"Not Peace, But a Sword."

Matthew 10:24-39

June 25, 2017

I.

Jesus sends his disciples out into the world on a mission.  He continues to give them advice about what they should expect.  He does not come across here as the sweet, nice, easy-going guy we sometimes like to assume he is.  

Yes, Jesus is about compassion, peace, justice, healing, and love.  We might think that this would make him really popular.  In actuality it often has exactly the opposite effect.  In a world based on violence, injustice, fear, anger, enmity, exploitation, and selfishness, Jesus’ approach is deeply subversive and threatening to the established order.  From the government on down to the family, Jesus and his disciples are at best ignored and dismissed as irrelevant dreamers.  At worst, of course, they are assaulted for being blasphemous traitors, which is what Jesus himself was executed for.

First, he says that if they let it be known that they are his disciples, they will accused of the same things he is accused of.  Guilt by association.  If the establishment is calling him a demon-possessed traitor and disturber of the peace, then the disciples should expect the same assumptions to be made about them, and to be treated accordingly. 

Secondly, he reminds them that no matter what happens, God’s truth prevails in the end.  No matter how bad it gets for them, nothing can change God’s love and nothing can change what is real.  Everything gets revealed in the end.  God takes care of every little bird; God will certainly take care of these disciples who have thrown themselves into ministry, trusting in Jesus totally.  

And if they acknowledge Jesus’ truth and goodness now, God will recognize and accept and welcome them into God’s own truth and goodness in the end.  But to deny Jesus is to deny the truth of God’s love, and thus end up separate from God, which is hell.

Then he says something very disturbing, that he has not come to bring peace but deadly conflict that will reach even into families, breaking them apart in hostility and violence.  The consequence of Jesus’ ministry is a kind of civil war.  And the church experiences this in many places in the form of persecution.

We don’t understand this because we know that the message is the truth that God is love, there is a better way to live, it doesn’t have to be this way… that God has established equality, justice, healing, and peace at the heart of our life… that there is true and eternal joy out there and we can know it….

But instead of being welcomed, the disciples are lynched, arrested, assaulted, chased out of town, and vilified.  People, it turns out — especially the people in charge — prefer their familiar prison to freedom.  They prefer a disease they know to a healing they can’t imagine.  They would rather leave well-enough alone than risk trusting in a new vision.  They refer the “tried-and-true” routine, regimented, traditions, habits, structures, laws, and arrangements, to this weird talk about compassion, community, forgiveness, and welcome.  That all just looks like chaos to them, a recipe for disaster.

II.

Jesus concludes this section by restating his familiar idea, “whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.  Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”  

In other words, the Lord is preparing them for a very difficult time.  For his good news doesn’t mean that the clouds part and the sun comes out in a nice, gradual fashion.  The new life doesn’t happen that way.  It’s not God’s fault.  Rather, our separation from God, our falling into ego-centricity and selfishness, our ignorance and blindness are so profound and pervasive that it doesn’t just clear up incrementally. 

A more comprehensive transformation is involved.  In effect a person has to figuratively, symbolically die.  The old self has to pass away so the new self, the original, destined true self, may emerge.  You have to lose your life before you can find it.  You have to let go of everything you have ever known as “you” in order that you may become the new you you have always been deep inside but didn’t know it.

That’s why the initiation/transformation ritual for becoming a follower of Jesus is baptism.  I know in the domesticated form we practice baptism doesn’t look that dangerous; but the early church practiced full immersion, which made it way more clear that this was about going down into the water and symbolically drowning before being hauled up into the light as a new person.  You leave your old existence dead in the water.  Baptized people were then clothed in white robes to symbolize the newness and purity of their souls.

This is the part people found it hard to listen to.  They might be willing to try a new, cool religion.  But they were more reticent about signing up for “dying”… even if it did resolve in “rebirth”.  Because your new self necessarily has radically different values, habits, practices, ways of thinking, and ways of relating to people, even in your society and family.  

Regular society insisted that there was a pecking order, with some superior and others inferior, where some had money and power and prestige, but most did not.  But Jesus preaches equality and reversal.  In regular society problems are supposedly solved by threats, coercion, violence, incarceration, punishment, and even killing wrongdoers; but the followers of Jesus are all about forgiveness.  In regular society you worked to make somebody else rich, you were in competition with others for scarce resources, and you had to protect and hoard what you got for yourself and your own people.  But followers of Jesus share generously with each other and with people in need, even to the point sometimes of having all things in common and not having private property at all.  

III.

In other words, followers of Jesus live like they are from some other planet, some other dimension even; some place where there is more than enough for everyone, where healing is available to all, where no one is excluded, rejected, outcast, or diminished, and where all are equal before God in joy and gratitude.  They are from God’s Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, and they implement in their own lives here and now the goodness and reality they knew was true for all.

Unfortunately, this really ticked people off.  Especially enraged were those who were getting wealthy and powerful off the fear, division, anger, shame, work, and disease of everyone else.  The followers of this guy Jesus?  They were labeled heretics, blasphemers, traitors, terrorists, fools, hopeless idealists, cannibals, and probably “snowflakes” as well, which seems to be the most popular epithet on Facebook these days (even though I am not completely sure what it means).

