"Fearing our fears | Prayers for Orlando | What clergy families really look like" Ministry Matters in Nashville, Tennessee, United States Preach. Teach. Worship. Reach. Lead. for Wednesday, 15 June 2016
"Fearing our fears" by William H. WillimonPolice help distribute candles before a vigil in Portland, Oregon for victims of the Orlando shooting. Photo courtesy of Benjamin Kerensa
Speaking to his students at Liberty University earlier this year, President Jerry Falwell Jr. said, “It just blows my mind that the president of the United States” wants “more gun control.” Liberty students applauded when Falwell said that the shooting at San Bernadino wouldn’t have happened if any of the victims had “what I have in my back pocket right now.” (A .25 pistol.) More applause. “Is it legal to pull it out? I don’t know.” Huge ovation from the students.
At most colleges, you’ve got to pay tuition. At Liberty, you must also pay Colt Firearms for protection. Back when I was in college, they made you master history and algebra; now the president of a university expects you to pack heat.
When a lone gunman worked horror at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Donald Trump reiterated his promise: If we elect him, he will close our borders to Muslims — even though by that time Trump knew the shooter had never been an immigrant. The mass murderer was a native born hater of gay people, a violent spouse abuser who legally bought a Colt assault weapon which enabled him to commit carnage on a scale previously unknown in America.
If, as someone has said, perfect love casts out fear, then Trump shows that exploited fear casts out clear thinking.
Neuroscience has copiously documented that fear is detrimental to reasonableness. As our level of fear goes up, powers of judgment, decision-making and evaluation go down. That’s one reason why fear tends to be a function of our imagination more than the reality of our true situation, fear out of proportion to the threat of the object of our fear, fear that plays upon our insecurities and leads us to irrational response. There are now more guns than people in America. Limbic systems gone wild?
Scott Bader-Saye, in his fine book Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear (Brazos, 2007), notes that the top killers in the United States are heart disease, cancer and stroke. Yet our top fears are terrorists, pedophiles, plane crashes. Though crime rates are dropping, two-thirds of us think they are rising. The population most fearful of victimization by violence (people my age) is least likely to be victimized by violent crime (young adult men are most vulnerable). A major justification for the purchase of a firearm is self-defense against bad people; most handgun deaths are gun accidents by a friend or family member, a domestic dispute or suicide by our own hand. Avid TV viewers are more likely than others to believe their neighborhoods are unsafe, assume that crime rates are rising, and overestimate their odds of becoming a victim, and they are more likely to own guns.
The governor of North Carolina is so terrified of transgendered people in restrooms that he gets a law to protect us, protecting us from a crime that doesn’t exist. The law says more about our Governor’s fears than about a real threat.
Trump’s response to Orlando, as well as copious comments during his campaign validates brain scientists’ research that fear induces stupidity. Sadly, his responses are more like those of ISIS than American democratic values. Throughout American history, demagogues can’t resist appealing to our fear, attempting to leverage our fear into votes for them, though I hope that Trump is selling us short.
Somehow we must muster the ability not to fear the wrong things in the wrong way, and to fear the right things in the right way. It’s not too much to expect those who would lead us to be able to discern the difference between a frightened Syrian refugee and a would-be ISIS terrorist.
While it’s not wrong to fear, fear can lead us to disastrous mistakes in judgment. Fear is a necessary protective, defensive mechanism. However, outside of life in the bush, in the modern world, fear is a response that must be critically, carefully examined. What we need is some way honestly to acknowledge having fear, to weigh our fears and to respond thoughtfully without fear having us.
“Fear not” is an expression found in over three hundred places in Scripture. Jesus frequently says “fear not,” but on one occasion Jesus urges fear upon his disciples: “Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body but can’t kill the soul. Instead, be afraid of the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell” (Matthew 10:28 CEB). When I take requests for prayer on Sunday mornings, it’s always petitions for healing of bodily ills, never for help with the sad state of our souls. In light of Jesus’s statement in Matthew 10:28, I’d say that when Scripture urges us to “fear God,” it means that we ought to fear displeasing God more than we fear others.
The key to courage is not the banishment of all fear but fear of the right things in the right way. Our problem, in regard to fear, is that we fear the Other more than we fear the God who commands, “Love each other.”
A major Christian claim is that Jesus Christ gives us the operative grace (in the words of our beloved hymn) that teaches our “heart to fear” disappointing God and also the grace that enables our irrational, harm-producing fears to be “relieved.” Fear is a natural human protective mechanism. And yet, part of the joy of being a Christian is to have a whole host of otherwise innate inclinations (such as, adultery) mastered by the love of Christ.
At its best, the church teaches us to be afraid of our propensity to be fearful, to resist our innate tendencies to regard others as enemies rather than sisters and brothers in Christ, to refuse vainly to attempt to secure our lives through the world’s means rather than God’s means — the way of Jesus Christ. If we are disciples, then it’s our responsibility, in a culture of fear and fear mongers, to show the world the joy of living by faith rather than fear. A Christian is called to be a showcase of what Jesus can do that the world cannot.
Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, speaks at the 2016 CPAC Conference. Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore
After hearing the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre spewing hate against the president, the attorney general, and anyone who dares to cross him, my anger was burning white hot. Then I took the trouble to read some of LaPierre’s speeches and, despite my revulsion, my heart went out to this sad man. Even though he is paid a million dollars a year through NRA dues, Wayne LaPierre turns out to be the most frightened man in America. Seized by paralyzing terror, he appears to have no hope for himself, his nation, or the future other than Colt Inc. Fear extracts a heavy toll in the lives it masters. Jesus promises us that we can be more than conquerors — never by getting a gun, not by building walls between ourselves and those for whom Christ died, and not even through our heroic mastering our fears — but by allowing ourselves and our fears to be mastered by the one who majestically commands and then gives us the means to obey, “Fear not!”
William H. Willimon is Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at the Divinity School, Duke University. He is recently retired after serving eight years as Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of The United Methodist Church. Bishop Willimon is the author of Fear of the Other from Abingdon Press, and Pulpit Resource, a homiletical weekly published in partnership with Abingdon Press and Ministry Matters. 
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"Prayers for Orlando" by Justin Coleman Bigstock/Bychykhin Olexandr
Jesus weeps, and so do we. We mourn for the loss of lives in Orlando as we do whenever senseless tragedy strikes a blow. We pray for the friends and family of all the victims and all who are affected in every way. We pray for the healing and recovery of all those who are wounded. We pray for the city of Orlando, the state of Florida, for the United States, and our world asking for the Holy Spirit to “plead our case with unexpressed groans” (Romans 8:26, CEB).
As a part of the renunciation of sin in our baptismal vows, United Methodists “accept the freedom and power God gives [us] to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.”
Sunday’s horrific event is being called the deadliest mass shooting in US history. Such mass shootings can only be named as evil and God calls us to resist them and the conditions, both spiritual and temporal, that make them possible.
We also pray for the eradication of hate. Hate is a product of evil. Sadly, hate is instantly available to us — all we have to do is activate the membership each of us have in the sinfulness of the human condition. Hate is an evil that must be resisted in every form it presents itself. The news reports that this shooting was well planned in its timing, target, and execution. This time the target was an LGBT nightclub. Christ, have mercy.
All Christians unite against hate and violent actions toward any group. We are unified in our witness of love, care, mercy and healing as we exercise the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil and to work to mend this broken and hurting world.
Let us pray…
Lamb of God,
you take away the sins of the world.
Have mercy on us.
Grant us peace.
For the unbearable toil of our sinful world,
we plead for remission.
For the terror of absence from our beloved,
we plead for your comfort.
For the scandalous presence of death in your creation,
we plead for resurrection.
Lamb of God,
you take away the sins of the world.
Have mercy on us.
Grant us peace.
Come, Holy Spirit, and heal all that is broken in our lives, in our streets, and in our world.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.[from Common Prayer]
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"What clergy families really look like" by Kira SchlesingerBigstock/PHOTOCREO Michal Bednarek
Last week, the Facebook page for Hacking Christianity posted a graphic that was produced by the clergy spouses in the Texas United Methodist Conference entitled “Top 10 Ways to Encourage Your Spouse and Church Staff.” According to the document, it was the product of brainstorming at a monthly meeting that takes place on Tuesday mornings and was published in the Spring Texas Annual Conference Clergy Spouses Newsletter. While certainly well-intentioned, the tenor of the list reads as painfully tone-deaf to many of us operating in the 21st century church. In particular, #10 quotes “a wise clergy spouse” who at a retreat quipped, “Just love ‘em and wear lipstick!”
I have written about the unique and often awkward role of clergy husbands on Ministry Matters before, but since that time, the culture of the church still has not caught up to the reality of the family lives of many of its clergy. Not only are some of our clergy spouses husbands whose strengths might not lie in wearing lipstick or hosting the staff Christmas party, some of them might be clergy themselves or not even Christian. In other denominations, clergy spouses might be the same gender as the clergyperson. Additionally, positions that allow a clergyperson to support their family with only that income are scarce and growing scarcer.
Documents like this one out of the Texas United Methodist Conference continue to perpetuate a dated and unrealistic view of what the family lives of clergy are like, not to mention adding another list of “shoulds” to the high expectations many clergy spouses receive both implicitly and explicitly. Ultimately, every couple, every family situation, every call or placement is different, and couples with one or more clergy will need to work out for themselves how to best support one another in their ministerial vocations as well as their Christian vocation.
That being said, one thing this list gets right is an emphasis on supporting a clergyperson’s efforts at self-care, whether that’s encouraging friendships outside of church, a relationship with a spiritual director or therapist or making sure he or she sets aside time for activities that feed the soul. In conversation with other young clergywomen about this post, this aspect came up over again. Supporting me might look like helping me keep my Sabbath (i.e., don’t give me chores to do on my “day off”), making sure we plan vacations and time off together, and taking on some of the emotional labor for our extended families, particularly around the holidays.
As with any couple, an awareness of particularly high-stress meetings or seasons goes a long way, whether that’s offering to make a cup of tea or pour a glass of wine after a rough finance committee meeting or recognizing that I’m more prone to picking a fight during Holy Week because I’m tired and emotional. Likewise, I give my spouse space before big deadlines and pick up the slack around the house during his unusually hectic times, though we both are responsible for our own Sunday morning breakfast most weeks.
While intending to be helpful and encouraging, lists like these promote an ideal version of a clergy spouse and family that is at odds with the reality of most clergy and their families, particularly in the 21st century. Rather than an encouragement, too often it feels like yet another reminder of all the ways clergy and their families fail to live up to the expectations of the church. More and more, clergy families mirror the complexity and diversity of the families in our pews — single parents, same-gender parents, married couples without kids, divorced and blended families, families where both adults work outside the home, families where the father is the primary parent and families with religious differences. All of these are beautiful and holy expressions of what it means to be a family and should be supported and lifted up in the family of Jesus Christ into which we have been baptized.
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"Baptists, Bernie and holy places"
By Shane Raynor
In this episode of News and Religion, Christy Thomas, Tom Fuerst and I discuss the membership decline of the Southern Baptist Convention, the similarities of the Bernie Sanders campaign to a religious revival and rival Christian groups in Jerusalem coming together to renovate the site where Jesus is believed to have been buried.
Related news articles:Southern Baptists decline as Assemblies of God grow
Will Bernie Sanders’ defeat also end America’s latest Great Awakening?
Christians renovate Christ's tomb in Jerusalem together in sign of unity
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"The politics and prayers of death"
By Mark Lockard
"People dying, as a result of the plague" by A.L. Tar [CC BY 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Speaking at the Faith and Family Coalition’s Road to Majority conference this morning, Senator David Perdue (R-GA) referenced a psalm while speaking about President Obama. The beauty of the Book of Psalms is that they cover the broad range of human emotions, giving us words to hold close whether we’re angry, peaceful, grieving, scared, joyous, thankful, or any combination thereof. So it’s particularly troubling, then, that a powerful public official would use his platform to quote the particular verse he did. It’s especially troubling that it was directed at our highest civic leader. So what did he say, exactly?
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Sen. David Perdue says that we should pray for Obama, like in Psalm 108:9 "let his days be few." #RTM2016 #christian
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Maybe you’re thinking to yourself, “Well that’s not so bad. Maybe he shouldn’t be using the Bible to express distaste for the president, or any person, but he wants the guy out of office and the verse was a way (albeit tacky) to say that.”
But that falls into the trap that I suspect Senator Perdue fell into by using the verse in the first place: proof-texting. It’s an issue that our regular contributor Zack Hunt speaks about often here on Ministry Matters and on his blog. The idea that you can pick out one verse from a sacred text, especially one as large and complex as the Bible, and ignore the context — either the words directly before and after it, the history of the passage, the cultural situation in which it was written, the identity of the writer, etc. — is, to put it bluntly, foolish. Which is why his use of this particular verse, Psalm 109:8, is especially disturbing. What follows in the King James Version, the version quoted, is this:
At the very worst, he knew exactly what he was doing: wielding the Bible as a weapon; forgoing the grace and mercy of Christ in favor of the current political climate which seeks to use faith as a means of dealing death and separation; being glib about the downfall of his neighbor; and doing all this in the name of Christ by means of holy words.
I’d like to be generous and say that it’s most likely the first. Senator Perdue probably just picked a verse that’s been circulating for a while as a way to talk about Obama using “Christian” language, and he didn’t really think about the rest of the passage just like so many Biblically illiterate Christians unaware of the dangers of proof-texting tend to do.
But it’s hard to be generous when this approach, especially when talking about President Obama in conservative Christian circles (and ESPECIALLY when using this particular verse), is not new. We’ve been talking about the insidious implications of lobbing Psalm 109:8 about since 2009. At some point, you just have to set your jaw and accept that people know precisely what they’re doing, what they’re saying directly or indirectly, and what weight their words carry.
I shouldn’t be surprised. We in America have let our public sphere and the politics which govern it become defined by death. Death in the physical sense, as we let political hemming and hawing overshadow the disproportionate death of minorities at the hands of the state. Death in the emotional/mental sense, as we collectively allow the demonization and marginalization of those who need our support most: the orphan; the widow; women who are told that their bodies are property to be assaulted, neglected, coldly discussed and decided upon without their consent; our LGBTQ sisters and brothers whose community suffers elevated suicide rates because of our society’s choice to hate and shun rather than be resolute in our presence, understanding, and love; those communities of color who are disproportionately subjugated to the racist systems which give rise to poverty-to-prison cycles. And death in the spiritual sense, as we allow politicians and politically-infused, nationalist Christianity to tell us not only who our neighbors aren’t but how not to love them.
This is the political and spiritual tone we’ve set in modern America. It isn’t pretty, it isn’t life-giving, and it sure doesn’t feel like something Jesus-followers would want to have a hand in. So what are we to do? Well, for Christians there is a straight-forward answer that is often incredibly hard to implement: love God with all your heart and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.
That’s in the Bible, and I hope it’s a verse Senator Perdue and any who took pleasure in his scripture of choice would read and pray over. Because when Christians use our sacred text to make a point, the first thing we should be asking is “Does what I’m about to use scripture for match what scripture is actually for?” We have the Word because the Word breathes life.
When we open the Word and speak it out, hearing it ourselves and imploring fellow Christians to hear it, we’re asking for Life and Love to infuse our meaning and our message. In that moment, the Spirit through the Word can work to change hearts and minds. All of which is pretty hard to claim if what you’re using a cherry-picked Bible verse for is to pray a curse upon a guy you’ve hated for eight years.
