ANNOUCEMENTS
It is People in Need Sunday. The PIN Fund helps out when the church has requests for assistance that no one plans for. Who plans to run out of gas, run out of groceries, or an emergency medical bill? This is how we help those in our church and in our community make ends meet. Please consider donating towards this.
Next Sunday we will have communion.
CENTERING
President Biden has challenged us to wear a mask in public for 100 days. This isn’t to protect our own health, as one can get COVID-19 or one of its alarming variants while wearing a mask. Rather, this is to protect the people around you. It’s much harder to give the virus to others while wearing a mask. Specifically, he’s asked us to wear high filtration masks. This is because the variants are more contagious, so it takes less exposure to get sick. Think about COVID-19 like green icing. If you eat a cupcake with green icing, your fingers *might* get stained. So go with a napkin. A thin mask. Think of the variants like green food dye. Your fingers are absolutely getting stained if you drop the dye on your hand. So don’t touch it at all – or use gloves. Don’t go out at all – or use a high filtration mask. An n-95 or its equivalent.
But these kinds of masks are not as easy to breath in as cloth masks. This is because we are breathing air that we are drawing through the filter. Our lungs have to work a bit harder. Sometimes, this causes our bodies to issue an alarm: I can’t breathe! I’m glad our bodies do this. It keeps us alive! We seriously need air. Our bodies tell us to breathe quicker to get more air – faster – because they don’t know how the masks work. Our brains know. To breathe in a high filtration mask you actually need deeper, slower, breaths. This brings more air through the filter than shallow, rapid breaths.
So when you transition to a high filtration mask, you may have to practice mindfulness, being centered. Having your mind calm your body down so that you get the air you need. And absolutely – be kind to yourself. Take mask breaks away from others as you need.
To prepare for worship today, we’re going to center on our breath and our health. If you have a mask you’d like to practice this with, feel free to get it. I know you can’t read lips with the mask I have. There are masks with a clear spot to see mouths, but I don’t have one with me. I have provided all of this as text, however, which you can pull up and follow along if it is hard to understand me while I wear the mask.
Let’s center ourselves for worship.
*mask on*
Breathe in (1.. 2…) Breathe out (1..2..3..) We slow our breathing. We slow our time. We slow to attune ourselves to God.
Breathe in (1..2..) breathe out (1..2..3..)
We relax our backs. We sit straighter. We try to fully fill our lungs with air. Deeper and deeper. Fill our lungs, God, with your holy breath.
Breathe (1…2…) Breathe out (1…2…3…)
Bless these masks, God. Let them be a sign of how we love, because you love.
Breathe (1…2…) Breathe out (1…2…3…)
Bless these breaths, God. Your breath brings life, and creativity, and joy. Let our breaths do the same.
Breathe (1…2…) Breathe out (1…2…3…)
We bless you, God, with every breath we take. We praise you, God, with every heartbeat. We love you, God, with all that we are.
Breathe (1…2…) Breathe out (1…2…3…)
Centered. Mindful of your presence infusing the space within in us and the space between and among us, we come to worship you. Slowly, slowly, we pray the prayer you taught us saying
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…
Lead us not
Into temptation…
And deliver us…
From evil.
For thine is the kingdom…
And the power…
And the glory…
Forever and ever…
Amen.
You may unmask. The Lord’s Prayer, said slowly, mindfully, with a few words at a time, is a way to calm your breath, regulate it, and remind your body, mind, and soul all is well.
Prayer changes us. Prayer changes the world. Prayer is mindfulness and centering and meditation. Prayer is aligning our power with God’s power for the love of the world. We have prayer requests today.
((See our Facebook page private))
SCRIPTURE
The story we read in Mark is arranged in a classical ancient Jewish story telling format of the most important thing in the center, and around it lesser and lesser important facts that echo each other. Think of them like Russian nesting dolls… made of scripture. The most important part today is Jesus’ rebuke. On either sides the unclean spirit cries out of this part. On either side of the unclean spirit are comments on Jesus’ authority that astounds people. New word for the day – chiasmus. That’s what this kind of poetry is called.
Mark 1:21-28
A — [The disciples and Jesus] went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
B — Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”
C– But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!”
B — And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.
A — They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.
…
Paul writes to a fellow church and quotes some of the proverbs of the city back to them, combining their own wisdom with the wisdom of knowing Jesus, to argue although we are free to do all things… not all things are loving. Paul writes…
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by him.
Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “no idol in the world really exists,” and that “there is no God but one.” Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as in fact there are many gods and many lords— yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. “Food will not bring us close to God.” We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.
SERMON
Paul’s argument today isn’t very scandalous to us. We don’t have idol food or non-idol food and it kind of makes no sense to us. He’s writing about a particular issue in the church at the time.
Everyone knows, says Paul, there’s only one God we care about. There might be other gods, but we don’t care. We only care about one. We only serve one.
This leads part of the congregation to say, “Therefore, since we serve only God, we cannot be seen in another gods’ temple or eating food dedicated to another god.” So if you go to a family dinner, and someone prays “Thank you Ba’al for this food we are about to eat.” BAM! Stand up and leave. Don’t participate.
Other parts of the congregation say, “Therefore, since we serve only God, it doesn’t matter if we visit another gods’ temple or eat food dedicated to another god. We know who we serve.” So if you go to a family dinner and someone says the same prayer to Ba’al. You shrug – THEY are thanking Ba’al. But you? You go ahead and thank God and eat.
