September 6th, 2020
YOUNGER SAINTS
What language does God speak?
LOVE!
Watch the below by clicking here.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Update from Consistory: We will begin in-person services alongside online services September 13th. To do this, we’re going to follow the best practices we have gathered from other churches in the area, from the Ohio Department of Health, the CDC, and our insurance company. If you feel well, please join us masked and in-person next week! If you are not well, or unable or unwilling to mask, please join us online. Services will be recorded and uploaded over Sunday into Monday (as my internet allows.)
- Children are asked to use the Fellowship Hall doors and will be having their time together on that side of the building. Adults will enter the sanctuary doors.
- A full list of the COVID-19 precautions are being mailed to each household we have on file. Haven’t gotten your’s? Contact me and I’ll get it to you.
- If you’re receiving written sermons and would like to continue to receive these, or begin to receive them, please let me know and I’ll be sure those are mailed to you. It’s a nervous joy to begin a mixed-style worship setting!
CENTERING –
Creator God,
we give thanks this day for work:
for work that sustains; for work that fulfills;
for work which, however tiring,
also satisfies and resonates with Your labor in creation.
As part of our thanks we also intercede for those who have no work,
who have too much or too little work;
who work at jobs that demean or destroy,
work which profits the few at the expense of the many.
Blessed One,
extend your redemptive purpose
in the many and varied places of our work.
In factory or field,
in sheltered office or under open sky,
using technical knowledge or physical strength,
working with machines
or with people
or with the earth itself.
Together we promise:
To bring the full weight of our intelligence and strength to our work.
Together we promise:
To make our place of work a place of safety and respect
for all with whom we labor.
Together we refuse:
To engage in work that harms another,
that promotes injustice or violence,
that damages the earth or otherwise betrays the common good;
or to resign ourselves to economic arrangements
which widen the gap between rich and poor.
Together we refuse:
To allow our work to infringe on time with our families and friends,
with our community of faith,
with the rhythm of Sabbath rest.
Together we affirm:
The rights of all to work that both fulfills and sustains:
to just wages and to contentment.
Together we affirm:
That the redeeming and transforming power of the Gospel,
with all its demands for justice and its promises of mercy,
is as relevant to the workplace as to the sanctuaries of faith and family.
We make these promises,
we speak these refusals
and we offer these affirmations
as offerings to You, O God—
who labors with purpose and lingers in laughter—
in response to your ever-present grace,
as symbols of our ongoing repentance and transformation,
and in hope that one day
all the world shall eat and be satisfied. Amen.
~ Copyright © Rev. Ken Sehested, co-pastor, Circle of Mercy Congregation, UCC, in Asheville, NC. Posted on prayer&politics. http://www.prayerandpolitiks.org/
SCRIPTURE
The Revised Common Lectionary moves us today to more passages on conflict resolution. First is Jesus advising how to handle conflicts within the church. He’s brought this up after explaining our postulating and pontificating is harmful – the greatest in heaven are the least on Earth. The missing sheep is who the shepherd seeks – there is no unimportant person to God. God would like us to be joined together in community. So Jesus explains how to work for that. Matthew 18:15-20
The Second reading is Paul explaining how all the commandments of the Bible, just as Jesus said, can be summarized as love. Love God. And Love others as you love yourself. It means whatever is the most loving thing in a situation is the way to follow God. What deeds or words are most loving changes over time – but love – kindness – not harming one another – these are eternal truths. Romans 13:8-14
SERMON
Picture your favorite movie… picture the conflict in it, the drama… What does it hinge on? What could happen to resolve the conflict earlier?
In many of the films and shows I’ve seen, if people just communicated earlier… the entire episode, movie, SEASON sometimes would be over. To keep the story going… the communication doesn’t happen. It goes like this: two people are in a relationship. One of them has a secret. That secret is to propose, to move to a new house, to adopt a dog, that they’re secretly the Super Hero, that they’re ashamed of the tattoo they got in high school – something. They hide this secret. Their loved one begins to pick up that something is amiss. The loved one realizes — oh no! They never loved me at all! They’ve always been in love with this third person and are hiding their affair! The whole rest of the movie is about how these two hide the truth from each other. The drama gets higher and higher. Until at last – the truth is spoken – and they come back together.
