Spirit of Witness -- A Message for May 21, 2023

 

Proclamation of the Scripture            Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35

May God arise, may his enemies be scattered;
    may his foes flee before him.
May you blow them away like smoke—
    as wax melts before the fire,
    may the wicked perish before God.
But may the righteous be glad
    and rejoice before God;
    may they be happy and joyful.

Sing to God, sing in praise of his name,
    extol him who rides on the clouds;
    rejoice before him—his name is the Lord.
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
    is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families,
    he leads out the prisoners with singing;
    but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

When you, God, went out before your people,
    when you marched through the wilderness,
the earth shook, the heavens poured down rain,
    before God, the One of Sinai,
    before God, the God of Israel.
You gave abundant showers, O God;
    you refreshed your weary inheritance.
Your people settled in it,
    and from your bounty, God, you provided for the poor.

Sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth,
    sing praise to the Lord,
to him who rides across the highest heavens, the ancient heavens,
    who thunders with mighty voice.
Proclaim the power of God,
    whose majesty is over Israel,
    whose power is in the heavens.
You, God, are awesome in your sanctuary;
    the God of Israel gives power and strength to his people.

Here ends this reading of the word of God for the People of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Message                  Spirit of Witness

            Today is our Musical Sunday. It therefore seemed appropriate to turn to the book of Psalms for our scripture reading. The Psalms were written as religious hymns for the Hebrew people. We can still sing them, although we are not sure what their original melodies sounded like.   The Old Testament, including the book of Psalms, has been translated into English from Hebrew, so verses that rhymed in Hebrew don’t rhyme in English and the words don’t follow the same meter, or rhythmic structure, than they did in Hebrew. But, sometimes we still sing the Psalms – familiar hymns like “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” is based on Psalm 46 and “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty” is based on Psalm 103. Random snippets from the Book of Psalms are found in many of our contemporary hymns – and when I say contemporary, I mean hymns written in the last 300 years!

            The Psalms were written to be sung in worship. Different types of worship services have different themes and tones – we don’t usually sing Christmas Carols at funerals and we don’t sing Easter hymns on Epiphany. The Psalms are usually focused on either worshipping God, praising God, lamenting or complaining to God, thanking God, or asking God for wisdom or instructions.

            Psalm 68 is a song of praise to God for victory in battle. It is attributed to King David, who is believed to have written many of the verses in the book of Psalms. David spent many years fighting battles….he fought alongside King Saul against the Philistines – he became a hero but then was threatening to King Saul, who ended up chasing David around the middle east with his army – David eventually overcame Saul and became the king of the Hebrew people, but then he had to defend the people of Israel against the Jebusites, the Philistines, the Moabites, the Edomites, the Amalekites, and the Ammonites. So, he found many wars and battles, and was successful in many of those battles. David attributed his successes to God.

            So, on the one hand, we can read this Psalm about how God helped David and the people of Israel successful fight off their enemies.

            On the other hand, as people who read these works at least 3000 years after they were penned, or quilled, or shared orally, David’s song of praise has applications to our lives.

The Psalm describes how God supports and sustains God’s people. God is a father to the fatherless. God is a defender of widows and people who are downtrodden. God helps lonely people create “chosen families” – families that arise not out of biological bonds but because of the love shared by the people who chose to be family together. God supports, loves and frees prisoners. God waters the gardens of the world and sustains crops and food sources. God leads the weary people to new homes and accommodations and encourages us in our efforts to help people who are financially poor and spiritually poor.

Psalm 68 concludes by calling all creation and all people to praise our God because God is the being and force who will fight for people on the margins. Our faith compels us to love and help people in need, just as God loves and helps people in need. God loves people who are suffering; we are called to love people who are suffering. God defends and protects vulnerable people; we are called to defend and protect vulnerable people. God cares for and protects orphans and widows; our faith compels us to care for widows, and older people, and orphans. God works for the liberation of prisoners; our faith calls us to visit and love and support prisoners and to work for the freedom of people who are wrongfully imprisoned.