5. Check your Encouragement File. When you feel like you are a failure and have never done anything of eternal value for Jesus, check your Encouragement File and read the notes and cards people have sent you through the years. It will make you realize that the truth is in those testimonies, not in the lies running around in your head. Oh! You don’t have an Encouragement File? Then today is the day to start …
Some of these ideas are found in chapter four of my new book Solve. That chapter is called "Oppositionists" and communicates the core truth that God sends opposition to grow desperation.
Talbot Davis is pastor of Good Shepherd United Methodist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina and the author of Solve, Head Scratchers: When the Words of Jesus Don't Make Sense, The Storm Before the Calm and The Shadow of a Doubt, all from Abingdon Press.
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"This Sunday, June 19, 2016"
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost: 1 Kings 19:1-15a; Psalm 42; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39
Around this time three years ago, I was sitting at Panera Bread working on some project or other. It was the most ordinary day imaginable—a little bit of rain pattering on the bushes outside, the normal bustle of Panera happening in the periphery of my headphoned consciousness. You’d think what happened next would have long since vanished from my memory because of its seeming insignificance. But as I was contemplating this sermon, the memory of that day at Panera started playing like a film in my head.
I was just sitting there drinking green tea, working on my computer, and listening to Beethoven’s piano sonatas. Then something pulled my attention. A young woman, whom I had idly noticed when I sat down and then promptly forgotten, was talking on her cell phone. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the young woman’s brow crease. Her free hand went to her mouth. My internal pastoral alarm bells started blaring. The woman began to collapse inward. Here it comes, I thought.
“How long will it take me to get to the hospital from the airport?” Her voiced trembled as she asked the question, panic mixing with at least a veneer of bravery. She clung to her cell phone as if it were a flotation device.
I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the woman. She’s not one of mine, I thought. I’m not on duty right now. I’m not wearing the uniform today.
But even as these thoughts entered my mind, I felt the muscles in my arms and legs tense. My chest constricted. For a horrible moment, I felt myself unraveling. I was unmade. I was a traitor in my own body.
I know this seems like an overreaction or hyperbole employed for dramatic effect. But it is entirely accurate. So why would such a small event as me overhearing an anonymous woman in distress cause me to plummet into a moment of existential crisis?
Because I had a choice. I could ignore the woman in need or I could do something – anything – to help her. One of those choices would affirm the true self, the authentic person who God created me to be. And one wouldn’t. I chose the latter. When I chose to embrace the false self, the inauthentic person, I felt myself start to fray around the edges.
Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever felt yourself start to unravel, so to speak, because of a decision you made that runs counter to the person you know you are?
Perhaps you were in the cafeteria at school. You weren’t the bully or the bully’s target, but in the moment of decision you chose to laugh along with the rest of the onlookers as the victim was teased. And as you chuckled along, you noticed there was a hollowness in each of your laughs. But the hollowness wasn’t just in your laughs. You looked within and noticed a void, an emptiness, a lack of the self you knew to be true.
Perhaps you and your spouse got into an argument. It started over a perceived disparity in the household workload but pretty soon you were fighting just to fight. Then you chose to punch below the belt. A word escaped your lips – an expletive, a derogatory name that took all the light out of your spouse’s eyes. You grinned for a moment in triumph, but then as your spouse backed away and fled the room, you felt the light going out in your own eyes. You looked within and everything was darkness.
This is what it means to unravel, to fray at the edges, to be unmade, to be a traitor in your own body. When you make a decision that embraces the false self, the inauthentic person, you might be able to recognize your body in the mirror, but it won’t be you staring back.
Remember, I warned you this sermon is about demons. Have you seen them yet? No, probably not. You haven’t seen them because there’s nothing to see. But that’s precisely the point. The hollowness, the darkness—these tell us that demons have been by. We only ever notice them because of the absence they leave. We can choose the fullness of our true selves and the light of our authentic persons, but when we don’t, we unravel just a little bit more because that demonic absence is eating away at us and pulling us away from God.
The good news is that God doesn’t just sit idly by while we unravel. God is in the business of helping each and every one of us discover the true people God created us to be. When we live as our true selves, we are honoring the image and likeness of God within us. Just think how wonderful you feel when you make choices that affirm your authentic self. So full of light. So full of joy. You are at home in your body. You look in the mirror and see yourself smiling back. Far from an imposter, you are exactly the person you are supposed to be. You aren’t unraveling. You are whole.
In Luke 8:26-39, Jesus engages in the ministry of helping us embrace our true and authentic selves. The Gerasene man hasn’t been himself in a long time. The demons have hollowed him out, and they fill this hollowness with their presence—or should I say, they fill it, paradoxically, with their absence. But Jesus yearns for the man—and for each of us—to live as our true selves. So Jesus heals the man. Jesus fills the hollowness with his own presence. And when he does so, the demons have nowhere to go.
This healing of the demonic within is a piece of each of our stories, too. With each of our choices, we embrace either our false selves or our true ones, we embrace either absence or presence, hollowness or fullness. When I chose to ignore the woman at Panera, I felt unmade. But God gave me a second chance. Rather than ignore her, I prayed for her from across the room. I asked God to connect my soul to hers for those few moments when our proximity made us kin and to make me a beacon emanating God’s peace. I don’t know if that prayer had an effect on her, but it did on me. The second chance gave me the opportunity to embrace the authentic person God created me to be.
I invite you this week to take stock of the choices you make. How do those choices make you feel? Which lead to wholeness and which to unraveling? When you are faced with a choice, pray to God to help you choose the decision that promotes your true self, the authentic person God created you to be.
I said this sermon was about demons. But it’s really about God’s triumph over the forces that seek to unravel us. While we may succumb to demons from time to time, God will never stop speaking healing and wholeness into our souls. And that means the demons will never win. Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
COLOR: Green
SCRIPTURE READINGS: 1 Kings 19:1-15a; Psalm 42; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39
THEME IDEAS
The steadfast love of God is evident throughout the passages for this day. Elijah becomes the expression of resolute and determined faith, an example rewarded by God carrying him to safety. The psalmist reminds us that throughout times of distress and dark nights of the soul, God is ever present. The Epistle passage proclaims that we are justified by faith in Christ, who claims us all as children of God. The promise of belonging to Christ is echoed in the healing of the Gerasene demoniac who Jesus instructs to share how much God has done for him.
INVITATION AND GATHERING
Call to Worship (1 Kings 19, Psalm 42, Galatians 3)
We often feel as if we are wandering through our lives,
searching for something we cannot name.
We come today to listen for hope, to pray for strength,
and to experience God’s love.
Speak to us of faith, hope, and love, O Lord.
As the deer longs for flowing water in the wilderness,
we long to drink deeply of God’s promise for us.
Knowing God is here, we join together on our journey.
Lead us to your still waters, O Lord.
Imprisoned by rules of our own making,
we come to remember and claim our faith.
Assured by the vision of Christ,
whose sacrifice leads us to heaven,
we come in fellowship with one another.
Clothe us in the love of Christ, O Lord.
With shouts of praise and songs of thanksgiving,
we come to celebrate the God of hope,
the Spirit of peace, and the Christ of redeeming love.
We come to pray.
We come to sing.
We come to worship and praise.
—OR—
Call to Worship (1 Kings 19, Psalm 42, Galatians 3, Luke 8)
As the deep calls to the deep
in thundering waves of faith and steadfast love,
so we stand on the mountain with Elijah,
feeling billowing waves of God’s power
flowing over and through us.
Set aside your enemies—
the people, thoughts, time, and challenges—
that separate you from knowing God’s love.
Clothe yourselves in Christ.
Shout praise in his name,
and declare how much God has done for you.
—OR—
Call to Worship
Come, Lord God, and be with us in this hour.
Too often our cares and our worries keep us at a distance
from our God.
Come, Lord God, and speak a word of comfort
to your troubled people.
Help us hear you, Lord God, in the quietness
of these moments.
PROCLAMATION AND RESPONSE
Prayer of Confession (1 Kings 19, Psalm 42, Galatians 3)
Lord of the ages,
in our busy lives,
we do not always make time to love, to pray,
or to sing your praises.
We want to be strong,
yet we often feel out of control:
buffeted by the winds of change,
rocked by the earthquakes in our relationships,
burned by the fires of doubt.
Forgetting what we cannot see,
we ask, “Why have you forgotten me?”
Help us trust your presence,
even when we feel utterly alone,
trapped in our dark night of the soul.
With the promise of Christ as our hope,
lead us from our own wilderness wanderings
into the well-tended garden of your love.
Words of Assurance (Psalm 42, Galatians 3)
The steadfast love of God is with you—
yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Whether you turn away or doubt,
whether you follow timidly or joyfully,
you are loved and forgiven in Christ.
Passing the Peace of Christ
May you know the peace of Christ in the midst of suffering. May you feel the hope of the Holy Spirit in the midst of sorrow. And may you touch the love of God in the midst of pain. Feel God’s love blowing through your life, as you turn to one another and pass the peace of Christ.
Prayer of Preparation (Psalm 42, Galatians 3)
Holy One, prepare us to receive your word. As we listen in faith and hope, open our souls to your quenching waters. Free us from the confinement of our hearts, that we may hear the promise of your love.
Response to the Word (Psalm 42, Galatians 3, Luke 8)
Justified by faith,
we are clothed in Christ.
Sanctified by the Spirit,
we are one in God with one another.
We place our hope in God—
praising God’s help and love,
declaring how much God has done for us.
THANKSGIVING AND COMMUNION
Invitation to the Offering (1 Kings 19, Psalm 42, Galatians 3)
Be zealous in shouting your praises to the Lord. Remembering the strength of God’s love and the promise of Christ’s help, let us share who we are as the church in the world. With open arms, let us join with one another as we express our faith through our gifts of love.
SENDING FORTH
Benediction (1 Kings 19, Psalm 42, Galatians 3, Luke 8)
In the spirit of God’s unchanging love,
live the stories of faith we have heard this day.
In the melody of God’s song within us,
sing the faith we have received this day.
In the hope of God’s unfailing help,
share the grace we have touched this day.
Go and tell the world how much God has done for us!
CONTEMPORARY OPTIONS
Contemporary Gathering Words (1 Kings 19, Psalm 42)
Praise the God of Elijah,
who is steadfast and strong in the wilderness.
Our hope is in God!
Praise the God of the lost,
who is our rock and our help in times of need.
Our help is in God!
Praise the God of Jesus Christ,
who makes us children of the beloved.
Our life is in Christ! Amen!
Praise Sentences (Psalm 42, Galatians 3)
The steadfast love of the Lord lasts forever!
The unfailing hope of the Lord
is like prayer and song in the heart.
Clothed in Christ,
we are justified by faith.
Belonging to Christ, we are one in him,
promised as children of Abraham
to inherit God’s love.
From The Abingdon Worship Annual edited by Mary J. Scifres and B.J. Beu, Copyright © Abingdon Press. The Abingdon Worship Annual 2017 is now available. Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
COLOR: Green
SCRIPTURE READINGS: 1 Kings 19:1-15a; Psalm 42; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39
CALLS TO WORSHIP
Call to Worship #1
L: Come, let us worship the Lord our God, whose love quenches our thirst.
P: We are parched and thirsty for God’s healing word.
L: Let us praise God who is with us always.
P: We seek the one who will not desert us.
L: Let us open our hearts to God who calls us by name.
P: We come, seeking reconciled relationship with God. AMEN.
Call to Worship #2:
L: Break down the barriers that divide us, O Lord.
P: Tear down the walls of hostility and fear.
L: Melt the barbed wire of anger and hatred.
P: Breathe new life into your people, O God.
L: For we are called to newness in Christ Jesus.
P: We are all brothers and sisters through God’s love.
L: Come, let us worship the God who removes obstacles from our paths.
P: Let us praise God who seeks to unite us in peace. AMEN.
Call to Worship #3:
[Using THE FAITH WE SING, p. 2214, “Lead Me, Guide Me”, offer the following call to worship as directed]
Choir: singing refrain of “Lead Me, Guide Me”
L: We are weak and need God’s strength and power to lift us up.
P: Lord, we come to you our weakness and fear.
Choir: singing refrain of “Lead Me, Guide Me”
L: So many times we are tempted to take the easy way, the way of hurt and anger rather than peace.
P: Lord, we come to you seeking your guidance on the pathways of peace and hope.
Choir: singing refrain of “Lead Me, Guide Me”
L: Though we are lost, Christ calls to us.
P: Help us, O Lord, to hear and respond to your call.
All: singing refrain of “Lead Me, Guide Me.
Call to Worship #4:
L: We come to you this day, with burdens and cares in our hearts.
P: Lord, take these burdens from us and ease our souls.
L: We come to you this day, with fear and uncertainty about the future.
P: Lord, calm our fears and help us to place our trust in you.
L: Come, let us worship God whose love is abundant.
P: Let us praise the God of our salvation who watches over us always. AMEN.
PRAYERS, LITANY/READING, BENEDICTION
Opening Prayer:
Open our hearts today, O Lord, to feel the powerful strength and love you have for us. Help us to listen, not only with our ears, but with our spirits for your words of compassion and healing. Enable us to become more faithful disciples for you; for we ask this in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ. AMEN.
Prayer of Confession:
Life is sometimes like a giant spider web. We seem to get caught and entangled in its threads, not knowing which way to turn or how to extricate our selves from the dilemmas in which we are trapped. Lord, you know that so many of these dilemmas and burdens are of our own creation, coming out of our stubbornness and fear. We find it much easier to turn our back on people in need, or just write a check and hope that the problems go away. Forgive us when we decide not to become involved in the solution, when we would rather back off from helping and turn and run for cover. Give us an extra measure of courage and strength along with your forgiving love, that we may again place our whole trust in you. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. AMEN.
Words of Assurance:
Let go of the demons that bind you in sorrow. Christ has broken those bands and reaches out in love for you. Receive God’s loving blessings, for they are given especially for you. AMEN.
Pastoral Prayer:
Lord, we hear the stories in the Bible of Christ’s forgiving love. We look at them from a distance, believing that we could never be forgiven by God. We want to measure our sins on a grand scale, but in truth it is the little ways in which we disown you and run from your presence that form the foundation of our sins. Forgive us, we pray. Help us to be open to the needs of others. We have so much that we can do, and sometimes, O Lord, we are overwhelmed by the needs. We become paralyzed and fearful. Ease our hearts and give us strength and courage to be active witnesses for you. Give us such faith that we may place our whole trust in you. This day we have brought before you the names of people near and dear to us to be lifted in prayer. Some of these needs are for healing, for comfort, for solace; others are prayers of celebration and joy. All of these things we offer to you. Help us to truly believe in your abiding love in answer to all prayers that we willingly place our lives in your care. Heal and restore us; for we ask this in Jesus’ name. AMEN.
Litany/Reading:
Reader: There, that should do it. I think that I have erected enough barricades and barriers to prevent anyone from harming me and my family. We will be safe, come hell or high water. We don’t have to fear. We have full provisions, weapons, blankets, food, portable radio, cards and games to play, candles. We can ride out any storm. Bring it on!
Voice: God is waiting for you to act in ways of peace.
Reader: Peace! Hah! I don’t have time for that kind of talk! This is war! My way of life is being threatened!
Voice: God is waiting for you to place your trust in God’s care.