In my daughter’s favorite films, the secret is not romance but relationships. Anna assumes Elsa doesn’t love her because Elsa runs away. Elsa hides the secret of her magic.
In these situations if the two people actually spoke, and actually listened, with one another… all the drama would be over.
After two weeks of us looking at conflict, today’s discussion from Jesus and Paul is about communication. We know we’re to love. We know we’re to seek win-win and compromise situations. But all of this takes… communication.
We don’t communicate well with one another for so many reasons. Some of us are just not very clear in speaking or writing what we mean. And some of us refuse to speak with those we’re in conflict with. I remember once listening to two people argue. One proclaimed, “You should just know what makes me mad!” and their companion replied, “I’m not a mind-reader!” They were miscommunicating. Whatever way the first person was communicating their anger — through words, through gestures, through pursed lips — the second wasn’t picking up on.
This happens ALL the time. In big situations and in little situations.
So how do we address it?
Jesus advises the very first step is to break the silence. End the trope of Poor Communication Drama and just go ask. Did you mean to say? Did I see you? Did you know it hurt me when you said? I am feeling angry because I heard you say…
Just talk it out face to face. A lot of conflicts are actually misunderstandings and can be resolved with a private conversation. This doesn’t mean it has to *happen* when you’re all alone with the other person. Especially if you feel threatened by the other, it is better to have a private conversation in public. Think… meeting at a coffee shop or restaurant. Somewhere you are public, but able to speak privately. Jesus says if listening happens at this meeting then people are reunited, atoned, made at-one again.
It was all a misunderstanding. Or, yes I meant that, but I didn’t mean to harm you in this way. Or, yes, you’re right, I’m sorry and I will work to be better.
Why one on one? Why not just go complain to another? Because that doesn’t solve the conflict. When we go talk ABOUT someone instead of TO them, we actually can cause the conflict to go on longer. (Like the whole movie or a full season.) That doesn’t mean you can’t go to a trusted sounding board to process… to decide if you really are sinned against and really do need to address this issue, or if you can actually forgive it and move on. In last week’s conflict levels, this is a level 1 or level 2 conflict. A disagreement or problem.
If one on one, in a private conversation in public, doesn’t work… then Jesus advises taking along one or two others. These are people who’s job is to make sure “every word may be confirmed”, in other words, they’re there to help facilitate communication. This is the level 2 or 3 in last week’s conversation. These outside sources — authorities, neutral parties — are there to help the people in the conflict communicate. As a kid, I needed my mother to be this for me and my brother. She could hear what we were actually trying to say and help translate it for the other person to understand. This listening, deep listening, and being heard by the other party in the conflict, helps us relax and begin to seek solutions again.
If this doesn’t work, then Jesus says to take the conflict to the community — in his setting, to the church. Let the community listen. Let the parties listen to the community. Let more minds think on this and more people work together to speak, to hear, and to seek peaceful resolution. This would be a level 4 in the conflict levels from last week. We know, as a loving community, we need to work together to deescalate, return to facts — such as the witnesses — remove the language that is inflammatory and biased — and communicate about the problem. Not the people. Focus on the problem.
Jesus admits that even if that doesn’t work… and it moves to the 5th level of conflict… don’t go there. Don’t let the community destroy itself in war. Split. Go your separate ways. Don’t have the two parties and the community turn to violence. Don’t destroy each other emotionally, physically, spiritually. Split. Sometimes, the most loving thing, is a divorce. A divorce from a person, or from a church, or from a community.
And Jesus reassures us that as long as two or three are gathered in his name, he is there. So although sometimes our communities or families or churches split, it doesn’t mean Jesus only goes with one of us and not both. God’s love is so wide it can bridge any separations we humans have. We, and those we dislike and argue with the most, are all beloved by God.
And that is Paul’s point today. Love is the language of God.
