The Sacrifice of Service

Rev. Harriette Cross First United Methodist Church of Wilmington May 26, 2024 Isaiah 6:1-8 Trinity Sunday Year B “The Sacrifice of Service” Prelude Greeting Welcome: Welcome! It’s so good to be together to celebrate faith and community today. My name is ____ and I’ll be leading our worship time today. Tomorrow [or this weekend] is Memorial Day, a very special day when we remember and honor the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. Who here served either stateside or overseas in any war? Which branch of the service were you in? [Let people mention their branch.] We salute you today and give thanks for your service, as we remember those who fell in the line of duty. And we recall God’s promise and fulfillment of triumph over death. Today is also Trinity Sunday, and Peace with Justice Sunday) Spiritual Eldercare Call to Worship One: Let us begin our time of worship with a moment of remembrance. All: We remember fallen soldiers, and the sacrifice they made for the sake of others. One: Let us begin our time of worship with a moment of thanksgiving. All: We thank God for brave men and women that have given their lives so that we may worship without fear. One: Let us begin our time of worship with a moment of silence; for a moment is the least we can do for those that gave their eternity.(Rev. Robb McCoy) Opening Prayer God of majesty and power, how awesome you are to us! The mountains tremble, the seas roar at the sound of your name! Yet you have chosen to come to us in love and tenderness. You have called us to be people who will act in ways of peace and justice in your world. Open our hearts and our spirits, Lord, to hear your word, and having heard, to act in ministries of hope and peace for all your earth. These things we pray in Jesus’ Name. AMEN. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley) Song Holy, Holy,Holy! Lord God Almighty UMH 64 A Sermon for all Ages Children's Sermon: Memorial Day (1 Corinthians 7:23-24, John 15:13) I brought an American flag with me this morning in honor of a very special holiday we get to celebrate this week. How many of you know what holiday it is? (Pause for response.) On Monday we’ll celebrate Memorial Day. Memorial Day is a day we stop to remember and to honor the military men and women who’ve died while fighting to defend our freedom. Ask: Tell about some freedoms we have living in the U.S. We enjoy a lot of freedom in our country. We are free to attend church and worship. We are free to choose what we want to be when we grow up. We are free to choose where we want to live. And we are free to choose most of the things that affect our daily lives. But that freedom wasn't free. Many courageous men and women gave their lives to pay the price for the freedom that you and I enjoy every day. They are who we honor this week as we celebrate Memorial Day. Just like so many brave men and women sacrificed their lives for our freedom here on earth, Jesus sacrificed His life for our freedom as well. In fact, the greatest freedom that we have is the freedom that we have in Jesus. The Bible teaches that the penalty for sin is death, but you and I have been set free from this penalty. We have been set free because Jesus paid the price for us. Instead of death, we have been given eternal life. This freedom wasn't free, Jesus paid the price. This week as we celebrate Memorial Day, let us remember to stop and thank God for those who have paid the price for our freedom. Let us also remember to thank God for Jesus, who has set us free from the penalty for sin, because He was willing to pay the price for us. Dear God, thank You for the freedom we enjoy. We are thankful for those who paid the price for that freedom, but even more importantly, we thank You for the freedom we have because Jesus was willing to pay the price for our sin. In Jesus’ name, amen Sermons4Kids.com Prayer of St. Francis Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen. Scripture Isaiah 6:1-8 Sermon The Sacrifice of Service We Have Forgotten God - Abraham Lincoln In a speech made in 1863, Abraham Lincoln said, “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God who made us. (Jeff Simms, Sermon Central) Remembering to stay humble, and focused on God is a struggle for the ages. It is something that is always a struggle. Isaiah’s lesson is important to us. Any time an important person dies, people are faced with a vacuum that must be filled, a time to question the purpose of life, a search for a pathway forward. King Uzziah died from being disrespectful. The prophet had reminded him to stay in a King’s place and to let the priest handle dealing with the presence of God. He had been told to listen to them. But Uzziah felt that no one should tell him what to do. He touched the Holy of Holies on his own, and died from leprosy. So now, only are the people trying to process his death, they are also trying to process what his disrespectful act will mean for them. Isaiah encourages them to look for God in the midst of everyday. To praise God and call God holy. To listen to God’s call on your life, humble yourself, prepare yourself, purify yourself, and