God loves the people of the world – the vulnerable people, the downtrodden people, the sad people – God loves us. And, in response to God’s love we are to love those same people and each other. Let us join together on this music Sunday to: “Sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth, sing praise to the Lord…” Amen. 

Witness of Love -- A Message for May 14, 2023

 

            This week, we will celebrate the Ascension of Jesus. Jesus ascended to heaven 40 days after Easter, so Ascension Day is always on a Thursday.  We won’t gather here on Thursday, so our scripture reading this morning come from a teaching Jesus shared with his disciples at the Last Supper. Jesus wanted his friends to know that even after he was present on earth, they would not be left without the presence of God. Soon, God would share God’s Holy Spirit with the people of the earth – Jesus wasn’t going to live among us embodied in the form of a person, but the Holy Spirit will be constantly present with us.

            Hear Jesus’ teaching as it comes to us from the Gospel of John, chapter 14 verses fifteen through twenty-one:

Proclamation of the Scripture                        John 14:15-21          

If you love me, keep my commands. 

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 

the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 

Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 

On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 

Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”   

            The story of Jesus’ ascension is one of the stories from our scripture we don’t cover a lot in UCC churches. In the days and weeks after Easter. Jesus appeared over and over again to his disciples and friends. At first, Jesus’ appearances were unexpected and were amazing miracles. But, after a few weeks, Jesus’ friends and disciples adjusted to them….they may have felt that Jesus would always be around, just showing up in surprising ways and places.

            Then, forty days after Easter, Jesus led his eleven remaining Disciples to the town of Bethany. He told them to stay in Jerusalem until the coming of the Holy Spirit. He didn’t specify when the Holy Spirit would come, he just told them that it was going to come. He then blessed the Disciples, said good-bye, and was carried up into heaven. The disciples watched Jesus disappear and then they returned to Jerusalem.

            After they returned to Jerusalem, the disciples got nervous. When we celebrate the Pentecost events in a few weeks, we will recall that the Disciples were hidden away in a room together with the doors and windows sealed shut. Jesus had taught them over and over again that God would send the Holy Spirit to be among them, but Jesus wasn’t specific about when it was coming. While they waited, the Disciples became scared that they were left alone….this group of Jesus’ followers, who lived with Jesus, ate with Jesus, walked with Jesus, who witnessed tons of miracles including the resurrection, and still got sacred when Jesus left them alone. They had a trust problem….a trust problem that lasted until the Pentecost day events when the Holy Spirit arrived and filled them with the breath of God.

            Our scripture reading this morning comes from the teachings Jesus shared with his friends at the Last Supper. Even though Jesus was about to face his arrest, trial and execution, he had a lot of things on his mind that he wanted to leave his disciples with. He wanted them to hear, again, that God was going to send God’s Holy Spirit to be among them. Jesus told them this during his ministry years, Jesus told them this at the Last Supper, and Jesus told them this before his Ascension. God was not going to leave them orphaned, all alone, without Jesus. The Holy Spirit of God as coming – Like John reminded us last week – there is no escape from the Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is always among us and within us.

            The other thing Jesus wanted to impress upon his followers in the teachings we read this morning is that we show that we love God and Jesus by keeping Jesus’ commandments. Jesus says that whoever follows Jesus’ commandments and keeps them will be loved by God and Jesus, and we will be connected to Jesus as we keep the commandments. Our faith is not something that we only practice between 10:15 and 11:15 on Sunday mornings. Our work as followers of Jesus is to love God, to love Jesus, to love other people, and to keep Jesus’ commandments…..all of the time.

            Our work is to practice our faith, to keep the commandments, all of the time. And, the Holy Spirit is here among us and within us to strengthen our resolve, to help us as we endeavor to follow the commandments. Which commandments did Jesus emphasize? Jesus wants us to Love God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, and with all of our mind. Jesus wants us to love each other, to love our neighbors, as much as we love ourselves. Jesus wants us to work to control our anger, and to act out of love, not out of spite. Jesus wants us to resist our more unhealthy base instincts, to resist evil that externally attacks us and also the thoughts and desires we have to that encourage us to harm others and ourselves. And, Jesus wants us to love our enemies – not to attack them, not to ignore them, not to tolerate them, but to work to love our enemies.

