Different Types of Pray-ers

October 26, 2025 Luke 18:9-14 Different types of pray-ers 20th Sunday after Pentecost Year C Prelude Greetings Call to Worship (inspired by Psalm 65) Leader: From the east and from the west, we come to praise God! People: Today we celebrate the ways God is at work in our world. Leader: From the fields ready for harvest to the majesty of the mountains, People: from the abundance of gentle rains to the blazing color of fall leaves Leader: God crowns the year with good blessings! People: And today we gather to praise God, Creator and Sustainer of life! (Disciples of Christ Center for Faith and Giving) Opening Prayer Bring us to deep silence, God, as we give thanks for the gifts you pour out on us and on all creation. Help us focus on you, and on the ways you sustain us in this life, even as we offer you our praise. AMEN. (Disciples of Christ Center for Faith and Giving) Song Lord I Want to be a Christian UMH 402 A Sermon for all Ages The Problem with Keeping all of the Rules Object: Picture of a camel Good morning, boys and girls. What is this picture I have in my hand? That's right, it's a picture of a camel. Today, I'm going to tell you a story by Rudyard Kipling about the problem of pride and how the camel got its hump. When God first created the earth and all the animals, He gave each of the animals a different job. All of the animals did their work, except the camel. Whenever the other animals asked the camel to do some work, the camel just said, "Humph!" and walked away. Whenever the other animals asked the camel to play with them, the camel just said, "Humph!" and walked away. You see, the camel thought that he was better than all the other animals. He had too much pride. So whenever the other animals talked to the camel, he just said, "Humph!" and walked away. Well, God didn't like for the camel to have so much pride. Because of his pride, the camel was not nice to the other animals. So God put a heavy hump on the camel's back to remind him of the time when he had too much pride and said, "Humph!" to all the animals instead of being nice. Of course, this is just make-believe. That is not really how the camel got its hump, is it? But it makes an important point. Our Bible story today is about two men who go to church to pray. The first man says his prayer very loudly. He acts like he is better than everybody else. He has too much pride. The second man prays quietly and asks God to forgive him of his sins. God listens to the prayer of the second man, because this man is not proud. God wants us to be like the second man. When we go to pray, we shouldn't act like we are better than others, and we shouldn't be a show-off about our religion. God likes us to be humble, and to glorify Him, not ourselves. Dynamic Preaching, Collected Sermons, by King Duncan Call to Reconciliation When we pray to God, do we do so with pride in what wonderful people we are, or with that humble hope which recognizes how we have not lived as God’s children, and how we need God’s forgiveness and grace in our lives? Join me as we pray to our God, saying, (Lectionary Liturgies, Thom Shuman) Unison Prayer for Forgiveness Watching God, like the Pharisee, we think we can stick our thumbs into life, pull out a prayer, and congratulate ourselves for being such good Christians. Then, we remember the harsh words we have spoken this week, the hurt we have inflicted on someone we loved, the lack of compassion we failed to offer to someone who needed our help. Forgive us, God of Grace, and deal gently with us. May we become more like the tax collector - humble, penitent, acknowledging our faulty lives to you. Then, may we receive the mercy promised to us through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen. (Lectionary Liturgies, Thom Shuman) Silence is kept Assurance of Pardon Forgiven and healed, we open ourselves to the grace, the peace, the hope offered to us through our loving God. This is the good news we have received! Graced and blessed, we are able to live our lives for others, taking them by the hand to reach that finish line called the Kingdom. Thanks be to God. Amen. (Lectionary Liturgies, Thom Shuman) Passing of the Peace Scripture Luke 18:9-14 Sermon Different types of Pray-ers Are You Really Listening? In his book Directions, author James Hamilton shares this insight about listening to God: "Before refrigerators, people used icehouses to preserve their food. Icehouses had thick walls, no windows, and a tightly fitted door. In winter, when streams and lakes were frozen, large blocks of ice were cut, hauled to the icehouses, and covered with sawdust. Often the ice would last well into the summer. One man lost a valuable watch while working in an icehouse. He searched diligently for it, carefully raking through the sawdust, but didn’t find it. His fellow workers also looked, but their efforts, too, proved futile. A small boy who heard about the fruitless search slipped into the icehouse during the noon hour and soon emerged with the watch. Amazed, the men asked him how he found it. I closed the door,'' the boy replied, “lay down in the sawdust, and kept very still. Soon I heard the watch ticking.'' Often the question is not whether God is speaking, but whether we are being still enough, and quiet enough, to hear. Yes, Jesus assures us that our heavenly Father always listens to us, but do we really listen to God? Do we follow the instructions of Psalm 46, "Be still, and know that I am God"? Eric S. Ritz, The Ritz Collection,www.Sermons.com Prayer is listening for God’s voice in our lives. When we pray we are connecting our lives to the source of all life. Prayer is at the heart of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Discipleship is connecting our lives and the world to the God. Prayer also lies at the heart of the gospel of Luke. Luke is intended to be a training manual for disciples. Luke demonstrates the power of prayer in all 24 chapters, from the birth of Christ to the resurrection – Luke shows the power of prayer, he tells us stories of Jesus praying, he models what prayer looks like, shoe shows ordinary persons praying, and he even shows how God answers prayer. In chapter 18, he gives us examples of three types of prayer in the mouths of three different lay persons. We didn’t look at the first part of chapter 18 – but it is the story of a faithful widow praying for justice and God hears her prayer. Our text for today is about 2 very different men with 2 very different prayers. When our children were small and we were trying to teach them to pray, we had three kinds of prayer: "Please prayers," Thank you prayers," and "Sorry prayers." S. Briscoe, Getting into God, p. 55. So the widow’s prayer was a please prayer, the pharisee’s prayer was a thank you prayer, and the tax collectors prayer was a sorry prayer. Actually in spiritual life there are five kinds of prayer. The five major types of prayer, intercession on behalf of others, adoration, confession, petition and thanksgiving. Luke gives models of all of them.As a matter of fact, there are 3 models of prayer in chapter 18. Last week we heard of the woman persistent in her prayer. – prayers of petition. You could say that the Pharisee was praying a prayer of adoration – even if it was adoration of his own faith. And the tax collector prayed a prayer of confession. Which is a better prayer? Which is better for us to pray? There is no comparison. There are times in our lives when we need to pray all five prayers. The comparison is not with the widow, the Pharisee and the tax collector. The comparison is with Jesus Christ – does the prayer draw us closer to Jesus. Luke gives us an example of all 5 types of prayer and I would encourage you to use them all at some point in your daily life. So when Jesus tells this parable, it is probably not based on a real story – Jesus is just using examples of people that he knows are in the crowd that day. Another major them of Luke is bridging the gap between insiders and outsiders. Jesus wanted to encourage the beloved community to understand those that they didn’t know so that they could open the door of acceptance. Tax collectors would have flocked to Jesus, because they didn’t feel accepted by the community. Tax collectors were nothing like IRS agents of today. They were considered traiters, because they would take money from their own people. Some time it made it to the government, most of the time it did not. They pocketed it. In a crowded room people would have felt uncomfortable around a tax collector. They were outsiders On the other hand, the pharisees were considered the ultimate insider. They were well respected and were looked up to as leaders. The pharisees were haters, they were in the crowd just to stalk Jesus and find something to criticize. Not only were they insiders, they were the authority for who was in, and who was out. When Jesus uses them in his parable, he is actually giving them a compliment. He is helping his followers understand their role in religious society. Pharisees were the first lay leaders – they studied the bible constantly, they did all that they could to support the congregation, they prayed for themselves and for others, they were expected to always go above and beyond. They were supposed to be better than anyone else. When he says thank you God that I am not like the other people, he is actually praying • Pharisee prays Psalm 17:3-5 “If you try my heart, if you visit me by night, if you test me, you will find no wickedness in me; my mouth does not transgress. As for what others do, by the word of your lips I have avoided the ways of the violent. My steps have held fast to your paths; my feet have not slipped.” His prayers are sincere – yet Jesus points out that prayer is not just words, it is also attitude and actions. The pharisees words were close to God, his attitudes and actions were not. Being a better Christian is about connecting to others – reaching out, not looking down on people. C. S. Lewis once said, "A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and of course, as long as you are looking down, you can't see something that's above you." • The tax collector on the other hand prayed Psalm 51 - Tax Collector prays Psalm 51:1 "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions” In Jesus eyes, the pharisee’s prayer wasn’t wrong, and the tax collectors prayer was not right. Both are equal in God’s eyes. They are both children of God. The pharisee is a model of faith, and the tax collector is closer to the ordinary guy. Jesus knows that in our minds, we tend to look for the good guy and the bad guy. Jesus is counting on us finding good and bad in the story. We like to stalk out the bad, the wrong, the problem. There is a story of a famous well liked knight who was a dragon hunter. He took is task very seriously. Everything that he did during his day, was geared toward making him a better dragon hunter. He thought about dragons night and day. He spent every available minute practicing hunting dragons. For him, in order to catch a dragon, you have to think like a dragon, you had to understand their motivation. His every thought was directed toward hunting dragons. One day, after years of discipline, he happened to see his reflection while looking at a river, and he was horrified at what he had seen. After years of focusing on hunting dragons, he discovered that he had become the thing that he hated the most – he has become a dragon. If we leave the sanctuary this morning focusing on the faults of the pharisee – thinking that he is the bad guy – then the lessons of Jesus has failed you. Jesus wants you to see the self- righteousness in yourself. Our text actually stars out by saying – there were certain people in the audience who had become self righteous. Those people he is talking about is you and me. As soon as we start to draw the line between us and them, between right and wrong, between good and bad, between insider and outsider – Jesus can automatically be found on the other side than us. Humanity is constantly trying to order ourselves regarding power and worth. The challenge of the Gospel is all people are beloved and that challenge is lived out in the Beloved Community (& the Kingdom of Heaven). In what ways are we humbling and exalting others or ourselves in appropriate (leveling) ways and inappropriate ways? Sometimes our greatest gifts, can become our greatest burden to listening to God clearly. The pharisee prayed a genuine prayer of thankfulness, but he focused on his gifts, and didn’t mention his faults. Discipleship is seeing others as beloved children of God- balancing love of God and love of other That is why prayer is so much a part of our discipleship. All 5 types of prayer ( intercession on behalf of others, adoration for God’s grace, confession of our sins, thankfulness and petition) need to be a part of our daily life. God hears the prayers of both the saints and the sinners. Our prayer life shapes our attitudes and our actions. May the grace that we receive from God be the grace that we pass on to others. Let us pray……. Song