live your life in service to God and to others. We are to acknowledge the holiness of God in everything that we do. We have a constant need for purification. Whether it is of the lips, or the feet, or the hand, the heart, the thought, there is need for cleansing. Is it maybe at crisis times in our lives, or in our families, or in our nation and world that we are most conscious of our frailties and sins? God uses especially these critical times to address us. When we think the end for us has come, God gives a new beginning. When the difficult times come, the days of extreme guilt or remorse; when the sins of the hour, the day, or a life-time weigh heavy on us, and we pronounce our own "woes" upon ourselves, and beg freedom from them, God has a word for us. It is a word of forgiveness. In his book, Reality In Worship, J. P. Allen likens our worship to entering a planetarium from a busy, noisy street. Dimming lights hush the sounds and the universe opens up over our heads. Earth becomes one of the smallest of planets and we become one of its smallest creatures. In that awesome moment, we focus upon the greatness, the goodness, and the grace of God. Our worship should be like that. It should not begin with the focus upon ourselves and our own needs, but upon the character of God; we should not proceed without the expectation of the visitation of his Spirit, but wait in his holy presence until He comes; we should not assume there is nothing new under the sun that we have not seen, but come expecting a glimpse of his glory.[4] It is in this humbling experience that we begin to realize that we can be imprinted by his holy mark on our lives. There is nothing in all the world that we can do to imprint ourselves when it comes to holiness. If we have been with God, we will bear his holy mark and people will observe his mark upon our lives. They will see his purity, compassion, joy, reverence, justice, and love stamped all over us. Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek the answers that cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Prayer: O God, thank you for the sheet wonder of our creation, preservation, and redemption - and for stout promises and bright hopes that keep us thinking kindly of the future. CSS Publishing Co., Inc., Promise Of Life, The, by Roger Prescott MEMORIAL DAY, A TIME FOR HEALING Memorial Day, perhaps more than any other holiday, was born of human necessity. Deep inside all of us lies a fundamental desire to make sense of life and our place in it and the world. What we have been given, what we will do with it and what we will pass to the next generation is all part of an unfolding history, a continuum that links one soul to another. Abraham Lincoln pondered these thoughts in the late fall of 1863. His darkest fear was that he might well be the last president of the United States, a nation embroiled in the self-destruction of what he described as "a great civil war..testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure." He began his remarks with those words as he stood on the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on November 19th of that year. The minute’s speech that became known as Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address turned into what might be called the first observance of Memorial Day. Lincoln’s purpose that day was to dedicate a portion of the battlefield as a cemetery for the thousands of men, both living and dead, who consecrated that soil in the sacrifice of battle. Said Abraham Lincoln: "That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause which they gave the last full measure of devotion...that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom..." The next year, a pleasant Sunday in October of 1864 found a teenage girl, Emma Hunter, gathering flowers in a Boalsburg, Pennsylvania cemetery to place on the grave of her father. He was a surgeon who had died in service to the Union Army in that great Civil War. Nearby, Mrs. Elizabeth Meyer was strewing flowers upon the grave of her son Amos, a private who had fallen on the last day of the battle of Gettysburg. Emma respectfully took a few of her flowers and put them on the grave of Amos. Mrs. Meyer, in turn, laid some of her freshly cut blooms on the grave of Dr. Hunter. Both women felt a lightening of their burdens by this act of honoring each other’s loss, and agreed to meet again the next year. This time they agreed they would also visit the graves of those who had no one left to honor them. Both Emma Hunter and Elizabeth Meyer returned to the cemetery in Boalsburg on the day they had agreed, Independence Day, July 4, 1865. This time, though, they found themselves joined by nearly all the residents of the town. Dr. George Hall, a clergyman, offered a sermon, and the community joined in decorating every grave in the cemetery with flowers and flags. The custom became an annual event at Boalsburg, and it wasn’t long before neighboring communities established their own "Decoration Day" each spring. About that same time in 1865, a druggist in Waterloo, New York, Henry C. Welles, began promoting the idea of decorating the graves of Civil