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The Need for Prophets in the Valley by Wendy Joyner
Ezekiel 37:1-14
A family is fighting a battle against one of life’s most feared enemies, cancer, and they watch their loved one as she literally wastes away from the disease. A community is ravaged by a natural disaster, and the residents return to find their homes, schools, and businesses lying in ruins. A man is facing an unknown future as his company conducts layoffs, and he is unsure of how his bills will be paid. A country is in the midst of war, and it watches as its young women and men enter into the dangers of combat. A woman is struggling with an illness no one sees, and she struggles to make it through each day against the waves of depression. As we look at the world around us, it is easy to become discouraged and wonder about God’s presence in the midst of all the despair.
The prophet Ezekiel faced a situation that caused great despair in the lives of his audience. It was one of the darkest times in the history of God’s people. The Babylonians had conquered their land and carried many people off into captivity. The nation of Israel experienced tremendous physical and emotional losses. Their confidence in themselves and in Yahweh was at an all-time low. The people needed to be reminded about the God who loved them and sustained them. The people needed to have their hope restored and their vision enlarged. It was in this time of need that the Spirit provided Ezekiel with an experience that still speaks to us today.
The Spirit of God carried Ezekiel out to overlook what might be described as the ruins of a battlefield. There were many bones scattered upon the ground, and they had obviously been there for quite a while. There was no sign of life left in them, as they were old and dried out from the ravages of time. The Spirit then asked Ezekiel a pivotal question, “Mortal, can these bones live?” Ezekiel, like many of us, hedged his bets. He didn’t say no, yet he wasn’t willing to say yes either. Ezekiel’s answer was evasive at best, and in his uncertainty he turned the question back on God—“O Lord GOD, you know.” As he was faced with the lifeless bones, Ezekiel was uncertain. He had been called to answer the question that haunted the house of Israel. He was called to consider whether God could work a miracle in the life of a nation that appeared as good as dead. Ezekiel was called to examine his faith in the God who delivered them from slavery and gave them the land.
Can these bones live? It is a difficult question to answer. It is difficult because it is a question that challenges the prophet to view the world around him not with the eyes of reality, but with the eyes of faith. Ezekiel is called to imagine the divine power working to bring life where there was death. He is called to trust in God who has acted on their behalf in the past. Ezekiel is called to imagine a future filled with hope, boldly proclaiming promise even while those around him are uttering words of despair. Can these bones live? God says yes.
Still, the most interesting part of the story is that God calls the prophet to play a part in the reanimation of the dry bones. It is only when Ezekiel has prophesied to the bones that they will live. The prophet must say to the dry bones, “O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.” It is only when the prophet proclaims the word of God to the bones that they begin to reassemble and be covered with flesh. Then, even after this initial stage of the miracle, there is no breath in the bones. God calls the prophet to prophesy yet again. “Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal . . . that they may live.’ ” At each step of the miracle, God uses Ezekiel to proclaim the divine words and to announce the new thing that God is about to do in the midst of the valley of dry bones. The proclamation for the word is central to the miracle!
God knows that the bones can live again. Could it be that by inviting Ezekiel to name the acts of God, God is helping Ezekiel discover the answer to the question “Can these bones live?” God engages Ezekiel’s help in the miracle, and does so in order that the proclamation of God’s word and actions may continue. God desires human witnesses to speak of God’s miracles of life. Even at the conclusion of our lection, we find God articulating that very reason for this powerful act, for “then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act.”
As I look at the world around me, I find myself surrounded by piles of dry bones. There are individuals, communities, and nations that are at the end of their ropes. I look around and there is great reason for despair. We are wandering in “the valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4) and some around me seem to have no reason to hope. We are surrounded by a broken and hurting world. People all around us ask, “Can these bones live?” That is why God needs prophets in the valley today. God needs men and women who will stand knee-deep in bones and proclaim that death and destruction do not have the final word. God needs preachers and prophets who will prophesy to the bones, who will speak the word of truth. God needs us to remind those who are lost, alone, and afraid that God will “bring you up from your graves . . . put [God’s] spirit within you, and you shall live.” May God continue to use us to proclaim the good news and the promise of new life to those who need it the most!
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Mark Driscoll and the Death of Christian Celebrity Culture by Shane Raynor
Mark Driscoll has taken quite a beating on Christian blogs and social media in recent days. He has probably deserved a good bit of the flak he’s received, but as is the case too often in the church, there hasn’t been a shortage of folks lining up to kick a man while he’s down. Driscoll, who has been dogged with plagiarism charges, also found himself in hot water recently after his church hired a marketing company to boost his book Real Marriage to the New York Times Bestseller List.
Apparently Driscoll wants off the roller coaster, at least for a little while. According to Christianity Today, he has released a letter to his congregation apologizing for the bestseller list scandal and other mistakes. He has also promised to focus more on his church and his family and less on his higher profile activities. Part of that includes giving up social media for at least the rest of 2014. "I don't see how I can be both a celebrity and a pastor," he wrote, "and so I am happy to give up the former so that I can focus on the latter."
Fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. In American culture, we’re fascinated when celebrities fall from grace. So much so that we interrupt real news to report it. The church is no better—if anything we’re worse, because society as a whole tends to be much more forgiving of secular celebrities who screw up than we are of well-known Christians who do the same thing.
It's probably a blessing that becoming a huge Christian celebrity isn’t as easy as it used to be. The amount of competition and the current "noise level" make it harder for new Christian authors to break out of the pack. So we rely on the name brand authors, who are pressured to crank out content whether they have anything new to say or not. Most of the big Christian celebrities have been established awhile.
But because of the fragmented audience, even some of the top Christian celebrities aren’t as big a deal as they once were. And this problem isn’t unique to Christian publishing, or even mainstream publishing. Have you looked at your cable lineup recently? I have over 150 channels, and with the exception of a few big hitters, I don’t know the names of the people on most of the shows I watch. There was a time when being a channel on basic cable almost guaranteed you a million viewers—now many channels are lucky if they get 100,000 people in prime time. Becoming “famous” now is a lot like winning the lottery and having to split the jackpot with a lot of people.
So what does this mean for the Christian celebrity culture? Well, the chances of us seeing books with the commercial success of The Purpose Driven Life or the Left Behind series are much smaller now than they were at the turn of the century. And even when there are breakout titles or authors, I believe there will be a lot less staying power than there has been in the past. Attention spans are shorter than ever now, and personalities are probably going to fall in and out of favor much more quickly. This will present a number of challenges to Christian publishers and to authors who are trying to make a living as writers.