Life is too short to fight every battle, to hold a life-long grudge, to stay in dark situations. Life is too hard already without us adding misery to it to ourselves or to others. Let us love ourselves. Let us love our neighbors. Let us love our God. Let us do Love – for Love is the fulfillment of all the prophets and laws and commandments.
Do love.
Listen with love.
Speak with love.
Be love.
Amen.
Communion
The Holy One asks: Why spend money on what does not satisfy? Why spend your wages and still be hungry? Listen to me and to what I say, and you will enjoy the best food of all. Listen now, my people, and come to me. Come to me and you will have life!
Where two or three gather in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
And we are gathered, St. Michael’s, physically and temporally different, but gathered spiritually at the same time in Jesus’ name. Amen.
This table is open to all who confess Jesus as the Christ and seek to follow Christ’s way. Come to this sacred table not because you must, but because you may. Come not because you are fulfilled, but because in your emptiness you stand in need of God’s mercy and assurance. Come not to express an opinion but to seek a presence and to pray for a spirit. Come to this table, then, sisters and brothers, as you are. Partake and share. It is spread for you and me that we might again know that God has come to us, shared our common lot, and invited us to join the people of God’s new age.
Let us come now to this holy meal. Before we partake, let us confess our sins to God.
God of all mercy, we confess before you and each other that we have been unfaithful to you. We lack love for our neighbors, we waste opportunities to do good and we look the other way when you cry out to us in the suffering of our sisters and brothers in need. We are sincerely sorry for our sins, both those we commit deliberately and those that overtake us. We ask your forgiveness and pray for strength that we may follow in your way and love all your people with that perfect love which casts out all fear; through Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Amen.
Hear these comforting words: If you repent and believe in God’s mercy, your sins are forgiven. Trust in God’s promises and begin anew your life with God and all people in the name of Jesus Christ.
Join me in our Communion Prayer
Pastor: God be with you.
People: And also with you.
Pastor: Lift up your hearts.
People: We lift them to God.
Pastor: Let us give thanks to God Most High.
People: It is right to give God thanks and praise.
Pastor: Holy God, we praise and bless you for creation and the gift of life and for your abiding love which brings us close to you, the source of all blessing. We thank you for revealing your will for us in the giving of the law and in the preaching of the prophets.
We thank you especially that in the fullness of time you sent Jesus, born of Mary, to live in our midst, to share in our suffering, and to accept the pain of death at the hands of those whom Jesus loved.
We rejoice that in a perfect victory over the grave you raised Christ with power to become sovereign of your realm.
We celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to gather your church by which your work may be done in the world and through which we share the gift of eternal life.
With the faithful in every place and time we praise with joy your holy name:
All: Holy, holy, holy God of love and majesty the whole universe speaks of your glory, O God Most High. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of our God. Hosanna in the highest!
Pastor: We remember that on that night of betrayal and desertion,
Jesus took bread, gave you thanks, broke the bread, and gave it to his disciples saying: “This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way, Jesus also took the cup, after supper, saying: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
God, consecrate, therefore, by your Holy Spirit, these gifts of bread and the vine, and bless us that as we receive them at this table, we may offer you our faith and praise, we may be united with Christ and with one another, and we may continue faithful in all things.
All: In the strength Christ gives us, we offer ourselves to you, eternal God, and give thanks that you have called us to serve you. Amen.
Pastor: Though the broken bread, we participate in the body of Christ.
Through the cup of blessing, we participate in a new life Christ gives us.
Come now, for all things are ready.
The body of Christ, the bread of life. Eat.
The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation. Drink.
Our Savior Jesus Christ keep and preserve you to everlasting life. Let us pray:
All: Life-giving God, we give you thanks for the gift of our Savior’s presence in the simplicity and splendor of this holy meal. Unite us with all who are fed by the life of Christ that we may faithfully proclaim the Good News of your love and that your church may be a rainbow of hope in an uncertain world; Through Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Amen
Go forth into the world to serve God with gladness, be of good courage, hold fast to that which is good, render to no one evil for evil, strengthen the fainthearted, support the weak, help the afflicted, honor all people, love and serve God, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen!
Pastor Whitney Bruno Sermons 