War veterans. He gained the support of the Seneca County Clerk, General John B. Murray, and they formed a committee to make wreaths, crosses and bouquets for each veteran’s grave. On May 5, 1866, war veterans marching to martial music led processions to each of three cemeteries, where the graves were decorated and speeches were made by General Murray and local clergymen. The village itself was also decorated with flags at half-mast, evergreen boughs and mourning black streamers. Also, as the Civil War was coming to a close in the spring of 1865, Women’s Auxiliaries of the North and South moved from providing relief to the families and soldiers on their own sides to joining in efforts to preserve and decorate the graves of both sides. A woman of French extraction and leader of the Virginia women’s movement, Cassandra Oliver Moncure, took responsibility of coordinating the activities of several groups into a combined ceremony on May 30. It is said that she picked that day because it corresponded to the Day of Ashes in France, a solemn day that commemorates the return of the remains of... On Holy Ground The 5th New York Volunteer Infantry, "Duryée’s Zouaves," was one of the most renowned fighting regiments of the American Civil War. Their colorful Zouave uniform, precise maneuvers, effectiveness in combat and steady bearing under fire, won them universal respect and recognition. "I doubt whether it had an equal," General George Sykes said of the 5th New York. On the afternoon of August 30, 1862, the third day of the Second Battle of Manassas, John Bell Hood’s famed "Texas Brigade" launched a massive attack. There were few Union troops to meet the onslaught, among those, were two Zouave regiments: the 5th and 10th New York In less than 10 minutes, 85 lives of approximately 525 men of the 5th New York were lost. Brevet Brigadier General Hiram Duryea, former commander of the 5th New York, would later comment on that fateful day in a Memorial Day tribute at Manassas in 1907, on land he had purchased for the erection of a monument to his beloved Zouaves: “We stand on holy ground! For this field was the altar of God. The Master said, ’Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ Here, our comrades laid down their lives for love of country, for human right, for the love and service of man. We sorrow at their loss, but we rejoice at their glorious death and achievements. God grant that the fruits of their sacrifice be preserved to our country." SOURCE: http://www.zouave.com How will you honor the sacredness of Memorial Day tomorrow? Whatever we do let us make sure that we are reminded of the important lessons of sacrifice, service, dedication and remembering to say Thank you for the countless Americans who have made that sacrifice for us to enjoy the day. Memorial Day is always a bittersweet day, a day where life and death intermingle. A day of rest, but also a day of intention. A day of celebration of the beginning of summer, yet the end of life. A day where we are at places that give us life, but we are also at the cemetary. ILLUSTRATION Someone has said that life is like a piano, the white keys represent happiness and the black keys represent sorrow... APPLICATION As you go through life, remember that when played together, they make beautiful music. "And we know that God causes black and white keys to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them" (Romans 8:28). On Memorial Day, but on each and every day of our lives, it is so important for us to find ways to keep God present in our lives. God can come to us in so many different ways with a message. We all have a calling to which God has summoned us. God uniquely equips each of us with gifts and graces for the special calling that is ours. This is how we actively fulfill God's plan for our lives as we work among God's human family members. At a young age, Rick Curry felt called to be a Jesuit priest. As he pursued holy orders, he was told that the priesthood was not open to him. The reason? He had been born without a right hand and forearm, a handicapping condition that would render him incapable of elevating and breaking the communion bread during mass. The Jesuits did welcome him as a monk, however. While studying for his Ph.D. at New York University, Brother Curry was surprised to learn that several of his classmates were supplementing their incomes by acting in television commercials. This was in the old days when you did not have to be a famous superstar to act in commercials. An "average Joe or Jane" could get paid to brush their teeth on national television. Curry was living in New York City under a tremendous financial strain. After obtaining approval from his Jesuit superior, Curry scheduled an appointment to audition for a mouthwash commercial. He thought he would be wonderful gargling nationally.4 Arriving at the agency prepared to audition for a mouthwash commercial, he was greeted by a receptionist who burst out laughing at the man with the empty right sleeve. She was sure her boyfriend had put Curry up to this as a joke on her. When Curry assured her that he was a serious applicant, she replied, "Please