GREETINGS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
This is a time of grief and joy together.
This is a time of grief. We are in church but it’s not the church we remember. There are masks. There are blocked off pews. The children are next door; and the service has changed. We are grieving: there are people missing. Some are at home joining us digitally. Some will not join us physically ever again – but we will, assuredly, meet in heaven. We’re still in the dark valley of death. We closed these doors exactly 6 months ago. And in these 6 months our lives have been upended. We still don’t know how to cure COVID-19. We still don’t know exactly how it spreads. We still don’t know who will, or will not, get sick with symptoms… and who will get sick and die. We walk in the shadows in Death Valley. We are in a time of grief.
And we are in a time of joy. In six months we have learned how WE are the church. This building we love and rejoice in is not the church. It’s our church building. The Church is wherever two or three are gathered, physically or digitally, or in letters, or on the telephone, in Jesus’ name.
We’ve learned, through personal experience, how God abides with us in the very best of times… and is still found in the worst of times. We’ve seen how uncertain life is, how frustrating, how confusing… but how certain God is. God is always, always, always with us and loving us.
We are joyful. We are here, gathered in many different ways, in that loving God’s name. We’ve been so lonely for months. Everyone is feeling lonely. Everyone is feeling grief. Everyone is desperate for some good news and hope.
So we come. We come and pray God overflows our cups and gives us the strength to be the rainbows of hope in our uncertain world.
To this end, let me go over our changes a little bit before we worship.
The blocked off pews are to help keep us physically distant.
The children are next door as kids are more likely to spread COVID-19 without symptoms than adults.
The offering is in the entryway. Please leave any offerings there. We won’t be passing it to help cut down on spreading germs.
We won’t be having coffee hour, but invite you to socialize in the parking lot.
After service, we’ll dismiss with those closest to the door leaving first and work our way to the front. This will reduce us congregating at the exit.
We will practice air-hugs, air-high-fives, and other ways of greeting without touching. Please ask someone if they want touched before touching them.
It is okay to use your hymnals. They will be left untouched for a week – Sunday to Sunday – which should let any germs perish before being used again.
It’s okay to sing. Just keep your mask on.
If at anytime you feel the need for a mask break, please take it. Go outside, unmask, cool down, take deep breaths, and put it back on when you’re ready. Rejoin us. No one is going to say anything or bat an eye. This is you loving your neighbor by not exposing them, and loving yourself by meeting your own needs. In our love, we love God.
That is why if anyone unmasks inside the building, I will pause the service until he or she is masked again or outside. Masks do not keep you from getting sick. They keep you from getting others sick. I am not the only person here who has known breathing troubles, blood clots, and time in the ICU. I’m not the only person here with joy and fear. So to be loving, all masks will be on while inside the building.
If someone inside refuses to re-mask, the service with me present is over. I will leave.
You may see lots of other little changes, and if you think of a good change, please share. Our knowledge of COVID-19 is always developing and we’ll try to keep up with the best practices.
Now… lengthy prolegomena out of the way…
CALL TO WORSHIP
One: Come! Come praise the eternal God! Let all that is within us— body, emotions, mind, and will— praise God’s holy name!
Many: Despite our failures, God forgives and releases us.
One: More than any doctor, God heals our diseases.
Many: When we are famished and weak, God fills us with good and beautiful things, satisfying our needs, and restoring our strength.
One: So come!
Many: Come, praise the eternal God!
All: Sing songs from a grateful heart, and remember all that God has done for us!
Hymn –
PRAYER OF INVOCATION
Prayer for Returning to the Church Building (Maybe) by Matt Laney. Revised to be plural by Whitney Bruno.
God, we have missed this place, the praise, these people, candles, bread and cup, the door, the steeple.
But honestly God, we are uncertain about coming back. Must we pass the peace? Will others wear a mask?
Will we sing ourselves sick/ Always in long sleeves and pants? Can we be spiritual while thinking about disinfectants?
God, you said in every shadowy valley, there you would be so we’re trusting in your rod and staff to protect us.
May our (individualized and sanitized) cups overflow; may goodness and mercy follow where we go.
Even into your house.
Amen.
Gloria Patri
JOYS AND CONCERNS
Pastoral Prayer
Most Holy God,
We are a people who need you in your fullness
— as Creative [Parent], Redeeming [Child], and Sustaining Spirit.
Our lives have complications and pain,
our world has war and despair.
But we were made in your image, and
your Spirit was breathed into us
that we might experience hope in your goodness.
[We are happy to be in our church building again. What a joy! We are happy to see each other’s faces after a long absence. We praise you for the goodness of the internet that connects us at home. We praise you for the goodness of written word that connects us at home. We praise you for being available to us in all times and all places!
We praise you for….]
And yet, there are situations that make it hard to be aware of that goodness.
We pray now for those whose lives are affected
by the negativity in these circumstances:
When bombs and terrorist and military attacks kill and injure innocent people around the world . . . (brief silence)
When storms and hurricanes are so strong they destroy even the homes designed to withstand them . . .(brief silence)
When political battles bring out pettiness over issues too important for bickering . . . (brief silence)
When our hearts ache, hurt by broken relationships and unmet expectations . . .
(brief silence)
When we are exhausted emotionally from illnesses in ourselves or those we love . . . (brief silence)
When we are overwhelmed by loneliness and isolation even though you are always with us . . . (brief silence)
When we face the need of:
Gracious and Merciful Lord,
our church is working to hear the words of your Spirit.
Our desire is to learn what and who you are calling us to be in your world.