What would you do? Have you ever been in a situation where someone prays something you disagree with? Do you stand up and leave – or do you consider that their prayer and keep your own?
Would you eat food that someone blessed in the name of Shiva; in the name of Odin; or in the name of Satan?
There’s… no good answer, huh? At least there isn’t for me. I’ve been around plenty of prayers I disagree with. I’ve been at meals blessed in the name of strange gods. But I haven’t always reacted the same way. Sometimes I’ve been content to keep the peace and keep my own faith private; or keep the peace and share my faith… and sometimes, I’ve made a scene and refused or stormed off.
Paul doesn’t tell us what to do in these cases. He’s more concerned about the relationships among the church members. Because both sides are feuding with each other – those that say make a stand, and those that say what matters is inside, not outside.
“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” He says. Yeah – we know what is inside is what matters. We know eating food dedicated or blessed to another god isn’t going to change our religion and faith. If that were the case, our Chicken Noodle Socials would be all that’s required to make anyone Christian. Eat! Bam! Now you’re Christian! In the same way, a meal at a different church, a different faith center, or blessed under a different god isn’t going to make you Not-Christian. That’s not how faith works.
But that knowledge that food doesn’t bring us close to God; or away from God, is in our minds. It’s intellectual. Deeds, actions, speak louder than thoughts and words. The deed, action, is seeing someone go ahead and participate in the other faith.
And it looks like hypocrisy.
“Pastor! You told me to love the Lord God with all my heart, and all my mind, and all my soul – and then you went and sang My Sweet Lord: Hare Krishna. Don’t you know that’s a prayer to the god Krishna?!”
Maybe I did and thought that’s a great tune. Maybe I didn’t and thought Lord meant my Lord. It still looks like I’m saying one thing but doing another.
And that’s the issue Paul has. Hypocrisy. Without understanding, without knowledge, it looks like one group of Christians is saying one thing but doing another. And that is hurting the faith of their fellow brothers and sisters. Their fellow brothers and sisters don’t have the knowledge to understand how it isn’t hypocritical, it isn’t flakey, to be around other faiths without taking on those faiths. They don’t get how a meal, or a song, or a TV or a movie, doesn’t change your faith.
Oh man how I run into this all the time!
Dungeons and Dragons; Harry Potter; Pokemon. Death Metal; name me another one – where is Satan hiding in kid culture in 2021? On Tiktok? Probably with JoJo Siwa. (I totally don’t think Satan is in any of these.)
For me, it was Harry Potter when I was little. I was in a family that said Harry Potter is a great story. Magic wizards and witches aren’t real. Play make-believe spell casting all you want. It doesn’t change your faith in Jesus – it’s just pretend play.
But our fellow homeschooling families saw Harry Potter as the devil in disguise. Only Christian media was allowed to be consumed in those houses. Vegitales, Narnia, and listening to The River. For these families, any non-Christian media was suspect, and a pollutant to their faith.
My family’s knowledge – that faith doesn’t depend on your media consumption – didn’t reassure our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. My brother and I had one “spell” fight with sticks in the backyard and we were banned from visiting our friends’ house again.
Love builds up. Love would be a sit-down conversation among our parents, and ourselves, about faith. Paul would argue love would be my parents explaining that our friends’ family weren’t mature enough in their faith yet to test it outside of the Christian Media Bubble. Therefore, we needed to play Harry Potter at home and not at our friend’s house. That’s what he means by he’d rather not eat meat than cause another to stumble. He rather we didn’t play than hurt the faith of less-knowledgeable Christians.
And you know… I don’t like that. I don’t like limits. I like my liberty. I like being able to do what I want when I want. I don’t want to watch my p’s and q’s because some Christians haven’t figured out how to live Christ out in the real world. I don’t want to hold their hands and reassure them there’s no side of me that really enjoys a horror movie. (True fact. I do like horror.)
But the more I think about this, the more I think Paul doesn’t want me to lie. He doesn’t want me to move from appear hypocritical by consuming non-Christian media to actually being a hypocrite by slashing that side of me out and pretending it doesn’t exist. Or lying to others. Hiding myself.
No… it’s about how to live together in love. How to build each other in love. Those families from my childhood didn’t need us rushing in and shoving “tainted” media on them. They needed loving conversations about how faith, and culture, can be in dialogue. They needed people to help their faith grow. And we needed to build them up. But it also meant we had to give up our liberty to play what we wanted whenever until their faith was more secure.
Giving up liberties for the greater good is so, so hard.
I don’t *want* to. I don’t *like* limits. Being Christian is choosing to self-limit out of love. Some theologians say that is why we have free-will: God chooses to limit God’s self out of love for us. God loves us enough to let us be free to make good choices and bad choices. God loves us enough to let us choose to not love God, if we want. That’s some serious self-limiting for the God of all Creation.
And we’re asked much smaller sacrifices. If someone’s faith can’t handle Sabrina The Teenage Witch, then that’s okay. Don’t force it on them. Be in relationship and help them grow into seeing their faith is strong enough to handle all things – for it is within, not without. If someone’s health can’t handle covid-19, then that’s okay. Don’t force exposure on them. Be in a relationship with them and mask up. Let their bodies get stronger and let them get vaccines.
Paul wants us to place the relationships we have with one another over our own liberties. And God knows that’s hard! It was hard for Paul’s church and it’s hard for our church.
Anyone who’s ever said being Christian is easy was horribly naïve or a hypocrite.
Lord, Lord, give us strength to take care that our liberty of ours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak!
Amen.
Pastor Whitney Bruno Sermons 