I wonder what Jesus would make of an established, unpersecuted, popular, rich, powerful and connected church.  I wonder what he would make of a church that really did bring a sword into the world because it was itself making war, punishing “sinners” and heretics, dividing families, perpetrating genocide and slavery.  Maybe seeing that future is what has Jesus really depressed.  Because for too much of its history, the church has been about complicity in horrible violence against just the people whom Jesus loves and identifies with most: the poor, strangers, the outcast and disenfranchised, children, women, the sick.…

I wonder what Jesus would make of us.  Are we blinded by our idols and lies, preaching a safe and domesticated version of Christianity that merely makes people shrug if they even hear it over the tsunami of noise we are inundated with every day?  

Perhaps my favorite quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is: “When Jesus calls a person, he bids them come and die.”  I’ve never yet seen that on a church message board.  But Jesus says it is the only way to find your real life: to lose your false one.  

I suspect Jesus would also gently suggest that if we really experienced what he is teaching there would be no way to keep it a secret.  Not only would we be compelled to talk about it, we would be even more compelled to live differently.  And spark the kind of reaction he outlines here.

IV.

The Lord finally softens his warnings a bit with the encouragement that, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me,” drawing this powerful connection between the disciples, himself, and God.  Showing that not only are the disciples not alone, not only is God with them, but they are God’s agents.  To be a disciple, then, is to be Jesus, it is to in a sense “be” God, or at least have God shine in you.

This is what the church has largely forgotten.  Jesus may be sending us as sheep among wolves, but we are not alone and on our own.  He is the Shepherd and the Lamb; and it’s the sheep who inherit the Earth.  Those who do receive us also receive God!  Which makes us the carriers of this divine virus!

To use an illustration from biology: When a caterpillar goes into metamorphosis, it doesn’t just sprout wings in the chrysalis.  The whole caterpillar deconstructs and turns into mush.  In the midst of this process there are within the caterpillar what biologists call “imaginal cells.”  These contain the blueprints and coding for the butterfly.  At first, the caterpillar’s immune system attacks these cells.  But eventually they reproduce and overwhelm the defenses of the caterpillar, which is disintegrating anyway.  Then they use the raw material of the former caterpillar to construct the new butterfly.

My point here is that those who follow Jesus and live according to his teachings and example, are like the imaginal cells of God’s Kingdom.  At first, if we are doing our job and expressing Jesus’ life, we get attacked and we become the cause of division.  But we are the future.  We are Christ-in-the-world.  In Christ we carry the blueprints of the world to come.  We bear the inevitable, necessary destiny of God’s creation.

So it is up to us to let go of our old, caterpillar selves, and embrace our new, butterfly selves.  It is up to us to express in our own lives and relationships the love, justice, peace, equality forgiveness, and healing we see in Jesus Christ.  That has to shine through us.  It is up to us to welcome the stranger.  It is up to us to form a community that cares for the needy and the despised, that avoids violence and coercion, that cherishes the Earth and all of life.  Not just a congregation, though that’s where it starts… but if we are going to follow Jesus’ images of salt and leaven our influence has to permeate the whole culture making it more generous, caring, accepting, gentle, and just.

Yeah, it’s going to be rough going.  The culture wants to stay selfish, unequal, unjust, and violent.  But that is not our future.  That is not God’s reality.  That is not what is true.  That is not what Jesus is about.

So it can’t be what we are about either.  We are, always and only, about the infinite and amazing and miraculous love of God, revealing itself in everything which God has made, which is to say everything.  That’s the inclusive, all embracing gospel that we express, no matter what.  

+++++++ 

Losers Together

Matthew 9:35-10:23

June 18, 2017

I.

Jesus apparently finds himself a bit overwhelmed by the magnitude of his mission.  “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few,” he notices.  He sees that people are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”  Without a shepherd to guide and gather them, sheep tend to wander into trouble; they get lost and become victims of predators.  The poor people Jesus associates with were subject to oppression and exploitation by the Romans and by their own leaders.  Everyone in power was out to appropriate their labor, their property, and what little money they might have.  Jesus is moved with compassion for the people.  

By “the harvest,” Jesus means that there are plenty of people who need saving and deliverance, who need to be brought home into a safe community of love, equality, peace, and justice… but there are not enough “laborers” offering them help.  He can’t do it all himself. 

Therefore, he instructs his disciples to pray for “the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”  And, the laborers they pray for turn out to be themselves.  So the Lord gathers his disciples together and sends them out to proclaim the good news that the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.  As an indication of the nearness of heaven, they are to “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, [and] cast out demons.”  And they are to do all this without being paid and without bringing hardly any resources with them beyond the clothes on their backs.  In other words, he gives them the authority to do what he does in the same way he does it.  

Here we see what exactly the problems were:  people were afflicted with disease and death.  They were defiled with these horrible skin diseases that caused them to be excluded and ostracized.  And they were enslaved by demons.  And those who were supposed to care for them, their “shepherds,” were MIA, leaving the people exposed and helpless in the face of all this heartbreak, tragedy, and horror.