Leaning on the Everlasting Arms UMH 133 Pastoral Prayer We know that you listen to the prayers of the faithful, looking in our lives, and looking upon the world. Ask that you be with each and every person here and their concerns. Many things for us to pray about. • Pray for peace within the wars and disagreements in the world • Pray for the tensions in our country. We pray for people who are demonstrating and that you hear their concerns. • Pray for people in danger, and separated form families • Pray for many people and places that have been affected by hurricanes and horrible weather • People who are dealing with loss help in their grief • People who are dealing with illness of themselves and family members • Farmers who are working in the field, keep safe and not let labor be in vain • Violence and crimes unsolved. • Grace, peace, mercy Lord’s Prayer Stewardship Moment So the question still remains, who do you see yourself as in the story of the pharisee and the tax collector. Are we the model of what it means to be faithful to God, or are we just the ordinary person just trying to be faithful. Most of us are probably somewhere in between. And the next question is which of these two people would Jesus want us to model on our own faith journey? Does Jesus really want us to cheat those around us, and to hoard money for ourselves, and then ask for forgiveness without any thought of repentance. Jesus would probably want us to be more like the pharisee – the pharisee studied the bible, he served his church, he reached out to others, he was in constant communication with God, and he was very intentional about tithing. He took what he gave to God very seriously. If the bible called for him to give 10% of everything to God, he did that. Those are all of the lessons that we are reminded of during our stewardship campaign – giving our gifts, our prayers, our talents, our service and our witness. Jesus wants us to be like the pharisee - like a pharisee who has a little humility and an awareness of the prayers of others. Jesus does not discourage giving 10% of our income back to God. But the good news for us is that Jesus gives us grace. In today’s economy, when we look at our income. 10% may be way too much to give on a regular basis. He encourages us to pray and consider the cost and to give in a way that helps us to feel good about our gift. If 10% is too much, then perhaps we can consider 5%, or 2% or 1%. In a few weeks, we will be asked to consider our gifts to the church. I hope that we can all use our skill in prayer and connection to God as we commit our pledge for the year. God loves a cheerful giver, which is why we usually ask for a pledge and not a straight tithe. Jesus also stressed that when we give, that we consider the mission – what needs to be done and how much does it cost to do it. If each of us gives what we can – we can fulfill that mission. The mission of our church is to grow as disciples of Christ and to create a space for others to have a relationship with God, whether they are a pharisee or a tax collector. As we come to a time of sharing our tithes, offerings and gifts, Today, I invite you to look deep within your own self. What can you offer? What WILL you offer in gratitude for the ways Jesus lifts you up in his love, and God’s Spirit draws you close? Prayer of Thanksgiving God, we want to know, deep down, how we can live into the person you’ve created each of us to be. Receive the gifts we’ve offered here: the finances, the time, and the talents of each of our lives, but also the vulnerable recognition of our individual souls. Today, send us from this time of worship eager to be true followers of Jesus, who ate with sinners; crossed racial, social, and gender restrictions; and called ordinary folk to be his disciples. AMEN (Disciples of Christ Center for Faith and Giving) Announcements Closing Prayer for Facebook May we leave this house of worship today, quick to listen, slow to speak, open to hearing and responding to God’s truth. May God bless you and keep you, be kind and gracious to you, may God look upon you with favor and bring you peace. Amen. (Presbyterian Outlook, Terri McDowell Ott) Community Time – Joys and Concerns Benediction What greater joy can we know that to go home justified because of our humility before God who redeems? Let us leave this place to live as we came in – openly and desiring to praise God and witness to a saving love. Go in humble grace. In Christ’s name. Amen. Derek Weber, March 2025 Additional Illustrations An Absolute Standard One rabbi said, "If there are only two righteous men in the world, I and my son are these two; if there is only one, I am he!" –Reminds me of two friends talking, one said, "We're the only two honest people left in the world, and sometimes I'm not so sure about you!" With a human measure, righteousness is relative, you can always find someone better and someone worse. Take the right point of comparison and you feel pretty good about yourself. A little boy announced to his mother, "I'm like Goliath. I'm 9 feet tall." "Why do you say that?" asked his mother. "Well, I made a little ruler and measured myself with it; I'm 9 feet tall!" Human standards don't count. The only evaluation that counts is by an absolute standard! The righteousness of God Himself; with that measuring stick, we all come up short! Lee Compson, Holier Than Who? ___________________________________ What Impresses God - Luke 18:9-14 There was a very lost, wicked, rebellious man who decided it would be good for business if he went down to the church and joined it. He was an adulterer, an alcoholic, and had never been a member of a church in his life. But when he went down to the altar to join the church, he gave public testimony to the church that there was no sin in his life, and that he had grown up in the church, and they readily accepted him as a member. When he went home he told his wife what he had done, and his wife, a very godly lady, exploded. She excoriated him for being such a hypocrite, and demanded that he go back to the church the next week and confess what he really was. Well, God used his wife to really break him, and he took it to heart. The next Sunday he went back to the church, walked down to the front again, and this time confessed to the church all of his sins. He told them he was dishonest, an alcoholic, an adulterer, and he was sorry. They revoked his membership on the spot. He walked out of the church that day scratching his head and muttered to himself: "These church folks are really strange. I told a lie and they took me in; and when I told the truth they kicked me out!" The Lord Jesus told a story of two men in a similar situation who had totally different results. One man tried to talk himself into God's kingdom, but he didn't make it. One man tried to talk himself out of God's kingdom and he did make it. Now Luke makes it plain who Jesus told this parable to. For he says in v.9, "Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others." I promise you, every one of you will find yourself somewhere in this story. Because at one time or another all of us are guilty of trying to impress God. You are going to learn, surprisingly, what does impress God, and what doesn't. I. The Pharisee Who Fooled Himself II. The Person Who Faulted Himself III. The Principle That Fulfills Itself _________________ Pride I heard about a fifth grader that came home from school so excited. She had been voted "prettiest girl in the class." The next day she was even more excited when she came home, for the class had voted her "the most likely to succeed." The next day she came home and told her mother she had won a third contest, being voted "the most popular." But the next day she came home extremely upset. The mother said, "What happened, did you lose this time?" She said, "Oh no, I won the vote again." The mother said, "What were you voted this time?" She said, "most stuck up." Well this Pharisee would have won that contest hands down. He had an "i" problem. Five times you will read the little pronoun "i" in these two verses. He was stoned on the drug of self. He suffered from two problems: inflation and deflation. He had an inflated view of who he was, and a deflated view of who God was. His pride had made him too big for his spiritual britches. James Merritt, Collected Sermons, ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc. Can You Hear the Music - Luke 18:9-14 Who doesn’t like an “attaboy!” when they do something good? It’s why we have “honor society” in school. It is the reason we have scholarship awards as we head into college. “Attaboy!” stands behind all those accolades high achievers get throughout life — Rhode’s scholarships, purple hearts, Silver stars, gold statues, merit raises for school teachers, making partner in a big firm, getting re-elected (in any organization, at any level). “Attaboys!” reward the gracious, good, above-and-beyond behaviors we see in others. Good persons deserve good things. The problem is that our vision of “good behavior” can get extremely myopic, extremely near-sighted. We only are able to see the good in those who stand closest to us. Those far off become, if not “bad,” at least “other.” “Otherness” is perhaps the most insidious form of prejudice. Why? Because “otherness” makes close closed. “Otherness” disassociates our close family and other loved ones from outsiders and strangers. As soon as we identify some people as “others,” the game is over. We have drawn up “us” vs. “them” battle-lines. In this week’s gospel parable the good-living, well-meaning Pharisee and the ne’r-do-well tax collector are set up as ideal types of the “acceptable” vs. the “other.” The contrast could not be sharper. The Pharisee examines himself, and finds no fault with himself. The tax collector lets God examine him, and throws himself on the bar of God's justice (receiving mercy as God does).Ironically, the Pharisee treats God as a debt collector and the Tax collector, who IS a debt collector, treats God as a Savior…. The Best Treatment for Loneliness Dr. Karl Menninger, the famous American psychiatrist, once gave a lecture on mental health & was answering questions from the audience. One man asked, "What would you advise a person to do if that person felt a nervous breakdown coming on?" Everyone there expected him to answer, "Consult a psychiatrist." To their astonishment he replied: Leave your house, go across the railroad tracks, find someone who is in need, and do something to help that person. Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com Everything He Says Is True When you read the story about the Pharisee, a number of specific statements are made about his piety. Please note this. Everything the man says about himself is true. For instance, when he says, “I thank you that I am not like other men,” indeed he wasn’t like other men. He had a standard of morality that was far above the standard of that day. When he said, “I fast twice a week;” it happens to be literally true. The Pharisees fasted on Monday and Thursday of every week. When he says, “I give tithes of all I possess,” he means he tithes on the gross and not on the net. He went beyond the Law of Moses. That’s no big deal; all the Pharisees did that. And when he says, “I am not a crook,” he really isn’t a crook. When he says, “I am not like this filthy tax collector,” he’s really not like that guy. When he says, “I do not commit adultery,” he really doesn’t commit adultery. He is faithful to his wife. When he says, “I am honest, I am faithful, I am zealous for my religion,” he means it and every word of it is true. He truly is a genuinely good man. When I read his prayer, I am reminded of that country song that says, “Oh, Lord, it’s hard to be humble, when you’re perfect in every way.” What we are to understand is this. When he prayed he was telling the truth. When he said, “Lord, you’re lucky to have a guy like me, because I’m one of the best guys I know,” it was really true. He really was a wonderful guy. While he prayed, people would be standing around watching. And they would say, “He’s a fine man.” While he prayed, they probably applauded. He was the kind of guy you’d want living next door to you. A good citizen. A law-abiding man. A good, religious kind of person. If he were to come to this church today we’d love him because he would be faithful, loyal, and give us a lot of money. We’d probably make him an elder or a deacon. He’s just that kind of guy. He looks really good on the outside. Everything he says about himself is absolutely true. Ray Pritchard, How to Be Right with God ___________________________________ The Cunning Craftsman In her play, "The Zeal of Thy House," Dorothy Sayers imagines a stonemason working on an intricate carving for the chancel of Canterbury Cathedral, who clumsily lets his tool slip and spoils the whole great piece of stone assigned to him. It is a sad moment as the valuable and custom-cut stone stands misshapen. The architect, however, takes the tool out of the artisan's hand and although he remonstrates with him for his clumsiness, begins