Saturday, October 28, 2017

Liturgy for Reformation 500 Sunday.

The Service for the Lord’s Day
The Five-hundredth Anniversary of the Reformation
October 29, 2017


GATHERING

Gathering Music:
Welcome & Announcements 
*Entrance Song:  “All People That on Earth Do Dwell” Psalm 100 220/385

*Call to Worship 

We know that a person is justified not by works of the law 
but through the faith of Jesus Christ.
And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus 
so that we might be justified by his faith. Galatians 2:16a

Gracious God of transformation and renewal:
Five-hundred years ago
you inspired our spiritual forebears 
to reform your holy church,
regrounding it in your Word, Jesus Christ.
Through grace alone, faith alone, Scripture alone, 
Christ alone, and for your glory alone,
you continue the work of reformation,
as your Kingdom emerges 
with, within, among, and around us.
Amen. 
*Grace Alone + Filling the Baptismal Font 

Our God is the God who saves by grace alone.  
God’s steadfast love is everlasting!
Our salvation is a free gift from God in Jesus Christ, 
which we receive in our baptism. 
God pours blessing and goodness,
peace, joy, and love,
into our hearts and into all creation. 
Our whole life flows from God; 
and nothing can ever separate us from God’s love.
By grace we are saved,
and brought into forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation, and union.
We remember always our baptism
and give thanks to God
for the grace that sustains our life.  

*Hymn: “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” 260/275

Faith Alone + Prayer for Wholeness 

God of goodness and life:
we place our wholehearted trust in you
and your grace to us.
We live by faith and not by sight.
Our true life is hidden in Christ with you.
Awaken us to your saving Presence.
When we follow blindly after the fads and fashions of this world,
Turn our hearts to your commandments,
that in keeping them we may find life.
When we give our allegiance to principalities and powers,
Turn our hearts to the One who empties himself
in love for the whole world.
When we sell ourselves for wealth and gain,
Turn our hearts to your treasure of love 
which never gets depleted.
Gather us together as one community of healing and shalom,
let your forgiveness and welcome characterize our life together,
That the true life we receive from you
may be revealed to all people
and shared with all the world. 

Invocation of the Trinity

Gracious God:
you are One,
and you call on us to love you 
with all our heart, all our soul, and all our might.
At the same time you are a community of three:
By your Word and Spirit 
you create, redeem, and sustain the whole universe
in everlasting, overflowing love.
You hold all things in being, 
bringing life out of death 
and light into our darkness.
You even transmute our evil into goodness.
You carefully and wonderfully fashion us in your Image.
You make us participants in your very nature.
You, O Holy Trinity,
are the God who brings justice and peace.
And so we offer our own voices in praise and thanksgiving, as we sing,
“Glory be to the Father.”

*Gloria: “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 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: “O, My Soul, BlessYour Redeemer” Psalm 103 223/439

LW Time With Young Disciples

(TF Our young disciples continue worship and learning downstairs.)


THE WORD

Scripture Alone + Prayer for Understanding

Continually reform us, O God, by your Word, Jesus Christ,
as Holy Scripture bears unique and authoritative witness to him.  
Open our hearts to understand what you have to say to us today.
May these words be your Word to us.
And give us the grace to follow you.
Amen.

Hebrew Scriptures Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18

Psalm 
TF “The One Is Blest” Psalm 1 158/
LW “How Happy Are the Saints of God” Psalm 1         /457

New Testament 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

Gospel Matthew 22:34-46

Sermon, “Christ Alone”

*Affirmation of Faith The Apostles’ Creed TF p. 14, “Traditional”; LW p. 35


THANKSGIVING

Offering   

The Earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof,
the world and all that dwell therein.            Psalm 24:1 

Offertory Music: “” 

*Doxology: “Praise God, From Whom All Blessings Flow” 592/606

Invitation to the Lord’s Table

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.’ 
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.’ 
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, 
you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

(Those words of Paul we repeat every time we celebrate this Sacrament.  
But Paul doesn’t stop there.  
He goes on to emphasize the gravity of what we are doing here 
and the need for sober self-examination.  
The Reformers were careful to remember and restate regularly the rest of what he says.)

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner 
will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. 
Examine yourselves, 
and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 
For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, 
eat and drink judgement against themselves. 
For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. 
But if we judged ourselves, 
we would not be judged. 
But when we are judged by the Lord, 
we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
1 Corinthians 11:23-32

Let us, then, take care to discern Christ’s body in this Sacrament.
We recognize his body in the bread itself, 
which he called his body when he broke it and gave it to his disciples, 
and now to us.  
We recognize his body in the church, 
the gathering of the gospel community; 
he is present here with and in us together!
We recognize his body in the whole of creation and all of humankind, 
for he shows us that we are all one in him, 
the One by whom God creates us in the beginning. 
Finally, we recognize his body here in our very selves: 
we are made in the Image of God 
and we share the true humanity that Jesus himself reveals and embodies.
This is why we call what we are doing here “communion.”  
Through this bread and this cup, 
through these words we say together, 
through this very gathering with one another,
we proclaim and celebrate the oneness and unity of all 
in the One who creates, redeems, and sustains all.   