This is literally evangelism; it is bringing good news to people.  Not just verbally, but in terms of changing their actual circumstances.  Jesus does not send them out with instructions to bring people back with them to join their group.  He doesn’t tell them that they need to make people say some words about who he is.  They are to go to the villages of their own people — Israelites — and bring into their lives the reality of God’s Kingdom.  They are to heal, welcome, restore to life, and liberate people.

Then, after some more detailed instructions about what to do if folks don't welcome them, which is basically that they should move on, Jesus tells them that this ministry is not likely to make them very popular.  In fact, they should expect to be hated by everybody and become the cause of violent strife even within families.  Because, those “lost sheep of the house of Israel”?  It turns out that a lot of them would rather stay lost, sick, excluded, dead, and enslaved, than take the risk of embracing what Jesus is about, which is the Kingdom of Heaven.  

II.

Preaching the Kingdom of Heaven always involves risk because it means coming to see things from an infinitely broader perspective than the way we usually see.  That is the Lord’s point in calling it the Kingdom of Heaven.

In the New Testament, the word for heaven (ouranos) literally means “sky.”  It refers to the vast dome that stretches high above us across the whole Earth.  The thing about going higher into the sky is that the higher you go the more you can see, the more your vision includes and embraces.  The Bible talks about God who is “Most High,” meaning that God sees and knows everything.  So when Jesus mentions heaven he means coming more and more to perceive things from God’s lofty, elevated, inclusive, comprehensive, all-embracing viewpoint.

Seeing from the perspective of the Kingdom of Heaven means that these petty distinctions we hold, which often explode into hostility and violence, are just not real.  They are self-imposed on people due to our small-minded blindness.     

So when Jesus talks about heaven, he does not mean just a place you go when you die.  He intends for people’s lives to be changed now.  He does not tell the disciples to go out to these villages and talk about the kind of life the people will have after death.  He tells them to proclaim the good news that the Kingdom of Heaven has come near to people now, in their present existence, and then he instructs them to embody and enact this good news by curing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, and casting out demons.

Jesus thus at least implies that the root cause of much of the disease and death that dominates our mortal existence is our truncated, limited, shallow, small view of the world.  We don’t have a wide enough perspective.  We are overly focused on a tiny piece of real estate, or a narrowly defined category like my family, my nation, my philosophy, my tradition, my race, my religion, my language, and so on.  And everything else is out there is feared as a threatening, hostile “other” that we need to be protected from.  

The sour consequence of our limited perspective and our smallness of mind is our fear, our anxiety, our anger, our paranoia, which in turn cause us to live in violence, exploitation, and domination of each other.  Our limited perception leads to a sick society which produces sick individuals.

The more tightly we grasp on to and cherish and stoke our own resentment, anger, fear, nostalgia, and sense of scarcity, the more prone we are to diseases and even death, not just of ourselves, but of others from whom we withhold benefits.  My fear of going hungry causes me to hoard and waste food, while my neighbor starves.  My self-centeredness in making sure that I get what I need causes me to refuse healthcare to someone else.  My anxiety about losing my power makes me grab away power from others.  Society devolves into a selfish war of each against all, which spawns disease, death, defilement, and disenfranchisement.       

III.

Into this society dominated by toxic and oppressive practices that spawn disease and death, Jesus sends his disciples.  And he gives them authority to heal the sick, cleanse lepers, raise the dead, and cast out demons.  Then he tells them exactly how to do this.  

He instructs them to “Give without payment.  Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts.”  In other words, avoid money; money poisons every relationship and community.  Then he says to take “no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff,” meaning that they are to exemplify a voluntary poverty and live in mutual dependence with others.  He says that “laborers deserve their food,” implying that they are to work and make a contribution to the common life of the village by their labor.  They are to live in community and cooperation.  They are to embody generosity and share in hospitality.  They are to identify with the people Jesus sends them to serve.

This sharing and identification is the Kingdom of Heaven, just as Jesus himself takes on our flesh, our life, our mortality, and even our death, and thereby saves us.  The broader and wider and more inclusive our view of things, the more lightly we am able to hold onto our own life.  This enables us to connect better with others, which in turn gives us a better and fuller  perspective on everything.

How much of healing is about community and relationship?  Some of you know I had a heart attack a mere six weeks ago.  I had a stent put in and I am now fine.  But would I have come through it so well if I did not live in a community of mutual service?  If I did not have first of all my wife to drop everything and take me to the ER, and then let people know?  If I did not have so many people praying for me?  If I did not have the Board of Pensions of the PCUSA to pay the many thousands of dollars to the hospital?  Let alone the whole community of the Somerset Medical Center?

Seeing ourselves as participating in broader and wider communities is part of this higher perspective we get from being aware of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Under God’s ultimate and all-inclusive Kingdom we are also integrated into the community of creation, of life, of the Earth, and of all humanity; and then smaller communities of nation and family.  It turns out that even as individuals we are not only communities of cells and microbes, but we are sharing matter and energy with others all the time, and that without others we simply cannot live.

Jesus sends his disciples out to heal by living with and serving others in mutual community.  Part of that healing is taking away the anxiety, stress, and terror that comes from holding a smaller vision.  Part of it is working against the enmities and competitions built into an oppressive system.  This is what heals and raises the dead.  This is what ends exclusion and liberates people from bondage. 