leave. I couldn't possibly send you upstairs to audition. If I send you upstairs, I could lose my job."5 Curry felt deep hurt and anger. Painful as it was, that moment of looking directly into the face of prejudice changed his life. "Nothing had prepared me for this rejection," he said. Two days later, Brother Curry decided to begin the "National Theatre Workshop for the Handicapped," which has now been in existence for over thirty years. This theater experience has been transforming the lives of performers and audiences alike for over three decades. Brother Curry urges all people to celebrate their differences and to use their imaginations to change the world. "Artists," he explained, "have the gift of imagination, and imagination has no physical boundaries." Prophets are like artists, helping us to see what we had been looking at but had not noticed. Jesus did not call any rabbis or priests to be his disciples. He called laypersons exclusively. God calls disciples from all walks of life to seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. The church is called to equip disciples and to send them into the world to accomplish God's work. Some of you, I know, have found your ministry among us, while others are searching for a way to use your gifts. Some of you even believe you don't have any gifts God can use, but let me assure you that God can use you. God empowers and equips us for the work within the church and community. Prayer is important. Take time to pray and take time to listen. Each one of us is an integral part of the body. God's work in our lives is not entirely contingent on our knowledge or even our agreeing to work for God. Throughout your lifetime, God has always been at work within you. Examine your skills, interests, the needs of the Christian community, and even the needs of the world. Each of you is invited to participate in God's work of reconciling the world to God. When holiness comes calling, what will be your response? God is calling you right now with a special job that only you can do. Is your spiritual cell phone turned on? Listen to God's call. Every day we can live under God I live under His heavens, The nations are under His authority, My destiny is under His direction, My past is under His grace, My future is under His control, My cares are under His wing, My sin is under the blood! Conclusion The really meaningful times in our lives come when we realize how very small we are - yet cared for and important. The mystery overwhelms us. We see ourselves in Isaiah as he struggles with the mystery and awe of his vision, in the year when King Uzziah died. And a more recent poet helps put it all in perspective for us: We look, too, to the sensational in human activity to catch a glimpse of the Creator who put all things together. But, once again, that Creator steals in through the smallest of activities. God is so close sometimes that we can’t see the presence. For instance, I see the Spirit of God working in the simple imagination of one human being: There was a family who always had trouble on vacations. Each year they would get about 75 miles out of town, and Mom would cry, "Oh, no! I left the iron on." Each year they would turn around and go back. But it was never plugged in. One time the carload was headed for Yellowstone National Park and, sure enough, almost to the mile marker, Mom gasped, "I just know I left the iron on." Her husband didn’t say a word. He just pulled over, got out, opened the trunk and handed her the iron. And every year after that, he made sure that the iron was in the trunk before they left on vacation. We smile at that, but such quiet imagination puts us in awe. We can see God smile too. God is revealed in the drama of humanity as well as in the awesomeness of the ordinary. The voice of God came to Elijah as he was holed up in a cave, not in the strong wind, earthquake or fire, but in "a still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12). A few years ago, while on a retreat at the Dunrovin Retreat Center, just north of Stillwater, Minnesota, I noticed a banner hanging on the wall with these words, attributed to Peter Marshall: There is a beauty in homely things which many people have never seen: • Sunlight through a jar of peach-plum jelly; • A rainbow in soapsuds in dish water; • An egg yolk in a blue bowl; • White ruffled curtains sifting moonlight; • The color of cranberry glass; • A little cottage with blue shutters; • Crimson roses in an old stone crock; • The smell of newly baked bread; • Candlelight on old brass; • The soft brown of a cocker’s eyes. If we read this slowly and reverently, we catch a glimpse, I think, of what Isaiah must have felt when he saw the seraphim and exclaimed, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. (6:3) Song This is My Song UMH 437 Pastoral Prayer We are struggling, Lord. You know how difficult it is for us to hear the news of violence and warfare and to see dear lives lost in battle and strife. We long for your peace to flood the world. We cry out for your presence. We wonder if you hear our cries. How small is our faith! From the very beginnings of time, you have poured