to enact forgiveness. He redesigns out of the spoiled carving a new and different figure which has its own part to play in the ensemble of the Cathedral, and then permits the blundering mason to complete it in all its glory. "So works with us," concludes Dorothy Sayers, "the cunning craftsman, God." On reading it, I could not shake the phrase from my mind: "The cunning craftsman, God." As used, the word cunning does not mean some kind of craftiness which might be our modern interpretation. But taken in its pure sense it indicates skill, wisdom and ability. The phrase then really means that the Master artist God can take our blundering efforts and still make something useful out of them. He takes our mismanaged lives, our failed efforts, our missed marks, our shameful deeds, our alien attitudes, our sinful lives and out of his divine resourcefulness he saves the day by creating something new, worthy and wonderful that still has usefulness and beauty in the divine plan of things. It is a reassurance that we desperately need, but one on which we cannot presume. Allan J. Weenink, Only The Wounded Can Serve, CSS Publishing Co., Inc. ________________ What Kind of Sinners Can Be Members Samuel Colgate, the founder of the Colgate business empire, was a devout Christian, and he told of an incident that took place in the church he attended. During an evangelistic service, an invitation was given at the close of the sermon for all those who wished to turn their lives over to Christ and be forgiven. One of the first persons to walk down the aisle and kneel at the altar was a well-known prostitute. She knelt in very real repentance, she wept, she asked God to forgive her, and meanwhile the rest of the congregation looked on approvingly at what she was doing. Then she stood and testified that she believed God had forgiven her for her past life, and she now wanted to become a member of the church. For a few moments, the silence was deafening. Finally, Samuel Colgate arose and said, "I guess we blundered when we prayed that the Lord would save sinners. We forgot to specify what kind of sinners. We'd better ask him to forgive us for this oversight. The Holy Spirit has touched this woman and made her truly repentant, but the Lord apparently doesn't understand that she's not the type we want him to rescue. We'd better spell it out for him just which sinners we had in mind." Immediately, a motion was made and unanimously approved that the woman be accepted into membership in the congregation. God accepts us as we are. There's not a sin too black, not a deed too awful, not a thought too horrible for him to forgive. Larry R. Kalajainen, Extraordinary Faith for Ordinary Time, CSS Publishing Company, Inc. I Used to Be an Intellectual Albert Schweitzer was laboring one day, under the hot African sun, building his hospital at Lambarene. A large timber had to be raised into place, and try as he might, Schweitzer couldn't manage it. He looked up and saw a well-dressed African man standing in the shade of a tree, and asked him to lend a hand. "O, no," the man said, "I don't do that kind of work. I am an intellectual." And Albert Schweitzer, with five earned doctor's degrees, said, "I used to be an intellectual, but I couldn't live up to it." When we are Christians we don't have anything to live up to, no pretenses to maintain, no privileges to guard. We can't be too low in the eyes of the world. We can't be losers enough. There is a wonderful peace and freedom in that. William R. Boyer, Sorry, Thank You, Please _________________ Bent to the Ground A city boy visited his cousin who lived on a farm in the country for the first time. The city boy had never seen wheat growing in a field. It was an impressive sight for him, the wheat golden brown and ready for harvesting. He noticed that some of the wheat stood tall in the field, whereas some of it was bent low, touching the ground. The city boy said to his cousin, "I bet the ones standing tall are the best ones, aren't they?" His cousin smiled knowingly and reached over and plucked the head of one of the tall-standing wheat stalks and one that was bent to the ground. He rubbed each of them and the city boy saw that the tall one was almost empty of seeds. But the one bent to the ground was full of the promise of a rich harvest. R. Curtis Fussell, Deadly Sins and Living Virtues, CSS Publishing Company, Inc. Learn To Empty Yourself A martial arts student was meeting with his master and teacher at a table, having tea. The student said to his master, "I've learned all you have to teach me about defending myself. I want to learn one thing more now. Please teach me about the ways of God." The master took the teakettle and starting pouring the student's cup full of tea. Soon the cup was full and began to spill over onto the saucer. But the master continued to pour the tea until it spilled over the saucer and then onto the floor. The student finally said, "Stop, stop, the tea is spilling over. The cup can't take any more." The master then looked at the student and said, "You are so full of yourself that there is no room in your life for God. It is not possible for you to learn the ways of God until you learn to empty yourself." R. Curtis Fussell, Deadly Sins and Living Virtues, CSS Publishing Company, Inc. Worshipping Who She Used To Be Girolamo Savonarola was one of the great preachers of the fifteenth century. He preached in the great cathedral of Florence, Italy, which contained a magnificent marble statue of the blessed virgin Mary. When Savonarola started preaching at this great cathedral, he noticed one day an elderly woman praying before this statue of Mary. He then began to notice that it was her habit to come every day and pray before the statue. Savonarola remarked one day to an elderly priest who had been serving in the cathedral for many years, "Look how devoted and earnest this woman is. Every day she comes and offers prayers to the blessed Mother of Jesus. What a marvelous act of faith." But the elderly priest replied, "Do not be deceived by what you see. Many years ago when the sculptor needed a model to pose for this statue of the blessed Mother, he hired a beautiful young woman to sit for him. This devout worshiper you see here everyday is that young woman. She is worshiping who she used to be." The first and perhaps the deadliest of the seven deadly sins is pride. R. Curtis Fussell, Deadly Sins and Living Virtues, CSS Publishing Company, Inc. ____________________ They Only Ironed The Parts That Showed Mike Cope, in his article "Righteousness Inside Out," tells of inviting a college student and his girlfriend back to his home after church, to have lunch with him and his wife. "When we got to the house, I took off my suit coat and invited him to do the same. The boy hemmed and hawed for a long time until he could pull me aside, and what he whispered to me then reminded me of the way I used to live when I was in college." It seemed he had only ironed the cuffs and collar of his shirt. If he took off his jacket, his girl would see the rest of his shirt and know what a slob he was. He had only ironed the parts that showed. That was one of the major, ongoing complaints Jesus brought against the Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day. That they were phony. That they were not what they seemed to be. That they were hypocrites. That they only ironed the parts that showed. William R. Boyer, Sorry, Thank You, Please ______________________ Our Own Vices Dwight L. Moody and Charles Spurgeon were great preachers of the nineteenth century. Moody admired Spurgeon from a distance and looked forward to the opportunity of meeting him in London. On that historic day, Spurgeon answered the door with a cigar in his mouth. Moody was aghast. "How could you, a man of God, smoke that?" Spurgeon took the cigar from his mouth, put his finger on Moody's rather inflated stomach, smiled and said, "The same way you, a man of God, could be that fat." Because we are usually blind to our own vices, we are hardly qualified to judge others. Eric S. Ritz, The Ritz Collection,www.Sermons.com ____________________________ • Ask your congregation who they are- the tax collector or the Pharisee? Why do they think that? Who do they view as the other? Why? Do they feel they deserve to be exalted or humbled? In some ways this could be thought of as a modern day version of the old parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
A Pharisee was a lay person, who committed to following the law to the letter. He did what was right all of the time. He tithed, the prayed, he studied the scripture, he lived right. The tax collector of Jesus day, was not the IRS man of today. The tax collector was thought of as a thief and a traitor. He stole from his own to give it to the government. Sometimes the money made it to the government, most of the time it did not. He kept it in his pocket. Jesus understood the plight of the tax collector very well – he had lunch with them all of the time. Jesus did not get along real well with the Pharisee.

What is more Important than Christ for you?

July 27, 2025 Colossians 2: 6-19 What is more important than Christ for you? 7th Sunday after Pentecost Year C Prelude Greeting Call to Worship (in response to Psalm 85) One: In the heat of summer we gather, seeking to be restored by God to our full humanity. Many: May God revive us, so we might rejoice in each day of life. One: Today may we hear as God is still speaking peace to us and to the whole of God’s creation. Many: Today may we recognize where steadfast love and faithfulness meet. One: Even as we worship, we trust the Lord will give us what is good. Many: Together let’s celebrate God’s salvation for each and for all! (Disciples of Christ Center of Faith and Giving) Opening Prayer God of our salvation, as we gather today, renew in us a deep awareness of your desire to make a path for us. You yearn to speak peace to us and to the world you have created. In our worship, we claim your promise to forgive us and draw us back to you. So speak your steadfast love to us once more, that your glory may dwell in us and in our land. AMEN (Disciples of Christ Center for Faith and Giving) Song I want Jesus to Walk with Me UMH 521 A Sermon for all Ages Established in the Faith By Lois Parker Edstrom The Bible teaches us to become “established in the faith” (2:7). Do you have an idea of what this means? We know that “faith” is our belief in God. It means that we accept his love. What does it mean to become established in the faith? That may be a difficult question. Let’s think about other things that become established. I think of schools. Schools don’t just happen. Someone has to have the idea to build a school. Then work needs to be done to actually build the school. The school needs to have good teachers and a plan to offer important classes and teach many different things in an interesting way. After all of this has happened and continues for a period of time, we can say that a school has been established. People continue to come to the school to learn exciting new things; the school grows and becomes better and better. To become “established in the faith” first you decide to accept God’s love. Then you must decide to study and pray and become strong in what you believe. Each day, as you give thanks for God’s love, and share that love with others, you become established in your faith. You grow and learn more and more about God. Just like a plant that grows in good soil, you become “rooted and built up” in God (2:7). You become established in your faith. Scripture quotations from the World English Bible Copyright 2012, Richard Niell Donovan Colossians 2:6-7 hand movements • Therefore as you have received – cross hands over heart • Christ Jesus the Lord – spread hands out • So walk in him – walk with hands • Rooted and built up in him – 2 opposite fist • And established in the faith – open hands with fist • Just as you were taught – bring palms together • Abounding in thankgiving – hands in the air • Walk with him – walk with hands Affirmation of faith (from The Confession of 1967) In Jesus Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself. We confess that Jesus Christ is God with us, the eternal Son of the Father, who became human and lived among us to fulfill the work of reconciliation. We believe that the risen Christ is present in the church by the power of the Holy Spirit to continue and complete his mission. This work of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the foundation of all we say about God, ourselves, and the world. (Presbyterian Outllook) Passing of the Peace Prayer for Illumination Almighty God, your Word is our comfort in distress. It holds your prom- ises that give us life. Give us ears to hear your hope and call. In the name of Jesus Christ, your Word made flesh, we pray. Amen. (Presbyterian Outlook, Philip Gladden) Scripture Colossians 2:6-19 Sermon What is more important than Christ for you? Quite frankly, I know a lot of people who just don’t care for Paul’s teachings. Sometimes he can be a little dated, and