IV.

Unfortunately, this kind of knowledge, awareness, and perception — the Kingdom of Heaven in which we are all united and equal — is deeply threatening to those who gain and maintain their wealth and power by keeping people sick and poor, defiled and enslaved.  If our status and influence as  winners depends on making sure some are always losers, then we will fight to keep an unjust and unequal regime churning along.  And we will persecute anyone who imagines a better, more equal and beneficial world.

Hence Pontius Pilate had to execute Jesus, and many of Jesus’ followers have died, and will continue to die, for their trust in him and his larger more inclusive vision.

For the truth is that Jesus comes into the world as a loser, and he sends his disciples into the world as losers, so that by losing all pretense, power, status, wealth, superiority, greed, and fear, we may gain access for ourselves and others to God’s heavenly Kingdom where everyone has enough, no one is in need, and conflict, exclusion, slavery, and even disease are banished in the unifying ocean of God’s love.

+++++++

If It Ain't Broke, Break It (Unfinished Sermon)

Luke 24:13-35

For April 30, 2017

(Unfinished Sermon)

I.

At the conclusion of this story, Jesus is sitting with two disciples in their home in the town of Emmaus.  They have been walking and talking with him, but, oddly enough, not recognizing him.  Perhaps, it doesn’t occur to them that it could possibly be Jesus because they saw him die on a Roman cross three days before.  

They sit down to eat dinner and the stranger takes a piece of the bread stacked on a plate.  It is still Passover so, according to Scripture, the bread is unleavened matzoh.  He cracks the hard, dry bread apart… and in that action the two disciples suddenly recognize the stranger as Jesus.  At which point he vanishes.  

I think there is more to this than just an action that they must have witnessed Jesus do dozens of times when gathered around a table with his disciples.  He would probably pronounce the blessing in Hebrew over the bread — Baruch atah Adonai eloheinu, melech olam: ha motzi lechem min ha aretz — and break the bread into two pieces before handing it around to the gathered group.  That was, and remains, just normal Jewish practice.  

For Jesus it becomes something more.  It becomes his most characteristic act.  What does it mean that this act is breaking something?  It seems somewhat almost violent.  As if the catalyst for our recognition of his living Presence among us and within us is a kind of shock, a breaking, a disruption in the routine.  

Breaking is not usually considered a positive thing.  When we say something is broken we usually mean that it doesn’t work anymore.  At best it needs to be fixed; at worst it is useless and should be thrown out into the trash.  We don’t usually give each other broken things as gifts.  I once had a 4-year-old make a face at me when I tried to give her a broken cookie.  Broken things are dysfunctional and incomplete.  They are generally not desirable.

And yet this is the act that most reminds those disciples of Jesus.  Not anything in his teaching, which the disciples have just heard for a long conversation on the road from Jerusalem.  None of that woke them up.  They don’t say, “Yeah, our teacher Jesus said the same thing… hey, wait a minute!”  They don’t even recognize his voice, let alone his face.  In the movies, the director has to figure out some way to make Jesus unrecognizable, so often Jesus has a big cowl over his head, or a kaffiyeh-scarf around his face.  But when they get to the house and he breaks the bread: boom! it’s Jesus!

What is it about this particular act that is so personal and unique to Jesus that it is the one thing that he does that causes people to recognize him?  Why is it the act of breaking something that is so characteristic of him?  Why bread?

I mean, this act, by which these disciples recognize him, is specifically what he tells us to do if we want to remember him.  And the church has been dutifully doing it ever since… because it works.  Generation after generation, Christians have recognized and remembered the Lord in this simple act: the breaking of bread.

II.

It is becoming perhaps the most famous line from any Leonard Cohen song, where he sings, “There is a crack, a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in, that’s how the light gets in.”  I think that one has become so popular because it speaks to us about our own brokenness and hope.  So often it is the places of our weakness and pain, the places where we are most wounded, our failures and challenges… that become the sources of our most profound growth and enlightenment.  

We derive comfort from the knowledge that our bones are stronger where they have been broken, and our turbulent and wounded places are where we find the most meaning.

For Jesus, he doesn’t just break the bread on his last night with his disciples in a matter of fact, ordinary way.  It isn’t even ordinary bread to begin with: it is “the bread of affliction” which is part of the Passover meal.  It is symbolic bread, unleavened for a reason: it reminds the people of the haste with which their ancestors had to leave Egypt; there was no time for the bread to rise.  They have already shared it as part of the Haggadah, the ritual.  They dipped it in a bitter herb to remind them of the horrors of slavery.

Jesus takes the bread left over, prays over it, and pronounces, “This is my body,” before he cracks it in half.

He knows what is going to happen, that his body will be broken, shattered, pierced, and bled on the cross in just a few hours.  He knows that he is about to give up his own life for the life of the world.  It is, in a way, the “crack in everything” which is “how the light gets in.”  His death opens the way for God’s love to pour more visibly into our lives

In many churches the image of broken, crucified Jesus is front and center, and there is a direct connection made between what the celebrant is doing on the altar and what is happening on the crucifix above or behind the altar.  As if to say, “That is where the light comes in once and for all, and this down here is where it continues to come in here and now for us.”