Now more than ever, content is king. The days of name brand authors phoning in half-baked manuscripts and depending on editors to assemble recycled content under new titles are numbered. Depending on past success to sell books is going to become more difficult. This will be good for consumers, but the top quality content is going to become even more difficult to find. Many Christian writers and speakers are going to have to narrow their appeal and find viable niches in order to succeed. And more and more of them will have to hold down other gigs to make ends meet. Making ideas available to the masses will get easier and easier, but getting the masses to listen is going to be the hard part.
In short, there will be fewer mega-celebrities and more mini-celebrities. And that means there will be fewer big scandals and more small ones. The good news is, the church just may function more like a real body this way. And when we do have scandals, they’ll do much less damage and be forgotten much more quickly.
We can hope anyway.
Shane Raynor is an editor at Ministry Matters and editor of the Converge Bible Studies series from Abingdon Press. Connect with Shane on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook. Sign up to receive Shane's posts free via email.
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7 “R’s” of Healthy Team Member Correction by Ron Edmondson
The way a leader handles correction of someone on the team is important if the desire is to keep quality people on the team. All of us occasionally need someone to help us become better at what we do. That should be the end goal of correction. All of us make mistakes.
Avoiding the corrective procedure keeps the organization from being all it can be. It keeps people from learning from their mistakes. Good leaders use correction to improve people and the organization.
It’s important that we correct correctly.
Here are 7 aspects of healthy correction:
Relationship – Corrective actions should start here. It’s hard to correct people effectively if you don’t have a relationship with them. Using authority without an established relationship may work in a bureaucratic organization, but not in a team environment. Relationship building should begin before the need for correction.
Respect – Never condemn the person. As soon as correction becomes more personal than practical, the one being corrected becomes defensive and the leader loses the value of the correction. Focus attention on the actions being corrected and not the person. (Even if the correction involves a character issue, if you intend to retain the person, you will accomplish more if he or she knows they have your respect.)
Reprimand – Make sure the action being correction is clear and the person knows what they did wrong. Don’t wait until the problem is too large to restore the person to the team. Even though protecting the relationship is important, the person doesn’t need to leave still clueless that there is a problem.
Refocus – In addition to telling the person what he or she did wrong, help them learn from their mistakes. Spend time discussing how the person can improve in the area of performance being corrected.
Restore – Make sure the person being corrected knows you still believe in their abilities and that you have faith they can do the job for which they are responsible. Correction is never easy to accept, but the goal should be to improve things following the corrective period. People will lose heart for their work if they do not think their work is still valued.
Reinforce – Correction can be a valuable time for the team member and organization if used appropriately. It should be a learning time for the leader and the person being corrected. Use this as a time to remind the team member of the culture, vision, goals and objectives of the organization, as necessary to improve the team member’s performance. The leader should consider how he or she can improve to help the team member improve.
Replace – Some people simply aren’t a fit for the team. The problem could be them or the team. Making the call to replace a team member is hard, but sometimes necessary to continue the progress of the organization. The sooner this call is made the better it will be for everyone. (If it reaches this point, the leader should spend time evaluating what went wrong with the relationship — was it the person, the organization, or the leader?)
Leaders, do you avoid correction? Are you using it for the good of the organization and the people on your team?
What would you add to my list?
This post was originally published at RonEdmondson.com.
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The Divine Wonder of the Scriptures by Clifton Stringer
The words of 1 Peter seemed to come alive before me, shimmering with light and truth right there on the page. They were drawing my heart beyond the material world and into divine light, yet somehow doing this in and through the visible sequence of words in the narrow column on the paper page, and in and through the news of the glorified humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection….”
I was a sophomore in college, I think, when this happened. I had tried to read the Bible before, but never got far. I was a few times over the years sidetracked-then-bored by the footnotes in the NIV Study Bible I got when I was confirmed. Or, I tried to read and found it hard to maintain interest in writings that seemed both foreign and dull. I was an English major, for crying out loud. I loved great literature: Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Homer, Rilke, and Dante were loved by me, and Conrad hated, all before I got out of high school. And I certainly never had an experience of God’s presence when reading the Bible before. But that day I did. The words, and the things they signified, were inexpressibly beautiful.
What happened?
The Spirit of God intervened. The divine wonder of the Scriptures began to be opened to me.
Before his crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus tells his friends, “[W]hen the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me” (Jn. 15:26). The Father and the Son send the Spirit who witnesses to us of the Son’s unity with the Father. The Spirit begins somehow to lead us, in spite of ourselves, into the midst of the Trinity. This often entails encounter with Jesus Christ in the Spirit-breathed Scriptures. That day, the Holy Spirit began to bear witness to me in a new way, and I began to experience in the Scriptures a living person, Jesus Christ the Lord.
My experience is not unusual in the Christian tradition. St. Augustine was for a time decidedly underwhelmed by the unpolished style of the Scriptures in contrast to the eloquence of Virgil.
And young Johann Georg Hamann was far from home, penniless and in debt, and living a dissolute life in London when he came to himself. His brilliance and multilingual classical education had not availed any more for his salvation than his lute playing, and all his learned books seemed lifeless and dead to him. Finally Hamann acquired a Bible and “began his reading on March 13, but to no great effect. Six days later, however, on Palm Sunday, he began his reading anew and gradually began to perceive that God was somehow speaking to him and that the same one who authored the Bible was also the author of his life.”
Several weeks later, while reading the Bible in the evening, Hamann becomes aware that he is guilty of the blood of Jesus Christ due to his sins, just as Cain was guilty of his brother Abel’s blood. Hamann himself writes, “I felt at once my heart swelling, it poured itself out in tears, and I could no longer—I could no longer hide from God that I was the murderer of my brother, that I was the murderer of his only begotten Son.”*
Intensive study of the Bible led Hamann to deep conversion, and to a vocation as a Christian philosopher and apologist. He went on to write intricately hilarious polyglot texts, frequently pseudonymously. Among other things, Hamann Christianly opposed his friend Kant, and his style inspired a young Christian disciple named Søren Kierkegaard in the next century. His vocation began when he encountered in Scripture both his own guilt and the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Has the divine wonder of the Scriptures been opened to you?
How did it happen, or when did it start?
*These quotations, and indeed my whole account of Hamann’s conversion, are taken from John R. Betz, After Enlightenment: Hamann as Post-Secular Visionary (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009)
Clifton Stringer is a Ministry Matters contributor and Ph.D. student in Historical Theology at Boston College.
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Minimum Wage and Faith by Rebekah Jordan Gienapp
Minimum Wage Report Predicts Mixed Impact on Workers
The federal minimum wage, currently $7.25 an hour, was last raised in 2009. As the 2014 congressional elections approach, raising the minimum wage has become a major topic of debate. Proposed legislation called the Fair Minimum Wage Act would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour over a three-year period, with a raise of .95 each year. After reaching $10.10, the wage amount would be tied to inflation so that increases would automatically occur as the cost of living increases.