patriarchal in his teachings. He truly believes that everything that he says is just for males. It is Paul who says that women should be silent in church. If they have a question, then they should discuss it with their husband when they get home. He says that women are not allowed to be teachers, especially not to men. And now in this scripture passage he says that we have all been spiritually circumcised through Christ. He says that we have been circumcised not by human hands, but the whole body was removed by Christ. I am not even sure of what that means, and for half of the population that is just not a helpful metaphor. I think that Paul is really trying to help us to think of ways that we are connected to the divine in our lives. What are the things that put us in touch with Christ? Luckily he goes on to use to other important ways to connect to Christ – baptism and prayer. Baptism is a sacrament – a sacrament is something that opens the door for God’s grace to work in our lives. Now I move to a very crucial point in our understanding. Baptism is not only a means of grace for the one baptized. It is a means of grace for the whole church. Whether it is the baptism of an infant or the baptism of an adult – the entire congregation celebrating that baptism goes back to the memory and meaning of their own baptism. Examining themselves to see what degree they have kept the faith into which they were baptized, and how firmly they have clung to the cross which purchased their salvation. In a practical sense, the whole church undergoes baptism whenever some person is baptized. I plead with you – to capture that meaning of baptizing. When we baptize an infant, as we’ll do later today in the church, or when we baptize an adult or a young person – we should do, each one of us, should do within our own consciousness again what we may have experienced unconsciously when as infants we were baptized. Or we should recall when we self-consciously made our decision of faith, our commitment to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. That means, my friends, that you are never a spectator to baptism. Never. You assist in baptism. You not only assist, you participate in baptism. We take up our baptism again, remembering who we are, named as God’s people. Dear old Martin Luther, whenever he was depressed and undergoing strong attack from the devil, or sensed his courage and spiritual strength failing, he would lay his hands on his head and say aloud to himself, I am baptized. And so do we, and our identity through baptism becomes a means of grace. I close with this. In the earliest baptismal liturgies, after the person had been baptized, he or she appeared before the bishop. The bishop embraced the new Christian then did something of great significance – the bishop dipped his finger into oil and made the sign of the cross on the Christian’s forehead. This was known as the signation, the signature. The sign of the cross upon a person’s forehead was like a brand to show ownership. As sheep are marked to show ownership, so Christians are marked by baptism to show who owns them and to what flock they belong. By baptism, Christians are branded to show who chose them and who now owns them. Remember your baptism. Maxie Dunnam, MaxieDunnam.com, by Maxie Dunnam When we are baptized, not only do we put Christ on like a garment. But we are also given a new spirit, new energy and we have access to an unlimited supply of inspiration and support to help us with any situation that we may face in life. Baptism gives a purpose in life, and a legacy to pass on to others. Prayer is another way to connect to the divine. Prayer is our way of communicating with God and listening to what God has to say. There is a bumper sticker which says ‘Life is fragile, handle with prayer”. There is evidence that many people in America heed that advice. While 42 percent of Americans state that they attend worship. More than half of all Americans say that they pray at least twice daily. 75 percent say that prayer makes a difference in their life. And nine out of ten say that they have prayed at some point in their lives. While the statistics are great. They do not reveal the attitude which some people pray, or to whom the prayers are address to. Many people who say that they pray, do not know how to pray as Jesus instructed us in the bible. Just like many of the people who drive cars everyday, still don’t know the rules of the road. When it comes to genuine prayer where are feel connected to God, we still have a long way to go. Paul wants us to think of the ways that we connect to the divine. There is prayer, baptism, there is worship, or mission service, or fellowship, forgiveness, love, grace. Anything that helps us to grow in faith – helps us to connect. This part of the passage above the white space is about matters of the heart. These two verses are about our relationship to the risen Christ. They are about building our faith, a sense of trust that comes from within us. A recovering drug addict, writing to her pastor about the faith she and her husband — also an addict — had found, described faith in terms as eloquent as we can find anywhere. For us, faith is not a warm, comforting, fuzzy, feel good. Faith was gritting our teeth, walking through the agony and helplessness of addiction recovery, and continuing to put one foot in front of the other, doing what we were told was the right thing to do, and trusting, praying, and hoping that God was in control, that our tortuous journey would end, and that on the other side was a life worth living. Faith happens when we are at our most desperate moments, and we hold our heads up, doing what we hear God tell us in our hearts, and trusting that he will take care of us. Faith is not smarmy and glowing with happiness. It is an action, not words. It is a very small space we go to within ourselves, among all the bad emotions and feelings and self-loathing — a place that we cling to, while listening to that small voice, the voice of a loving, forgiving power greater than ourselves, outside of ourselves, that will, eventually heal the bad, walk us through the emotions, help us feel better about who we are and what we stand for.1 I was watching a news story this week about two nuns who has started a ministry to help migrants in Chicago to get established. One of the nuns passed away and the other wanted to give a tribute to her. She talked about how committed she was to the ministry. She talked about her faith in Christ. She said that the last words that she has said to the nun as she was dying to hospice – when you get to heaven and you are face to face with Christ. Pray for us, pray for the ministry and whatever you do, don’t take no for an answer. Pray fervently and tell God, that God has no choice but to bless us. Tell God that there are some faithful people who need you down here on earth – and tell God that God has to help him. I was impressed, because it taught me that is what prayer, baptism and faith is all about – not taking no for an answer- trusting in God in all circumstances. What are the ways that you connect to the divine in your life? What are your prayers? Where is your faith. Paul really didn’t mean any harm in his teaching. He wanted us to just get in touch with our faith and the ways in which we know that God is there. He wanted to make sure that when we go through life, that we are deeply rooted in christ when challenges come. Life is not easy and if we are not careful we can easily become discouraged. We can easily wonder if God really cares. Paul reminds us that Christ was there, granting us grace way before our problems came along. And that we should not only remember our faith, we should put Christ first in everything that we do. A recent pew research center study projects that the number of Christians in the US might decrease from 64 percent to between 54 and 35 percent by 2070. At the same time, the number of religious nones is expected to rise from the current 30 percent to somewhere between 34 and 52 percent. Christianity faces a lot of challenges. Faith is no longer becoming important in our society. There are many reasons why the church is no longer relevant. – the secular world is taking over, politics is creeping into the church, people are distrustful of clergy and others, church scandals are rampant, people are disillusioned with religion. The reasons mount up each day. But Paul’s message to us, there is nothing new under the sun, those things were happening back then. Paul tells us that the greatest way to stop that – is to stay established in the faith. Our children’s sermon tells us – to live in Christ Jesus the Lord in the same way as you received him. Be rooted and built up in him, be established in the daith and overflow with thanksgiving as you were taught. Verses 6 and 7 tell us to live in the faith that we were taught. Verse 8 tells us to not get caught up into our own beliefs. When we get discouraged, then we start to accept that is just how life is and there is nothing that we can do about it. We start to believe the statistics. And we forget not to take no for an answer. Our own faith starts to have to compete with other things going on in the world. How can we get others to come back to church? First, we have to stay rooted in our on faith. Before God can make a difference in someone elses life, God has to be the center of our life. Prayer, fellowship, study, worship, social justice, and helping others are wonderful as long as they don’t become a means to an end. Everything that we do has to be in the name of Jesus Christ. We do it not because it is important, but because Christ calls us. Christ is the center of everything that we do. Christ is the anchor of our lives. A few months ago I received a letter which illustrates this in a poignant way. Let me say something parenthetically before I share the letter. This past week, dear Dr. Grant, founding pastor of this church, our Minister Emeritus, said to me with tear mists of joy in his eyes -- "A revival is taking place in this church." I believe that friends. Persons' lives are being changed. Persons are seeking to bring their lives into harmony with God's Will -- they are changing their life styles. Literally, miracles are taking place in our midst -- This letter witnesses to one of them: "Dear Maxie: I am writing you this to let you know I heard your sermon on "With or Without Miracles" on Christmas. God has done a great miracle for me everyday. This past fall I attempted suicide. I thought life was not worth living and that I had no purpose for being alive. But since then I have had people come forward and tell me how I have shown them to go on when things get tough. They have told me I have courage that many people don't have. And these people knew nothing about my attempted suicide. And God has given me friends that each day watch out for me. I still don't know why I am here but I know that God has a plan and a purpose for me or else He would have let me die this past fall. He would also not have sent friends to me that told me they love me and that I make a difference in their lives. So I thank God for working a miracle in my life by saving it and for giving me the miracle of friends. So God does exist and He does come through when you need Him the most. I had rather not leave my name, but I am a Christian that is fighting for life with the help of God. The past is dead, the future is alive -- and I praise God!" So, to live a life hidden with Christ in God, we are united in Christ's death. I like that In Christ, the past is dead, the future is alive and I praise God! So it is with us: cross-centered purpose gives us meaning. Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist who spent two years in a Nazi concentration camp. Out of that experience he discovered and developed logotherapy, a therapeutic approach to healing and health, by discovering meaning. Meaning, he says, comes from three sources: love, suffering, and doing a deed. All of these are gathered upin the cross and in the cross-life to which we are called. No wonder Paul could sing, "I rejoice in my sufferings" (v. 24). Because of the love he had received from the cross, his purpose was to love, even if that called for suffering. The cross was the driving force of his life.His burning desire was for all persons to experience the love of Jesus Christ which he had experienced. The cross gave him meaning for it gave him the cause for which to live and die. Finally I want to leave you with this poem to ponder You remember that old poem: Christ has no hands but our hands to do His work today; He has no feet but our feet to lead men in His way; He has no lips but our lips to tell men how He died; He has no help but our help to bring them to His side. What Christ has been and done for us, we must be and do for others. Let everything that we do be in the spirit of Christ. Let’s Pray……. Song It is Well with my Soul UMH 377 PRAYER OF INTERCESSION Just God, we sense your anger at the injustice that thrives in the world. We share your grief at the discord that rages among your children, the rejection of those who bear your image, and the oppression of those you know by name. We turn toward you for strength and guidance to turn away from the norms of this world, the lure of self-righteousness, and the appeal of comfort over justice. Embolden us to believe that another world is possible and empower us to participate in its creation. Amen. Written by Rev. Dr. Cheryl Lindsay, Copyright 2022 Faith INFO Ministry Team. https://www.ucc.org/worship-way/after-pentecost-c-july-24-2022/. Lord’s Prayer Stewardship Moment What are the ways that we connect to the divine power in our lives, what the are ways that we can feel close to God. We can care about the things that God cares about, we can follow the teachings of Jesus, we can put God first, we can worship God with all that we are. We now come to our time of giving, and we have a chance to do all of those things. We are in the misdt of summer and our stewardhip drive. There are many avenues to give to God and to make a difference. We can give what we have – and know that God’s blessings and grace makes the most of it. Jesus often makes comparisons from the lesser to the greater. In Luke 11, we hear the comparison from the way parents give to children to the ways God will give the Spirit to all who ask. Think of the best parents you know… (Your own parents? Perhaps your children as parents or others right in our midst?) Now, let’s make the comparison. As marvelous as THESE parents are as they provide for their children, how much more will God provide for those who seek God’s favor? Because God loves and provides for us, we’re invited to share that love, translating abundant agape into our morning tithes and gifts. See? These symbols of coin, check and electronic deposits come from the labor of our hearts, hands and minds. When collected, they allow us to care not only for our church community, but for others who yearn to share in God’s abundance. With joy-filled spirits, let us share in our morning offering. Prayer of Thanksgiving God, thank you for our daily bread, and for so much more which you provide. Thank you for this opportunity to return a portion of what we’ve been given. Open our eyes to see your love made visible. Open our spirits to respond in love to the needs which surround us.9 May we clearly see each sister and brother in Christ and respond to each one in love, remembering all are made in your image. AMEN (Disciples of Christ Center for Faith and Giving) Announcements Sharefest Closing Prayer for Facebook Go, into the world Proclaiming the many names of the Sovereign God Living the lessons of Good News Sharing in support and solidarity Opening doors And giving good gifts (United Church of Christ Worship Ways, Cheryl Lindsay) Community Time Joys and Concerns The results of the vote Pam’s brother. Benediction Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. (Presbyterian Outlook, Philip Gladden) Additional Illustrations Rehearse what I’ve said. To be alive in Christ means: 1) not only is the presence of God in Jesus Christ only to be experienced on occasion, the indwelling Christ is to become the shaping power of our lives; 2) what Christ has been and done for us, we must be and do for others; and 3) the working power of God in the past is to be brought into the present. Someone wrote of Mother Theresa: “She gave her life first to Christ then through Christ to her neighbors. That was the end of her biography and the beginning of her life.” So I’m going to continue my ritual, “Maxie, the secret is simply this, Christ in you, yes, Christ in you, bringing with Him the hope of all the glorious things to come.” Maybe -- just maybe -- my biography will end and my life will begin -- as I become more alive in Christ. MaxieDunnam.com, MaxieDunnam.com, by Maxie Dunnam I heard a cute story about one pastor who told his congregation that there were 700 different sins listed in the Bible. That afternoon he received three dozen requests for the list. Everybody wanted to know what they were missing out on! Paul tries to turn this whole thing around and calls the people to forget the notion of rules and to simply begin living in relationship to Christ. Paul tells them that rules have no ability to change the heart, but a life that looks to Christ will soon turn around and reflect his glory. Think about a person in your life that you care deeply about. Haven't you made it a point to learn all about them? Don't you want to spend time with them, listening to what they have to say? It is natural to want to be with the one you love and know all about them. So it is with Christ. When you stop wanting to know all there is to know, you better watch out. It is a sign that the embers of love are beginning to burn out. Paul reminds us that if we want to find out what pleases God, then we need to be sitting at his feet. In his book, The Gospel For The Person Who Has Everything, William Willimon tells of a young friend, age 4, who was asked on the occasion of his 5th birthday what kind of party he wanted to have. I want everybody to be a king and queen, Clayton said. So, he and his mother went to work, fashioning a score of silver crowns – cardboard and aluminum foil, purple robes – crepe paper, and royal scepters – sticks painted gold. On the day of the party, as the guests arrived, they were each given a royal crown, a robe, and a scepter, and were thus dressed as a king or a queen. It was a royal site - all kings and queens. Everyone had a wonderful time. They ate ice cream and cake, they had a procession up to the top of the block and back again, and then when it was all over, everyone knew it had been a royal, wonderful day. That evening as Clayton’s mom tucked him into bed, she asked him what he wished for when he blew the candles out on the birthday cake. I wished, he said, that everyone, everyone in the whole wide world could be a king and a queen. Not just on my birthday, but everyday. My friend Willimon closed this story by saying, well Clayton, baptism shows that something very much like that happened one day at a place called Calvary. We who were nobodies became somebodies. Those who were no people became God’s people. The wretched of the earth became royalty. Two or three years ago, I saw the death door at St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. Some of you may remember that the great Pope John XXIII, bless his memory, commissioned the eminent artist, Geacoma Manza, to sculpt a new door for that great basilica, and the artist depicted on that door a series of death scenes. There was death by falling, death in war, the martyred death of Peter upside down on the cross, and others. Death by drowning is there, death by water. And I reasoned as I looked at that door, that this was behind the sculptor’s theme – we enter the church by death. Baptism – our acted entrance into the church is by water. So death by water is a challenging and authentic understanding of baptism. The early church even built its baptismal fonts in the shape of tombs to make that meaning graphic. So we cannot underscore the meaning of baptism too much if we’re going to save ourselves from approaching casually that event in a person’s life which is so crucial. Being buried with Christ in baptism – having the sign and the seal of our salvation placed upon us with water and the laying on of hands. Haven't we all known Christians with whom we disagreed, but whose trust, thankfulness and joy we admired? Haven't we known people who faced grief, or disability, or some setback in life with courage and serenity? Didn't they inspire us, even if we didn't see eye to eye with them on every point of biblical interpretation or theology? A pastor friend once told me of a woman named Betty who came to every Bible study the church offered. She and the pastor frequently disagreed on interpretation, but my friend said that her faith was moving. She had arthritis, causing pain with every step she took. Nevertheless, her face glowed with a deep joy that came from within. She taught her pastor that verses 6-7 unite all Christians. Now, if we leap across the chasm between verse 7 and verse 8, we are in different territory. We are not so much in the realm of our hearts as in the realm of our heads, our intellect. We are not talking so much about the sense of trust, joy, and faith that we feel deep in our souls as we are about what we think in our heads. What we think in our heads is not totally unrelated to what we believe in our hearts. If we believe in an implacably angry God with our heads, we may feel the wrong kind of fear of God in our hearts. We will not have the fear of God that is healthy respect, but the fear that sees God as unapproachable. Nevertheless, two Christians can have different belief systems and still have deep faith in their hearts. Here, Colossians urges us to be careful about what we think. When we probe to the core depths of our being, when we get down to the base level of our identity, we discover four absolute needs, apart from physical survival needs. There are burning emotional/spiritual/relational needs which, when unmet, leave us less than whole, often crippled, sometimes sick to the point of being cut off from reality. The needs are common to all persons. Even though we may not use the same words to label them, the reality is the same. The needs are 1. To receive forgiveness 2. To love and be loved 3. To experience community 4. To have a cause for which to live and die. Other descriptions of our needs -- acceptance, affirmation, security and freedom, purposefulness and self-esteem -- are rooted in these four. The Cross meets us at the point of these deepest needs. Let's explore these. One day, another girl at the orphanage came to the superintendent to report that the girl was sending notes to someone on the outside. The superintendent thanked the child for the information, and asked her to come and tell them if it ever happened again. Two days later, the girl returned. She reported that a note had been place in the crook of a tree just outside the door of the building. Hastily, the superintendent called one of the social workers, and they raced outside to the tree. She grabbed the note and tore open the envelope. As she read the contents of it, her face fell and her shoulders sagged. She passed the note to the social worker. It read, simply: "To whoever finds this, I love you." (Bauknight, "Love is Linkage!", September 21, 1986). Dr. Parker Palmer, one of the creative leaders in spiritual formation and Christian community, told a group of YMCA workers "about a good friend of his who labors in an especially difficult assignment at the New York Catholic Worker House. One day Dr. Palmer said to her, "All the facts that I can gather and all the feelings I have feel me this work you're trying to do is just impossible. There's no success in it. There's no gratification. The tide keeps rolling over you. Why do you keep doing it?" Looking earnestly at him, the woman answered, "Parker, the thing you don't understand is this: Just because a thing is impossible -- that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it." (Discovery YMCA, July/August 1985, p. 15). The Cross calls us to take up our cross, to pray and live the petition "Thy Kingdom come". This meets our need for a cause for which to live and die. Four of our deepest needs: for forgivenessfor lovefor communityfor a cause for which to live and die. ...all met in the Cross.Do you see it?Do you feel it? Try to picture it, again with Charles Wesley: Behold him, all ye that pass by,The bleeding Prince of life and peace!Come, sinners, see your Savior die,And say, was ever grief like his?Come, feel with me his blood applied:My Lord, my Love, is crucified.("O Love Divine, What Hast Thou Done") And how will we respond: Hopefully, with Isaac Watts, in total commitment: Were the whole realm of nature mine,That were an offering far too small;Love so amazing, so divine,Demands my soul, my life, my all.("When I Survey the Wondrous Cross") Maxie Dunnam, by Maxie Dunnam Mickey Rooney, the famous American actor, made witness to this in a television interview. Rooney has been crass, crude, often drunk in such appearances, usually angry and insulting. But the interviewer knew something had happened, and questioned Rooney about his recent past when he hit bottom emotionally and financially. Rooney calmly answered, "I don't mean to sound ecclesiastical, but recently I gave my life to the Lord Jesus Christ and now my past is gone." I heard a story recently about a boy who was walking home with his mother from church one Sunday. He had obviously listened to the preacher because he said to his mother, "Mommy, the preacher's sermon this morning confused me. Can I ask you something?" "Sure thing," replied the mother. "Well, he said that God is bigger than we are. Is that true?" "Yes, that is true," the mother replied. "And he also said that God lives in us. Is that true, Mommy?" Again the mother replied, "Yes". "Well," the boy continued. "If God is bigger than us, and if God lives inside us, shouldn't He show through?"