This is the way he gives us to remember him.  It is remembering his brokenness.  Through his brokenness we remember our own brokenness and the brokenness of our world, a world that intentionally executes a perversion of justice and a horrible torturous death on an innocent person… and many innocent people, daily.       

III.

In our own lives, we find ourselves locked in a shell of ego-centric, personality-driven habits and practices, thoughts and words.  This is the only life we think is real for most of us.  And it is only when that shell finally gets cracked that the light of who we truly are can emerge within us.  It gets cracked when we realize that, as Dr. Phil would say, it isn’t working for us.  It gets cracked when we stop and notice that 20 or 40 or 60 years of acting in a certain way has not made us any happier or better as people.  

It hasn’t brought us good relationships or helped us to be any healthier.  If anything, our habits have calcified and hardened over time, and we have come to rely on actions that are just plain unhelpful.  We may not be addicts in the sense of substance abusers, but we are addicted to sinful, selfish behaviors that only keep us separate from and at enmity with others.  But we keep doing them because we don’t know there is any other way to act.

When we are able to step outside of ourselves and see what we are doing, and realize that it doesn’t have to be this way, then that shell begins to crack, and light begins to seep in. 

{At this point, having had increasing pain in my chest for a couple of hours, I asked my wife to take me to the Emergency Room.}

Services for Pentecost Through July

The Service for the Lord’s Day

The Hope Presbyterian Churches

TF = Tinton Falls, 9 am

LW = Lakewood, 11 am

6/4     The Day of Pentecost (Red)

6/11   Trinity Sunday (White)

6/18   The Second Sunday After Pentecost (Green, through October 29) 

6/25   The Third Sunday After Pentecost 

7/2     The Fourth Sunday After Pentecost

7/9     The Fifth Sunday After Pentecost

7/16*  The Sixth Sunday After Pentecost 

7/23   The Seventh Sunday After Pentecost

7/30   The Eighth Sunday After Pentecost

*=Guest preachers.

Music: PH/G2G (The Presbyterian Hymnal/Glory to God)

GATHERING

Gathering Music/Prelude:

Welcome & Announcements 

Entrance Song: 

6/4 “Come, Holy Spirit, Our Souls Inspire”

6/11 “Come, O Spirit” (verse 1) 127

6/18, 6/25, 7/2, 7/9, 7/16, 7/23, 7/30
TF "All Who Are Thirsty (Come, Lord Jesus, Come)" 
     LW “Jesus, We Are Here” (verses 1 and 4) ——/392 

Call to Worship 

The time is fulfilled!

The Kingdom of God has come near!

Repent, and believe the good news! Mark 1:15

Filling the Baptismal Font 

6/4

When the day of Pentecost had come, 

they were all together in one place.  

And suddenly from heaven there came a sound 

like the rush of a violent wind, 

and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.  

Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, 

and a tongue rested on each of them.  

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit 

and began to speak in other languages, 

as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.  

And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, 

because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.  

Amazed and astonished, they asked, 

“Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 

And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?  

Parthians, Medes, Elamites, 

and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, 

Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, 

Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 

both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—

in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”  

All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, 

“What does this mean?”  

But others sneered and said, 

“They are filled with new wine.”

But Peter, standing with the eleven, 

raised his voice and addressed them: 

“Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, 

let this be known to you, 

and listen to what I say. 

Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, 

for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 

No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 

“In the last days it will be, God declares,

that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,

   and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

and your young men shall see visions,

   and your old men shall dream dreams. 

Even upon my slaves, both men and women,

   in those days I will pour out my Spirit;

     and they shall prophesy. 

And I will show portents in the heaven above

   and signs on the earth below,

     blood, and fire, and smoky mist. 

The sun shall be turned to darkness

   and the moon to blood,

     before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. 

Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

6/11, 6/18, 6/25, 7/2, 7/9, 7/16, 7/23, 7/30

As many of you as were baptized into Christ 

have clothed yourselves with Christ. 

There is no longer Jew or Greek, 

there is no longer slave or free,

there is no longer male and female; 

for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:27, 28

Remember your baptism, and be thankful!

*Hymn/Psalm/Praise Song:

6/4 “Like the Murmur of the Dove’s Song” 314

6/11 “Holy, Holy, Holy!  Lord God Almighty!” 138/1

6/18 “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise” 263/12

6/25 “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” 276/39

7/2 “Come, Thou Almighty King” 139/2

7/9 “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” 464/611

7/16 “Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies” 462/662

7/23 “Holy God, We Praise Your Name” 460/4

7/30 “For the Beauty of the Earth” 473/14

Prayer for Wholeness 

6/4, 6/11

God of love:

in Jesus Christ

by the power of the Spirit

we know you to be a holy communion

of interactive sharing.

Yet we reduce your mystery

to cold, irrational, and empty doctrine.

You are three partners

dancing in one circle.

Yet we pretend to be independent individuals,

unmoved by others’ joy or suffering.

Your love overflows in creation,

spreading beauty and life in all directions.

Yet we abuse and exploit your gifts,

squandering the blessings you so generously bestow.