your love into the world. People have made decisions about how to respond to that love. Some have chosen to act in ways of peace, justice and mercy, loving ministries of kindness and compassion. Some have chosen to impose their will on others, never acknowledging the rights and lives of those they oppress. Sometimes, we, by our attitudes as well as actions, have acted in ways of oppression. But you forgive and heal us. You call us to be your witnesses of peace to the world. We do not need to crawl to you during the night of our fears for healing. You have given us new life in Jesus Christ, who taught us about your love. Through Christ we are adopted as your heirs, your beloved children. You have given us opportunities to bring hope and peace to others. Let us seize these opportunities for ministries of hope. Encourage our hearts. Strengthen our spirits and our commitment to serve you. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. AMEN. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley) Lord’s Prayer Stewardship Moment Scripture has a way of working inside us as we hear, read and contemplate. In Romans, Paul teaches clearly that “brothers and sisters” have not been given a spirit of slavery, but a spirit of adoption. For many who have been adopted, their adoptive parents work to assure them of their place in the family. Sometimes adoption means a change of name. Paul uses this image to assure those who will hear his language that “adopted” means “claimed”. Adopted children are heirs, just as children born into a family. Believers, now adopted into the family of God, are God’s heirs, and joint heirs with God’s Son, Jesus Christ. What a gift! In joyful recognition of being claimed and named as heirs, our natural instinct is gratitude. So, with full delight, let us share our gifts to support this part of the Body of Christ as we receive our morning offering. Prayer of Thanksgiving We are grateful, Abba/God, for the ways you claim us and name us as your own beloved children. Thank you for this adoption, and for our ability to recognize we are fully yours. Receive our thanks offerings. Inspire us to use them wisely. Help us be a nurturing community into which all your adopted children will be welcomed. AMEN ( Disciples of Christ Center for Faith and Giving) Prayer For Our Country UMH 427 Announcements Closing Prayer for Facebook As we go into the world May the Divine Parent lead us to be agents of peace with justice May the Holy Spirit fill us with a spirit not of fear, but of adoption So that all who we meet will know the love and grace of Jesus Christ. Go now in peace. (United Methodist New York Annual Conference, Rev. Melissa Hinnen) Community Time – Joys and Concerns Benedictions God of infinite patience, loving presence, and dazzling surprises, be with us as we leave this place today. Guide and guard our lives and bless our witness to your love. We go in peace seeking ministries of justice and hope. AMEN. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley) Additional Illustrations Interactive Homily: Let’s pause our singing for a moment and reflect a little more on the meaning of sacrifice. • What does it mean to sacrifice? o Give up something • What would make a person do that? Why would you give up something for something else? o You’re willing to pay a price for something more valuable or worthy than what you have to give. o Who here loves baseball? In baseball, what’s a sacrifice hit or bunt? ▪ “a bunted ball that puts the batter out but allows a base runner or runners to advance.” • With sacrifice, there’s a tradeoff: something is willingly given up to gain something more valuable. o When we consider the sacrifice that men and women made as part of their service in the U.S. Armed Forces, what does that mean? What did those men and women sacrifice? ▪ their lives, health, time with family, other careers o Why did these men and women sacrifice these good and valuable things? What did they consider more worthy or valuable than even their lives? ▪ freedom, democracy, safeguarding our country▪ We often say the Pledge of Allegiance at patriotic events: (recite with the group:) “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” ▪ “Liberty and justice for all” – is this yet a full reality? • No. Those who serve in our military are still sacrificing for this great goal of liberty and justice for all. • Where do we see this notion of sacrifice in the Bible? o John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that God gave (that is, sacrificed) his only Son, that whoever believes in him might not perish but have eternal life.” o What did God determine as so valuable that he was willing to sacrifice his son? ▪ US! For God SO LOVED us…. to build a bridge between us, faulty people, and himself, holy and pure. • “The message for Remembrance Day [Memorial Day] is the message that lies at the core of our faith: that death is not the end, because Jesus has defeated death.”2 … Let’s take a moment to silently pray and reflect on the meaning of sacrifice. (Spiritual Eldercare) A pastor stood at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and watched as a man in