Sunday, July 26, 2020

Eighth Sunday After Pentecost

SUPPLEMENTAL ORDER OF WORSHIP

(for those unable to join us at the church building for masked, socially distanced, congregational worship)

PRELUDE:

Sweet Hour of Prayer (SWEET HOUR OF PRAYER)

(Sometimes during His earthly ministry, Jesus would withdraw to a secluded place to pray, as in Mark 1:35, Luke 5:16, etc.. The early church followed Christ’s practice of regular prayer, and Paul encouraged its continuance in some of his letters. This hymn is an expression of the joy that can come when believers, individually and corporately, pray regularly.)

CALL TO WORSHIP:

Leader:   Come before God, asking what you will, and God will cover your needs.

People:  How can we ask the Ruler of the universe to give attention to our small problems?

Leader:  God knows and values you; nothing is too great, too small, or too unlovely for God’s attention.

All:      We bring all that we have and all that we are to the throne of grace, trusting God to use it for good.

OPENING HYMN:

(#262 in The Presbyterian Hymnal)

God of the Ages, Whose Almighty Hand  (NATIONAL HYMN)  

(This hymn was generated by two 19th-century American centennial celebrations: the 1876 words were to honor the Declaration of Independence and the 1892 music to celebrate the adoption of the United States Constitution. Despite these origins, no specific nation is mentioned in this hymn of praise and prayer for peace.)

CALL TO CONFESSION:

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the Truth is not in us.  But if we confess our sins before God, we know that through Jesus Christ we already have forgiveness.  Therefore, let us confess honestly and seek God’s forgiveness together. 

PRAYER OF CONFESSION:

O Lord God, we have been so busy with our own pursuits that we have not noticed the treasure hidden in our midst.  We have not learned to value things by your standards, rather than the world’s.  We do not see lasting worth in the old we discard, nor have we discovered the promise of much that is new. 

Forgive us, widen our vision, and grant us fresh opportunities to serve your Kingdom, in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON:

Hear the good news! 

We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, who loved us and gave himself for us.  

Friends, believe the good news of the Gospel.  In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven!

SCRIPTURES: 

Romans 8:26-39

 (“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Rom. 8:35, 38-39)

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

(“…’Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.’” Matt. 13:52)

SERMON: 

With God, Nothing is Wasted

ANTHEM:

Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God (LAFFERTY)

(The author and composer Karen Lafferty wrote the first stanza and folk-style tune after attending a Bible study on Matthew 6:33 in 1971. The later stanzas, based respectively on Matthew 7:7 and Matthew 4:4 emerged anonymously. Such meditative singing of scripture is an important form of sung prayer.  In this version, the simple tune has been beautifully interwoven with an orchestral performance of Pachelbel’s “Canon in D”.)

PRAYER OF INTERCESSION: 

God of mercy and healing,
you who hear the cries of those in need,
receive these petitions of your people
that all who are troubled
may know peace, comfort, and courage.

Individual Prayers of the People, concluding with:

Life-giving God,
heal our lives,
that we may acknowledge your wonderful deeds
and offer you thanks from generation to generation
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

THE LORD’S PRAYER:

Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

CLOSING HYMN:

(#306 in The Presbyterian Hymnal)

Fairest Lord Jesus (CRUSADERS’ HYMN)  

(Franz Liszt used this folk melody for a “Crusaders’ March” in his 1862 oratorio ‘The Legend of St. Elizabeth’, but this hymn had nothing to do with the Crusades. No record of the anonymous German text exists before the middle of the 17th century or of the Silesian folk melody before the first half of the 19th century. The text typically appears with four stanzas, which are all on the theme of the beauty of creation and the greater beauty and worth of Christ, the Savior.)

CHARGE AND BENEDICTION:

Let us go out into the world in peace, returning no one evil for evil, but overcoming evil with good.

And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all, both now and forever.  Amen.

POSTLUDE:

Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer/Jehovah (CWM RHONDDA)  

(The original text of this hymn was written in Welsh by William Williams, a circuit-riding preacher, in 1745, and given the title, “A prayer for strength to go through the wilderness of the world.” It has since been translated in seventy-five languages.  It did not gain its popular tune until the early 20th century, when John Hughes composed ‘Cwm Rhondda’. In both its original text and in English translation, it is a stirring hymn of pilgrimage filled with vivid imagery from Hebrew scripture.  Here, an English congregation concludes the singing of this hymn with a final chorus in Welsh.)  

With God, Nothing is Wasted

Sunday, July26, 2020

8^th Sunday after Pentecost

Romans 8:26-39

(“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Rom. 8:35, 38-39)

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

(“…’Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.’” Matt. 13:52)

    Today’s Gospel reading seems like sort of a “Grab Bag” of parables, doesn’t it?  Where the previous two Sundays’ readings from Matthew 13 each focused on a single, lengthier parable and its allegorical interpretation (first the Parable of the Sower, then the Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat), today’s selection can make it feel as if we’re jumping from one ‘mini-parable’ to another, one after the other, with little time to focus on the meaning. 

     To me, it almost seems as though Jesus is patterning this part of his message to his followers on the “scatter-shot” approach of the Sower in Matthew 13:3-9, flinging the precious seed of these parables of the Kingdom of Heaven hither and yon, one after the other, in the hope that if one image doesn’t speak to you, then perhaps the next one WILL reach you and take root in your heart and mind, growing into something wonderful in your life.