Your love becomes flesh

and dwells among us in Jesus.

Yet we oppress and violate the bodies for others.

Your love informs, energizes, 

connects, and inspires everything.

Grant us to participate,

body, soul and spirit,

in the life and love you give us

in Jesus Christ.

6/18, 6/25, 7/2, 7/9, 7/16, 7/23, 7/30

God of grace

you bring us from death to life,

revealing our essence as your beloved children.

Keep us awake and alert to your saving presence

with, within, and among us.

When the world appeals to our fear

with offers of wealth, success, and security:

May we remember that we live by your Word alone,

and that it is by losing our false existence

that we gain our true and eternal life in you.

When the world appeals to our weaknesses and deficiencies

with offers of fame and popularity: 

May we remember that there is nothing that can ever separate us 

from the love you have already given.  

We don’t have to test it.

When the world appeals to our anger

with offers of power:

May we remember how you show us real strength.

By emptying yourself and becoming a servant,

you give us the Way of truth.

The time is fulfilled!

Today is the Day of Salvation!

Your Kingdom is right here!

Let us turn to your Way

and trust in this good news! 

Trinity Prayer

Gracious God:

By your Word and Spirit 

you create, redeem, and sustain the whole universe,

holding all things in being, 

bringing life out of death 

and light into darkness.

You carefully and wonderfully fashion us in your Image.

You embrace us and encircle us

in yourself as this timeless and universal dance 

of overflowing love and joy: 

The Holy Trinity.

And so we offer our own voices in praise and thanksgiving of you:

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit:

*Gloria: 

6/4, 6/11

  “Holy, Holy” 140/593

6/18, 6/25, 7/9, 7/16, 7/23, 7/30

TF “We Are One in the Spirit” (verse 4) ——/300

LW “Glory Be to the Father" ——/581

7/2 “Glory Be to the Father” 579/581

TF *Procession of the Word

TF A child processes into the Sanctuary carrying a Bible, as the people sing or say the Gloria.

*The Peace

Christ is in the midst of us.

He is and ever shall be.

May the grace and peace of Christ our God be with all of you.

And also with you.

The people exchange words and signs of God’s peace.

*Response: “Halle-, Halle-, Halleluia” (refrain only) ——/591

Halle-, Halle-, Halleluia!

Halle-, Halle-, Halleluia!

Halle-, Halle-, Halleluia!

Halleluia!

Halleluia!

LW Time With Young Disciples

THE WORD

Prayer for Understanding

Enlighten our hearts and minds by your Word, O God.

Open our eyes to the truth of your saving love, revealed in Scripture,

Move our legs to walk in your way of peace.

Open our hands to do your work,

and our arms to welcome others in your name.

For you are the enlightening of our souls and bodies, O Christ our God, 

and to you we give glory, now and forever.  

Amen. 

Scripture Readings 

Hebrew Scriptures

6/4     Numbers 11:24-30

6/11   Genesis 1:1–2:4a 

6/18   Exodus 19:2-8a

6/25   Jeremiah 20:7-13 

7/2     Jeremiah 28:5-9 

7/9     Zechariah 9:9-12 

(7/16  Isaiah 55:10-13) 

7/23   Isaiah 44:6-8

7/30   1 Kings 3:5-12 

Psalm

6/4 “Bless the Lord, My Soul and Being” Psalm 104:24–34, 35b 224

6/11 “O Lord, Our God, How Excellent” Psalm 8 162/25

6/18 “All People That on Earth Do Dwell” Psalm 100 220/385

6/25

Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, Lord GOD of hosts; 

    let not those who seek you be disgraced because of me, O God of Israel.

Surely, for your sake have I suffered reproach, 

    and shame has covered my face.

I have become a stranger to my own kindred, 

    an alien to my mother's children.

Zeal for your house has eaten me up; 

    the scorn of those who scorn you has fallen upon me.

Save me from the mire; do not let me sink; 

    let me be rescued from those who hate me

    and out of the deep waters.

Let not the torrent of waters wash over me,

neither let the deep swallow me up; 

    do not let the Pit shut its mouth upon me.

Answer me, O LORD, for your love is kind; 

    in your great compassion, turn to me." Psalm 69:7-10 (11-15) 16-18 

7/2 “My Song Forever Shall Record” Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18 209/67

7/9

The LORD is gracious and full of compassion, 

    slow to anger and of great kindness.

The LORD is loving to everyone 

    and his compassion is over all his works.

All your works praise you, O LORD, 

    and your faithful servants bless you.

They make known the glory of your kingdom 

    and speak of your power;

That the peoples may know of your power 

    and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.

Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom; 

    your dominion endures throughout all ages.

The LORD is faithful in all his words 

    and merciful in all his deeds. Psalm 145:8-14

7/16 “To Bless the Earth” Psalm 65:9-13 200/38

7/23

Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; 

    knit my heart to you that I may fear your Name.

I will thank you, O LORD my God, with all my heart, 

    and glorify your Name for evermore.

For great is your love toward me; 

    you have delivered me from the nethermost Pit.

The arrogant rise up against me, O God, and a band of violent men seeks my life; 

    they have not set you before their eyes.

