the work of God. But what is belief?
Let’s move for a moment to the book of James which notes that even the demons believe in God--and shudder. James calls for a faith--a belief, if you will--that is put into action. This wonderful book of James gives us a primer on what grace looks like when it is lived out. In the first chapter, James writes that “Religion that is pure and undefiled is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress…”
James isn’t concerned whether you have the proper doctrine about baptism or whether you have the right belief about the Lord’s Supper. He’s not concerned that you have a literal view of the bible or not. He’s concerned in how you respond to the grace God has given you--how you live out God’s free gift of salvation. You see, grace calls for a response.
James closes his second chapter with these words, “…for just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.”
Martin Luther, the great reformer whose stress on the importance of the free gift of God’s grace continues to inform the church after nearly 500 years, was skeptical of the Book of James. He thought it was a “book of straw,” because it was so oriented toward works. But read carefully and closely, James is not discounting grace at all. What he is saying is that grace calls for a response.
If we receive God’s free gift of the grace of Jesus Christ, then we are called to live out that grace in imitation of Jesus. We are called to help the poor, to heal the sick, to feed the hungry, to show kindness to others, to love our enemies, to visit prisoners, and welcome strangers--as counter to our culture as some of those things may be.
Some years ago, a friend of mine decided to take his youth group out and feed parking meters in Southern California .
“What are you doing?” people demanded.
“We’re performing random acts of kindness for people we don’t know in the name of Jesus Christ.”
“Why are you doing it?”
“We’re performing random acts of kindness for people we don’t know in the name of Jesus Christ.”
The meter-maids demanded to know why they were doing it--because they couldn’t write any tickets.
“We’re performing random acts of kindness for people we don’t know in the name of Jesus Christ.”
When you put your belief in action, the world doesn’t always know ho to handle it. But, what a world we create when we do.
And when we work at our belief and respond to God’s grace, that will be Good News for us, Good News for Mansfield
Offering
Invitation
We give, not as a work of our own, but as a grateful response for all that God has done for us. Let us give today--not because we must, but because we may. Let us now present our tithes and offerings.
Prayer
Lord of all, please take our offerings and make them blessings to the world around us, and around the world. May we be blessed by our giving, and a blessing to others in the name of Jesus our Christ. Amen.
Benediction
Go in peace, love and care for one another in the name of Christ;
--and may God grant to you a heart that is open to his mercies
--and the eyes to see and the ears to hear that which he is doing -
--may the Lord pour down upon you the Bread that Satisfies
and equip you by the power of the Holy Spirit to share what you have received
with one another this day
both now and forevermore. Amen.