Reader: Right! Where has that ever gotten me? You hear the news and see the terror. It’s everywhere. I intend to make sure that it doesn’t come here.
Voice: The terror has won. It has laid claim to your life.
Reader: No it hasn’t. I’m just cautious. I don’t want to be caught unprotected, unready.
Voice: Your fear is growing; blanketing you in deep darkness. Speak your fears!
Reader : I’ve already told you. I don’t want things to change. I have worked hard for everything I have and now it could be all wiped out.
Voice: God will provide for you.
Reader: I don’t think so. My sins are too many. God doesn’t want anything to do with me. I stand here behind my walls - God doesn’t break through - God doesn’t hear my cries.
Voice: Do not be afraid. God is with you. Let your heart find rest in the Lord.
Reader: But what will happen? I am so frightened!
Voice: Come out from behind the barriers of fear and terror. Place your trust in the Lord. Build walls of peace; set tables with the food of compassion and understanding; look at one another as God’s beloved children. Know that God is with you.
Reader: Help me, Lord. Help me…….please, help me.
Voice: God will always help you.
Benediction:
God has poured blessing after blessing upon you. You are healed and sent forth to serve in God’s world. Go in peace and may God’s peace always be with you. AMEN.
ARTISTIC ELEMENTS
The traditional color for this Sunday is Green.
Author's Note: Today is an interesting mix of scripture. As I think about it I focus on the journey of discipleship, to those in need, moving past barriers and hostility to faithfulness to Christ, represented by the cross. The “footprints” are our own, as we journey.
Surface:
Place a riser on the worship center, about 6” high. A cross will be set upon this riser. Place a riser in front of the worship center about 6” lower than the main level.
Fabric:
Cover the entire worship center in green fabric. Taking some muslin fabric or some room darkening fabric (about 30“ wide and 15 feet long), place foot prints on it, leading the full length of the fabric as though they are walking on a path. You may have footprints of just one person, or of several people. If you are using various colors of acrylic paint, make sure that you have plenty of soap and water handy for cleaning the feet and also make sure that the paint does not get on clothing. Tempera paint works well, but I am not sure if it stains clothing. Place the “footprint” strip in front of the cross and down the center of the worship center, across the riser in front, and trailing out onto the floor.
Candles:
You may use candles in any way you choose.
Flowers/Foliage:
Use some leafy plants, such as ivy and fern, on the floor at the base of the worship center.
Rocks/Wood:
At various places, slightly overlapping the “footprint” fabric, place broken wood, rocks, bricks, even some barbed wire (but handle this very carefully)
Other:
Make sure you have a cross to set on the top riser on the worship center. If you are going to add some barbed wire to the setting, handle it carefully, and when the worship is over, dispose of it properly.
INSPIRING-HUMOROUS-EDGY-CONFRONTING-RELEVANT
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ISAIAH 65:1-9
In 1952, a New York City probation officer searched for more than a year to find an organization somewhere in the Bronx that would take in a twelve-year-old needy youngster. Although the boy had a religious background, none of the major religious groups would make room for him because he came from a sect they did not recognize. The result was that the twelve-year-old "went in a way that was not good." In fact, his name lives in infamy: Lee Harvey Oswald.
"He went in a way that was not good!" For different reasons, God, through Isaiah, applies the same words to old Israel in today's text. However, that is where the similarity ends. Israel's condition was not the result of no one caring. Someone cared more dearly than Israel would acknowledge.
I. The Unchanging God (vv. 1-2a)
This is God's answer to a prayer. Isaiah, provoked by Israel's national behavior, asked God to pour his wrath on them. Instead God answers with unwavering grace: "I said, 'Here am I, here am I.' " Using Hebrew parallelism, he emphasizes the patience of his open arms as a model for Isaiah to follow. This emphasis is like a ship captain calling, "Now hear this: This is your captain speaking." It means, "Pay attention!" There would be judgment, but it would come soon enough.
Meanwhile God's welcome home to a nation of prodigals was unwavering. His open arms had never narrowed and his love had not faltered. He was always there for them. The same is still true for the new, spiritual Israel, the Christian church. Paul, recalling this passage, calls our attention to this in Romans 10:20. God is still there and his arms are still open. For how long? We do not know. How shall we respond?
II. The Ultimate Insult (vv. 2b-7)
Israel's response to this history of love with no boundaries was indifference. God says, in effect, that they have taken an "in your face" attitude against him. The ultimate insult is delivered when they ordered God out of their national affairs because they believed themselves more right than he. This echoes of Isaiah 14:13. Today America often seems to be trying to shut God out of our national affairs, and worshiping the insubstantial polytheism of political correctness. God's patience, however, will not last forever. Israel's attitude toward God came back to haunt them, as will ours. "They walked" was a figure of speech that reveals their pattern of life; "in ways" reveals their manner of life; "not good" reveals their destination, unless they change their ways.
What issues trouble us because we "walk in ways not good"? What issues plague someone you know—perhaps even yourself—because sound counsel is disregarded? How many of our national problems are linked to raising up children with no reference to God in their education? How long will we persist in going "in a way that is not good" before we will realize that trying to shut God out of our national life is effectively shutting Satan into it?
III. The Unwavering Covenant (vv. 8, 9)
The day will come when all faithlessness will reap its bitter harvest, while the faithful of God shall enjoy a sweet inheritance. Isaiah, using one of the Bible's favorite figures, a vineyard, describes the difference as sweet and sour grapes. What spares us in the meantime? It is first that God is faithful to his covenant, and second, that he still sees a few sweet grapes he can harvest.
Christ drank our bitter cup on Calvary's cross and we need not taste it again. What shall we do in gratitude for that kind of love? Our response will lead us one of two ways: Either we will be among the sweet grapes of God's good harvest, or we will be sour grapes, our bitterness betraying our "in your face" unwillingness to change our ways. (Robert Leslie Holmes)
FREE INDEED
GALATIANS 3:23-29
Paul's Magna Carta of Christian liberty was addressed to the Galatians, and forwarded from there to the world. This passage summarizes his central thesis—that Christianity can go directly to the whole world, without demanding prior obedience to the Mosaic Law because justification is now by faith alone. The Law was necessary for a while, but to live by faith is the superior way. Martin Luther reiterated this manifesto by also differing with a latter-day but still-similar position in Rome, on exactly the same basic issue of faith versus works. It seems that this issue must be periodically readdressed in order to remind us that we are indeed free from a works righteousness and that our state is determined by faith alone.
I. What's Not to Like About It?
Why would we be so pleased with the idea that "Justice" is blind, unless we assumed that anything she might "spy" around that blindfold could prejudice her? As the law is applied and mediated through people, we know that they are always vulnerable to manipulation by the fears and hopes inspired by all they do "see." When dealing with legal systems we might pray for wisdom, courage, and insight rather than "blindness" in the procurement of justice. But even justice at its best does not save us. Even God's absolute justice only shows us by how far we miss the mark.
Such an inadequate and tyrannical taskmaster the Law was for us, Paul says. It may have been bowed down to, in its time, but that was before we had anything better. It "guarded" and "imprisoned" those under its unforgiving eye, keeping the soul's imagination of love's largess sorely confined. Still Paul knew there were those in Rome and elsewhere who would not have anyone miss the Law's heavy hand that had been so "good" for them.
II. Like It or Not
Brilliantly, Paul's passionate presentation of the new freedom that believers have in Christ is set forth, not as something that should be allowed to happen, but as an already accomplished fact. He is not so much arguing for or defending a point of view, as he is logically explaining what has happened, so that everyone may understand it. It is something that everyone of rationality and goodwill might certainly be expected to want to do.
When faith was revealed in Christ, the inferior rule of law was simply superseded by faith. The Law then became as "dated" as the in-kind story of a young boy, who told his parents his Sunday school teacher had threatened to throw him into the furnace. When the disturbed parents asked him how that happened, the child explained that his teacher had told him that if he missed three Sundays in a row, she would drop him from the register!
Paul is pointing newly baptized Christians toward the open door through which they go directly to a faith-freed life, without having to walk over the fiery coals of Judaic Law to get there. In baptism, they have "put on" Christ—his mind and his righteousness—as a garment of light that gives a new vision. The same Spirit-connection that Jesus had with God, they now have. Abraham's offspring are now to be reckoned by a spiritually, rather than genetically, seeded line of inheritance. The new children of the promise are to be all who receive it by faith, water, and the Spirit—those invisible means of grace. The visible distinctions of race, position, and gender are truly swept away in the enlightened eyes of faith.
III. All Alike
Even so, every new generation seems prone to mistaking the present outward appearance of the established religious family and its children, for the new ones to whom faith is revealed and Christ truly comes. Therefore, today's church, and especially the fatherliness in it, needs to consider the real status of the transmission of a faith that lives and breathes by the Spirit—not by the Law—to ourselves and to our children. Entry by faith is now possible to anyone. Children of the promise can be drawn into the circle of grace from anywhere, without having to come through Judaism or any other legal system. This however, also means that no one can claim the promise is theirs or their children's automatically by birthright. (Kathleen Peterson)
THE CHAINS THAT BIND
LUKE 8:26-39
A group of muscle men known as "The Power Team" shares the message of Christ by performing amazing feats of strength. In one demonstration, they link themselves together with real chains and then proceed to pull themselves apart. While human strength can break some chains, others exist that only Christ can destroy. These are the chains that bind.
The encounter between Jesus and the Gerasene demoniac builds upon the preceding event of the calming of the storm (8:22-25). Both stories seek to proclaim the power of Jesus in relation to his identity as the Son of God. In particular, the disciples' question, "Who then is this?" (8:25) remains the focal point of the continuing revelation of the nature of Christ and his response to human need.
I. The Power of Evil
Setting aside the validity of contemporary explanations of suffering (victimization, class disparity, poverty, and so on) and their humanist remedies, Luke's account reminds us that supernatural evil exists and may control the behavior of unbelievers. As such, the demon-possessed man exemplifies the destructive pattern of evil and its consequences on human relationships.
First, the man languished under this condition for "a long time" (v. 27). The local citizens of Geresa tried to help him, but to no avail. The metal chains they used were no match for the demons' power, which surpassed every human effort to alleviate or assuage his situation. Like bringing a knife to a gunfight, manmade solutions will always fail to combat spiritual problems.
Second, the result of these impotent efforts led to alienation and isolation. He "lived in the tombs" outside of town being "driven by the demon into solitary places" (v. 29 NIV). One of the most conspicuous evidences of a person under Satan's sway is a detachment from God, loved ones, and the church. As sin penetrates and dominates our lives, we find ourselves separated from those we care about and who care about us. Only the power of Christ restores and reconciles those who are trapped in the destructive pattern of satanic influence.
II. The Power of Christ
Jesus counters the demonic presence in at least two ways: with power and authority. In the same way that Jesus demonstrated power over the physical elements by calming the storm, now he reveals his ability to control the spiritual realm as well. As soon as the man saw Jesus, the demons within cried out for mercy and begged not to be tortured. Note the key words describing this confrontation: the man "cried out" and "fell" at Jesus' feet (v. 28); Jesus "commanded" (v. 29); the demons "begged" him "not to order them" (v. 31); "he gave them permission" (v. 32). Who is this? The demons provide the answer: He is "Jesus, Son of the Most High God."
Contemplate the existential and eternal ramifications of this response. Where humanity is powerless, Christ is victorious. While Satan can break physical chains, Jesus shatters everything that inhibits people from being whole. He intercedes on our behalf to deliver us from the oppressive forces and addiction over which we have no control and restores us to an everlasting relationship with our heavenly Father.
III. Our Response
Jesus "healed" the man (v. 36). The word esothe describes the total healing-salvation Jesus provides. The stark contrast from total despondency to a renewed civility shocked the local townsfolk. The demoniac was naked, but now clothed; in the tombs, but now at Jesus' feet; driven by the demon, now sitting; chained, now in his right mind. The people responded in fear, asking Jesus to leave them.
However, the man sought to follow Jesus, to be his disciple and to obey him whatever the cost. Rather than refusing this offer, Christ redirected it by asking the man to join him in a different way. One does not have to be in the physical presence of Jesus to follow him. Christ invited the man and invites us to participate in his mission of proclaiming the good news to all who would hear by sharing what he has done for us.
No matter the "chains" that bind us, whether from Satan or of our own making, we can know that deliverance is available only from Christ. Human remedies will ultimately fail, but the healing Jesus brings lasts forever. Once we submit to him, our responsibility is to tell others so that they, too, will know the Son of the Most High God. (Craig C. Christina) From a Child's Point of View
Old Testament: 1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7), 8-15a. This story offers two themes of importance to children. If the focus is on Elijah's escape, the theme is that God takes care of us in difficult situations. Children need know only that Elijah had just killed all four hundred of Queen Jezebel's baal priests and that Jezebel was the meanest queen in the Bible; then they will understand why Elijah was frightened, running for his life, and ready to stop being God's prophet. With help, they can then identify the ways God took care of Elijah—feeding him on his journey, listening to his complaints, showing him God's power and quiet love, and granting his wish that someone else take over his job as prophet. They can trust that God also will be with them and care for them when they are scared and feel hopeless.
If the focus is on Elijah's encounter with God on Mount Horeb (vss. 1-4, 8-15a), the theme is "How does God speak to us?" Because children hear literally the biblical stories about God speaking, and because few have had personal experience with burning bushes or God calling in an audible voice, they often believe that God does not speak to them. They need to hear that for Elijah, God came not in a dramatic wind, fire, or earthquake, but in "the sound of a sheer silence." They should be urged to listen for God to speak to them in a variety of ways: through stories they hear, through other people, and through feelings of God being with them in difficult times.
A related, but often unnoticed, point is that even after the wind, earthquake, fire, and "sound of sheer silence," Elijah still told God exactly how frightened and unhappy he felt. Apparently he was not intimidated by God's presence, nor did God intend for him to be. We are invited to be as honest with God as Elijah was.
Psalm: 42–43. This is actually one psalm with three stanzas, each followed by the same refrain (vss. 42:5, 11; 43:5). The abstract language, poetic images, and geographic references make the psalm almost impossible for children to understand cognitively. Fortunately, the most understandable image, that of the thirsty deer, is in the first verse. If the deer catches their attention before they get lost in the more complicated image that follow, and if the psalm is read with deep feeling, children can follow its emotional sense. The refrain, especially if read from either the Good News Bible or the NIV, summarizes the psalmist's commitment to hope in a gloomy situation.
Epistle: Galatians 3:23-29. This is a very adult text. Its complex sentences deal in abstract language with an idea that is developmentally incomprehensible to children. Elementary children are at a stage of moral development in which ethical decisions are made by following or not following rules. They respond strongly to calls to follow God's rules and struggle daily with overcoming their wishes and feelings in order to follow rules. Paul's insistence that Christians are beyond the Law (or rules) baffles them. It will make little sense until their mental abilities develop enough to allow them to identify the principles behind rules. So read this passage for older worshipers.
Gospel: Luke 8:26-39. The demons make this one of the most difficult healing stories to share with children. Children want to know what demons are, why they made the man do what he did, and why the pigs ran over the cliff. They also want to know if there are still demons today? And if so, where? There are few answers that will satisfy literal thinkers.
The theory that this story is based on a prescientific understanding of mental illness is hard for children to accept because they have little understanding of mental illness. Alert older children may ask why pigs were needed.