Last month, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an analysis of how the proposed legislation would impact low-wage workers and the job market. By 2016, when all raises would be implemented, the CBO’s major predictions are that
16.5 million low-wage workers could see their incomes increase;
900,000 families could be lifted above the federal poverty line;
total employment could be reduced by 500,000 workers, representing 0.3 percent of the workforce.
The report immediately became a source of political controversy, especially the portion about potential job loss that could be caused by raising the minimum wage. The authors of the report point out that the unemployment numbers could vary widely, from a very small reduction in jobs up to a reduction of one million workers. “Raising the minimum wage could destroy as many as one million jobs, a devastating blow to the very people that need help most in this economy,” Senator Mitch McConnell responded.
Supporters of the minimum wage increase counter by saying that the focus on the jobs portion of the report has overshadowed the positive predictions about how many workers would be helped by the raise. Even if the report’s numbers about job loss end up being correct, said Jared Bernstein, economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former Obama administration economist, “the beneficiaries far, far outweigh the people who are hurt by this.”
Who Are Minimum Wage Workers?
Even before the most recent recession, the percentage of Americans relying on low-wage jobs has been rising. New research by economists from the University of Massachusetts in Boston found that one in seven US workers is now part of a household where the 2 main income source is a low-wage job (though many of these jobs pay above the current federal minimum wage).
The first image of a minimum wage worker that often springs to people’s minds is a teenager working part-time at a fast-food restaurant. An analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) of workers who would benefit from an increase to $10.10 paints a different picture. It finds that 88 percent of workers who would be affected by the raise are at least 20 years old and that a third of affected workers are age 40 or older.
Women have long held low-wage jobs in disproportionate numbers, and the EPI’s research finds that 56 percent of those who would benefit from the raise are women. A little more than half of affected workers work at least 35 hours per week. Twenty-eight percent have children.
Crystal Dupont is one worker who often can’t make ends meet with her minimum wage job. She works in a customer service call center in Houston, making between $7.25 and $8 an hour and working 30 to 40 hours per week. She has fallen behind on her car payments and has taken out payday loans to cover basic expenses. “I try to live within my means,” Dupont says, “but sometimes you just can’t.”
After her father passed away, Dupont’s disabled mother lost her home to foreclosure. Since Dupont couldn’t afford a place of her own on her wages, they moved into an apartment together. Her wages and her mother’s disability benefits and food stamps are all they have to survive on. Despite the financial strain she’s under, she has taken out student loans to take business technology classes at a community college. She devotes many hours to studying on her days off, she says, because “it tells me that there’s more than what I’m doing now out there—there’s more to life than this.”
Faith Voices for a Living Wage
People of faith have often been at the forefront of efforts to raise the minimum wage, whether at the state or federal level. Some are prompted by Scriptures that warn against oppressing workers in their wages. Others decide to speak up after realizing that many of the people who approach their church’s food pantry for help are also working.
Beginning with the 1908 Methodist Episcopal Social Creed, The United Methodist Church has advocated for a living wage for all. The term living wage is used to describe the amount needed to meet basic necessities, which the minimum wage frequently does not cover.
The Reverend Jan Bolerjack, pastor of Riverton Park United Methodist Church in Tukila, Washington, devotes much of her time as a pastor to advocating for a living wage. She has seen how struggling to survive impacts families. “There’s such a ripple effect right down to the kids,” she says. “They end up living in stress-filled homes because the parents aren’t able to cope. I see so many parents at the end of their rope, just trying to cope, to hold things together.”
While our culture may encourage us to think of issues such as minimum wage only in economic or political terms, Scripture and our faith tradition challenge us to look at all aspects of God’s world in light of our faith. This is why the Reverend Gorton Smith, a retired United Methodist pastor in Las Cruces, New Mexico, joined with other faith leaders and workers in advocating for a $10 per hour minimum wage in his city. “This is not an economic issue,” Smith said at a recent rally. “This is a moral issue. People should be able to feed their kids and go to the doctor.”
Interfaith Worker Justice, which mobilizes faith leaders across the country on economic justice issues, is encouraging people of faith to sign an open letter to Congress in support of the $10.10 minimum wage proposal. “We respect the dignity of our neighbors who toil under the yoke of today’s unjust minimum wage,” the letter states, “and we call on our elected leaders to ease their burden by making the minimum wage a family wage.”
Scarcity Versus Abundance
Many discussions about pay and working conditions for low-wage workers tend to focus on questions of what we can afford. Will raising wages raise prices for consumers? Will a higher minimum wage mean fewer jobs? These are legitimate concerns, particularly as our economy continues a long and slow recovery. It certainly makes sense to look at economic research about the results of past minimum wage increases.
Yet for people of faith, we are called to take a wider perspective and ask society other difficult questions. Are we providing charity to low-wage workers while neglecting the call to seek justice with them? Have we behaved as if God has not gifted us with a creation that provides enough for all?
Parker Palmer points out that when we act on our fears that resources are scarce, this does in fact become true. Consuming more than we need pushes up prices and reduces resources. “The tragic victims of this self-fulfilling prophecy are, of course, the ‘have-nots’ of this world who lack the capital to act out their economic fears,” Palmer writes. “For them, scarcity is no assumption at all: It is a hard and cruel fact of life. But that fact is created by people who have a choice—the choice to assume scarcity and grab all one can get, or the choice to assume abundance and to live in such a way as to create and share it.”
An abundantly generous God provided manna to the Israelites when they were in the wilderness, promising there would be enough provided each day. Amidst the murmurings of doubt among his own disciples, Jesus fed the multitudes by multiplying only a few loaves of bread and fish. Surely God’s people can find ways today to act out of a spirit of abundance as we consider the struggles of minimum wage workers.
Be sure to check out FaithLink, a weekly downloadable discussion guide for classes and small groups. FaithLink motivates Christians to consider their personal views on important contemporary issues, and it also encourages them to act on their beliefs.
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This why Gary Lee Parker loves this quote by a 19th Cnetury Methodist Pastor and District Superintendent, Reverend Phineas F. Bresee, which is capitalized and italicized: No Christian employee should ever strike a Christian employer, BUT NO CHRISTIAN EMPLOYER SHOULD EVER PAY A NON-LIVING WAGE TO THEIR EMPLOYEES."
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God So Loved by Jerrod Hugenot
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
I have trouble with memorization. Give me a verbal grocery list, and I will ask you to write it down. (My spouse has offered even to pin it to my shirt!) When I was in community and university theatre, the other actors knew that I would have my lines down eventually, emphasis on “eventually."