Prayers for all People

November 19, 2024 1 Timothy 2:1-7 Thanksgiving Organ and Tissue Donation Sunday Prayers for all People Year B Prelude Greeting Call to Worship L: Come, let us celebrate the wondrous gifts that God has given us. P: Throughout all our lives, God has blessed us with love and hope. L: Praise be to God who provides for us. P: May our hearts be truly grateful, and may we show our gratitude by the ways in which we live and care for others. L: Hallelujah! P: AMEN. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley) Opening Prayer Lord of bounty and blessing, we come to you this day in gratitude for all that we have been given. We are grateful for the blessings and for the opportunities to be of service to others in your holy Name. Bless each of us here, that we may become truly blessings to others. For we ask this in Jesus’ Name. AMEN. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley) Song Great is Thy Faithfulness UMH 140 A Sermon for all Ages Children’s Message What is an organ? A musical instrument? What is a tissue? Something in which to sneeze or to wrap a gift? And what is a donor? In The United Methodist Church, we celebrate Organ and Tissue Donor Sunday. In this case, an organ is a group of tissues in a living organism that has a specific form and function. Examples are your heart, kidneys and lungs. Sometimes, perhaps because of disease, a person’s organ quits working effectively, and they become very sick. That’s where the word “donor” comes in. A donor is an individual who shares an organ or tissue so that someone else can have a fuller life. On Organ and Tissue Donor Sunday, United Methodists encourage people to help others in this way. Newsletter Nugget “He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age.” —Ruth 4:15, NRSVUE Most of us take our health and our bodies for granted. We check that little organ-donation box on our driver’s license and, most likely, forget about it. But when we, or someone we love, is in need of an organ, cornea or tissue transplant, the situation becomes personal. That’s why Organ and Tissue Donor Sunday is so important. One of five special days without a churchwide offering, Organ and Tissue Donor Sunday is viewed as a time for United Methodists to come together around the issues of life and thanksgiving. Congregations are encouraged to include the topic in their worship services. Worship resources are available from nonprofit donor programs in the United States. Jesus said, “I came so that they could have life—indeed, so that they could live life to the fullest” (John 10:10b CEB). Organ and Tissue Donor Sunday is an opportunity to consider new ways to follow Jesus and to help others find abundant life. Adapted from Donate Life America website. Prayer of Thanksgiving (note that the prayer is in bold) Bounteous God, you have lavished your finest gifts on each one of us. We thank you for the many ways in which you have blessed our lives--with love, hope, friends, our church, and so many other things that we cherish. Help us be a blessing for others--that they may come to know you and rejoice in your love. Give us hearts of courage and confidence to step out into the world in service, bringing hope where there is doubt, peace where there is strife, love where there is discord. These things we pray in Jesus’ Name, AMEN. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley) Scripture 1 Timothy 2:1-7 Sermon Prayers for all People Thanksgiving did not become a national holiday for the United States until 1942, when president Roosevelt declared it as the 4th Thursday of November. I am told that he did that for economic reasons, so that Christmas shopping could begin the next day. So not only did he start Thanksgiving, but also black Friday. By the way, it is also no accident that election day is always in November. It was established in 1842 to have elections after harvest time. On a Tuesday, so that farmers had time to travel to the polls after church on Sunday. But back to the harvest festival - We know that it was president Lincoln who introduced the idea of thanksgiving to the nation. In 1863 I think he made a proclamation of a national day of prayer and thanksgiving. Yet did you know that a national day of prayer and thanksgiving goes all the way back to our first president, George Washington. First National Thanksgiving Proclamation Whereas, it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; Whereas, both the houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness!" Now therefore, I do recommend next, to be devoted by the people of the states to the service of that great and glorious being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be, that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country. George Washington, 1779. Washington declared that We are a safe and happy nation under God, that God is the protector of our country, so we should have a public say of Prayer and Thanksgiving. Today – I think that we do well with the Thanks part of the holiday. We remember to say thank you to those around us. We even do well with the giving part. This is the beginning of giving season. We remember those in need, we make sure everyone has a table to go to on thanksgiving. It is the time of year to remember end of the year giving for the organizations that we care about. But I wonder how we are doing with the prayer part of Thanksgiving. Other than the grace, how much do we pray at Thanksgiving? Giving Meaningful Thanks I have noticed that at Thanksgiving time it is difficult for people to give God thanks and praise. You hear people say on that day that they are grateful but that is where it ends. They rarely direct their thankfulness to God. One year my daughter's school had a Thanksgiving day program for the parents. I was so saddened that during the program all they could sing about was "Tom Turkey." You would have thought that it was a poultry holiday. Not only is it difficult for us to give thanks, but it seems that we can not graciously receive thanks. If we listen carefully to various conversations we will notice that sometimes someone will say, "Thank you," only to have the other person say, "No, thank you." Obviously, giving thanks has become a meaningless exercise for many people. We have reduced it to the level of telling one another to "have a nice day." This is nothing new; in our text Jesus was having the same problem. So was one young mother who was preparing a dinner party at her home. She had spent all day in preparations for the big event. She was nervous and wanted everything to be just right for her guests. She had cleaned the house from top to bottom, polished the silver, arranged the flowers, and even made little name cards for each guest. Finally, the guests arrived and were eventually seated at the dinner table. The young mother turned to her daughter and asked her to offer the prayer. The daughter said that she did not know what to pray. "Just pray what Mommy would pray," the mother said. The little girl thought for a moment and then prayed, "Dear Lord, why did I invite all these people to dinner?"" John R. Steward, Lectionary Tales For The... Our scripture reminds us to pray for all people. To bring everything to God in prayer. This year I am sure that there are a lot of people who will bring our nation to God in prayer. There will be lots of discussions around the table about God overseeing our nation. But let us remember to bring all of our petitions to God. Before gathering, before the food, while we are alone, when we start our day – let us start our day in relationship with God. To put it easily, someone said The attitude of gratitude is important for several reasons: Thankfulness acknowledges that God is our provider. Thankfulness prevents a complaining spirit. Thankfulness creates a positive outlook on life Thankfulness invites joy to dwell in our hearts. Kent Crockett, Making Today Count for Eternity, pp. 161. 1 Timothy reminds us that there is only one God, On mediator, and at the heart of the matter, we are one people when we come together in prayer. At its heart and beginning, Thanksgiving is a political holiday. My prayer is that God spares us all from political talk at the thanksgiving table this year. But let us remember, that when we bring everything in prayer to God – we are all loved, protected, and united. Let us pray….. Song Come, Ye Thankful People, Come UMH 694 Pastoral Prayer God of infinite patience and power, how it must try your patience to watch us hurl ourselves into a season of greed and grumbling. Your blessings, your bounty, have been poured out to us that we may be strengthened to be your people in service to others. Yet we persist in attaching ourselves to the great “gimmies” of our world--“gimmie toys, gimmie wealth, gimmie power.” Today we have gathered here with an opportunity to step out of the race to possess, to praise you and thank you for the wonderful ways in which you have blessed our lives. We spend a lot of time looking for the big blessings, when all around us are the delightful blessings of everyday living--family, home, friends, the ability to enjoy laughter and share tears. There are so many ways in which you have touched our lives with your love. Help us develop for all of our lives an attitude of gratitude, never failing to thank you each day for your love and your blessings. Help us reach out to one another and to all those in need with this compassionate love. For we ask this in Jesus’ Name, AMEN. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley) Lord’s Prayer Special Presentation by Traci Brownlee (check spelling) Stewardship Moment On this Thanksgiving Sunday, perhaps someone in your congregation who attended a Disciple school could invite people to share a special day offering to support the work of Disciple colleges and seminaries. Or, you could use resources from Disciples Mission Fund by clicking here. Or, ask 3 different people to each share 1 minute to finish this sentence: “I give money to this congregation because I’m thankful for _________.” and share a closing sentence – “with thankful hearts, please share your financial gift as a sign of your gratitude for the ministry of this congregation.” Prayer of Thanksgiving With gratitude for all the blessings you pour into our lives, Generous God, we offer these gifts back to you. We pray they will be used to increase your Realm of peace. Bless all who have given gifts this day, that they may truly be part of the Way you showed to a yearning world through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, Ruler of all. AMEN. (Disciples of Christ Center for Faith and Giving) Announcements Closing Prayer for Facebook One: Go into the world showing a gentle attitude toward everyone. Be joyful and thankful! Fill your mind with those things that are good and deserve praise: things true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honorable. Put into practice what you have heard here. And may the God who gives peace be with each of you. All: We go in the peace of Christ to love and serve all creation. (ReWorship.com, Kevin Little) Community Time – Joys and Concerns BENEDICTION Beloved of God, place your whole trust in God’s absolute abundant love. Feel the powerful presence of God in your life and know that God’s blessings are with you. Go in peace, and may God’s peace always be with you. AMEN. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley) Additional Illustrations Sermon Opener - In All Things Be Thankful - Ephesians 5:20 Back during the dark days of 1929, a group of ministers in the Northeast, all graduates of the Boston School of Theology, gathered to discuss how they should conduct their Thanksgiving Sunday services. Things were about as bad as they could get, with no sign of relief. The bread lines were depressingly long, the stock market had plummeted, and the term Great Depression seemed an apt description for the mood of the country. The ministers thought they should only lightly touch upon the subject of Thanksgiving in deference to the human misery all about them. After all, what was there was to be thankful for? But it was Dr. William L. Stiger, pastor of a large congregation in the city that rallied the group. This was not the time, he suggested, to give mere passing mention to Thanksgiving, just the opposite. This was the time for the nation to get matters in perspective and thank God for blessings always present, but perhaps suppressed due to intense hardship. I suggest to you the ministers struck upon something. The most intense moments of thankfulness are not found in times of plenty, but when difficulties abound. Think of the Pilgrims that first Thanksgiving. Half their number dead, men without a country, but still there was thanksgiving to God. Their gratitude was not for something but in something. It was that same sense of gratitude that lead Abraham Lincoln to formally establish the first Thanksgiving Day in the midst of national civil war, when the butcher's list of casualties seemed to have no end and the very nation struggled for survival. Perhaps in your own life, right now, there is intense hardship. You are experiencing your own personal Great Depression. Why should you be thankful this day? May I suggest three things? 1. We must learn to be thankful or we become bitter. 2. We must learn to be thankful or we will become discouraged. 