We call out to you
that we might have the courage
to give to you whatever burdens we entered with today
so that our hearts and minds can be open to you,
to your Word,
and to your Spirit — your Ruach*
— the same life-giving breath from the first of creation.
Christ challenges us to know you, God,
as one who would search us out if we are lost.
But we must also know that when we are not the “one,”
we are members of the 99 waiting together for your guidance.
So it is together that we use our breath to pray the words Christ taught us:
OUR FATHER
*The use of “Ruach” (the Hebrew word for breath, wind, and spirit) in the prayer was suited to the context as the congregation is going through a discernment process called “Ruach and Renewal.” The word has overtones that connect it to the winds so prominent in the experience of people in the Caribbean and the southeastern United States in September 2004. Copyright © 2004 Andrea Murdock.
TITHES AND OFFERINGS
OFFETORY & PRAYER
We praise you, God, for how you provide for us! We praise you, God, for how you abide with us. We praise you, God, for how you love us! We offer these gifts of time, prayers, skills, and money for you to use for the love of the world. Thank you, God, amen!
Hymn
SCRIPTURE
Today’s Matthew reading picks up where last week’s ended. Jesus has walked us through how to work hard to seek win-win and compromise solutions; and when to let one another go in a loving way. Today, Peter replies back to Jesus… Matthew 18:21-35
Our next reading is Romans 14, 1-12. This reading, too, picks up where last week’s Roman’s reading ends. Paul last week argued the language of God is love – all of scripture, all of our teachings, can be summarized as ‘do love.’ So do love to one another, and God, and yourself. Today he turns to exploring how one can either be judgmental, or one can be loving, but not both.
These are the words about God for the people of God.
Sermon: Immeasurable Grace
Picture nine year old me – I have just read the book ‘Don’t Get Mad, Get Even’ by Rona Zable. I… am floored. Young little Machiavellian me never before had considered that revenge is a dish best served cold. When I’m angry and have a hot head… I do stupid things. But if I follow this book’s advice… stay calm, plan, keep a list and check it twice… oh yes. THEN I could get even. Revenge shall be mine!
The spite a 9-year-old can wield against a sibling is a scary thing.
Imagine what kind of revenge we can wreck as adults when we actually have income, cars, and no parent sending us to bed at 9 pm.
Peter seems to suggest a good thing – forgive someone seven times! Seven is a holy number. A full number. Completeness. Jesus, how often shall we forgive our brother or sister? A complete seven times? (Pat yourself on the back, Peter.)
But Jesus says no. Seventy-seven times. And then Jesus tells a story elaborating what he means…
Once a man owed the sum of the GDP of a small country. An immeasurable amount. Hard to fathom. When he couldn’t pay it up, he and his family was ordered into slavery. He begged mercy – give me time and I will pay. Instead of mercy, the ruler he owed gave the indebted man grace — a gift he didn’t deserve. The grace was forgiving all of the man’s debt. That immeasurable amount that is way, way more than 77.
The forgiven man was owed debt himself. He was owed 100 days’ worth of pay. The man who owed him begged for mercy – give me time and I will pay you. But the forgiven man refused both mercy, time to pay the debt, and grace — forgiving the debt. The forgiven man threw his fellow slave into debt-prison.
Word made it back to the lord of the slaves of this. The lord became furious – “Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And the same punishment the forgiven man gave to his fellow slave the lord ordered for the no-longer-forgiven-man.
And so God will do with you.
The punishment I doll out to others, is dolled out to me. The forgiveness I give others, is given to me. Do unto others what you would have done to you.
The immeasurable grace, the mercy that cannot be fathomed, was given freely out from the lord. It wasn’t a treasure to horde and keep but a wealth to keep on sharing. The love we are shown and showered with from God isn’t something for us to pat ourselves on the back with and then keep a revenge tally on each other… it is the love that makes us rich enough to forgive others. To show love to them.
I don’t love my enemies because I think they’re awesome people.
I love them because God loves me.
I don’t keep my 9-year-old self’s enemy list and tally other’s sins, planning to get even because I cannot. We ALL can plan evil! I stopped because God doesn’t keep a tally list against us, either. Not because God couldn’t. God surely could! But God chooses to forgive hoping we will then also choose to forgive.
And in forgiving, we spread God’s love.
Paul echoes Jesus’ story by asking, “Who are you to pass judgment on the servants of another?” Who are we to judge each other, the servants of God? We are all equals. The most Christian and holy and the most un-Christian and sinful — we are equals — not set up over one another. God, alone, is who judges.
Therefore the diversity and disagreement on what it is to be Christian, and how it is to please God, are good things. It is not okay if either group demands the other to die, be punished, or give up the name Christian. It is not okay to exclude. It’s okay to disagree. It’s okay to persuade. It’s good and healthy to debate, and try to understand the other. As long as all are working in the way they understand to be loving to self, and other, and God… as long as building up with love, building up with understanding, building up with God is the method being used… it is good.
I told these stories today to my daughter in her terms and asked her, “How many times have I made you sad?” She didn’t know. She hadn’t kept track. Nor could we come up with a number of how many times she’d made me sad. I hadn’t kept track. Keeping a tally is planning revenge. It is not mercy and grace. It is scheming to eventually harm the other. When we really love someone we let grudges go. We forgive them and hope they do better. We seek for them to understand us, and we to understand them.
“Let ye who have not sinned cast the first stone.” That’s not me. In a million and one ways I know, and in a bazillion and one ways I don’t know, that’s not me.
So I choose to err on the side of forgiveness. I’d rather there be too much mercy in the world than too little.
Because when I stand before God for my accounting, I’d rather God err on the side of mercy for me too.
Amen.
Pastor Whitney Bruno Sermons 