Indeed, it was not until sometime in college that I knew my social security number by heart, and only then due to the university’s practice of tracking everything by a student’s social security number. Now with the very real issue of identity theft, organizations do not use your SSN and give you a different set of numbers to identify your files. Worst of all, this means you now have yet another number to remember and forget and remember and forget.
Yet, I can stand before a congregation and recite a verse of scripture. How? When all manner of things, including even other verses of scripture, seem to defy memory, I can recall this verse without pause. I suppose it has to do in part with repetition. I eventually got my SSN down. I eventually memorized my lines by opening night.
Over the years, the verse known as “John 3:16” was impressed upon me by repetition, through children and youth education, sermons, music, church newsletters, you name it. It is a verse taken to heart by the congregations of my childhood. In turn, it became a verse that I carry with me throughout the journey of life. Indeed, this one verse of scripture speaks for so much of Christian beliefs, summing up the way Christians understand God and explains why we share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the world. These words are for everyone to know and take to heart.
Go back to the most famous verse of New Testament scripture and ponder these words carefully. The world God deeply loves is a place of great brokenness, fractured by human sin and great sorrow. God sends his one and only Son to be the salvation of the world, though some will not choose to take the Gospel at its word. According to John’s gospel, the world is a place where things are a bit grim, in need of a light to find its way out of the shadows that otherwise overwhelm. John’s prologue celebrates what God is bringing about in Jesus’ life and ministry, claiming, “the true light was coming into the world, meant for everyone” (John 1:9, paraphrased).
Such a love for the world means that not one of us is beyond redemption and not one of us is without hope. Taking this to heart, we are free to see the world with new eyes, less jaded or resigned to “fate” and more empowered and liberated to love our neighbors and ourselves in more life-giving, abundant ways. It is a word that we help the wee ones learn in Sunday school, the word informing our proclamation, and the word driving churches in word and deed alike. By doing so, we bring God’s promise fully to the world.
The German theologian Jürgen Moltmann wisely observes,
For if God has raised the persecuted, forsaken, assailed Jesus, who was executed by the power-holders of this world, then he brings the future to the persecuted, forsaken, and damned of this earth. Christ’s resurrection is the promise of a new future for the godless and God-forsaken people, and not least for the dead. (A Broad Place, Fortress Press, 2008, p. 103)
In too many places in the world are where the persecuted, forsaken, and damned live in fear, destitution, and marginalization.
In too many churches are people taught these powerful words of Gospel and given too little encouragement to go out into the midst of the world, showing the sign of the crucified One through their words and actions.
When we choose to live as children in the fullness of Christ’s incarnate ways, we cast that light further into the world, bringing hope, empowerment, and grace where there might otherwise be none. “John 3:16” goes from lips to heart to hands and feet. In doing so, the Crucified One is seen lifted up in the midst of the world.
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This Sunday, 23 March 2014
Sermon Options
TESTING GOD'S PATIENCE
EXODUS 17:1-7
Some people think that it is okay to ventilate their contentions with God. They believe that when they are exasperated with life as it is, they have a right to complain to God about the poor job God is doing. Our text challenges that line of thought. The people of Israel grumbled to Moses about his and God's failure to provide them with an adequate supply of water. To Moses, they whined, "Why did you bring us out here to die of thirst?" They questioned God's faithfulness: "Are you among us or not?" The text refers to the complaint about water as a quarrel or an aggravation to Moses, but as a testing of patience to God.
Indeed, the Lord is forbearing toward people when they complain. Despite Israel's childish whimpering, God gave them water. The point of the text is that they pushed him and in so doing tested his patience. That wasn't a smart thing to do, and Israel learned that lesson through bitter tastes of God's wrath along the way, even though they escaped on this particular occasion.
We can avoid complaining to God by adjusting our theology so that we quit blaming the Lord for our problems. No matter how we may decide to integrate the reality of suffering with our concept of God, we will not profit from blaming God. Such an exercise is detrimental to both our faith and our witness for Christ. It also destroys initiative to help ourselves.
The worst scenario would be to push God beyond the limits of his patience, as Israel did on other occasions. Then God may let us discover how much more miserable life can be than it already is.
One of the most discouraging people I've ever known was a man who became embittered toward God because his wife died young. He resisted all efforts by Christians to win him to Christ. As the root of bitterness sank deeper and deeper into his soul, he became increasingly a miserable human being, driving everyone away from him, including his family. He went to his grave blaming God for his miserable life.
On the other hand, one of the most inspiring people I've ever known was a woman whose faith was caught by her five children, resulting in her daughters becoming missionaries and her sons deacons. Her husband lost a leg in a terrible accident. After that he never regained good health and became disabled. Then he died fairly young. She lived in poverty, refusing most efforts of her children to assist her. One of her sons died in a boating accident while still a young man. She lost her sight. Yet not one person, so far as I know, ever heard her complain about her circumstances. Her love for the Lord was too large to tolerate any consideration of blaming him for her circumstances. She probably never tested God's patience. Have you? (Jerry E. Oswalt)
HOPE-FILLED PEOPLE FOR A HOPELESS AGE
ROMANS 5:1-11
Richard Halverson, chaplain of the U.S. Senate, said, "Mastered by God, I become the master of myself and of my circumstances. Mastered by anything less than God, I become the victim of myself and of my circumstances." In this passage, Paul shows that in Christ, God is offering us a new life that, once received, masters us and gives us an abiding hope that will overcome any and all circumstances.
I. Christ Offers Us a New Foundation
Paul is describing in these words the difference a life mastered by God's love in Christ will make. Life is to be lived from the foundational experience and knowledge that "God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us" (v. 8).
Our response to the circumstances of life, lived from this foundational truth, provides reason for hope, peace, and rejoicing. In Paul's way of thinking and living, this is why God's people become "more than conquerors through him who loved us" (Rom. 8:37) . The foundation of God's love in Christ provides any person a strong place to stand against whatever the circumstances may be. In a culture where circumstances seem to overcome more often than not, these are words we all need to hear, heed, and accept as true. We are now in the season of Lent. What better time than in this season of self-examination and confession to proclaim the hope, peace, and rejoicing that must be our response to the reality of God's redemptive love in our lives—even while we are still sinners!
II. Christ Offers Us a New Future
God's redemptive act in Christ leads people to become a new creation. According to Paul, this new creation is rooted and grounded in the realization that God's redeeming love is not only from something but to something. Paul wants us to realize that hope, peace, and rejoicing are the things to which redemption leads. So many persons today are concerned only with half of what the love of God has done in Christ. The church has so many times clearly proclaimed the something from which we have been saved but has failed to say our salvation is also to something. The movement of the salvation experience is from redemption to creation. To have one without the other is to fail to realize the whole story of what God has done and is doing in Christ. We are never fully mastered by God until we have experienced and been claimed by both.