3. We must learn to be thankful or we will grow arrogant and self-satisfied. ____________________ How to Be a Pilgrim The Pilgrims had the courage to act on their commitments, no matter what. Do we? Sociologist Robert Bellah, author of Habits of the Heart, is impressed by the power of religion. He once said, "We should not underestimate the significance of the small group of people who have a new vision of a just and gentle world. The quality of a culture may be changed when two percent of its people have a new vision (and act on it)." Christians make up far more than two percent of our town, far more than two percent of Massachusetts, far more than two percent of Americans. So, why don’t we have a greater effect: on issues of the environment, on justice for the needy, on the quality of life on Cape Cod? Could it be we need more courage to act on our commitments? To be a Pilgrim means to stand up for what you believe, no matter what. To be a Pilgrim also means sharing what you have, and turning thanks into giving. The Pilgrim colonists willingly shared all they had. During their first three years, all property was held in common. At one point, they were down to five kernels of corn per day for food. Still, they divided the corn kernels up equally. And, the original group of fifty that survived the first winter shared their limited food with the sixty newcomers who arrived in the spring. One of their finest moments came in 1623, at the first real Thanksgiving. The small colony hosted over ninety Native American braves for three days. There was eating and drinking, wrestling, footraces, and gun and arrow-shooting competitions. It was the Pilgrims’ way of saying "Thank you" to God, and to the Native Americans who had helped them survive. To be a Pilgrim means sharing and turning thanks into giving. How thankful and giving are we? Alex A. Gondola, Jr., Holidays Are Holy Days: Sermons for Special Sundays, CSS Publishing Company __________________ The Source of Thanksgiving I will remind you of that wonderful Children's holiday classic "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas." It was released a few years ago as a movie staring Jim Carrey. You'll recall in the story how the Grinch enters all the homes by way of their chimneys disguised as Santa Clause. He takes all the presents and ornaments, the trees and stockings, and even their food down to the last morsel. He drags his loot up to his mountain and then looks down upon Whoville with a sinister grin. He is listening for the cries and wailings of the people to start as they wake up on Christmas morning to discover a Christmas lost. What he hears instead surprises him. Up from the town of the Whos comes a joyful Christmas carol. They are singing. "Why?" he asks. It is because, he learns, Christmas resides not in things but in the heart which is thankful. He could not steal their gratitude. Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com Too Much Turkey In 1953, the Swanson food company found themselves with too much turkey on their hands after disappointing Thanksgiving sales. One innovative employee came up with the idea of packaging individual servings of turkey and vegetables in an oven-safe aluminum tray. Thus was born the first TV dinner. Reader’s Digest, June 2003, p. 26. Thanksgiving Sermon Opener This morning I would like to hold up for you three different scenes. The strange thing about these scenarios is that when you first hear them you will be hard pressed to understand why I selected these stories to exemplify Thanksgiving. On the surface they will seem to be the antithesis of Thanksgiving. Yet, I am convinced that at the heart of these stories is the real Biblical understanding of what it means to be thankful. The first scene comes from the Old Testament. It is the familiar story of Job. Job has come to represent for us the epitome of suffering. Near the end of the story we see that all of his children have been killed in an accident; he is facing financial ruin; he has been stricken with illness. In fact, it seems that if any person is justified in saying: Let's just skip Thanksgiving this year it would be Job. Yet, in the midst of all of this immeasurable suffering the voice of God comes to Job and says to him a very interesting statement. We read it in the 37th chapter the 14th verse. God says to Job: "Hear this O Job. Stop and consider the wondrous works of God." From all outward circumstances it seems as though Job has nothing at all to be thankful for yet here is God coming to him in the midst of it all and saying in effect, Job, it's time to count your blessings. Let's leave that story for a moment and take a look at a second. This one comes from the New Testament, the book of Ephesians. The Apostle Paul now finds himself squarely in the midst of a dingy Roman prison and facing serious charges. Things seem very bad indeed for Paul. But this is only one of a series of mishaps that has occurred during his stormy ministry. He has been shipwrecked, beaten nearly to death, imprisoned, and even many of his fellow Christians are now openly opposing him. Now he faces what surely seems to be a death sentence. In the midst of this situation Paul writes the Christians in Ephesus. Listen to what he has to say, "Thanks be to God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every blessing." Strange words from a man facing execution. Like Job, we are forced to ask the question What has he to be thankful for? Staff, www.eSermons.com Helping Others, Showing Gratitude A man named John Canuso made a deal with God. His nine-year-old daughter, Babe, had just been diagnosed with leukemia, and as he knelt at her bed, he swore: "You save my kid, I'll dedicate my life." God did indeed save his daughter. Babe is now 26, married and the mother of a one-year-old boy, a child she thought she'd never have, after all the radiation and chemotherapy. John kept his promise. John was a builder by trade. In 1974, the year his daughter became ill, he reached into his own pocket to renovate and furnish a rundown Philadelphia home that became the first Ronald McDonald House, a place where families could stay while their youngsters were being treated at Children's Hospital. John said, "Thank you, Lord. I'm glad you asked me to do something in my profession." Helping others was John's way of saying "thank you." King Duncan, ChristianGlobe Illustrations

Sometimes Less is More

December 1, 2024 First Sunday of Advent Jeremiah 33:14-16 Sometimes less is more Year C Prelude Greeting Introit Lighting of the Advent Candle Reader One: From deep in the past, Jeremiah calls to us, “The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah” (Jeremiah 33:14). Beloved, the days are surely coming when the yearning of the land; the longing of the sun, moon, and stars; the desperate need of the people of earth for flourishing and peace will receive their fulfillment. Congregation: While fear, anxiety, misinformation, and suspicion surround us on every side, we choose to watch and wait in hope, preparing our hearts to notice and cooperate with God’s grace already at work in our midst. Reader Two: We light this candle of hope as a sign of our commitment to pay attention and prepare for the days that are surely coming and are already here—the days when God’s kin-dom of love, justice, and mercy will reign. Light the first candle of the Advent wreath. Call to Worship Children of God, pay attention! The days are coming when God’s peace will reign and all creation will flourish under the reign of our Creator. The days are surely coming! Children of God, prepare your hearts! The days are coming and are already here when God will come near and show us how to recognize God’s reign among us. The days are surely coming and are already here! Children of God, be alert and listen! God has come near to build the kin-dom on the earth here and now. Will you join in? The days are surely coming and are already here! We come to prepare our hearts to pay attention, to listen, and to follow God’s call to build the kin-dom of earth as it is in heaven. Amen. Written by Dr. Lisa Hancock, Discipleship Ministries, June 2024. Song O Come O Come Emmanuel UMH 211 Verses 1-5 A Sermon for all Ages DO you know GOD's PHONE NUMBER? Do you know HIS email address? Can we send a card or letter all the way to heaven? Then how can we hear from Jesus and how can HE hear from us? [Give the children an opportunity to answer that question.] The answer is through prayer and reading the Bible. We can pray anytime and never get a busy signal. God is always home. Jesus is always there to hear our prayers. The BIBLE is GOD's Word - written to us from the beginning. It has so many exciting things to tell us. The Bible also says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" John 1:1. All we have to do is read the Bible if we want to hear from Jesus! All we have to do is pray if we want JESUS to hear us. Right here in the Bible is a scripture promise straight from GOD! It says, "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not" Jeremiah 33:3. (Some people call this verse God's phone number.) The Bible is full of words to warn us, guide us, and comfort us. All we have to do is open the Bible, ask HIM to show you what HE wants you to know for today, and then read it. And when we are hurting, or sad, or full of happiness that we want to share with God, we have a direct line - a Bluetooth connection - to the ear of GOD with the promise that if we call him, HE will always answer. He says, "Call unto me, and I will answer thee." Isn't that a great promise? I love that I can CALL Jesus anytime, night or day. I just need to pray or read the Bible! Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for making it SO easy to get in touch with you. Thank you that you are always home and never too busy to hear our call. Thank you that we don't have to yell really loud for you to hear us. We can whisper our prayers, and YOU can even read our thoughts and hearts. We don't have to even say words that others can hear and you know what we are thinking. That makes us feel very special, Jesus. That makes us feel your amazing love for us. Thank you, so much! In Jesus' Name, AMEN. Prayer for Transformation and New Life God of the Possible and Probable, Gloom often encapsulates us when life is confusing and conflict is great. Our faith is rattled, and we are swallowed by shadows of fear. The world often feels like the end is near even when a new beginning is around the corner. We forget that even when shadows have lengthened, there remains a crack in the surface. Light begins to stream into our space, and warmth dances upon our hearts. When fear unnerves us, may we cling to the hope of God’s love and the possibilities of joy once again. Amen. Words of Grace Take comfort, dear friends, that God’s grace will fill our hearts with joy as we know that light grows ahead. May we cling to the crumbs of hope as we step into the nighttime with faith, knowing Divine Bliss accompanies us in each step. (United Church of Christ Worship Ways, Michelle Torigian) Scripture Jeremiah 33:14-16 Sermon Sometimes less is more And just like that, we go from Thanksgiving with turkeys, football and pumkins to Christmas with the lights, basketball and evergreens. Literally this year, one day we are sitting down for a bog meal and the next day – it is time for the Christmas parade. This year, the switch was so jarring because November was so nice outside, and today it was 12 degrees when I woke up. Who wants to go out in that kind of weather? This time of year there are usually two kinds of sales being advertised in the newspaper: Post-Thanksgiving and pre-Christmas. I could not help wondering if those two terms do not describe the spiritual state of many of us “post-Thanksgiving and pre-Christmas. Permit me to cite some examples. IF YOU ONLY OBEY THE LAW AND NO MORE YOUR FAITH IS PRE-CHRISTMAS. How is that for a starter? If most of us were brought before Heavenly Tribunal this day and were asked to defend ourselves before the Righteous Judge of the Universe, I suspect that most of us would start off naming the things we haven't done. Let us see, "Thou shalt not kill . . . ." Why there! That's a good start. I certainly have never killed anyone. "Thou shalt not steal . . . ." Why certainly that leaves me out. Or Adultery. And I certainly don't mistreat my parents. Most of us would take refuge in the things we don't do. And yet I say to you that if you obey the law and that is all, your faith is pre-Christmas. Jesus spent very little time condemning evil-doers. He spent a great deal of time condemning good folks who were worthless. For example, the priest and the Levite who passed by the man lying in the ditch; they may have kept all the laws, but their faith was pre-Christmas. Or the rich young ruler who "had kept all the commandments from his youth up." Jesus told him there was still one more thing he needed to do; he needed to take everything he had and sell it and give the money to the poor and leave it all behind and follow Jesus; Being good was not good enough. Or the goats at the last judgment. The hell of fire was prepared not for those who had broken the laws of adultery, stealing and killing. Rather it was prepared for those who had a chance to give a cup of water to a man who was thirsty or a piece of bread to a man who was hungry; or clothing to the naked, or to make a simple visit to the sick or imprisoned. Chances came time after time to these folks and they let them get away unfilled. How about you? Are you willing to go beyond being respectable to being responsible? A lawyer asked Jesus what was the great commandment. Jesus did not answer with a "Thou shalt not . . . ." He summed up all of Christian living with a thou