Sanctus 

And so we join our voices 
with those of all God’s people
in every time and place,
in the angels’ song of praise:

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”

Invocation of the Holy Spirit and the Lord’s Prayer

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: 
Our Father….

The Breaking of Bread

The minister breaks the bread and holds it out in view of the people.

The bread that we break, 
is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? 
Because there is one bread, 
we who are many are one body, 
for we all partake of the one bread.

The cup of blessing that we bless, 
is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? 1 Corinthians 10:17, 16

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

Here is the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world. John 1:29b
He restores and makes holy
all those who share in him.

Hymn: “Bread of the World in Mercy Broken” 502/499

The Holy Communion of the People

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.
Those who wish to pray with the pastor before or after communion
may meet with him to the side.
LW  The people are served Christ’s body and blood.  Take the tray and hold it for the person from whom you received it.  Then pass it to the next person who will hold it for you to take a piece of bread or a cup.  We eat the bread when we receive it; but we hold the cup until the distribution is complete so we all may commune together.

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

Communion Music: 

To God Alone Be the Glory + Closing Prayer 

Loving God:
even as many grains of wheat and many grapes were gathered to feed us in this Sacrament,
gather us together and make us one.
Let us lead lives worthy of the calling to which you have called us, 
with all humility and gentleness, 
with patience, bearing with one another in love, 
making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you called us to the one hope of our calling, 
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, 
who is above all and through all and in all. From Ephesians 4:1-6
Amen.

*Hymn: “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past” Psalm 90 210/687


SENDING

*Charge 
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

*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: “May God Support You All Your Days” Psalm 20 ——/548

*Dismissal

*Postlude:

  •   +   +







The Sweet Spot.

Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8; Matthew 22:34-46
October 29, 2017 + The 500th Anniversary of the Reformation

I.

The Reformation had a motto about how the church is “always being  reformed.”  In Latin it was semper reformanda.  It has been used ad nauseam by people ever since to rationalize and justify all kinds of changes in ecclesiastical life.  It is right up there with the horribly misused and abused quote from the prophet Isaiah, “behold I am doing a new thing!”  As if Isaiah is endorsing every new thing just because it is new, regardless of whether it is good or not.  This became one of the unintended consequences of the Reformation: the bias in favor of whatever is new and against whatever is old.

We get this same sensibility today all the time.  We are in an age of change today at least as comprehensive and traumatic as the changes happening in the 16th century, and many church leaders are latching onto the “always reforming!” cry to advocate for the so-called “adaptive” changes necessary for the church to survive through it all.

Our time is different from 500 years ago in many respects.  One of the most important is that we tend to have a higher degree of self-awareness.  I mean, in the Reformation they were trying consciously to model the reformed church on the church of Jesus and the apostles.  But they couldn’t see how much they were really merely adapting to their own context.  What they ended up with was less a restoration of the church of the first century, and more a church supremely refitted to thrive in the Modern Age, which was the 16th through the 20th centuries.  They weren’t adapting to the original church so much as to their new historical and cultural situation.

So all the characteristics of what we came to call Modernity — individualism, technology, democracy, human rights, science, rationalism, progress, and so forth — were all woven into the very DNA of the Reformation churches.  At the height of the mature Reformation, the church of our Puritan forebears was probably nothing like the church of the Apostles in the Mediterranean basin 1500 years earlier.  It reflected and expressed the values and outlooks of the Europe of their own time. 

This is exactly what most of the people mean when they enthusiastically gush about a church that is “always being reformed.”  No one is pretending to recover the early church these days.  Now we are quite honest and enthusiastic about wanting to adapt the church to our situation in the 21st century.

Last week at the presbytery meeting we heard a sermon that made the case for contemporary worship.  It was very convincing.  The preacher used the example of how the way we get our music has shifted in format over the years, from 45s to LPs to cassettes and 8-track tapes, to CDs, to MP3s, and now to streaming services.  (What he didn’t mention is how LPs are making a comeback, which kind of undercuts his case….)  His point was that the church needs to adapt its format to what makes sense to contemporary people.  We don’t change the basic message, of course.  But the medium, the language, the format has to keep changing with the times.  And as a kind of proof, he didn’t have to remind us how successful, if success is measured by people showing up, contemporary worship often is, when it is done well.