The hope, peace, and rejoicing we seek to offer a hopeless age are necessary expressions of the redemption experience in our lives. If there are no hope, peace, and rejoicing in our lives, then the redemptive experience is not complete.
A United Press release in a midwestern city told of a hospital where officials discovered that the firefighting equipment had never been connected. For thirty-five years it had been relied upon for the safety of the patients in case of emergency. But it had never been attached to the city's water main. The pipe that led from the building extended four feet underground—and there it stopped! The medical staff and patients felt complete confidence in the system. They thought that if a blaze broke out, they could depend on a nearby hose to extinguish it. But theirs was a false hope. Although the costly equipment with its polished valves and well-placed outlets was adequate for the building, it lacked the most important thing: water!
Our hope must be rooted in the redemptive experience of God's love in Christ. Without redemption we cannot have the new creation. Rooted deeply in God's love as shared in Christ, may we discover the power to witness with hope, peace, and rejoicing the difference God seeks to make in a hopeless age. (Travis Franklin)
GIVE ME A DRINK
JOHN 4:5-42
"How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (v. 9). How is it that you, a resident of the suburb, ask a drink of me, a resident of the inner city? How is it that you, a northern factory worker, ask a drink of me, a southern tobacco farmer? How is it that you, who have been lumping all of us together into some invisible group, now suddenly ask something of one of us? Forces of darkness and evil are constantly working to destroy life, to diminish the good, to make us into groups and treat us as statistics and thus destroy the edges, the individual gifts, the uniqueness of all creation. And the power of God's grace is constantly working to put us individually on stage, in public, and allow us to use our special talents and abilities for the benefit of all.
I. God Already Knows Who We Are
So Jesus and the woman are at the well. She is an invisible person. She is invisible to the Jews because she is a Samaritan. They don't see her. They see labels and symbols and history, but they don't look at her. She has secrets that most people do not want to hear about. That is why she comes to the well at midday.
Many of us try to be invisible—to keep a low profile—because we think there is something about us that would make other people reject us, dislike us, oppose us, or exclude us if the secret was out. Maybe we worked in a retail store, and we used to come home with unpaid-for merchandise. Maybe we did not get the college diploma we said we did. We do not want to be put forward; we don't want to be noticed because we are afraid the attention will expose our sins and we will be condemned.
But Jesus makes this woman visible because he has a need, a thirst, and the well is deep and he has no bucket. She becomes visible when Jesus asks for help and talks with her as though she matters, talks to her as a human being, with respect and dignity, as if her being there at noon is nothing out of the ordinary.
II. God Knows Our Secrets—and God Still Wants Us
As the story unfolds, we discover the amazing thing is that Jesus already knows the secret. Jesus does not treat her with respect because he does not know. Jesus treats her as a human being even knowing the story. God already knows the secrets we are hiding. God is seeking us, calling us. God has work for us to do, and God already knows the secrets we are using as the reason for holding back.
Too many of God's people are holding back, trying to stay invisible, because we think we have secrets that will disqualify us from the work of God's kingdom. We let the secrets keep us from the challenges of being a part of the mighty work of the kingdom of God. Well, rejoice! God knows the secrets with which we live. God has forgiveness and grace available to bring those secrets to light. And in that light of his love and mercy the secrets lose power over us, and we are free to exert ourselves in the great joy and mission of God's people. The secrets are known, and yet God still has a place and a job for us. It is not that what we did does not matter; it is just that what we might do as part of God's future is so much more important that God invites us to come out to the center stage of history and join this work of being the people of God. The past can't hurt the future of God's kingdom. (Rick Brand)
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Bible Meditation
New Medieval Bible Meditation: Exodus 17:1-7 by Clifton Stringer
Third Sunday in Lent
March 23, 2014
Exodus 17:1-7 (Revised Common & Episcopal), Exodus 17:3-7 (Roman Catholic)
Is the Lenten journey starting to seem long?
At the literal level, Ex. 17:1-7 teaches (1) how the people of Israel in the wilderness find fault with Moses when they camp in a waterless place, (2) Moses’ intercession for the people, and (3) the Lord’s provision. The congregation of Israel camps at Reph’idim, but finds no water there. The people find fault with Moses, and say: “Give us water to drink.” Moses’ reply (v. 3) shows that the congregation’s treatment of Moses reveals something about their attitude toward God – they “put the Lord to the proof.” Still thirsting for water, the people begin to murmur against Moses. They accuse him, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?” Moses, seemingly sensing the developing danger, cries to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me” (v. 4). The Lord replies: Moses ought to “pass on before the people” (v. 5) and take some of Israel’s elders with him, as well as the rod with which he turned the Nile’s water into blood (Ex. 7:14-24), and “go” (v. 5). The Lord promises to “stand before” Moses “on the rock at Horeb” (v. 6). Horeb is Sinai: Moses has already encountered the Lord there in the burning bush (Ex. 3), and will later receive the Law there. Now the Lord promises that when Moses strikes “the rock,” water will come out of it, “that the people may drink” (v. 6). Moses does this with the elders of Israel watching. Moses names the place Proof and Contention, because there the people questioned whether the Lord is really with them.
At the allegorical level, we see Moses’ intercessory crying out to the Lord as a type of Jesus’ own cries in prayer: “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear” (Heb. 5:7). Thus Moses’ prayer is a type of Christ’s earthly prayers. Particularly, it is a type of Christ’s earthly prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mt. 26:36-46 and parallels), when his own betrayal and death is at hand. For Moses fears for his life, while Jesus Christ actually dies, offering his life to his Father at the hands of an angry crowd.
Further, Moses’ prayer is a type of Christ’s perfect heavenly intercession, which we glimpse in Heb. 7:25-27.
The water the thirsty congregation craves is a type of the “living water” (Jn. 4:10, 7:38) Christ gives those who believe in him. Most deeply understood, this living water is the Holy Spirit.
The Lord tells Moses to “Pass on before the people,” which is a figure of the Passover – Moses risks becoming a paschal lamb – and most especially a figure of Jesus Christ’s Passover through death to eternal risen life. For Christ our Head goes to heaven before his body the Church, and yet the Head is not separated from the body, though the Head has passed on before the body into the Father’s heavenly abode. It is as though the risen Christ is emerging from the dark tomb, and his head is already in the sunlight, but his body is still passing toward the sunlight.
“The elders of Israel” (v.5) are thus a figure for those apostles who saw Christ risen or his ascension. In a different way, “the elders of Israel” (v. 6) are all those who witness that Christ gives the Holy Spirit, i.e., that the rock springs forth water.
St. Paul himself teaches that this rock is a figure for Christ in 1 Corinthians 10:1-6.