But you, O LORD, are gracious and full of compassion, 

    slow to anger, and full of kindness and truth.

Turn to me and have mercy upon me; 

    give your strength to your servant; and save the child of your handmaid.

Show me a sign of your favor, so that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed; 

    because you, O LORD, have helped me and comforted me. Psalm 86:11–17 

7/30

Your decrees are wonderful; 

    therefore I obey them with all my heart.

When your word goes forth it gives light; 

    it gives understanding to the simple.

I open my mouth and pant; 

    I long for your commandments.

Turn to me in mercy, 

    as you always do to those who love your Name.

Steady my footsteps in your word; 

    let no iniquity have dominion over me.

Rescue me from those who oppress me, 

    and I will keep your commandments.

Let your countenance shine upon your servant 

    and teach me your statutes.

My eyes shed streams of tears, 

    because people do not keep your law. Psalm 119:129-136

New Testament

6/4     John 7:37–39

6/11   Matthew 28:16–20 

6/18   Matthew 9:35–10:8 (9–23)

6/25   Matthew 10:24–39  

7/2     Matthew 10:40–42 

7/9     Matthew 11:16–19, 25–30

(7/16  Matthew 13:1–9, 18–23) 

7/23   Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43 

7/30   Matthew 13:31–33, 44–52 

Sermon

*Affirmation of Faith

6/4, 6/11

The Nicene Creed TF p. 15, “Ecumenical”

6/18, 6/25, 7/2, 7/9, 7/16, 7/23, 7/30 

The Apostles’ Creed TF p. 14, “Traditional”; LW p. 35.

Prayers of God’s Creation and People

O Great Healer:

let your Spirit swing 

around us and through us,

over us, under us, and among us,

with healing in her wings,

making us whole

and restoring us to our created goodness.

O Deep Mystery:

Bless all of us here today, 

as we offer our worship and praise to you,

and for all those baptized into your Name of every time and place

who have sought to trust and follow you.

We pray for this holy Earth,

the beautiful garden you have placed in our care:

give us the wisdom and will to conserve it.

And as we gather we also represent our whole community, especially: 

those serving in government…

and all first responders…

travelers… 

workers… 

the aged and infirm…

the grieving and abandoned…

the sick and the addicted…

the poor and the oppressed…  

the unemployed and the destitute…

the prisoners and captives…

the undocumented, all migrants, and refugees…

indigenous peoples…

victims of war and violence… 

victims of natural disasters…

victims of domestic abuse…

victims of slavery and human trafficking…

and all who remember and care for the needy among us…. 

As you commanded, O Lord,

we pray for our enemies and those who wish us harm….

We pray for all who are persecuted for their faith….

We gather as well with all those who have died in the hope of resurrection,

and are now at rest….

Help, save, comfort, and defend us, gracious Lord.

In the communion of all the saints, 

we commend ourselves, one another, 

and our whole life to you, O Christ our God,

and to you we render glory,

now and forever.

Amen.

THANKSGIVING

Offering   

The Earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof,

the world and all that dwell therein.            Psalm 24:1 

Offertory Music: “” 

The bread and wine for communion are carried to the Table as the congregation sings:

*Doxology:

6/4 “Let Every Christian Pray” 130

6/11 “Let Every Christian Pray” 130/——

6/18, 6/25, 7/9, 7/16, 7/23, 7/30

TF “I Come With Joy”  (vv. 1 & 4) 507/(515)

LW “Praise God, From Whom All Blessings Flow” 592/606

7/2 “Praise God, From Whom All Blessings Flow” 592/606

When we do not celebrate the Sacrament we skip to the Prayer of Thanksgiving, below.

6/4, 6/11, 7/2 

Invitation to the Lord’s Table

This is the meal of paradise!

The foretaste of the blessings coming to us,

a sign of abundance and generosity,

forgiveness and deliverance. PfR 

This is the Lord’s table.

Our Savior invites those who trust in him

to share in the feast

which he has prepared.

Let us pray:

We give you thanks, O God,

lifting up our hearts to you in gratitude,

for your love and justice,

your beauty and joy,

revealed and given to us in Jesus Christ.

Give us the vision 

of the commonwealth of peace he establishes. 

Let his resurrection life permeate all we are and do,

as you gather us in holy community.

In Christ we see who we truly are in your eyes:

blessed, holy, good, and precious,

made to be a blessing to

your whole creation. PfR

Sanctus 

And so we join our voices 

with those of all your people

in every time and place,

in the angels’ song of praise to you:

Holy, holy, holy Lord

God of power and might.

Heaven and earth are full of your glory

Hosanna in the highest!

Blessed is he,

O blessed is he 

who comes in the name of the Lord!

Hosanna in the highest,

Hosanna in the highest! “St. Anne Sanctus”

Eucharistic Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer TF p. 16, “Traditional”; LW p. 35

Gracious God of life,

in the beginning, by your Word and Spirit,

you created the universe and declared it very good.

You have fashioned a perfect space for life,

this holy and blessed Earth,

which you designed in balance and grace.

You placed us in this beloved garden, 

this beautiful and fruitful vineyard,

to care for it and to live in love with you and each other.