Most children associate demons with evil beings that stalk innocent victims in horror shows, haunted houses at fairs, and scary campfire stories. Young children worry about monsters hiding in their closets or under their beds. To the fearful child, the story says that Jesus is more powerful than any monster or demon. Just as Jesus would not let the demons control this man, he will not let them "get" us.
One ambiguity that interests animal-loving children is whether the demons drove the pigs over the cliff (maybe to get even with Jesus by making the pig owners angry at him); whether the pigs were so frightened by the demons that they jumped over the cliff; or whether the pigs (being smarter than people thought) recognized the demons and, by jumping over the cliff, finished Jesus work of destroying them.
Watch Words
Decide on one definition of demons for today's worship, then stick with it to avoid confusion. Demons may be the evil powers we all battle every day. Or they may be the worst evil beings we can imagine.
Let the Children Sing
Sing about God's loving care in difficult times: "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know," "Now Thank We All Our God," "The Lord's My Shepherd," and "Be Not Dismayed Whate're Betide" (or "God Will Take Care of You").
Sing about God speaking to us through the Holy Spirit ("Every Time I Feel the Spirit") and in creation ("This Is My Father's World").
Commit yourselves to listen to God with "Open My Eyes, That I May See" or "Take Time to Be Holy."
The Liturgical Child
1. A dramatic reading is needed to hold children's attention for Elijah's long story. Read Jezebel's threat with cold, cruel fury. Whine Elijah's frightened complaints. And read God's lines with loving patience. Describe each power display on the mountain loudly, then whisper in awe, "But the Lord was not in the __________________."
2. Follow the format of Psalms 42 –43. Have one or three worship leader(s) read the "verses," with the congregation repeating the refrain. (To help worshipers get into the feel of the psalm, invite them to imagine they are Elijah, running away from Queen Jezebel.)
3. Create a litany prayer of confession in which the worship leader identifies the ways God speaks to us, and the congregation replies with the repeated admission that we do not pay attention. For example:
Leader: God, we wish you would speak to us, but we ignore the messages you speak all around us. Pictures from space show us the vastness of your creative power. Tiny flowers and intricate insects speak of your care for the smallest of things. The earth and the universe are full of messages about your power and loving care.
Power: But we do not pay attention. Forgive us.
Leader: You speak to us through people around us. If we listen carefully, we often hear your will in the advice of friends and leaders. If we care to, we sense your love in the love of those who love and care for us. When we watch, we can see people doing your work and join them.
People: But we do not pay attention. Forgive us.
Sermon Resources
1. To explore Elijah's experience, begin by talking about what scares people. Tell stories about being in storms or being lost (two big childhood fears) as well as stories about what adults fear. The Diary of Anne Frank offers excerpts about living faithfully with fear.
2. Devote the sermon to describing and calling on people to cast out specific demons that try to take over our lives and make us do terrible things. While younger children will hear only a sermon against "bad attitudes," older children will begin to identify selfishness, greed, and prejudice as demons.
Sponsored
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"The politics and prayers of death"
By Mark Lockard"People dying, as a result of the plague" by A.L. Tar [CC BY 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Speaking at the Faith and Family Coalition’s Road to Majority conference this morning, Senator David Perdue (R-GA) referenced a psalm while speaking about President Obama. The beauty of the Book of Psalms is that they cover the broad range of human emotions, giving us words to hold close whether we’re angry, peaceful, grieving, scared, joyous, thankful, or any combination thereof. So it’s particularly troubling, then, that a powerful public official would use his platform to quote the particular verse he did. It’s especially troubling that it was directed at our highest civic leader. So what did he say, exactly?
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Sarah Posner @sarahposnerSen. David Perdue says that we should pray for Obama, like in Psalm 108:9 "let his days be few." #RTM2016 #christian
6:58 AM - 10 Jun 2016
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Maybe you’re thinking to yourself, “Well that’s not so bad. Maybe he shouldn’t be using the Bible to express distaste for the president, or any person, but he wants the guy out of office and the verse was a way (albeit tacky) to say that.”
But that falls into the trap that I suspect Senator Perdue fell into by using the verse in the first place: proof-texting. It’s an issue that our regular contributor Zack Hunt speaks about often here on Ministry Matters and on his blog. The idea that you can pick out one verse from a sacred text, especially one as large and complex as the Bible, and ignore the context — either the words directly before and after it, the history of the passage, the cultural situation in which it was written, the identity of the writer, etc. — is, to put it bluntly, foolish. Which is why his use of this particular verse, Psalm 109:8, is especially disturbing. What follows in the King James Version, the version quoted, is this:
Psalm 109:(0) For the leader. A psalm of David:
(1) God, whom I praise, don’t remain silent!
2 For wicked and deceitful men
have opened their mouths against me,
spoken against me with lying tongues,
3 surrounded me with hateful words,
and attacked me without cause.
4 In return for my love they became my accusers,
even though I prayed for them.
5 They repay me evil for good
and hatred for my love.
6 [They say,] “Appoint a wicked man over him,
may an accuser stand at his right.
7 When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
may even his plea be counted a sin.
8 May his days be few,
may someone else take his position.
9 May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.
10 May his children be wandering beggars,
foraging for food from their ruined homes.
11 May creditors seize all he owns
and strangers make off with his earnings.
12 May no one treat him kindly,
and may no one take pity on his orphaned children.
13 May his posterity be cut off;
may his name be erased within a generation.
14 May the wrongs of his ancestors be remembered by Adonai,
and may the sin of his mother not be erased;
15 may they always be before Adonai,
so he can cut off all memory of them from the earth.
16 For he did not remember to show kindness
but hounded the downtrodden, the poor
and the brokenhearted to death.
17 He loved cursing; may it recoil on him!
He didn’t like blessing; may it stay far from him!
18 He clothed himself with cursing
as routinely as with his coat;
May it enter inside him as easily as water,
as easily as oil into his bones.
19 May it cling to him like the coat he wears,
like the belt he wraps around himself.”
20 This is what my adversaries want Adonai to do,
those who speak evil against me.
21 But you, God, Adonai,
treat me as your name demands;
rescue me, because your grace is good.
22 For I am poor and needy,
and my heart within me is wounded.
23 Like a lengthening evening shadow, I am gone;
I am shaken off like a locust.
24 My knees are weak from lack of food,
my flesh wastes away for lack of nourishment.
25 I have become the object of their taunts;
when they see me, they shake their heads.
26 Help me, Adonai, my God!
Save me, in keeping with your grace;
27 so that they will know that this comes from your hand,
that you, Adonai, have done it.
28 Let them go on cursing;
but you, bless!
When they attack, let them be put to shame;
but let your servant rejoice.
29 Let my adversaries be clothed with confusion,
let them wear their own shame like a robe.
30 I will eagerly thank Adonai with my mouth,
I will praise him right there in the crowd,
31 because he stands alongside a needy person
to defend him from unjust accusers.[Complete Jewish Bible]
At the very least, Senator Perdue is guilty of proof-texting, and the consequences are that he has used the words of the psalmist to inadvertently wish ruin and despair upon President Obama.At the very worst, he knew exactly what he was doing: wielding the Bible as a weapon; forgoing the grace and mercy of Christ in favor of the current political climate which seeks to use faith as a means of dealing death and separation; being glib about the downfall of his neighbor; and doing all this in the name of Christ by means of holy words.
I’d like to be generous and say that it’s most likely the first. Senator Perdue probably just picked a verse that’s been circulating for a while as a way to talk about Obama using “Christian” language, and he didn’t really think about the rest of the passage just like so many Biblically illiterate Christians unaware of the dangers of proof-texting tend to do.
But it’s hard to be generous when this approach, especially when talking about President Obama in conservative Christian circles (and ESPECIALLY when using this particular verse), is not new. We’ve been talking about the insidious implications of lobbing Psalm 109:8 about since 2009. At some point, you just have to set your jaw and accept that people know precisely what they’re doing, what they’re saying directly or indirectly, and what weight their words carry.
I shouldn’t be surprised. We in America have let our public sphere and the politics which govern it become defined by death. Death in the physical sense, as we let political hemming and hawing overshadow the disproportionate death of minorities at the hands of the state. Death in the emotional/mental sense, as we collectively allow the demonization and marginalization of those who need our support most: the orphan; the widow; women who are told that their bodies are property to be assaulted, neglected, coldly discussed and decided upon without their consent; our LGBTQ sisters and brothers whose community suffers elevated suicide rates because of our society’s choice to hate and shun rather than be resolute in our presence, understanding, and love; those communities of color who are disproportionately subjugated to the racist systems which give rise to poverty-to-prison cycles. And death in the spiritual sense, as we allow politicians and politically-infused, nationalist Christianity to tell us not only who our neighbors aren’t but how not to love them.
This is the political and spiritual tone we’ve set in modern America. It isn’t pretty, it isn’t life-giving, and it sure doesn’t feel like something Jesus-followers would want to have a hand in. So what are we to do? Well, for Christians there is a straight-forward answer that is often incredibly hard to implement: love God with all your heart and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.
That’s in the Bible, and I hope it’s a verse Senator Perdue and any who took pleasure in his scripture of choice would read and pray over. Because when Christians use our sacred text to make a point, the first thing we should be asking is “Does what I’m about to use scripture for match what scripture is actually for?” We have the Word because the Word breathes life.
When we open the Word and speak it out, hearing it ourselves and imploring fellow Christians to hear it, we’re asking for Life and Love to infuse our meaning and our message. In that moment, the Spirit through the Word can work to change hearts and minds. All of which is pretty hard to claim if what you’re using a cherry-picked Bible verse for is to pray a curse upon a guy you’ve hated for eight years.
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"MM Radio: Rediscovering the mystery of God" By Shane Raynor 
Richard P. Hansen
"We begin today"
By James C. Howell
A vigil on June 12 in Minneapolis, Minnesota for the victims of the Orlando shooting. Photo courtesy of Fibonacci Blue / Flickr
Sunday. The Lord’s day. On the way to church, or right after, we were mortified by the news out of Orlando. Another mass killing. How many? We’ve lost count. The ache, the revulsion. Even though numbed by the sheer repetitiveness of this news story, you shudder, and can’t turn off the TV coverage. I’ve seen rants on Facebook and Twitter. But the noise seems muffled somehow. A hush, a massive shudder has fallen over the world. I sit quietly, prepared for tears, but just numb.
I want names. To say 50 were killed, and it’s a record for the U.S. seems wrongheaded. Give me one name, then another. Each one has a mother, a brother, a coworker, a neighbor, a teammate. A person with a name is a life, a story, God’s lovely creation, a beautiful story. Because of the identity of those killed, we will rightly hear a cry on behalf of LGBTQ people. The point to be made really is that people are just people. Luis, who ran the “Harry Potter” ride. Kimberly who greeted people at the cellphone store. Juan, who’d just come out to his family.
In the first hours after every mass killing, when little is known, news agencies have to fill time. Much of the talk is speculation: Who was the killer? What was his motive? What were his thoughts? The important truth is, we do not know. We only infer, and guess. We have no idea what was in his head. Maybe this killer was drawn to radical Islam, but felt same gender sexual stirrings — and this was his way out. We cannot know what is in someone else’s heart — which is crucial here. If Omar Mateen hated LGBTQ people, he did not know them. He made a thicket of false assumptions about them.
Which is precisely what goes wrong in our culture which is so very terrified by anyone who is ‘other.’ As followers of Jesus, we never begin by prejudging anybody, ever. We go to the trouble to listen, to learn, never to assume. I live in North Carolina, where we’ve had a long-running controversy over LGBTQ people and bathroom usage. I have a friend who believes that, somewhere beneath the bluster opposing such rights, there’s a desire many Christian people have — that LGBTQ people just didn’t exist. I hope he is wrong. As Jesus’ people, we never wish some ‘other’ person would just go away or not exist. The only ‘other’ we want to get rid of is hate. Jesus anticipated we’d feel harshly toward ‘others,’ so he pretty clearly told us to love our enemies.
Pastors should say something, or do something. But what? When national catastrophe struck, the Israelites gathered fasted, and prayed Psalms like 44, 74 and 80. These corporate prayers were not for swift justice, or changed laws even. They cried out How long? They shook God, assuming God had to be slumbering. They repented instead of blaming. I suspect we should open our churches for special services, read the names of the deceased, read these Psalms.
And fast. Who can eat, anyway? Martin Luther King famously pushed back quite a few meals after reading newspaper reports about the killing in Vietnam. Or do we return too swiftly to our routines, our diversions? We are all of us deeply enmeshed in the very gangland culture that upsets us so. We good Christians have not just tolerated but created and funded a culture obsessed with guns, violence and depravity of all kinds. We have propped up politicians who pander to fear and talk tough. We have a lot of repenting to do. Was what Mateen did terror or hate? Our category for killing is Sin, but Sin is the condition of the entire fallen world. So in days like this, old wounds reopen; it’s time for all of us to talk with God, to get a lot of things straight. When these moments descend, we realize the work we should have been doing, and had better get busy with before the next tragedy. Our primary task as Christians is reconciliation. Sometimes when we debate the LGBTQ ‘issue,’ we forget there are always names, just one person, somebody’s son, somebody’s sister. I always wonder if hard-fisted judgment in church might actually foster a culture in which hatred is not just acceptable but actually holy? Can our tone be mercy? Can we Methodists reconcile, know names and stories, and love, and change communities where we live?
There will be pressure in the coming days to denounce Islam. Clergy can up their popularity in many places by castigating Muslims and wishing we were rid of them. It is just as easy for more enlightened clergy to clarify that what we see on the world stage is an aberrant perversion of Islam. It is up to clergy to stand in the breach at such times, and to say "My Muslim friends are horrified and sorrowful too." You can do so only if you’ve made friends with Muslims, and phoned them up in the hours after such a tragedy.
There will be a lot of talk about gun control. Quite predictably, Christians will demand it as the fix to this mess, while other Christians will explain how background checks won’t help, or that guns make us secure, or that this or that strategy won’t fix things. Isn’t it time to do something, even if it only makes the tiniest dent or doesn’t accomplish much? If someone you love has been shot, you do something, even if you don’t have a medical degree, even if it doesn’t really help. You can’t just do nothing.
Our country is hemorrhaging, literally, and drastic triage is required. Don’t Christians, whose Lord said “Put your sword away; he who lives by the sword will die by the sword,” have some holy obligation to labor tirelessly to do something, anything? If the prophets of Israel and Jesus himself provide us any clues, we must ask Can clergy speak respectfully but firmly to our people to rally them to be part of a movement not easily frightened off by the powers that be? Ours is not to secure safety for ourselves, but to stand with and for those who are hated, in Orlando, Charleston, in any and all places where precious children of God are despised and mercilessly slaughtered.
Beyond question, our problems are too massive for us to fix this week, or in a lifetime. But we begin today. Quite rightly, we pray, and fervently, not merely for God to soothe the grief of victims’ families, but to turn the whole world on its axis, to change a nation, to convert hearts, to temper a culture bent on distrust. We need and dare to expect a miracle; and we ask God what we can do as individuals and as God’s church — and then we do it with courage and mercy. We indeed are “prisoners of hope” (Zechariah 9:12), even while we grieve, repent and look for God’s waking dawn, and to each of God’s children, one by one, each with a name.