The “rod” in Moses’ hand, which turned the water to blood, represents the cross Christ carries to his Passover, the cross he bids his disciples carry. Water is used in baptism, and this joins us to the death of the one crucified for us (Rom. 6:3-7): hence, the water turns to blood. Note that both blood and water flow from Jesus’ side (Jn. 19:34).
The main point of this passage is that God performs a sign through Moses, which ought to transform the hearts of God’s people. The sign that is powerful and effective to transform our hearts is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ himself.
At the moral level, we see two things of note. First, Ex. 17:1-7 helps us reflect on what we demand of our leaders. For example, is the first demand (v. 2) of the Israelites reasonable? It depends on the spirit in which it is made. They have seen God do miracles by Moses’ hand, and so they could ask this from faith. On the other hand, they ask something they know is beyond human power to provide – water in a waterless place. As the passage continues, we see that they are not asking from faith, since they murmur.
The most perfect way for us to treat Christian leaders, though, is for us to ask God to do things through them that exceed their unaided human power. This is what happens in the sacraments, for example, or when grace operates through a preacher’s sermon or advice. So it is reasonable, since God is a God who does more than “all we ask or imagine” (Eph. 3:20), to hope and have faith that God will continue to operate in this way through Christian leaders who, in themselves, are sinners like all of us. Note, though, that the peoples’ object of faith in this case is God; hence they do not demand miracles from their pastors or priests, etc., as though these people are Pharaoh’s wizards and have power to do these things. But they trust in God to work powerfully and encourage their leaders to have this same hope in God.
Second, we see that God calls Christians who would lead to “pass on before” the people, in a way that manifests their intercession for the people, and makes them vulnerable. They thus rely only on God’s power, as Christ relies wholly on God’s power in allowing himself to be killed. The Church is a “royal priesthood” (1 Pet. 2:9), gathered from all nations, and sent on before the world; the figure of Moses is thus a type, in Christ, of the boldness asked, in different ways, of every Christian.
The anagogical sense of this verse is suggested strongly by some of the above allegorical and moral senses: In Moses’ intercession, we see the mystery of how our prayers, intercessions, and sacrifices for one another participate in, and are perfected by, Christ’s own perfect intercession and sacrifice. This is imaged in the Church as she offers the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist as the culmination of her own graced prayers. Hence, as Augustine says, in this sacrament of holy communion the Church “demonstrates that she herself is offered in the offering that she makes to God” (City of God 10.6, Dyson trans.; cf. Rom. 12:1-2). And this movement by which we are offered up with Christ to the Father through the Spirit is a manifestation and glimpse of the love who is the Holy Trinity, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
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New Medieval Bible Meditations: Scripture Interpretations for Preachers, Nuns, and other Guilty Bystanders is Clifton Stringer’s contribution to the renewal of the Church’s reading and teaching of the Holy Bible. I try to pick a passage from the lectionary for the coming Sunday, ideally one shared by both Roman Catholic and Protestant (both Revised Common & Episcopalian) lectionaries.
The premise of this method of interpretation is that Sacred Scripture, because it is divine revelation, has wondrous depths. That Scripture is ‘divine revelation’ means that Scripture is divine truth and wisdom graciously shown to us by God. Scripture is thus a created participation in the divine Word (Jn. 1:1) who is the second person of the Holy Trinity. Sacred Scripture is thus, and ultimately, a participation in God’s own knowledge, the very joyful eternal life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Scripture is shared with us out of love that we might become wise and good, and be saved.
Since the infinite God is the author of Sacred Scripture, in addition to Scripture’s “literal or historical” sense, many passages of the Bible will have mystical senses (or spiritual senses). The literal sense is, as it were, the fountain and foundation of these mystical senses. These mystical senses are usually reckoned at three: the allegorical sense, the moral sense, and the anagogical sense.
Here is how St. Bonaventure describes these three mystical senses: “Allegory occurs when by one thing is indicated another which is a matter of belief” – like when one thing in Scripture prefigures another later thing, or builds on an earlier prefiguration. “The tropological or moral understanding occurs when, from something done, we learn something else which we should do” – like when Christ or an apostle does something holy that we must imitate. “The anagogical meaning, a kind of ‘lifting upwards,’ occurs when we are shown what it is we should desire, that is, the eternal happiness of the blessed” – that is, when we catch a glimpse of the glory of God.
Aquinas even notes that, since God understands all things through one infinite act of being, God can intend for there to be more than one meaning of a scripture at the literal level.
All four senses (literal, allegorical, moral, anagogical) are effective for preaching, teaching, and training in righteousness, as the Spirit leads.
To reflect further on these senses consider, for example, Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae 1.1.10 or Bonaventure’s Breviloquium, Prologue, section 4.
Also note that, in writing these meditations, I do not do any ‘historical critical’ research into the passages. If you would like to do this, it can add to your understanding of the literal sense, and even sometimes spur your imagination among the other senses. But many modern scholars focus on ‘historical critical’ questions almost exclusively; read their works, insofar as it is helpful for knowing and teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ; there is no need for me to reinvent the wheel.
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Worship Elements by Joanne Carlson Brown
Third Sunday in Lent
COLOR: Purple
SCRIPTURE READINGS: Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42
THEME IDEAS
Hope can be in short supply when you are wandering in the desert not knowing if or when you will arrive at your destination; when you are a woman shunned by your community; when your community is not listening to God’s voice. But hope takes many forms—water in the desert, living water at a well, encountering a person who changes your life, knowing a God who has created everything and loves all that has been created.
INVITATION AND GATHERING
Call to Worship (Psalm 95, Romans 5)
O come, let us sing to our God
and make a joyful noise
to the rock of our salvation.
We lift our hearts and voices
in joy and thanksgiving
for being here together
in the presence of our beloved God.
Come, let us worship this amazing God,
for we belong to God.
We will listen for God’s word
and live in the hope it inspires.
Opening Prayer (Exodus 17, Romans 5, John 4)
Loving and caring God,
we come this morning in hope—
hope that will sustain us in our trying times,
our lonely times, our doubting times.
Refresh us this morning with the living water
of your presence and love.
Open us to the possibilities of friendship—
the possibilities of encountering you
in unexpected ways,
the possibilities of seeing the miraculous
in everyday life. Amen.
PROCLAMATION AND RESPONSE
Prayer of Confession (Exodus 17)
Patient and ever-faithful God,
we come to you this morning
confessing that we can be a grumpy
and unsatisfied people.
When things are not perfect in our eyes,
we murmur and complain,
and grumble and doubt.
We lose hope in the people around us
and, even worse, we lose hope in you.
We challenge instead of accept.
We put you to the test
rather than trust your caring love.