            The Holy Spirit is the part of God that is here with us all of the time, to fortify us, to encourage us, to listen to us, to support us when we are weak or afraid or worried. Nothing we do in this life is done alone because the Holy Spirit of God is here with us. The Holy Spirit of God is a source of comfort and strength for us. We are never separated from God because the Holy Sprit is with us. And, our work is to remember that we are in the presence of God and that we must work to live our faith by treated others with love and respect, with treating ourselves with love and respect, and with treating God with love and respect. We are to love God and to love one another.

            Let us do so remembering we are never alone, God’s Spirit is with us. We are motivated by that Sprit to live out God’s love commandment.

            Thanks be to God. Amen.

Enduring Witness -- A Message for May 7, 2023

 

Although we are in the season of Easter, this morning we are going to focus on a conversation Jesus had with his disciples’ right before his death. He wanted his friends to know that no matter what happened, he would be with them. Jesus knew the end of the story, he knew in advance the tragic things he and his friends would experience on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Jesus also understood what would happen on Easter Sunday. Jesus’ Disciples, on the other hand, always seemed confused and troubled when Jesus tried to warn them about what would happen.

            Listen to Jesus’ words are they are recorded in John, chapter 14, verses one through 14:

Proclamation of the Scripture                        John 14:1+14          

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 

My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 

You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 

Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 

Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 

And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 

You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Here ends this reading of the Word of God for the People of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Let us pray: God, source of all light, by your Word you give light to the soul. Pour out on us the spirit of wisdom and understanding that our hearts and minds may be opened. Amen.

            Good byes are very difficult. We hate them. The last time we saw our granddaughter, she climbed into our car and pretended to drive. We passed her back to her dad, who was patiently waiting next to the car. As we said our final goodbyes for the day, we could see a change come over her 2 and a half year old face, as she registered we were going to drive away. She burst into tears….she has reached the developmental stage when saying Good-bye means something.

            And it does mean something. In our reading this morning, Jesus was trying to prepare his friends to say goodbye. They didn’t understand. They fought against what he was saying. They couldn’t comprehend the reality, the finality, of what Jesus was preparing for. Sometimes, we absolutely cannot comprehend these things, these goodbyes.

            Like the disciples, we have to practice saying “good-bye” over and over again. When we are kids, our friends move away or change schools. We go off to college and say “good-bye” to our family and friends. Some of those friends we will remain in contact with, and others will fall by the wayside. We say “goodbye” after graduations, leaving jobs, relocating to new cities, moving to new neighborhoods, retiring. Sometimes, we are staying in the same place and others are leaving – our kids go off to college or join the military -- our kids move out of the house or get married.  The most difficult good-byes are the ones that feel more permanent – when we learn about a loved one entering hospice or dying in a sudden accident. These are the hardest goodbyes – even though we have hope through our faith that we will reunite with them one day, that prospect seems very far away and far off most of the time. We have to adjust to living without the people we love.

            The scripture we read this morning is read at funerals.  It is read at most funerals. Jesus’ words to his friends are important – Jesus is going to God to prepare a place for us. Our life here will extend to the next life, to another sphere where we will lives with God. Even when things are ending for us here on earth, they are just beginning when it comes to living with God in a better place.

            Jesus wanted his friend to remember his words and be comforted by there. And, they come down to us through the ages, all the way from the first century. Jesus prepares a place for us with God in heaven. Jesus will be our touch-point – through our faith in Jesus, our eternal life is assured. Through our relationship with Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life, we have a relationship with God. Jesus will not always be present on earth with us, but Jesus gives us the tools to do work on his behalf. And, our faith in Jesus equates to faith in God.

            The disciples had lots of questions for Jesus when he was here. People tell me they have a lot of questions they plan to ask Jesus when they meet him in the afterlife. But, It is important to hear in Jesus’ words that he is with us even when we can’t see him or touch him. Jesus gives us tools to live faithful lives her in this life, and Jesus makes it possible for us to be present with him and God in the next life.