-------
"Orlando, liturgy and action"
By Rob Lee
"Vigil for Orlando" by Victoria Pickering / (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) via Flickr
I’m doing my field education at a large downtown Methodist church in Raleigh, North Carolina. Normally, waking up early on the first day of the week while it is still dark should be a joyous work for pastors and church staff. But early this past Sunday news started to come in of a mass shooting in Orlando. The number of fatalities kept rising and I realized in that moment we at the church I serve had a choice to make: Do we alter our liturgy for the morning to acknowledge and pray for the horrific events or do we go on with business as usual. The choice for me and for my field education mentor was clear: we had to say something, we had to mark the atrocious acts of a terrorist on our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. It was not the time to talk about polity or what the United Methodist Church believes is compatible or incompatible with Christian teaching; it was time to do what the Church has done for centuries prior. It was time to pray.
The first hymn played at our 11:00 am service. We had three baptisms right after the processional hymn but I asked our congregation to be seated and noted we would be changing the liturgy of the service. If liturgy really is the work of the people as we believe it to be, it was time for us to give voice to what we were undoubtedly feeling. We challenged each other to pray and let our prayers be turned to action. We acknowledged that there was a time for the heartbreak and horror our community members were feeling. We said that though there was a time for heartbreak and horror, we hoped that it would turn to action, to a day where we beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks and we train for war no more.
I tell you this because today, this week, this month, the larger community will be watching what the Church does in these moments. Will we offer thoughts and prayers today and condemn the next day? Will we say that we will change our tune on gun violence and then go back to the same status quo that got us here in the first place?
May our liturgy be bold enough to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ, news that demands of us action and resolve. May we be the agents of change through our liturgy, polity and community action. Let us hold each other accountable when anti-LGBT rhetoric is communicated; after all, in my tradition in our baptisms we are called to “resist evil and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.” Well people, now is the time to resist and to act. May our liturgy reflect that sure and certain reality that God will use us to make things right.
-------
"When you want to take this ministry job and shove it"
By Talbot Davis
Bigstock/shockfactor
Ministry is like most occupations. There are times, in the immortal words of Johnny Paycheck, when you want to take this job and shove it.
So what do you do when you’re a pastor and Mr. Paycheck is singing to you? For you?
Well, as a survivor of a few of those shove it seasons, here are the five best ways to respond:
1. Focus on what you do well rather than trying to shore up your weaknesses. At those times when pastors feel failure acutely and when the criticism comes the most freely, it is so tempting to respond with an accelerated effort to improve those areas that are getting you in trouble. Don’t. That’s ministry by reaction rather than ministry by calling. Instead, take a breath and get to work on those projects at which you excel and which bring you life. In my case, there were always more sermons to prepare and hospital patients to visit.
2. Don’t air your complaints or struggles on social media. And in a related matter, don’t “sub-tweet” your frustration with certain parishioners or even staffers. That’s passive-aggressive and only serves to diminish your ministry.
3. Do have a trusted advisor/counselor/therapist/support group. And yes, I’ve had all four. Those connections are why I am still here.
4. Understand the genuine source of your opposition’s opposition. Most ministerial malaise stems from opponents within the congregation. In those instances, I have found it helpful to realize that most of the time, clergy and churches are convenient outlets for people’s frustration in other areas of their lives. Folks are really mad at their parents, their spouses, their bosses … but because they’re powerless to do anything about those relationships and frustrations, they take it out on you.
"MM Radio: Rediscovering the mystery of God"
By Shane Raynor Richard P. Hansen
Bigstock/andro6
Shane Raynor and author Rich Hansen have a conversation about the tensions and unanswerable questions of Scripture and Christianity. They also discuss the potential that paradoxes have to deepen our faith and help us better appreciate the greatness of God. Rich is the author of Paradox Lost: Rediscovering the Mystery of God from Zondervan.
For more information, visit Rich's website and blog.
Subscribe to Ministry Matters Radio:
iTunes
Google Play Music
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TuneIn
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Shane Raynor and author Rich Hansen have a conversation about the tensions and unanswerable questions of Scripture and Christianity. They also discuss the potential that paradoxes have to deepen our faith and help us better appreciate the greatness of God. Rich is the author of Paradox Lost: Rediscovering the Mystery of God from Zondervan.
Subscribe to Ministry Matters Radio:
iTunes
Google Play Music
Stitcher
TuneIn
Player FM
RSS-------
"We begin today"
By James C. HowellA vigil on June 12 in Minneapolis, Minnesota for the victims of the Orlando shooting. Photo courtesy of Fibonacci Blue / Flickr
Sunday. The Lord’s day. On the way to church, or right after, we were mortified by the news out of Orlando. Another mass killing. How many? We’ve lost count. The ache, the revulsion. Even though numbed by the sheer repetitiveness of this news story, you shudder, and can’t turn off the TV coverage. I’ve seen rants on Facebook and Twitter. But the noise seems muffled somehow. A hush, a massive shudder has fallen over the world. I sit quietly, prepared for tears, but just numb.
I want names. To say 50 were killed, and it’s a record for the U.S. seems wrongheaded. Give me one name, then another. Each one has a mother, a brother, a coworker, a neighbor, a teammate. A person with a name is a life, a story, God’s lovely creation, a beautiful story. Because of the identity of those killed, we will rightly hear a cry on behalf of LGBTQ people. The point to be made really is that people are just people. Luis, who ran the “Harry Potter” ride. Kimberly who greeted people at the cellphone store. Juan, who’d just come out to his family.
In the first hours after every mass killing, when little is known, news agencies have to fill time. Much of the talk is speculation: Who was the killer? What was his motive? What were his thoughts? The important truth is, we do not know. We only infer, and guess. We have no idea what was in his head. Maybe this killer was drawn to radical Islam, but felt same gender sexual stirrings — and this was his way out. We cannot know what is in someone else’s heart — which is crucial here. If Omar Mateen hated LGBTQ people, he did not know them. He made a thicket of false assumptions about them.
Which is precisely what goes wrong in our culture which is so very terrified by anyone who is ‘other.’ As followers of Jesus, we never begin by prejudging anybody, ever. We go to the trouble to listen, to learn, never to assume. I live in North Carolina, where we’ve had a long-running controversy over LGBTQ people and bathroom usage. I have a friend who believes that, somewhere beneath the bluster opposing such rights, there’s a desire many Christian people have — that LGBTQ people just didn’t exist. I hope he is wrong. As Jesus’ people, we never wish some ‘other’ person would just go away or not exist. The only ‘other’ we want to get rid of is hate. Jesus anticipated we’d feel harshly toward ‘others,’ so he pretty clearly told us to love our enemies.
Pastors should say something, or do something. But what? When national catastrophe struck, the Israelites gathered fasted, and prayed Psalms like 44, 74 and 80. These corporate prayers were not for swift justice, or changed laws even. They cried out How long? They shook God, assuming God had to be slumbering. They repented instead of blaming. I suspect we should open our churches for special services, read the names of the deceased, read these Psalms.
And fast. Who can eat, anyway? Martin Luther King famously pushed back quite a few meals after reading newspaper reports about the killing in Vietnam. Or do we return too swiftly to our routines, our diversions? We are all of us deeply enmeshed in the very gangland culture that upsets us so. We good Christians have not just tolerated but created and funded a culture obsessed with guns, violence and depravity of all kinds. We have propped up politicians who pander to fear and talk tough. We have a lot of repenting to do. Was what Mateen did terror or hate? Our category for killing is Sin, but Sin is the condition of the entire fallen world. So in days like this, old wounds reopen; it’s time for all of us to talk with God, to get a lot of things straight. When these moments descend, we realize the work we should have been doing, and had better get busy with before the next tragedy. Our primary task as Christians is reconciliation. Sometimes when we debate the LGBTQ ‘issue,’ we forget there are always names, just one person, somebody’s son, somebody’s sister. I always wonder if hard-fisted judgment in church might actually foster a culture in which hatred is not just acceptable but actually holy? Can our tone be mercy? Can we Methodists reconcile, know names and stories, and love, and change communities where we live?
There will be pressure in the coming days to denounce Islam. Clergy can up their popularity in many places by castigating Muslims and wishing we were rid of them. It is just as easy for more enlightened clergy to clarify that what we see on the world stage is an aberrant perversion of Islam. It is up to clergy to stand in the breach at such times, and to say "My Muslim friends are horrified and sorrowful too." You can do so only if you’ve made friends with Muslims, and phoned them up in the hours after such a tragedy.
There will be a lot of talk about gun control. Quite predictably, Christians will demand it as the fix to this mess, while other Christians will explain how background checks won’t help, or that guns make us secure, or that this or that strategy won’t fix things. Isn’t it time to do something, even if it only makes the tiniest dent or doesn’t accomplish much? If someone you love has been shot, you do something, even if you don’t have a medical degree, even if it doesn’t really help. You can’t just do nothing.
Our country is hemorrhaging, literally, and drastic triage is required. Don’t Christians, whose Lord said “Put your sword away; he who lives by the sword will die by the sword,” have some holy obligation to labor tirelessly to do something, anything? If the prophets of Israel and Jesus himself provide us any clues, we must ask Can clergy speak respectfully but firmly to our people to rally them to be part of a movement not easily frightened off by the powers that be? Ours is not to secure safety for ourselves, but to stand with and for those who are hated, in Orlando, Charleston, in any and all places where precious children of God are despised and mercilessly slaughtered.
Beyond question, our problems are too massive for us to fix this week, or in a lifetime. But we begin today. Quite rightly, we pray, and fervently, not merely for God to soothe the grief of victims’ families, but to turn the whole world on its axis, to change a nation, to convert hearts, to temper a culture bent on distrust. We need and dare to expect a miracle; and we ask God what we can do as individuals and as God’s church — and then we do it with courage and mercy. We indeed are “prisoners of hope” (Zechariah 9:12), even while we grieve, repent and look for God’s waking dawn, and to each of God’s children, one by one, each with a name.
-------
"Orlando, liturgy and action"
By Rob Lee"Vigil for Orlando" by Victoria Pickering / (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) via Flickr
I’m doing my field education at a large downtown Methodist church in Raleigh, North Carolina. Normally, waking up early on the first day of the week while it is still dark should be a joyous work for pastors and church staff. But early this past Sunday news started to come in of a mass shooting in Orlando. The number of fatalities kept rising and I realized in that moment we at the church I serve had a choice to make: Do we alter our liturgy for the morning to acknowledge and pray for the horrific events or do we go on with business as usual. The choice for me and for my field education mentor was clear: we had to say something, we had to mark the atrocious acts of a terrorist on our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. It was not the time to talk about polity or what the United Methodist Church believes is compatible or incompatible with Christian teaching; it was time to do what the Church has done for centuries prior. It was time to pray.
The first hymn played at our 11:00 am service. We had three baptisms right after the processional hymn but I asked our congregation to be seated and noted we would be changing the liturgy of the service. If liturgy really is the work of the people as we believe it to be, it was time for us to give voice to what we were undoubtedly feeling. We challenged each other to pray and let our prayers be turned to action. We acknowledged that there was a time for the heartbreak and horror our community members were feeling. We said that though there was a time for heartbreak and horror, we hoped that it would turn to action, to a day where we beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks and we train for war no more.
I tell you this because today, this week, this month, the larger community will be watching what the Church does in these moments. Will we offer thoughts and prayers today and condemn the next day? Will we say that we will change our tune on gun violence and then go back to the same status quo that got us here in the first place?
May our liturgy be bold enough to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ, news that demands of us action and resolve. May we be the agents of change through our liturgy, polity and community action. Let us hold each other accountable when anti-LGBT rhetoric is communicated; after all, in my tradition in our baptisms we are called to “resist evil and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.” Well people, now is the time to resist and to act. May our liturgy reflect that sure and certain reality that God will use us to make things right.
-------
"When you want to take this ministry job and shove it"
By Talbot DavisBigstock/shockfactor
Ministry is like most occupations. There are times, in the immortal words of Johnny Paycheck, when you want to take this job and shove it.
So what do you do when you’re a pastor and Mr. Paycheck is singing to you? For you?
Well, as a survivor of a few of those shove it seasons, here are the five best ways to respond:
1. Focus on what you do well rather than trying to shore up your weaknesses. At those times when pastors feel failure acutely and when the criticism comes the most freely, it is so tempting to respond with an accelerated effort to improve those areas that are getting you in trouble. Don’t. That’s ministry by reaction rather than ministry by calling. Instead, take a breath and get to work on those projects at which you excel and which bring you life. In my case, there were always more sermons to prepare and hospital patients to visit.
2. Don’t air your complaints or struggles on social media. And in a related matter, don’t “sub-tweet” your frustration with certain parishioners or even staffers. That’s passive-aggressive and only serves to diminish your ministry.
3. Do have a trusted advisor/counselor/therapist/support group. And yes, I’ve had all four. Those connections are why I am still here.
4. Understand the genuine source of your opposition’s opposition. Most ministerial malaise stems from opponents within the congregation. In those instances, I have found it helpful to realize that most of the time, clergy and churches are convenient outlets for people’s frustration in other areas of their lives. Folks are really mad at their parents, their spouses, their bosses … but because they’re powerless to do anything about those relationships and frustrations, they take it out on you.
5. Check your Encouragement File. When you feel like you are a failure and have never done anything of eternal value for Jesus, check your Encouragement File and read the notes and cards people have sent you through the years. It will make you realize that the truth is in those testimonies, not in the lies running around in your head. Oh! You don’t have an Encouragement File? Then today is the day to start …Some of these ideas are found in chapter four of my new book Solve. That chapter is called "Oppositionists" and communicates the core truth that God sends opposition to grow desperation.
Talbot Davis is pastor of Good Shepherd United Methodist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina and the author of Solve, Head Scratchers: When the Words of Jesus Don't Make Sense, The Storm Before the Calm and The Shadow of a Doubt, all from Abingdon Press.
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"This Sunday, June 19, 2016"
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost: 1 Kings 19:1-15a; Psalm 42; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39
Scripture Texts: Fifth Sunday after Pentecost: 1 Kings 19:1 Ach’av told Izevel everything Eliyahu had done and how he had put all the prophets to the sword. 2 Then Izevel sent a messenger to say to Eliyahu, “May the gods do terrible things to me and worse ones besides if by this time tomorrow I haven’t taken your life, just as you took theirs!” 3 On seeing that, he got up and fled for his life.
When he arrived in Be’er-Sheva, in Y’hudah, he left his servant there; 4 but he himself went a day farther into the desert, until he came to a broom tree. He sat down under it and prayed for his own death. “Enough!” he said. “Now, Adonai, take my life. I’m no better than my ancestors.” 5 Then he lay down under the broom tree and went to sleep. Suddenly, an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat!” 6 He looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on the hot stones and a jug of water. He ate and drank, then lay down again. 7 The angel came again, a second time, touched him and said, “Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you.” 8 He got up, ate and drank, and, on the strength of that meal, traveled forty days and nights until he reached Horev the mountain of God.
9 There he went into a cave and spent the night. Then the word of Adonai came to him; he said to him, “What are you doing here, Eliyahu?” 10 He answered, “I have been very zealous for Adonai the God of armies, because the people of Isra’el have abandoned your covenant, broken down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. Now I’m the only one left, and they’re coming after me to kill me too.” 11 He said, “Go outside, and stand on the mountain before Adonai”; and right then and there, Adonai went past. A mighty blast of wind tore the mountains apart and broke the rocks in pieces before Adonai, but Adonai was not in the wind. After the wind came an earthquake, but Adonai was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake, fire broke out; but Adonai was not in the fire. And after the fire came a quiet, subdued voice. 13 When Eliyahu heard it, he covered his face with his cloak, stepped out and stood at the entrance to the cave. Then a voice came to him and said, “What are you doing here, Eliyahu?” 14 He answered, “I have been very zealous for Adonai the God of armies; because the people of Isra’el have abandoned your covenant, broken down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. Now I’m the only one left, and they’re after me to kill me too.”