Forgive our doubts and complaining.
Forgive our loss of hope.
Let your healing, life-giving waters pour over us.
Restore our souls. Amen.
Words of Assurance (Exodus 17, Romans 5, John 4)
Our hope and assurance
rest in God’s unfailing love and forgiveness.
Open your hearts and minds and souls
that the healing waters
of God’s never-ending love and forgiveness
may flow into and over you.
Know that in this love and forgiveness
you have encountered the living God.
Passing the Peace (Romans 5, John 4)
Let us greet one another with words of hope—words that come from the wellspring of love flowing within us because of our encounter with the living Christ.
Response to the Word (Romans 5, John 4)
For the word of hope that pours over us
like living water,
for the word of grace that leads us to encounter
the living Christ,
we offer you our thanks, O God.
THANKSGIVING AND COMMUNION
Invitation to the Offering (Romans 5, John 4)
We are called to live in hope and to share this hope with the world. Let us offer thanks to God for all God has given us by sharing generously of ourselves and of our resources. Through our gifts, may all experience the hope to be found in our life-giving God.
Offering Prayer (Exodus 17, John 4)
Life-giving God,
we offer you ourselves and our resources.
Use us and our gifts,
that we may be water bearers
to a world thirsty for love,
for meaning, for justice, and for hope.
May all your people encounter fullness of life
through the love of Christ, which lives within us.
Amen.
SENDING FORTH
Benediction (Exodus 17, Romans 5, John 4)
We have encountered the living God
through the love of the living Christ.
We have been refreshed by living water.
Go now to live in the hope this encounter inspires.
Be water bearers to a dry and parched world,
knowing that the God of love and hope
goes before you and with you always. Amen.
CONTEMPORARY OPTIONS
Gathering Words (Exodus 17, Romans 5, John 4)
Come and see . . . water gushing from a rock.
Come and see . . . someone who knows you
through and through.
Come and see . . . hope alive, right here, right now.
Come and see . . . then give God thanks and praise.
We come to worship the God of life and love.
Praise Sentences (Psalm 95)
Sing praise to God!
Our God is a great God!
Come worship and kneel before God our maker!
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Worship Connection by Nancy C. Townley
Third Sunday in Lent
COLOR: Purple
SCRIPTURE READINGS: Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42
The theme for Lent: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS AT THE CROSS
Each week a script will be provided, following the gospel lesson, concerning those whom Jesus met.
CALLS TO WORSHIP
Call to Worship #1:
L: Come, let us sing to the Lord!
P: Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
L: Let us come into God’s presence with thanksgiving!
P: Let us make a joyful noise to God with songs of praise!
L: Come, let us worship and celebrate God’s loving presence with us.
P: We sing to God with our hearts and our spirits. AMEN.
Call to Worship #2:
L: When we hunger
P: We cry to the Lord, “Help us, O Lord.”
L: When we thirst
P: We cry to the Lord, “Help us, O Lord.”
L: God who created the heavens and the earth hears our cries.
P: Lord, come and quench our thirst and heal our hunger. AMEN.
Call to Worship #3:
[Using THE FAITH WE SING, p. 2132, “You Who Are Thirsty,” offer the following call to worship as directed.] [Have a soloist sing “You Who Are Thirsty” through twice, so that the bridge “He will freely feed; all of them who are weak,” etc, may be heard.]
L: We come to the well of fear and doubt.
P: We have drawn deeply of those waters.
L: We come to the well of anger and hate.
P: These waters flourish in all the land.
L: Lord, bring us to the water of peace and hope.
P: Lord, bring us to the well of salvation. AMEN.
Soloist: singing “You Who Are Thirsty”
Call to Worship #4:
L: Jesus bids us welcome. He brings peace and forgiveness.
P: Yet we dwell in the midst of doubt and fear.
L: Jesus bids us welcome. He brings hope and healing.
P: But we persist in our ways of stubbornness and greed.
L: Jesus, come among us once more and bring us your word of Peace.
P: Open our hearts, our spirits, our souls to receive your healing Word. AMEN.
PRAYERS, READING, BENEDICTION
Opening Prayer
Wellspring of eternal life, we come to you this day having drunk deeply the waters of anxiety and despair. Bring to us your living water. Quench our thirsting souls, for we offer this prayer in Your Name. AMEN.
Prayer of Confession
God of living waters, we confess that we have often turned from you and wandered in our own wildernesses of fear and doubt. Our thirst mounts daily, seeking to be quenched by your redeeming love. Yet, when that love is offered to us, we again turn away, unable to truly believe that you would actually heal and love us. We have behaved in very unloving ways. We have chosen to ignore those in need or to deal only passively with them. Our hearts are not placed in service to others, but rather in self-serving motives. Heal us, merciful God. Wash us again in the living water. Help us be faithful servants. AMEN
Words of Assurance
The waters of mercy and healing are poured over you. God is loving and faithful to those who come to God. Come, seek the loving presence and be healed. AMEN.
Pastoral Prayer
Lord of living water, pour your mercy on us. Wash us clean and make us true disciples. Help us move from the paths of selfishness and stubbornness, to the channels of hope and peace. Enable us to place our whole trust in your love. As we have brought the names of those near and dear to us to your throne of grace in prayer, remind us again that you also hold us dearly and offer to us your healing grace. Keep us strong and give us courage to serve you in all that we do. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. AMEN.
Readers’ Theater: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS AT THE CROSS: THE WOMAN AT THE WELL
[The large rough wooden cross is placed in the front of the chancel/worship area. Place burlap at the base to cover the stand. Have the same person read the part of Jesus each week. It should be someone with a good speaking voice. Each person who encounters Jesus will be wearing/carrying a length of cloth. When their encounter with Jesus is complete, they place the cloth over the arm of the cross and leave. The purple fabric, worn last week by Nicodemus, is removed from the cross and draped down the left front of the worship center, slightly overlapping the black fabric of Satan].
Narrator: Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water.
Jesus: Give me a drink.
Woman: How is it that you, a Jew, are asking a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?
Jesus: If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.
Woman: Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where will you get the living water? This is the well of our ancestor Jacob. Are you greater than Jacob?
Jesus: Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.
Woman: Sir, give me this water so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.
Jesus: Go, and call your husband and come back.
Woman: I have no husband.
Jesus: You have told the truth. You have had five husbands and the one you now have is not your husband.
Woman: You must be a prophet! I have a question for you. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.
Jesus: Believe me, the time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know, we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
Woman: I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.
Jesus: I am he, the one who is speaking to you.