II.

That sermon expressed the spirit of the Reformation with a self-awareness that the Reformers didn’t have in their own time.  Just as you can take the same music and present it in different formats, the idea is to take the same gospel of Jesus Christ and simply present it in a format that makes sense and is appealing to people now.

Everyone will agree that it has always to be both.  Faith has to be  embodied in and intelligible to each generation; at the same time it must be true to the original, basic, essential truth of the gospel.  And everyone, and every church, falls somewhere on this continuum between traditional and contemporary.  A church that is too traditional is in danger of becoming a museum of mildly interesting but irrelevant practices.  A church that is too contemporary is in danger of losing touch with the gospel altogether, becoming The Church of What’s Happenin’ Now and not the Church of Jesus Christ.

Somewhere in the middle is that sweet spot in which we are both faithful to the gospel and communicating it effectively and meaningfully to people today.  The danger is that the technology and the music, the style and the language in which the message is communicated will drown out and even change the actual message.  We need to find that sweet spot.

It turns out that there was actually more to the motto that I began with.  The whole sentence is, “The church is always being reformed according to the Word of God.”  The point of the Reformation was to recover the spirit of the Word of God, Jesus Christ.  And that has always to be the first thing we are about today.

Which brings us to today’s Scripture readings, which are centered on the gospel where Jesus lays out the Two Great Commandments: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  That second one was our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures.  I repeat these commandments for you on many Sundays as the Charge before the Benediction.  Our obedience to these commandments is how Jesus Christ shapes our life together.  

The gospel, Jesus says, is about love.  “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them,” says the apostle John.  To say that “the church is always being reformed according to the Word of God,” means according to Jesus Christ, which means according to the outpouring of God’s love we know and receive in him by the Spirit.  Love is not a theory or an idea: is it a quality of relationship.

III.

And the reading from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians is instructive in this.  With directness, beauty, and simplicity, the apostle talks about the love he shares with God’s people in the church he founded in Thessalonica.  Here we get a little picture, not of the grand theological themes upon which Christianity is based, not of “salvation by grace through faith,” as important as that is, but of the intimacy and affection the apostle has for this fragile, small group of Jesus-followers in one particular Greek town.  For in the end, the gospel is communicated and sustained face-to-face, relationship by relationship, hand to hand, and heart to heart.

Paul knows that it is in the quality of the interactions happening in community life, between and among individuals in a local congregation, that the gospel happens.  What is most important in every reformation is what is important each day and each moment, right here, in the way we touch each other as individuals.  Paul knows that this Jesus-movement depends entirely on the health of congregations and the people in them.  He knows that because that is the example of the Lord himself, whose main MO is the healing, welcome, acceptance, forgiveness, liberation, and gathering together of broken people.  

The church of Jesus Christ always rejects self-righteous grabbing for power, fame, and wealth, and expresses the kind of heartfelt affection for siblings in Christ that Paul mentions here.  It always avoids deceit, impure motives, and trickery, like bait-and-switch evangelism.  It always has to stand fast amid suffering, and face the opposition of a world with different values.  In the church we learn to treat each other with gentleness, like a woman nursing young children.  It is about sharing with each other our very selves, even as Jesus emptied himself to share God’s very nature with us.

This means listening to ourselves and each other, and becoming more aware of how we are relating.  It means confessing our faults, admitting our weakness and pain, building forgiveness and forbearance.  It means listening to each other with empathy, identifying with the needs and feelings we all share, and which we share with Jesus.  It means “discerning the body” in which we all participate, especially in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper which is constitutive of this community.   

Every reform movement in the church primarily if not exclusively concerns congregational life.  Christianity is about healthy gatherings of disciples.  It is about relationships.  It is about people.  It is about love, because it is about Jesus Christ.

This is something so basic and fundamental that it doesn’t matter what century we find ourselves in.  The church is always being reformed, that is, we are continually reshaping the life of the gospel community according to the love of God expressed in love of neighbor, which is to say, all.

IV.

We are in another era of transition and transformation in the church… and in the world.  We are being called again to bring the church back into alignment with Jesus Christ, the Word of God, in our time.  We are once again to ensure that people “know we are Christians by our love,” and, experiencing that love ourselves, spread it to others.  

So yes, the church needs to adapt.  But I suggest that we adapt only to the Word of God, Jesus Christ, and his commandments of love.  Everything we do is about listening to, following, and even becoming, the Word.  

So we continue the work of reformation, seeing how the life of God in Jesus Christ, the life of love, emerges with, within, and among us, in life-giving gospel communities in which healed people heal the world. 
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