15 Adonai said to him, “Go back by way of the Dammesek Desert. When you get there, anoint Haza’el to be king over Aram.
Psalm 42:(0) For the leader. A maskil of the descendants of Korach:
2 (1) Just as a deer longs for running streams,
God, I long for you.
3 (2) I am thirsty for God, for the living God!
When can I come and appear before God?
4 (3) My tears are my food, day and night,
while all day people ask me, “Where is your God?”
5 (4) I recall, as my feelings well up within me,
how I’d go with the crowd to the house of God,
with sounds of joy and praise from the throngs
observing the festival.
6 (5) My soul, why are you so downcast?
Why are you groaning inside me?
Hope in God, since I will praise him again
for the salvation that comes from his presence.
7 (6) My God, when I feel so downcast,
I remind myself of you
from the land of Yarden, from the peaks of Hermon,
from the hill Mizar.
8 (7) Deep is calling to deep
at the thunder of your waterfalls;
all your surging rapids and waves
are sweeping over me.
9 (8) By day Adonai commands his grace,
and at night his song is with me
as a prayer to the God of my life.
10 (9) I say to God my Rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
under pressure by the enemy?
11 (10) My adversaries’ taunts make me feel
as if my bones were crushed,
as they ask me all day long,
‘Where is your God?’ ”
12 (11) My soul, why are you so downcast?
Why are you groaning inside me?
Hope in God, since I will praise him again
for being my Savior and God.
Galatians 3:23 Now before the time for this trusting faithfulness came, we were imprisoned in subjection to the system which results from perverting the Torah into legalism, kept under guard until this yet-to-come trusting faithfulness would be revealed. 24 Accordingly, the Torah functioned as a custodian until the Messiah came, so that we might be declared righteous on the ground of trusting and being faithful. 25 But now that the time for this trusting faithfulness has come, we are no longer under a custodian.
26 For in union with the Messiah, you are all children of God through this trusting faithfulness; 27 because as many of you as were immersed into the Messiah have clothed yourselves with the Messiah, in whom 28 there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor freeman, neither male nor female; for in union with the Messiah Yeshua, you are all one. 29 Also, if you belong to the Messiah, you are seed of Avraham and heirs according to the promise.
Luke 8:26 They sailed on and landed in the region of the Gerasenes, which is opposite the Galil. 27 As Yeshua stepped ashore, a man from the town who had demons came to meet him. For a long time he had not worn clothes; and he lived, not in a house, but in the burial caves. 28 Catching sight of Yeshua, he screamed, fell down in front of him and yelled, “Yeshua! Son of God Ha‘Elyon! What do you want with me? I beg you, don’t torture me!” 29 For Yeshua had ordered the unclean spirit to come out of the man. It had often taken hold of him — he had been kept under guard, chained hand and foot, but had broken the bonds and been driven by the demon into the desert. 30 Yeshua asked him, “What is your name?” “Legion,” he said, because many demons had entered him. 31 They begged Yeshua not to order them to go off into the Bottomless Pit.
32 Now there was a herd of many pigs, feeding on the hill; and the demons begged him to let them go into these. So he gave them permission. 33 The demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, whereupon the herd rushed down the hillside into the lake and were drowned.
34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the town and in the country; 35 and the people came out to see for themselves. They came to Yeshua and found the man out of whom the demons had gone, sitting — dressed and in his right mind — at the feet of Yeshua; and they were frightened. 36 Those who had seen it told how the formerly demonized man had been delivered.
37 Then all the people of the Gerasene district asked him to leave them, for they had been seized with great fear. So he boarded the boat and returned. 38 The man from whom the demons had gone out begged that he might go with him; but Yeshua sent him away, saying, 39 “Go back to your home and tell how much God has done for you.” He went away proclaiming throughout the whole town how much Yeshua had done for him.
John Wesley's Notes-Commentary for: Fifth Sunday after Pentecost: 1 Kings 19:1-15
Verse 1
[1] And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword.
All the prophets — Of Baal.
Verse 2
[2] Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time.
Jezebel sent — She gives him notice of it before hand: partly, out of the height of her spirit, as scorning to kill him secretly: partly, out of her impatience, till she had breathed out her rage: and principally, from God's all-disposing providence, that so he might have an opportunity of escaping.
Do to me, … — So far was she from being changed by that evident miracle, that she persists in her former idolatry, and adds to it a monstrous confidence, that in spight of God she would destroy his prophet.
Verse 3
[3] And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there.
Left his servant — Because he would not expose him to those perils and hardships which he expected: and because he desired solitude, that he might more freely converse with God.
Verse 4
[4] But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.
Into the wilderness — The vast wilderness of Arabia. He durst not stay in Judah, tho' good Jehosaphat reigned there, because he was allied to Ahab, and was a man of an easy temper, whom Ahab might circumvent, and either by force or art seize upon Elijah.
It is enough — I have lived long enough for thy service, and am not like to do thee any more service; neither my words nor works are like to do any good upon these unstable and incorrigible people.
I am not better — That I should continue in life, when other prophets who have gone before me, have lost their lives.
Verse 7
[7] And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.
Angel of the Lord, … — He needed not to complain of the unkindness of men, when it was thus made up by the ministration of angels. Wherever God's children are, they are still under their father's eye.
Verse 8
[8] And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.
And went — He wandered hither and thither for forty days, 'till at last he came to Horeb, which in the direct road was not above three or four days journey. Thither the spirit of the Lord led him, probably beyond his own intention, that he might have communion with God, in the same place that Moses had.
Verse 9
[9] And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah?
Unto a cave — Perhaps the same wherein Moses was hid when the Lord passed before him, and proclaimed his name.
Verse 10
[10] And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
I have been, … — I have executed my office with zeal for God's honour, and with the hazard of my own life, and am fled hither, not being able to endure to see the dishonour done to thy name by their obstinate idolatry and wickedness.
I only — Of all thy prophets, who boldly and publickly plead thy cause: for the rest of thy prophets who are not slain, hide themselves, and dare not appear to do thee any service.
They seek my life — I despair of doing them any good: for instead of receiving my testimony, they hunt for my life. It does by no means appear, that he was at all to blame, for fleeing from Jezebel. If they persecute you in one city flee into another. Besides, the angels feeding and preparing him for his journey, and the peculiar blessing of God upon that food, indicated the divine approbation.
Verse 11
[11] And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake:
And behold — This is a general description of the thing, after which the manner of it is particularly explained.
Strong wind — Whereby he both prepares Elijah to receive this discovery of God with greatest humility, reverence, and godly fear; and signifies his irresistible power, to break the hardest hearts of the Israelites, and to bear down all opposition that was or should be made against him in the discharge of his office.
The Lord was not — The Lord did not vouchsafe his special and gracious presence to Elijah in that wind, which possibly was to teach him not to wonder if God did not accompany his terrible administration at mount Carmel with the presence of his grace, to turn the hearts of the Israelites to himself.
Verse 12
[12] And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
A still voice — To intimate, that God would do his work in and for Israel in his own time, not by might or power, but by his own spirit, Zechariah 4:6, which moves with a powerful, but yet with a sweet and gentle gale.
Verse 13
[13] And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?
He wrapped, … — Through dread of God's presence, being sensibly that he was neither worthy nor able to endure the sight of God with open face.
And stood, … — Which God commanded him to do; and as he was going towards the mouth of the cave, he was affrighted and stopped in his course, by the dreadful wind, and earthquake, and fire; when these were past, he prosecutes his journey, and goeth on to the mouth of the cave
Psalm 42
Verse 1
[1] As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
Panteth — After the enjoyment of thee in thy sanctuary.
Verse 2
[2] My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?
Thirsteth — Not after vain useless idols, but after the only true and living God.
Appear — In the place of his special presence and publick worship.
Verse 4
[4] When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy-day.
Remember — My banishment from God's presence, and mine enemies triumphs.
In me — I breathe out my sorrows and complaints to God within my own breast.
The multitudes — Israelites, who went thither in great numbers.
Holy-day — Or that kept the feast, the three solemn festival solemnities, which they kept holy unto the Lord.
Verse 5
[5] Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.
For — Heb. for the salvations of his face, for those supports, deliverances and comforts which I doubt not I shall enjoy both in his presence and sanctuary, and from his presence, and the light of his countenance.
Verse 6
[6] O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.
Therefore — Therefore that I may revive my drooping spirits.
Remember — I will consider thy infinite mercy and power, and faithfulness.
Mizar — From all the parts of the land, to which I shall be driven; whether from the parts beyond Jordan on the east: or mount Hermon, which was in the northern parts.
Verse 7
[7] Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.
Deep — One affliction comes immediately after another, as if it were called for by the former. A metaphor taken from violent and successive showers of rain; which frequently come down from heaven, as it were at the noise, or call of God's water spouts.
Verse 8
[8] Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.
Command — Will effectually confer upon me.
Loving-kindness — His blessings, the effects of his loving-kindness.
Verse 10
[10] As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?
As — As a sword, which cutteth the very bones, so painful are their reproaches.
Galatians 3:23-29
Verse 23
[23] But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
But before faith — That is, the gospel dispensation.
Came, we were kept — As in close custody.
Under the law — The Mosaic dispensation.
Shut up unto the faith which was to be revealed — Reserved and prepared for the gospel dispensation.
Verse 24
[24] Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster unto Christ — It was designed to train us up for Christ. And this it did both by its commands, which showed the need we had of his atonement; and its ceremonies, which all pointed us to him.
Verse 25
[25] But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
But faith — That is, the gospel dispensation. Being come, we are no longer under that schoolmaster - The Mosaic dispensation.
Verse 26
[26] For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
For ye — Christians. Are all adult sons of God - And so need a schoolmaster no longer.
Verse 27
[27] For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
For as many of you as have testified your faith by being baptized in the name of Christ, have put on Christ - Have received him as your righteousness, and are therefore sons of God through him.
Verse 28
[28] There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
There is neither Jew nor Greek — That is, there is no difference between them; they are equally accepted through faith.
There is neither male nor female — Circumcision being laid aside, which was peculiar to males, and was designed to put a difference, during that dispensation, between Jews and gentiles.
Verse 29
[29] And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
If ye are Christ's — That is, believers in him.
Luke 8:26-39
Verse 26
[26] And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, which is over against Galilee.
Matthew 8:28; Mark 5:1.
Verse 29
[29] (For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For oftentimes it had caught him: and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters; and he brake the bands, and was driven of the devil into the wilderness.)
For many times it had caught him — Therefore our compassionate Lord made the more haste to cast him out.
Verse 31
[31] And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep.
The abyss — That is, the bottomless pit.
Verse 32
[32] And there was there an herd of many swine feeding on the mountain: and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered them.
To enter into the swine — Not that they were any easier in the swine than out of them. Had it been so, they would not so soon have dislodged themselves, by destroying the herd.
Verse 37
[37] Then the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round about besought him to depart from them; for they were taken with great fear: and he went up into the ship, and returned back again.
Matthew 9:1; Mark 5:18.
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This sermon is about demons. I want you to know that before I get going because for a while it might not seem like I’m talking about demons at all. But I will be. If our real demons looked like the caricatured little red devils with horns, they’d be really easy to avoid. But real demons are much more subtle. So remember: this sermon is about demons.
Around this time three years ago, I was sitting at Panera Bread working on some project or other. It was the most ordinary day imaginable—a little bit of rain pattering on the bushes outside, the normal bustle of Panera happening in the periphery of my headphoned consciousness. You’d think what happened next would have long since vanished from my memory because of its seeming insignificance. But as I was contemplating this sermon, the memory of that day at Panera started playing like a film in my head.
I was just sitting there drinking green tea, working on my computer, and listening to Beethoven’s piano sonatas. Then something pulled my attention. A young woman, whom I had idly noticed when I sat down and then promptly forgotten, was talking on her cell phone. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the young woman’s brow crease. Her free hand went to her mouth. My internal pastoral alarm bells started blaring. The woman began to collapse inward. Here it comes, I thought.
“How long will it take me to get to the hospital from the airport?” Her voiced trembled as she asked the question, panic mixing with at least a veneer of bravery. She clung to her cell phone as if it were a flotation device.
I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the woman. She’s not one of mine, I thought. I’m not on duty right now. I’m not wearing the uniform today.
But even as these thoughts entered my mind, I felt the muscles in my arms and legs tense. My chest constricted. For a horrible moment, I felt myself unraveling. I was unmade. I was a traitor in my own body.
I know this seems like an overreaction or hyperbole employed for dramatic effect. But it is entirely accurate. So why would such a small event as me overhearing an anonymous woman in distress cause me to plummet into a moment of existential crisis?
Because I had a choice. I could ignore the woman in need or I could do something – anything – to help her. One of those choices would affirm the true self, the authentic person who God created me to be. And one wouldn’t. I chose the latter. When I chose to embrace the false self, the inauthentic person, I felt myself start to fray around the edges.
Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever felt yourself start to unravel, so to speak, because of a decision you made that runs counter to the person you know you are?
Perhaps you were in the cafeteria at school. You weren’t the bully or the bully’s target, but in the moment of decision you chose to laugh along with the rest of the onlookers as the victim was teased. And as you chuckled along, you noticed there was a hollowness in each of your laughs. But the hollowness wasn’t just in your laughs. You looked within and noticed a void, an emptiness, a lack of the self you knew to be true.
Perhaps you and your spouse got into an argument. It started over a perceived disparity in the household workload but pretty soon you were fighting just to fight. Then you chose to punch below the belt. A word escaped your lips – an expletive, a derogatory name that took all the light out of your spouse’s eyes. You grinned for a moment in triumph, but then as your spouse backed away and fled the room, you felt the light going out in your own eyes. You looked within and everything was darkness.
This is what it means to unravel, to fray at the edges, to be unmade, to be a traitor in your own body. When you make a decision that embraces the false self, the inauthentic person, you might be able to recognize your body in the mirror, but it won’t be you staring back.
Remember, I warned you this sermon is about demons. Have you seen them yet? No, probably not. You haven’t seen them because there’s nothing to see. But that’s precisely the point. The hollowness, the darkness—these tell us that demons have been by. We only ever notice them because of the absence they leave. We can choose the fullness of our true selves and the light of our authentic persons, but when we don’t, we unravel just a little bit more because that demonic absence is eating away at us and pulling us away from God.
The good news is that God doesn’t just sit idly by while we unravel. God is in the business of helping each and every one of us discover the true people God created us to be. When we live as our true selves, we are honoring the image and likeness of God within us. Just think how wonderful you feel when you make choices that affirm your authentic self. So full of light. So full of joy. You are at home in your body. You look in the mirror and see yourself smiling back. Far from an imposter, you are exactly the person you are supposed to be. You aren’t unraveling. You are whole.
In Luke 8:26-39, Jesus engages in the ministry of helping us embrace our true and authentic selves. The Gerasene man hasn’t been himself in a long time. The demons have hollowed him out, and they fill this hollowness with their presence—or should I say, they fill it, paradoxically, with their absence. But Jesus yearns for the man—and for each of us—to live as our true selves. So Jesus heals the man. Jesus fills the hollowness with his own presence. And when he does so, the demons have nowhere to go.