     Above all, these parables suggest to me that God can and does use EVERYTHING in our lives to reach us, and to teach us, and to build up the foundations of God’s kingdom here on earth.  Nothing is lost, nothing is wasted, and nothing is too small or too hidden or too old or too new to be used by God in bringing us closer to salvation.

     Let’s look at these parables a bit more closely.  To begin with, we have two “parables of the unlikely”: the parables of the mustard seed and the yeast. 

    Now, the mustard in this parable isn’t unlikely so much because of the contrast between the small size of the seed and the ‘large shrub’ it turns into, but rather because it’s not something you would WANT to sow in your fields.  Like the bad seed some enemy planted in the farmer’s field in last week’s parable, that mustard plant in today’s parable was considered a WEED in Jesus’ day.  (Picture something more like the pernicious garlic mustard weed that we all know and hate here in Wisconsin, rather than a useful source of spice and condiments.)  The mustard plant is another one of the ‘shock’ images that Jesus sometimes throws out to grab our attention and get us to think differently.  It’s not a symbol of something majestic or wondrous, but of something UNWANTED.  It’s considered a WASTE of good soil if it’s growing in your field.

    And then there’s the yeast that a woman adds to her flour to make bread.  That’s not unwanted, but it IS disgusting.  Remember, there are no tidy packages of ‘Active Dry Yeast’ here.  The yeast in Jesus’ day is a live colony of micro-organisms, a gooey mess of gas-producing glopthat’s more often used as a symbol of something undesirable, as when Jesus warns his disciples to ‘beware of the yeast’ of the Pharisees and other bad influences (Matthew 16:6; Mark 8:15; Luke 12:1).

    Yet, both the mustard seed and the yeast convey Jesus’ meaning, that what WE may think is useless or ugly or a wrong turn in our life can actually be the start of something wonderful.  It can become the means by which the Kingdom of Heaven grows in us and through us and spreads to others who need the Good News just as much as we do. 

     Even something as appalling and SCANDALOUS as the cross on which Christ died can become the ‘ladder of mercy’ by which we are raised from death and despair and given everlasting life (as the “Jacob’s Ladder” Christmas carol used in last week’s online worship service proclaimed).

    Then, there are the “parables of worth”:  the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price, both of which are so amazing that they’re worth giving up everything else you’ve ever earned or accumulated in life.  

      On the one hand, we might think that this reflects badly on the state of your life and accomplishments up until the point when you stumble across that hidden treasure in a field or find that one pearl of great price.  I mean, if you can so eagerly and easily give it all up in order to purchase this one, perfect thing, then surely you must not have had much of real worth in your life to start with, huh?  What a waste your life must’ve been before then!

     But on the other hand, if the person in the parable had wasted their life previously, then how could they have raised the funds needed to purchase that field or that pearl, even if they gave up all that they had?  Whatever twists or turns their lives had taken, whatever they’d studied, whatever jobs they’d worked at, whatever skills they’d gained through both good and bad experience, were NOT WASTED, if they allowed the people in the parables to both recognize a treasure in a field or a pearl when they came across it AND be able to put up the collateral to have it for their own.

      In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he speaks briefly of his accomplishments before he became a believer in Christ, his righteousness and zeal, his education and authority.  These are not bad things, and Paul certainly makes use of his biblical scholarship and legal knowledge in his work as an apostle.  Yet Paul writes that in the light of the value of Christ, nothing of what he used to hold dear or pride himself on seems to matter:  “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.  More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.”  (Philippians 3:7-9)

     Finally, we come to the “parables of the mixed bag”:  the parable of the good and bad fish, and the parable of the householder whose treasury is a mix of old and new.

     Though Matthew seems awfully fond of referring to the punishment of the wicked and unworthy in the last judgment, with their weeping and gnashing of teeth, I’d suggest that we consider the mixed catch of fish as another of those “Don’t judge yourself or others too soon!” messages.  Just as the Sower apparently can’t tell what ground is good and fertile until the harvest time, when the seed that fell on good ground produces in remarkable abundance, and just as the Master of the field doesn’t think his servants can tell the weeds from the wheat plants until it’s time to harvest the grain and dispose of the rest, so also the whole net full of fish is brought to shore, and only then are the ‘good’ fish sorted out for market and the ‘bad’ thrown away.  The fishermen don’t start throwing fish out of their net in mid-catch or trying to re-cast the net to only take in the fish they prefer.  They wait until they’re all ashore, to sit down and judge and divide.  The worth of the ‘fish’ in the net (us) will be decided at the end, by God, and not by any of us here on earth deciding what our own lives (or the lives of others) are worth, when we’re not done living yet.

     As for the scribe who has been trained for the kingdom, whom Jesus compares to a householder who brings out treasures both new and old, I think that refers to all of us, bringing the ‘wealth’ of our lives – including the decisions that may in hindsight have been ‘wrong turns’ or ‘dead ends’, or the hopes and dreams that weren’t fulfilled, the good and the bad and the unlikely and the lovely and the ugly – to serve God’s kingdom, to fulfill our mission and calling here on earth. 

     There is no waste, there is no life that doesn’t have something unique and precious to offer in God’s service.  Everything we have done and learned and suffered had brought us to this point, has helped us to become who we are and given us tools and treasures we can use to build up one another, rather than tear down or reject. 

     As Paul says in today’s passage from his letter to the Romans, we don’t even “know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26) and “all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (8:28).  We can’t be certain of much in this life, but the grace of God – which even ‘fixes’ our prayers for us and brings good out of things we thought were bad or wasted – IS FOR CERTAIN.  “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)