Narrator: Just then his disciples, who had gone into town to get some food, returned to Jesus and were astonished that he was having a conversation with the woman. The woman left her water jar and went back to the city to tell the people to come and see a man who had told her everything that she had ever done. And the people came back with her to the well. The disciples meanwhile tried to encourage Jesus to have something to eat, but he replied to their queries
Jesus: My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, "Four months more, then comes the harvest"? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, "One sows and another reaps." I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.
Narrator: Many of the Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”
Benediction
Drink deeply of the waters of Salvation and quench your thirst for truth, for the Lord is with you. Go in God’s peace and bring the good news to all whom you meet. AMEN.
ARTISTIC ELEMENTS
The traditional color for today is: Purple; I am also using “character” colors in the worship setting. [The large wooden cross, suggested in the Readers’ Theater segment, is placed in the worship center. Burlap covers the base of the cross.]
SURFACE: There are no risers on the worship center.
FABRIC: Cover the worship center with purple fabric so that it drapes to the floor but does not puddle on the floor. Place the purple fabric on the worship center, slightly overlapping the black cloth from last week. These fabrics should puddle on the floor.
CANDLES: Place two candles on the worship center, on either side of an open Bible.
FLOWERS/PLANTS: No plants are suggested for this setting.
ROCKS/WOOD: No rocks and wood are suggested for this setting.
OTHER: Place an open Bible on the center of the worship table.
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Worship for Kids by Carolyn C. Brown
From a Child's Point of View
Old Testament: Exodus 17:1-7. Do not assume that children know the context of this story. Before reading it, explain that the people Moses led across the desert had been slaves in Egypt. God had sent ten horrible plagues to convince the king of Egypt to let them go, and then had rescued them when they seemed hopelessly trapped between the king's army and the Sea of Reeds.
Though the children will follow the action of the story, they will need help to recognize the amazing lack of trust on the part of the people whom God had cared for so well. Older children enjoy exploring the meaning of the names: Massah, which means trying (as in "You are trying my patience!) and Meribah, which means fault-finding or complaining. The significance of the names helps them to recognize the sin of the people.
Psalm: 95. The praise hymn in verses 1-7a is easy for children, but before they can understand the warning in verses 7b-11, they must hear the Exodus text with enough attention paid to the names Massah and Meribah that they will recognize the reference to that story. To children, the warning is not to try God's patience with constant complaints about what they want and need, but to trust God to love and care for them. Verse 10 in The New Jerusalem Bible speaks clearly to older children. God is speaking:
For forty years that generation sickened me, and I said, "Always fickle hearts; they cannot grasp my ways."
Grumbling and otherwise trying the patience of partners can be used as an example of what it means to test someone and try their patience. But do not use this psalm as a warning against complaining in general. Focus on trusting or not trusting God.
Epistle: Romans 5:1-11. This passage states the point of the Old Testament texts in a Christian setting, and in theological language that is beyond children. Read it for the adults.
Its message in relation to the other texts is that though the travelers in the desert had ample proof of God's love and care, we have even more striking proof in Jesus. If this is pointed out in concrete terms, it can remind the children that they should not follow the example of the exslaves in the desert.
Gospel: John 4:5-42. This complicated passage includes a word play on water, a tricky conversation about an old Jewish-Samaritan dispute, the use of water as a symbol for all that is life-giving and refreshing, and a collection of harvest images. To avoid totally overwhelming children, consider reading only verses 5-26.
Even older children have trouble appreciating Jesus' word play on living or running water. They respond more quickly to the general need for water. Though symbolism is difficult for children, the symbol her is a good one for beginners. John's point is that God's Word and loving care are as important as water to our survival and to our refreshed happiness. Exploring the function of water, and then comparing it to the function of knowing God and God's Word leads children to John's message.
Watch Words
In today's texts, faith is trusting God to continue loving and caring for us as God has done in our past.
Avoid all forms of justified and reconciled in Romans 5. Instead of explaining these complex, abstract terms, move directly to Paul's insistence that we need not worry about anything because God continues to care for us.
Rather than speaking of God's providence (most recognized by children as the capital of Rhode Island), cite specific examples of that loving care.
Let the Children Sing
Praise God, who loves and cares for us in so many ways, with "Now Thank We All Our God" or "For the Beauty of the Earth." Both cite everyday examples of God's love in simple words.
For yourselves and for the slaves in the desert, sing "God Will Take Care of You." Nonreaders can join in on the much repeated title phrase.
The Liturgical Child
1. Present today's texts dramatically:
• Let the frustration of all parties show in your voice and your posture as you read the exchanges in Exodus 17. Use the tones and the inflections that thirsty, tired people would use at the end of another hot, dry day.
• Present the Gospel text as a play, with the worship leader reading John 4:5-7a from the lectern as a costumed Jesus takes his place by a well (or sits on a stool). A woman enters carrying a water jug, and she and Jesus engage in conversation with parts memorized (if possible). Ask older youths or adults to take these parts, and work with them on facial expression, posture, and voice inflections. Their presentations will be essential in bringing an intricate conversation to life. The narrator could read verses 39-42 to complete the story.
• Preserve the division in Psalm 95 by having the congregation read verses 1-7a in unison or responsively, with a worship leader reading verses 7b-11 in the role of the warning priest.
2. Go all-out to appeal to the sense of hearing. Fill the sanctuary with the sound of bubbling water; borrow or rent a champagne fountain and fill it with water. Then challenge a parishioner to create a worship center by placing greens and flowers around the fountain. The display could be on the chancel table or off to one side, perahsp near the baptismal font.
Sermon Resources
1. Imagine with the congregation that it is a hot summer day. Describe the heat of the burning sun, sticky sweat, a dry thirsty mouth. Remember together how it feels to jump into a cool swimming pool or stand in a cool late-afternoon rainstorm. Think about cold drinks you enjoy in summer and imagine drinking an icy cold glass of water. Then review what Jesus was telling the woman at the well and us. (During later winter in cold climates, worshipers of all ages are quite willing to try this, though they may claim they cannot remember ever being hot, or even warm.)
2. Create a modern-day version of the complaining travelers in Exodus 17. Describe a family on the second day of a long drive to Disney World (or some other distant place children love to go). Describe the late afternoon grumbling: "Aren't we there yet?"; "He's on my side, Daddy! He's picking on me"; "Nobody ever pays any attention to me!"; "What do you mean, there isn't a motel for the next hundred miles! I thought you had this planned!"; "How come we can't fly? The Joneses did!"; and so forth. Compare this grumpy group with the thirsty slaves freed from Egypt.
3. After exploring the lack of trust among the Hebrews at Massah and Meribah, give worshipers indidivual packets of M&Ms. Suggest that as they enjoy this treat later today, they name one way God loves and cares for them for each piece of candy eaten. Families might enjoy eating the candies together and sharing their ideas.
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Ministry Matters
201 8th Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37202 United States
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