This healing of the demonic within is a piece of each of our stories, too. With each of our choices, we embrace either our false selves or our true ones, we embrace either absence or presence, hollowness or fullness. When I chose to ignore the woman at Panera, I felt unmade. But God gave me a second chance. Rather than ignore her, I prayed for her from across the room. I asked God to connect my soul to hers for those few moments when our proximity made us kin and to make me a beacon emanating God’s peace. I don’t know if that prayer had an effect on her, but it did on me. The second chance gave me the opportunity to embrace the authentic person God created me to be.
I invite you this week to take stock of the choices you make. How do those choices make you feel? Which lead to wholeness and which to unraveling? When you are faced with a choice, pray to God to help you choose the decision that promotes your true self, the authentic person God created you to be.
I said this sermon was about demons. But it’s really about God’s triumph over the forces that seek to unravel us. While we may succumb to demons from time to time, God will never stop speaking healing and wholeness into our souls. And that means the demons will never win. Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
COLOR: Green
SCRIPTURE READINGS: 1 Kings 19:1-15a; Psalm 42; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39
THEME IDEAS
The steadfast love of God is evident throughout the passages for this day. Elijah becomes the expression of resolute and determined faith, an example rewarded by God carrying him to safety. The psalmist reminds us that throughout times of distress and dark nights of the soul, God is ever present. The Epistle passage proclaims that we are justified by faith in Christ, who claims us all as children of God. The promise of belonging to Christ is echoed in the healing of the Gerasene demoniac who Jesus instructs to share how much God has done for him.
INVITATION AND GATHERING
Call to Worship (1 Kings 19, Psalm 42, Galatians 3)
We often feel as if we are wandering through our lives,
searching for something we cannot name.
We come today to listen for hope, to pray for strength,
and to experience God’s love.
Speak to us of faith, hope, and love, O Lord.
As the deer longs for flowing water in the wilderness,
we long to drink deeply of God’s promise for us.
Knowing God is here, we join together on our journey.
Lead us to your still waters, O Lord.
Imprisoned by rules of our own making,
we come to remember and claim our faith.
Assured by the vision of Christ,
whose sacrifice leads us to heaven,
we come in fellowship with one another.
Clothe us in the love of Christ, O Lord.
With shouts of praise and songs of thanksgiving,
we come to celebrate the God of hope,
the Spirit of peace, and the Christ of redeeming love.
We come to pray.
We come to sing.
We come to worship and praise.
—OR—
Call to Worship (1 Kings 19, Psalm 42, Galatians 3, Luke 8)
As the deep calls to the deep
in thundering waves of faith and steadfast love,
so we stand on the mountain with Elijah,
feeling billowing waves of God’s power
flowing over and through us.
Set aside your enemies—
the people, thoughts, time, and challenges—
that separate you from knowing God’s love.
Clothe yourselves in Christ.
Shout praise in his name,
and declare how much God has done for you.
—OR—
Call to Worship
Come, Lord God, and be with us in this hour.
Too often our cares and our worries keep us at a distance
from our God.
Come, Lord God, and speak a word of comfort
to your troubled people.
Help us hear you, Lord God, in the quietness
of these moments.
PROCLAMATION AND RESPONSE
Prayer of Confession (1 Kings 19, Psalm 42, Galatians 3)
Lord of the ages,
in our busy lives,
we do not always make time to love, to pray,
or to sing your praises.
We want to be strong,
yet we often feel out of control:
buffeted by the winds of change,
rocked by the earthquakes in our relationships,
burned by the fires of doubt.
Forgetting what we cannot see,
we ask, “Why have you forgotten me?”
Help us trust your presence,
even when we feel utterly alone,
trapped in our dark night of the soul.
With the promise of Christ as our hope,
lead us from our own wilderness wanderings
into the well-tended garden of your love.
Words of Assurance (Psalm 42, Galatians 3)
The steadfast love of God is with you—
yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Whether you turn away or doubt,
whether you follow timidly or joyfully,
you are loved and forgiven in Christ.
Passing the Peace of Christ
May you know the peace of Christ in the midst of suffering. May you feel the hope of the Holy Spirit in the midst of sorrow. And may you touch the love of God in the midst of pain. Feel God’s love blowing through your life, as you turn to one another and pass the peace of Christ.
Prayer of Preparation (Psalm 42, Galatians 3)
Holy One, prepare us to receive your word. As we listen in faith and hope, open our souls to your quenching waters. Free us from the confinement of our hearts, that we may hear the promise of your love.
Response to the Word (Psalm 42, Galatians 3, Luke 8)
Justified by faith,
we are clothed in Christ.
Sanctified by the Spirit,
we are one in God with one another.
We place our hope in God—
praising God’s help and love,
declaring how much God has done for us.
THANKSGIVING AND COMMUNION
Invitation to the Offering (1 Kings 19, Psalm 42, Galatians 3)
Be zealous in shouting your praises to the Lord. Remembering the strength of God’s love and the promise of Christ’s help, let us share who we are as the church in the world. With open arms, let us join with one another as we express our faith through our gifts of love.
SENDING FORTH
Benediction (1 Kings 19, Psalm 42, Galatians 3, Luke 8)
In the spirit of God’s unchanging love,
live the stories of faith we have heard this day.
In the melody of God’s song within us,
sing the faith we have received this day.
In the hope of God’s unfailing help,
share the grace we have touched this day.
Go and tell the world how much God has done for us!
CONTEMPORARY OPTIONS
Contemporary Gathering Words (1 Kings 19, Psalm 42)
Praise the God of Elijah,
who is steadfast and strong in the wilderness.
Our hope is in God!
Praise the God of the lost,
who is our rock and our help in times of need.
Our help is in God!
Praise the God of Jesus Christ,
who makes us children of the beloved.
Our life is in Christ! Amen!
Praise Sentences (Psalm 42, Galatians 3)
The steadfast love of the Lord lasts forever!
The unfailing hope of the Lord
is like prayer and song in the heart.
Clothed in Christ,
we are justified by faith.
Belonging to Christ, we are one in him,
promised as children of Abraham
to inherit God’s love.
From The Abingdon Worship Annual edited by Mary J. Scifres and B.J. Beu, Copyright © Abingdon Press. The Abingdon Worship Annual 2017 is now available. Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
COLOR: Green
SCRIPTURE READINGS: 1 Kings 19:1-15a; Psalm 42; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39
CALLS TO WORSHIP
Call to Worship #1
L: Come, let us worship the Lord our God, whose love quenches our thirst.
P: We are parched and thirsty for God’s healing word.
L: Let us praise God who is with us always.
P: We seek the one who will not desert us.
L: Let us open our hearts to God who calls us by name.
P: We come, seeking reconciled relationship with God. AMEN.
Call to Worship #2:
L: Break down the barriers that divide us, O Lord.
P: Tear down the walls of hostility and fear.
L: Melt the barbed wire of anger and hatred.
P: Breathe new life into your people, O God.
L: For we are called to newness in Christ Jesus.
P: We are all brothers and sisters through God’s love.
L: Come, let us worship the God who removes obstacles from our paths.
P: Let us praise God who seeks to unite us in peace. AMEN.
Call to Worship #3:
[Using THE FAITH WE SING, p. 2214, “Lead Me, Guide Me”, offer the following call to worship as directed]
Choir: singing refrain of “Lead Me, Guide Me”
L: We are weak and need God’s strength and power to lift us up.
P: Lord, we come to you our weakness and fear.
Choir: singing refrain of “Lead Me, Guide Me”
L: So many times we are tempted to take the easy way, the way of hurt and anger rather than peace.
P: Lord, we come to you seeking your guidance on the pathways of peace and hope.
Choir: singing refrain of “Lead Me, Guide Me”
L: Though we are lost, Christ calls to us.
P: Help us, O Lord, to hear and respond to your call.
All: singing refrain of “Lead Me, Guide Me.
Call to Worship #4:
L: We come to you this day, with burdens and cares in our hearts.
P: Lord, take these burdens from us and ease our souls.
L: We come to you this day, with fear and uncertainty about the future.
P: Lord, calm our fears and help us to place our trust in you.
L: Come, let us worship God whose love is abundant.
P: Let us praise the God of our salvation who watches over us always. AMEN.
PRAYERS, LITANY/READING, BENEDICTION
Opening Prayer:
Open our hearts today, O Lord, to feel the powerful strength and love you have for us. Help us to listen, not only with our ears, but with our spirits for your words of compassion and healing. Enable us to become more faithful disciples for you; for we ask this in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ. AMEN.
Prayer of Confession:
Life is sometimes like a giant spider web. We seem to get caught and entangled in its threads, not knowing which way to turn or how to extricate our selves from the dilemmas in which we are trapped. Lord, you know that so many of these dilemmas and burdens are of our own creation, coming out of our stubbornness and fear. We find it much easier to turn our back on people in need, or just write a check and hope that the problems go away. Forgive us when we decide not to become involved in the solution, when we would rather back off from helping and turn and run for cover. Give us an extra measure of courage and strength along with your forgiving love, that we may again place our whole trust in you. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. AMEN.
Words of Assurance:
Let go of the demons that bind you in sorrow. Christ has broken those bands and reaches out in love for you. Receive God’s loving blessings, for they are given especially for you. AMEN.
Pastoral Prayer:
Lord, we hear the stories in the Bible of Christ’s forgiving love. We look at them from a distance, believing that we could never be forgiven by God. We want to measure our sins on a grand scale, but in truth it is the little ways in which we disown you and run from your presence that form the foundation of our sins. Forgive us, we pray. Help us to be open to the needs of others. We have so much that we can do, and sometimes, O Lord, we are overwhelmed by the needs. We become paralyzed and fearful. Ease our hearts and give us strength and courage to be active witnesses for you. Give us such faith that we may place our whole trust in you. This day we have brought before you the names of people near and dear to us to be lifted in prayer. Some of these needs are for healing, for comfort, for solace; others are prayers of celebration and joy. All of these things we offer to you. Help us to truly believe in your abiding love in answer to all prayers that we willingly place our lives in your care. Heal and restore us; for we ask this in Jesus’ name. AMEN.
Litany/Reading:
Reader: There, that should do it. I think that I have erected enough barricades and barriers to prevent anyone from harming me and my family. We will be safe, come hell or high water. We don’t have to fear. We have full provisions, weapons, blankets, food, portable radio, cards and games to play, candles. We can ride out any storm. Bring it on!
Voice: God is waiting for you to act in ways of peace.
Reader: Peace! Hah! I don’t have time for that kind of talk! This is war! My way of life is being threatened!
Voice: God is waiting for you to place your trust in God’s care.
Reader: Right! Where has that ever gotten me? You hear the news and see the terror. It’s everywhere. I intend to make sure that it doesn’t come here.
Voice: The terror has won. It has laid claim to your life.
Reader: No it hasn’t. I’m just cautious. I don’t want to be caught unprotected, unready.
Voice: Your fear is growing; blanketing you in deep darkness. Speak your fears!
Reader : I’ve already told you. I don’t want things to change. I have worked hard for everything I have and now it could be all wiped out.
Voice: God will provide for you.
Reader: I don’t think so. My sins are too many. God doesn’t want anything to do with me. I stand here behind my walls - God doesn’t break through - God doesn’t hear my cries.
Voice: Do not be afraid. God is with you. Let your heart find rest in the Lord.
Reader: But what will happen? I am so frightened!
Voice: Come out from behind the barriers of fear and terror. Place your trust in the Lord. Build walls of peace; set tables with the food of compassion and understanding; look at one another as God’s beloved children. Know that God is with you.
Reader: Help me, Lord. Help me…….please, help me.
Voice: God will always help you.
Benediction:
God has poured blessing after blessing upon you. You are healed and sent forth to serve in God’s world. Go in peace and may God’s peace always be with you. AMEN.
ARTISTIC ELEMENTS
The traditional color for this Sunday is Green.
Author's Note: Today is an interesting mix of scripture. As I think about it I focus on the journey of discipleship, to those in need, moving past barriers and hostility to faithfulness to Christ, represented by the cross. The “footprints” are our own, as we journey.
Surface:
Place a riser on the worship center, about 6” high. A cross will be set upon this riser. Place a riser in front of the worship center about 6” lower than the main level.
Fabric:
Cover the entire worship center in green fabric. Taking some muslin fabric or some room darkening fabric (about 30“ wide and 15 feet long), place foot prints on it, leading the full length of the fabric as though they are walking on a path. You may have footprints of just one person, or of several people. If you are using various colors of acrylic paint, make sure that you have plenty of soap and water handy for cleaning the feet and also make sure that the paint does not get on clothing. Tempera paint works well, but I am not sure if it stains clothing. Place the “footprint” strip in front of the cross and down the center of the worship center, across the riser in front, and trailing out onto the floor.
Candles:
You may use candles in any way you choose.
Flowers/Foliage:
Use some leafy plants, such as ivy and fern, on the floor at the base of the worship center.
Rocks/Wood:
At various places, slightly overlapping the “footprint” fabric, place broken wood, rocks, bricks, even some barbed wire (but handle this very carefully)
Other:
Make sure you have a cross to set on the top riser on the worship center. If you are going to add some barbed wire to the setting, handle it carefully, and when the worship is over, dispose of it properly.
Rolf A. Jacobson
Rolf Jacobson is Professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, and one of the "stars" of Working Preacher's Sermon Brainwave podcast. His sermon from Luke 8:26-56 is called "Our Brand Is Crisis," and looks at the way Jesus crosses boundaries, confronts crises and creates community in three very different situations. This sermon is from A Sermon for Every Sunday, a series of lectionary-based video sermons designed for use in worship, Bible study, small groups, Sunday school classes or for individual use.
PULPIT RESOURCE Rolf Jacobson is Professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, and one of the "stars" of Working Preacher's Sermon Brainwave podcast. His sermon from Luke 8:26-56 is called "Our Brand Is Crisis," and looks at the way Jesus crosses boundaries, confronts crises and creates community in three very different situations. This sermon is from A Sermon for Every Sunday, a series of lectionary-based video sermons designed for use in worship, Bible study, small groups, Sunday school classes or for individual use.
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Welcome to the new Pulpit Resource from Will Willimon. For over three decades Pulpit Resource helps preachers prepare to preach. Now in partnership with Abingdon Press, this homiletical weekly is available with fresh and timely accessibility to a new generation of preachers.
No sermon is a solo production. Every preacher relies on inherited models, mentors in the preacher’s past, commentaries on biblical texts by people who have given their lives to such study, comments received from members of the congregation, last week’s news headlines, and all the other things that make a sermon communal.
No Christian does anything on their own. We live through the witness of the saints; preachers of the past inspire us and judge us. Scripture itself is a product of the community of faith. A host of now-forgotten teachers taught us how to speak. Nobody is born a preacher.
Pulpit Resource is equivalent to sitting down with a trusted clergy friend over a cup of coffee and asking, “What will you preach next Sunday?” Whenever I’ve been asked by new preachers, “How can I develop as a preacher?” my usual response is, “Get in a group of preachers. Meet regularly. Learn how to give and how to receive help. Sort through the advice of others, and utilize helpful insights.”