shalt; "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength; and thy neighbor as thyself." "Thou shalt love . . . " And who is your neighbor? Jesus answered with a story about a good Samaritan who took time to minister to one in need. We need good Samaritans today. You may have heard the story about a woman who rounded the street corner and came upon an accident victim lying on the sidewalk. Suddenly, she was grateful for the first aid course she had recently completed at the local YWCA. "I was going for a walk today," she told her husband later, "and saw this poor man lying on the sidewalk in pretty bad condition." "Then," she continued, "all my first-aid training came back to me, and I knew just what to do. I bent right down and put my head between my knees to keep from fainting!" An article in the CHRISTIAN HERALD tells that one of the best apartments in New York is near the banks of the East River. Yet the living room windows face to the West, away from the river view. When the buildings were erected, in 1925, animal pens and a large slaughterhouse were in sight of the apartments, so the planners faced a more desirable view. This happens to people. Instead of changing the circumstances and improving the conditions . . . we simply turn away or we put our head between our knees to keep from fainting. This is how we have dealt with migrant labor camps, penal reforms, city slums “we have just looked in another direction. Christ calls us to be servants. Servants do the work. Your faith is pre-Christmas if you only obey the law. IN THE SECOND PLACE, YOUR FAITH IS PRECHRISTMAS IF YOU LOVE ONLY THOSE PEOPLE WHO LOVE YOU. Everybody loves people who love them. That doesn't take any great act of commitment, does it? There was once a fellow who was a general ne-er do well. He never contributed anything to his community that I know of. He wasn't malicious at all. He was simply lazy and what some would call "worthless." Still most members of the community were charitable. After all, they would say, "he is good to his mother." EVERYONE is good to his or her mother. Not everyone of course. There are some bums out there. Still, it takes no great leap of devotion to love your mother or your brother or people who go to the same church or live on the same street. Everybody does that. They even say that about the Mafia: "They really take care of their own!" That's great. So what? Jesus said, "Even the Gentiles love those who love them." The test of Christian faith is whether you can love persons whom ordinarily you might not even be able to stand. The cause of Christ has been crippled through the years by those who say they love Christ but cannot love humanity. The world sniffs out hypocrisy in the church quicker than a bear sniffs out a handout in a state park. The penetrating TV news show SIXTY MINUTES recently filmed a story on the church in South Africa. The obvious angle was the glaring hypocrisy of apartheid in the face of clear Christian teaching that in Christ, "There is neither Jew nor Greek." Surely the church would be against racism, wouldn't it? The story showed otherwise. While declaring out one side of the mouth that apartheid was racism and sin, the leader of the major Christian denomination in South Africa said out the other side of his mouth that the two races shouldn't mix. In fact, when the denomination declared that racism was clearly against biblical teaching, 105 churches pulled out to form an allwhite denomination. The story closed with cameras focused on a sea of all-white faces singing joyfully to an all-white God. The editors of SIXTY MINUTES knew what the Christians in South Africa evidently do not “the gospel of Jesus Christ wipes out racial barriers. In his autobiography Mahatma Gandhi tells of his interest in the Bible as a student. He even attended a Christian church one Sunday. When he entered the sanctuary, the ushers refused to seat him. They suggested that he worship with his own people. Gandhi was so disillusioned he left, and later wrote, "If Christians have caste differences also, I might as well remain Hindu." So sad. By the way, how are you doing so far? Your faith is pre-Christmas if all you do is obey the law and no more. Your faith is pre-Christmas if you love only those people who love you. FINALLY, YOUR FAITH IS PRE-CHRISTMAS IF IT HAS NEVER MADE THAT VITAL MOVE FROM YOUR LIPS TO YOUR HEART. We get disturbed because Christmas has been so captured by our culture that it has almost lost its religious significance, but that is true to a lesser extent of the Christian faith itself. How about you? Do you have Christ on your lips but not in your heart? "Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." A church with one of those signs on which you can change messages was right next to an S&H stamp redemption store. On the sign was this message in front of the church: "Soul & Heart Redemption Center." Remember the description of the prodigal Son's change of heart: "He came to himself." The following is an account of a young man whose life history was the subject of a government report on juvenile delinquency: A young man who was a very serious problem to his parents and local authorities because of his antisocial behavior, spent several weeks one summer in a peaceful rural area with members of a religious group well-known for their kind, simple modes of living. His behavior among them was exemplary. The following summer, after another violent year in the ghetto, he returned to the country and to his peaceful, friendly mode of living with the comment, "The real me is here." Perhaps we have missed the whole point of Christmas and Christianity “no longer shall we be dependent on an external law but upon an indwelling spirit. The surest testimony has always been this one, "You ask me how I know he lives, he lives within my heart." Our faith is pre-Christmas if it is a faith of the lips but not of the heart. This is to say that your faith is still pre-Christmas if you have never made a commitment of your life to Jesus Christ. Remember the story of the Methodist preacher who called his Bishop and told him that Jesus Christ was visiting his church in person that day and asked what he should do. "Look busy," was the immediate reply. We are a busy people. We are even busy about the things of God. And yet, "busy-ness" is not the key to the Kingdom of God. Our lives may still be fragmented, our busy-ness lacking focus, our vision lacking in power, purpose, and promise. Why? Because we have never given all to Christ. The good news for is – there is a cure for prechristmas spirituality. Advent. The 4 weeks of waiting and preparing ourselves for what happens after Christmas. For the coming of Christ in our lives, not the inaurguration. Advent always starts with the chaos and confusion of the world and ends with hope, peace, love and joy of christ. Advent is a time to calm our spirits and to pay attention to what God is really doing in the world. Our scripture for today is our prechristmas promise that God is here with us today. The book of Jeremiah takes people through some rough times. Jeremiah tells us that things will get worse before they get better. The good news for us is that things do indeed get better. Two things that we can be sure of when it comes to God, God keeps God;s promises. God always does what it right. Righteosness means to do what is called for in a situation. The right actions for the right situation. Done by the right person. God always acts through the actions of the righteous person. Jesus is that person for us. When I look into the future- in my spirit, I truly do believe that change is coming. Things are going to be different next year. Not just because of the president, but more importantly because of your and I. Jeremiah challenges each of us at this moment in time to look at the world – what are the things that need to change? Who are the people who need to come to God’s table? What are the obstacles that need to be taken away? What are the actions that need to be taken. We are challenged to think about it, to pray about it and to do what we can. It is time to prepare ourselves to be instruments of peace. Jeremiah is a short verse – but it says the days are coming. As a matter of fact, Jeremiah says the days are coming 16 times. The days are coming when life gets better. Jeremiah also talks about a stump of Jesse, more powerful than a tree. In a comic strip, the Wizard of Id, a jailer heard a strange noise coming from a jail cell. He asked what was going on, the prisoner replied I am trimming the Christmas tree. When the jailer come to look – all he saw was two branches. Criss cross from one another in the form of a cross. The prisoner reminded him that Christmas was about the cross of Christ, and that we should always see christ in everything that we do, especially Christmas. What really matters is what happens post Christmas. After christ has come into the world. Let us prepare ourselves for that day. Let us pray. Song Lo, How A Rose E’er Blooming Prayer’s of the Peaople (after each petition please say “God of our Salvation, hear our prayers) Do not print the prayer Christ is coming. He is coming to make all things new. Eternal God, during this season of Advent, help us prepare Christ’s way, help us center our hearts, minds and prayers on your holy presence in our midst. God of our salvation, hear our prayers. As the days grow short and the nights loom long, we praise you for these seasonal reminders that there is time for work and for rest. For those of us who know warm homes and soft places to sleep, we give thanks for these precious gifts. We pray for those who are unhoused and those whose home is unsafe or financially insecure. May all your children get the rest they need to thrive. God of our salvation, hear our prayers. As divisiveness and conflict plague us and wars rage across the world, Holy God, we focus on the generosity, kindness and care you encourage within us. As we contemplate the vulnerability of Christ, born a fragile in- fant in a violent world, let us drop our facades and the masks of strength we hide behind. May this season of Advent prepare us to celebrate the strength that can be found in weakness and the power held in humility p2and love. God of our salvation, hear our prayers. As your people gather in homes and churches to celebrate this season, let us be reminded of all the reasons we have to rejoice in you. Let us be reminded of your protective presence, of your gentleness and love, of your peace which passes all understanding. Guard our hearts and minds this Advent, Savior God, so we can rejoice over your faithfulness through Jesus Christ our Lord. God of our salvation, hear our prayers. As a people of faith, we lift these prayers to you, trusting you hear us and receive us. Finally, hear us now, as we pray the prayer Christ taught us by saying together, “Our Father …”. Lord’s Prayer Stewardship Moments For many of us, December is a month of spending. Some of us spend more on food and drinks as we host parties or welcome our extended family and friends for a meal. Some of us spend money for gifts or for the materials needed to create gifts. Some of us, knowing we’ll soon come to the end of the tax year, are reminded to share additional gifts with charities, schools, and our church. Today is a day to begin that mindful giving to support the ministries of this congregation. Your gifts make possible _______________________ (name one or two specifics in your congregation). As we round out our Thanksgiving weekend, let’s begin this month by generously offering our tithes and our gifts. Prayer of Thanksgiving Gracious God, in this season of anticipation, we offer our gifts to put our money where our heart is. We pray these gifts help us prepare our lives for the coming fullness of your Realm. We’re grateful these offerings signal our readiness to wake up! May they allow us to join in building up a wide-awake community, helping move our congregation, our community and our world a bit closer to justice and joy. Amen. (Disciples of Christ Center for Faith and Giving) Invitation to Communion In some circles one person might encourage another: “take a shot” to fortify them in the face of difficult news. Here, we invite each person to participate in communion to fortify us in the face of the “little apocalypse” of Luke 21. Jesus spoke of distress among nations and people fainting from fear in anticipation of the coming day of redemption. However, or in what arena, we imagine God’s possible action, these emblems of bread and cup are signs of “God-with-us”, symbols of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. So come! Launch into this new year with this feast, shared in remembrance of Jesus. Communion Announcements Closing Prayer for Facebook As we open the doors to the dawn of this season, May the Creator of Our Hearts fill us with Joy, May the Light of Christ fill our hearts with Hope, And may the Spirit of Tranquility assure our souls with Strength. Amen. (United Church of Christ Worship Ways, Michelle Torigian) Community Time – Joys and Concerns Benediction We do not leave this sanctuary and leave God behind. God’s call to prepare our hearts, our minds, our communities and our world for the coming Christ, is clear. May this call be ever before us; guiding us, inspiring us, enabling us to be Christ’s body – his hands, his feet, his heart – in this, God’s world. May the grace, hope, peace and love of God our Creator Redeemer and Sustainer be with us all, now and forever. Amen. (Presbyterian Outlook, Terri McDowell) Additional Illustration