            When Jesus said Good-bye to his friends on his way to the cross, he wasn’t really saying Good-bye, he was saying “See you later.” And, he saw his friends again after the Easter resurrection. When Jesus said “Good-bye” to his friends before he Ascended to heaven, it was more like he was saying, “See you later” since he was going to prepare a place for them with God in heaven. He planned on reuniting with them in that place. Jesus also leaves us with a “See you later.” We know that there is no end with Jesus…. “…neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Even when we feel separated from Jesus, the separation is temporary. This is also true when people we love leave earth before we do. It may feel like we are being separated for a long time, but our separation is a temporary separation, not a permanent separation.  

            Jesus knows we struggle to say Good-bye. His friends struggled many years ago, and we struggle today. But, Jesus wants us to understand that even when we can’t see him, he is here. And, eventually, when we transition from this life to the next, we will go to be with Jesus in our eternal home.

            Thanks be to God! Amen. 

Powerful Witness -- A Message for April 30, 2023

This week, we are taking a break from Easter Stories to focus on Jesus being our Good Shepherd.  Each year, on the forth Sunday after Easter, in the middle of the liturgical season of Easter, we focus on Jesus being the Good Shepherd. Jesus is the Shepherd and we are the sheep….The Lord is our Shepherd, we shall not want. Hear this reading of the words of Jesus as they are found in John chapter 10 verses one through ten:

Proclamation of the Scripture            John 10: 1-10                       

“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. 

The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 

The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 

When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 

But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”

Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.

Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 

All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. 

I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Here ends this reading of the Word of God for the People of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Prayer: Lord, open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that as the Scriptures are read and your Word is proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us today. Amen.

Message                              Powerful Witness

            Jesus as the Good Shepherd is a very beloved image for our Savior. Many of the UCC churches in Eastern Pennsylvania have stained glass images referring to this well-known metaphor.  Jesus stands in the center of the glass, cradling a sheep in his arm and with a shepherd crook in his other hand. In our window, Jesus is dressed very elegantly in robes – I somehow doubt first century shepherds wore pristine robes. But, despite the clothing being a little mismatched, Jesus is depicted as a shepherd caring for his sheep – he seeks us when we are lost, he feeds us when we are hungry, he protects us from robbers and predators.

            Sheep are also pretty bad at following directions. They are easily led astray by others. They get lost. They get tangled in bushes. They aren’t good at protecting themselves.

            We are also experts at going astray when it comes to our faith. We have lots and lots of distractions, all of the time: 18,000 activities to drive our kids to, the external pressures on us to cook and eat healthy meals, and exercise, and read challenging books, and clean our houses, and excel at our professional jobs, and visit our relatives, and attend all of our meetings, and keep up with our friends. And, we are not only victims of external pressures, but we distract ourselves – we binge watch shows on our 18 streaming services, or play video games all night long, or drink too much, or sleep through our doctor’s appointments.

            Our distractions are like the bandits and robbers in today’s reading – they steal our time, our energy, and our attention.

            The midst of all of life’s distractions, we are invited to lean on Jesus. Jesus is the gate for the sheep – us! Jesus is our entry point into the Christian faith and is the source of our salvation.  One of most important aspects of the shepherd metaphor is that Jesus is the source of rest for us. God is watching over us and we can relax. We don’t have to go it alone. Nothing in our lives happens in isolation because God is with us.  

            Even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death – even though we are surrounded by ugly and terrible and yucky situations and people – we should fear not because God is with us. God uses God’s rod and staff to comfort us – God uses God’s Holy Spirit and words of comfort in the Bible to comfort us.  God listens to us when we pray and sends us messages thorough the words of others and through the situations that occur in our lives. We are not alone – God is with us.

            The 23^rd Psalm may only be six verses long, and therefore short enough to easily memorize. But, it is our best known section of scripture because of what is tells us about God. Let’s say the words of the 23^rd Psalm together and remember that nothing we do is done without the notice and care of God, and our loving Savior Jesus.

            Say the words with me:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Let us take heart that we are not alone, God is always here to listen to us, support us, and care for us. Amen.