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ISAIAH 65:1-9
In 1952, a New York City probation officer searched for more than a year to find an organization somewhere in the Bronx that would take in a twelve-year-old needy youngster. Although the boy had a religious background, none of the major religious groups would make room for him because he came from a sect they did not recognize. The result was that the twelve-year-old "went in a way that was not good." In fact, his name lives in infamy: Lee Harvey Oswald.
"He went in a way that was not good!" For different reasons, God, through Isaiah, applies the same words to old Israel in today's text. However, that is where the similarity ends. Israel's condition was not the result of no one caring. Someone cared more dearly than Israel would acknowledge.
I. The Unchanging God (vv. 1-2a)
This is God's answer to a prayer. Isaiah, provoked by Israel's national behavior, asked God to pour his wrath on them. Instead God answers with unwavering grace: "I said, 'Here am I, here am I.' " Using Hebrew parallelism, he emphasizes the patience of his open arms as a model for Isaiah to follow. This emphasis is like a ship captain calling, "Now hear this: This is your captain speaking." It means, "Pay attention!" There would be judgment, but it would come soon enough.
Meanwhile God's welcome home to a nation of prodigals was unwavering. His open arms had never narrowed and his love had not faltered. He was always there for them. The same is still true for the new, spiritual Israel, the Christian church. Paul, recalling this passage, calls our attention to this in Romans 10:20. God is still there and his arms are still open. For how long? We do not know. How shall we respond?
II. The Ultimate Insult (vv. 2b-7)
Israel's response to this history of love with no boundaries was indifference. God says, in effect, that they have taken an "in your face" attitude against him. The ultimate insult is delivered when they ordered God out of their national affairs because they believed themselves more right than he. This echoes of Isaiah 14:13. Today America often seems to be trying to shut God out of our national affairs, and worshiping the insubstantial polytheism of political correctness. God's patience, however, will not last forever. Israel's attitude toward God came back to haunt them, as will ours. "They walked" was a figure of speech that reveals their pattern of life; "in ways" reveals their manner of life; "not good" reveals their destination, unless they change their ways.
What issues trouble us because we "walk in ways not good"? What issues plague someone you know—perhaps even yourself—because sound counsel is disregarded? How many of our national problems are linked to raising up children with no reference to God in their education? How long will we persist in going "in a way that is not good" before we will realize that trying to shut God out of our national life is effectively shutting Satan into it?
III. The Unwavering Covenant (vv. 8, 9)
The day will come when all faithlessness will reap its bitter harvest, while the faithful of God shall enjoy a sweet inheritance. Isaiah, using one of the Bible's favorite figures, a vineyard, describes the difference as sweet and sour grapes. What spares us in the meantime? It is first that God is faithful to his covenant, and second, that he still sees a few sweet grapes he can harvest.
Christ drank our bitter cup on Calvary's cross and we need not taste it again. What shall we do in gratitude for that kind of love? Our response will lead us one of two ways: Either we will be among the sweet grapes of God's good harvest, or we will be sour grapes, our bitterness betraying our "in your face" unwillingness to change our ways. (Robert Leslie Holmes)
FREE INDEED
GALATIANS 3:23-29
Paul's Magna Carta of Christian liberty was addressed to the Galatians, and forwarded from there to the world. This passage summarizes his central thesis—that Christianity can go directly to the whole world, without demanding prior obedience to the Mosaic Law because justification is now by faith alone. The Law was necessary for a while, but to live by faith is the superior way. Martin Luther reiterated this manifesto by also differing with a latter-day but still-similar position in Rome, on exactly the same basic issue of faith versus works. It seems that this issue must be periodically readdressed in order to remind us that we are indeed free from a works righteousness and that our state is determined by faith alone.
I. What's Not to Like About It?
Why would we be so pleased with the idea that "Justice" is blind, unless we assumed that anything she might "spy" around that blindfold could prejudice her? As the law is applied and mediated through people, we know that they are always vulnerable to manipulation by the fears and hopes inspired by all they do "see." When dealing with legal systems we might pray for wisdom, courage, and insight rather than "blindness" in the procurement of justice. But even justice at its best does not save us. Even God's absolute justice only shows us by how far we miss the mark.
Such an inadequate and tyrannical taskmaster the Law was for us, Paul says. It may have been bowed down to, in its time, but that was before we had anything better. It "guarded" and "imprisoned" those under its unforgiving eye, keeping the soul's imagination of love's largess sorely confined. Still Paul knew there were those in Rome and elsewhere who would not have anyone miss the Law's heavy hand that had been so "good" for them.
II. Like It or Not
Brilliantly, Paul's passionate presentation of the new freedom that believers have in Christ is set forth, not as something that should be allowed to happen, but as an already accomplished fact. He is not so much arguing for or defending a point of view, as he is logically explaining what has happened, so that everyone may understand it. It is something that everyone of rationality and goodwill might certainly be expected to want to do.
When faith was revealed in Christ, the inferior rule of law was simply superseded by faith. The Law then became as "dated" as the in-kind story of a young boy, who told his parents his Sunday school teacher had threatened to throw him into the furnace. When the disturbed parents asked him how that happened, the child explained that his teacher had told him that if he missed three Sundays in a row, she would drop him from the register!
Paul is pointing newly baptized Christians toward the open door through which they go directly to a faith-freed life, without having to walk over the fiery coals of Judaic Law to get there. In baptism, they have "put on" Christ—his mind and his righteousness—as a garment of light that gives a new vision. The same Spirit-connection that Jesus had with God, they now have. Abraham's offspring are now to be reckoned by a spiritually, rather than genetically, seeded line of inheritance. The new children of the promise are to be all who receive it by faith, water, and the Spirit—those invisible means of grace. The visible distinctions of race, position, and gender are truly swept away in the enlightened eyes of faith.
III. All Alike
Even so, every new generation seems prone to mistaking the present outward appearance of the established religious family and its children, for the new ones to whom faith is revealed and Christ truly comes. Therefore, today's church, and especially the fatherliness in it, needs to consider the real status of the transmission of a faith that lives and breathes by the Spirit—not by the Law—to ourselves and to our children. Entry by faith is now possible to anyone. Children of the promise can be drawn into the circle of grace from anywhere, without having to come through Judaism or any other legal system. This however, also means that no one can claim the promise is theirs or their children's automatically by birthright. (Kathleen Peterson)
THE CHAINS THAT BIND
LUKE 8:26-39
A group of muscle men known as "The Power Team" shares the message of Christ by performing amazing feats of strength. In one demonstration, they link themselves together with real chains and then proceed to pull themselves apart. While human strength can break some chains, others exist that only Christ can destroy. These are the chains that bind.
The encounter between Jesus and the Gerasene demoniac builds upon the preceding event of the calming of the storm (8:22-25). Both stories seek to proclaim the power of Jesus in relation to his identity as the Son of God. In particular, the disciples' question, "Who then is this?" (8:25) remains the focal point of the continuing revelation of the nature of Christ and his response to human need.
I. The Power of Evil
Setting aside the validity of contemporary explanations of suffering (victimization, class disparity, poverty, and so on) and their humanist remedies, Luke's account reminds us that supernatural evil exists and may control the behavior of unbelievers. As such, the demon-possessed man exemplifies the destructive pattern of evil and its consequences on human relationships.
First, the man languished under this condition for "a long time" (v. 27). The local citizens of Geresa tried to help him, but to no avail. The metal chains they used were no match for the demons' power, which surpassed every human effort to alleviate or assuage his situation. Like bringing a knife to a gunfight, manmade solutions will always fail to combat spiritual problems.
Second, the result of these impotent efforts led to alienation and isolation. He "lived in the tombs" outside of town being "driven by the demon into solitary places" (v. 29 NIV). One of the most conspicuous evidences of a person under Satan's sway is a detachment from God, loved ones, and the church. As sin penetrates and dominates our lives, we find ourselves separated from those we care about and who care about us. Only the power of Christ restores and reconciles those who are trapped in the destructive pattern of satanic influence.
II. The Power of Christ
Jesus counters the demonic presence in at least two ways: with power and authority. In the same way that Jesus demonstrated power over the physical elements by calming the storm, now he reveals his ability to control the spiritual realm as well. As soon as the man saw Jesus, the demons within cried out for mercy and begged not to be tortured. Note the key words describing this confrontation: the man "cried out" and "fell" at Jesus' feet (v. 28); Jesus "commanded" (v. 29); the demons "begged" him "not to order them" (v. 31); "he gave them permission" (v. 32). Who is this? The demons provide the answer: He is "Jesus, Son of the Most High God."
Contemplate the existential and eternal ramifications of this response. Where humanity is powerless, Christ is victorious. While Satan can break physical chains, Jesus shatters everything that inhibits people from being whole. He intercedes on our behalf to deliver us from the oppressive forces and addiction over which we have no control and restores us to an everlasting relationship with our heavenly Father.
III. Our Response
Jesus "healed" the man (v. 36). The word esothe describes the total healing-salvation Jesus provides. The stark contrast from total despondency to a renewed civility shocked the local townsfolk. The demoniac was naked, but now clothed; in the tombs, but now at Jesus' feet; driven by the demon, now sitting; chained, now in his right mind. The people responded in fear, asking Jesus to leave them.
However, the man sought to follow Jesus, to be his disciple and to obey him whatever the cost. Rather than refusing this offer, Christ redirected it by asking the man to join him in a different way. One does not have to be in the physical presence of Jesus to follow him. Christ invited the man and invites us to participate in his mission of proclaiming the good news to all who would hear by sharing what he has done for us.
No matter the "chains" that bind us, whether from Satan or of our own making, we can know that deliverance is available only from Christ. Human remedies will ultimately fail, but the healing Jesus brings lasts forever. Once we submit to him, our responsibility is to tell others so that they, too, will know the Son of the Most High God. (Craig C. Christina) From a Child's Point of View
Old Testament: 1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7), 8-15a. This story offers two themes of importance to children. If the focus is on Elijah's escape, the theme is that God takes care of us in difficult situations. Children need know only that Elijah had just killed all four hundred of Queen Jezebel's baal priests and that Jezebel was the meanest queen in the Bible; then they will understand why Elijah was frightened, running for his life, and ready to stop being God's prophet. With help, they can then identify the ways God took care of Elijah—feeding him on his journey, listening to his complaints, showing him God's power and quiet love, and granting his wish that someone else take over his job as prophet. They can trust that God also will be with them and care for them when they are scared and feel hopeless.
If the focus is on Elijah's encounter with God on Mount Horeb (vss. 1-4, 8-15a), the theme is "How does God speak to us?" Because children hear literally the biblical stories about God speaking, and because few have had personal experience with burning bushes or God calling in an audible voice, they often believe that God does not speak to them. They need to hear that for Elijah, God came not in a dramatic wind, fire, or earthquake, but in "the sound of a sheer silence." They should be urged to listen for God to speak to them in a variety of ways: through stories they hear, through other people, and through feelings of God being with them in difficult times.
A related, but often unnoticed, point is that even after the wind, earthquake, fire, and "sound of sheer silence," Elijah still told God exactly how frightened and unhappy he felt. Apparently he was not intimidated by God's presence, nor did God intend for him to be. We are invited to be as honest with God as Elijah was.
Psalm: 42–43. This is actually one psalm with three stanzas, each followed by the same refrain (vss. 42:5, 11; 43:5). The abstract language, poetic images, and geographic references make the psalm almost impossible for children to understand cognitively. Fortunately, the most understandable image, that of the thirsty deer, is in the first verse. If the deer catches their attention before they get lost in the more complicated image that follow, and if the psalm is read with deep feeling, children can follow its emotional sense. The refrain, especially if read from either the Good News Bible or the NIV, summarizes the psalmist's commitment to hope in a gloomy situation.
Epistle: Galatians 3:23-29. This is a very adult text. Its complex sentences deal in abstract language with an idea that is developmentally incomprehensible to children. Elementary children are at a stage of moral development in which ethical decisions are made by following or not following rules. They respond strongly to calls to follow God's rules and struggle daily with overcoming their wishes and feelings in order to follow rules. Paul's insistence that Christians are beyond the Law (or rules) baffles them. It will make little sense until their mental abilities develop enough to allow them to identify the principles behind rules. So read this passage for older worshipers.
Gospel: Luke 8:26-39. The demons make this one of the most difficult healing stories to share with children. Children want to know what demons are, why they made the man do what he did, and why the pigs ran over the cliff. They also want to know if there are still demons today? And if so, where? There are few answers that will satisfy literal thinkers.
The theory that this story is based on a prescientific understanding of mental illness is hard for children to accept because they have little understanding of mental illness. Alert older children may ask why pigs were needed.
Most children associate demons with evil beings that stalk innocent victims in horror shows, haunted houses at fairs, and scary campfire stories. Young children worry about monsters hiding in their closets or under their beds. To the fearful child, the story says that Jesus is more powerful than any monster or demon. Just as Jesus would not let the demons control this man, he will not let them "get" us.
One ambiguity that interests animal-loving children is whether the demons drove the pigs over the cliff (maybe to get even with Jesus by making the pig owners angry at him); whether the pigs were so frightened by the demons that they jumped over the cliff; or whether the pigs (being smarter than people thought) recognized the demons and, by jumping over the cliff, finished Jesus work of destroying them.
Watch Words
Decide on one definition of demons for today's worship, then stick with it to avoid confusion. Demons may be the evil powers we all battle every day. Or they may be the worst evil beings we can imagine.
Let the Children Sing
Sing about God's loving care in difficult times: "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know," "Now Thank We All Our God," "The Lord's My Shepherd," and "Be Not Dismayed Whate're Betide" (or "God Will Take Care of You").
Sing about God speaking to us through the Holy Spirit ("Every Time I Feel the Spirit") and in creation ("This Is My Father's World").
Commit yourselves to listen to God with "Open My Eyes, That I May See" or "Take Time to Be Holy."
The Liturgical Child
1. A dramatic reading is needed to hold children's attention for Elijah's long story. Read Jezebel's threat with cold, cruel fury. Whine Elijah's frightened complaints. And read God's lines with loving patience. Describe each power display on the mountain loudly, then whisper in awe, "But the Lord was not in the __________________."
2. Follow the format of Psalms 42 –43. Have one or three worship leader(s) read the "verses," with the congregation repeating the refrain. (To help worshipers get into the feel of the psalm, invite them to imagine they are Elijah, running away from Queen Jezebel.)
3. Create a litany prayer of confession in which the worship leader identifies the ways God speaks to us, and the congregation replies with the repeated admission that we do not pay attention. For example:
Leader: God, we wish you would speak to us, but we ignore the messages you speak all around us. Pictures from space show us the vastness of your creative power. Tiny flowers and intricate insects speak of your care for the smallest of things. The earth and the universe are full of messages about your power and loving care.
Power: But we do not pay attention. Forgive us.
Leader: You speak to us through people around us. If we listen carefully, we often hear your will in the advice of friends and leaders. If we care to, we sense your love in the love of those who love and care for us. When we watch, we can see people doing your work and join them.
People: But we do not pay attention. Forgive us.
Sermon Resources
1. To explore Elijah's experience, begin by talking about what scares people. Tell stories about being in storms or being lost (two big childhood fears) as well as stories about what adults fear. The Diary of Anne Frank offers excerpts about living faithfully with fear.
2. Devote the sermon to describing and calling on people to cast out specific demons that try to take over our lives and make us do terrible things. While younger children will hear only a sermon against "bad attitudes," older children will begin to identify selfishness, greed, and prejudice as demons.
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