You provide for all our needs

and give us an over-abundance of good things to share. 

In the fullness of time 

you came among us in Jesus Christ.

He walked lightly on the Earth,

bringing good news to the poor,

proclaiming release to the captives,

giving sight to the blind,

liberating the oppressed,

making the lame walk,

welcoming the outcast,

forgiving sinners, 

and even raising the dead.

He gave himself up to the organized violence of fearful human authorities;

but, resurrected by the power of your infinite love,

his life now spreads over the whole world,

healing, purifying, and protecting, 

reconciling us to you, to each other, 

and even to our true purpose and destiny,

and gathering a holy people 

by the power of your Holy Spirit.

Send your Spirit, O God, upon your holy people,

called out from the world and gathered together,

and upon these holy gifts,

fashioned from the fruits of the Earth,

revealing here and now 

the living and saving Presence of Jesus Christ

with us, within us, around us, and among us.

Through Christ,

with Christ,

in Christ,

all glory and honor are yours,

almighty God,

and to you we render glory,

now and forever,

on behalf of all and for all.

O God,

like a mother hen you are always gathering your children,

and so we are bold to pray the prayer that Jesus taught us,

saying:

The Lord’s Prayer

The Breaking of Bread

The Lord Jesus, 

on the night when he was betrayed, 

took a loaf of bread, 

and when he had given thanks, 

he broke it and said, 

“This is my body that is for you.  

Do this in remembrance of me.” 

The minister takes the loaf and breaks it in full view of the people.

In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, 

“This cup is the new covenant in my blood.  

Do this, as often as you drink it, 

in remembrance of me.” 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

The minister fills the cup and lifts it in the view of the people.

Behold the Lamb of God

who restores and makes holy

those who share in him.

The Holy Communion of the People

With hearts trusting in an awesome God, 

come to the Table.  

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Receive the Body of Christ:

taste the fountain of immortality.

Alleluia!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

TF The people come to the Table to share in Christ’s body and blood by intinction:

taking a piece of bread, dipping it into the cup, and eating it.

TF Those who wish to pray with the pastor before or after communion

may meet with him to the side.

May the Body and Blood of Christ our God bring you to everlasting life.

Communion Music: 

Closing Prayer 

Gracious God,

we give you thanks

that in Jesus Christ,

who is your Word,

you have emptied yourself,

becoming flesh to dwell among us

full of grace and truth.

In giving his life for the life of the world

he sets us free from sin and death,

and shows us your holy way of love.

He gives us your Holy Spirit

by whom he is present with us even now,

gathering us into one beloved community.

and sending us into the world

with the good news of your love.

Or, if we do not celebrate the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, the service resumes here from the Doxology, above:

6/11, 6/18, 6/25, 7/9, 7/16, 7/23, 7/30

Prayer of Thanksgiving and the Lord’s Prayer

Gracious God,

we give you thanks

that in Jesus Christ,

who is your Word,

you have emptied yourself,

becoming flesh to dwell among us

full of grace and truth.

He brings good news to the poor,

proclaims release to the captives,

gives sight to the blind,

liberates the oppressed,

makes the lame walk,

welcomes sinners, 

and even raises the dead.

In giving his life for the life of the world

he sets us free from sin and death.

And he gives us your Holy Spirit

by whom he is present with us even now,

gathering us into one beloved community.

and sending us into the world

with the good news of your love.

O God,

like a mother who will not forget her nursing child,

you love us forever.

And so we are bold to pray in the words Jesus taught us,

saying: Our Father….

*Hymn: 

6/4 “Spirit”         319

6/11 “Come, Great God of All the Ages” 132/309

6/18 “Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life” 408/343

6/25 “O Master, Let Me Walk With Thee” 357/738

7/2 “Jesu, Jesu, Fill Us with Your Love” 367/203

7/9 “O Love, That Wilt Not Let Me Go” 384/833

7/16 “Open My Eyes, That I May See” 324/451

7/23 “In Christ There Is No East or West” 440/317

7/30 “Jesus, Priceless Treasure” 365/830

SENDING

*Charge 

6/4, 7/2

God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God.

You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself an idol....

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God.

Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.

Honor your father and your mother.

You shall not kill.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

You shall not covet... anything that belongs to your neighbor.         From Exodus 20:1-17

6/11, 6/18, 6/25, 7/9, 7/16, 7/23, 7/30 

“Hear, O Israel:

the Lord your God is one!

And you shall love the Lord your God

with all your heart,

and with all your soul,

and with all your might.” Deuteronomy 6:4-5

Jesus says this is the first and the greatest commandment;

and that the second is like it: Mark 12:29-31

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Leviticus 19:18 

May our lives shine in obedience to these two commandments.

*Benediction

The Lord bless you and keep you;

The Lord be kind and gracious to you.

The Lord look upon you with favor,

and give you peace. Numbers 6:24-26

*Choral Benediction: “Goodness Is Stronger Than Evil” —-/750

*Dismissal

*Postlude:

+   +   +

We say words in bold in unison.  An asterisk (*) invited those who are able to stand.

Green text is said by the worship leader; blue text is said by the Liturgist/Lay Reader.