tears lay a wreath at the base of the memorial. The pastor put his hand on the man’s shoulder, and the man said, “Twenty-five years ago he stepped into the line of fire for me, the least I can do is say, ‘Thanks.’” Source: Unknown However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.” — Douglas MacArthur “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”— President Ronald Reagan Top Five Memorial Day Illustrations A History of Memorial Day The custom of placing flowers on the graves of the war began on May 5, 1866, in Waterloo, NY, and Waterloo has been recognized by Congress as the official birthplace of Memorial Day. In 1868, Gen. John A. Logan, then president of the Grand Army of the Republic, declared that May 30 would be a day to decorate with “flowers the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion.” After World War I the day was set aside to honor the of all American wars, and the custom was extended to pay homage to deceased relatives and friends, both military and civilian. The most solemn ceremony conducted on Memorial Day is the placing of a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns located in Arlington national Cemetery. Some Southern states observe Confederate Memorial Day--April 26 in Georgia, the last Monday in April in Alabama and Mississippi, and May 10 in South Carolina. Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina do not observe the general holiday, and in Virginia the last Monday in May is called Confederate Memorial Day.” SOURCE: Encyclopedia Americana, 1991 edition Contributed by: David Whitten Jeff Greenfield is a news correspondent for ABC News. He lives in Salisbury, Connecticutt and has attended the same Memorial Day observance in his community for the last 15 years. He writes: "At 10 a.m., the parade begins moving down Main Street. It is a small parade: two vintage cars, bearing the region’s oldest war veterans; the men and women who served in the military; the Salisbury Town Band; the Scouts; the Housatonic Day Care Center; the fire trucks from the volunteer fire departments in and around the Northwest Corner. We fall in line behind the fire trucks, and follow the parade to the cemetery. There’s a hymn, and a prayer, followed by a Scout who reads the Gettysburg Address, haltingly, shyly. Then come the names of the men who died in the World Wars, in Korea, in Vietnam. A minister recites the 23rd Psalm, a bugler plays taps (with another bugler far away playing the echo), the flag is raised from half-staff, and we all walk the few steps back to the Village Center. It is as artless, as unaffected a ceremony as can be imagined. There are no speech writers, no advance men measuring the best angles for TV (there is no TV) and by the end of it, I—along with many other allegedly sophisticated urban types, are in tears. The men whose names have been read indeed gave what Lincoln called “the last, full measure of devotion”—some in wars whose purpose no one could doubt—some in wars whose purpose will never be clear, some for the folly and arrogance of the men in charge. When they fell, their deaths were a small part of a bigger story. But every Memorial Day, the lives they never got to live, and the people they left behind, are the only story that matters. That is why it matters that their names are uttered aloud before people who never knew any of them. That is why it matters that we were there this year—and will be there the next and the next and the next. SOURCE: Jeff Greenfield. ABC News InFocus, May 28, 1997. During World War II a young soldier named David Webster of Easy Company of the 101st Airborne wrote his mother: "Stop worrying about me. I joined the parachutists to fight. I intend to fight. If necessary, I shall die fighting, but don’t worry about this because no war can be won without young men dying. Those things which are precious are saved only by sacrifice." A little 7-year-old boy named Alex was staring at a large plaque in the church foyer. The plaque was covered with names and small American flags. As Alex looked at it, his pastor walked up and said, “Good morning Alex.” Alex said, “Pastor, what it this?” “Well, it is a memorial to all the young men and women who died in the service.” Soberly, they stood together staring at the plaque. In a tender voice Alex asked, “Which service, the 8:30 or the 11:00?” The custom of placing flowers on the graves of the war veterans began on May 5, 1866, in Waterloo, New York. Waterloo has been recognized by Congress as the official birthplace of Memorial Day. In 1868, General John A. Logan, then president of the Grand Army of the Republic, declared that May 30 would be a day to “decorate with flowers the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion.” After World War I the day was set aside to honor all of the American wars, and the custom was extended to pay homage to deceased relatives and friends, both military and civilian. (Source unknown).

Life with Passion

April 5, 2022 Palm/Passion Sunday Luke 22-23 Life with Passion Year C Opening Song Welcome Blessing of the Palms (Do not PRINT) Bless these parade palms, O God of Celebration. May they remind us of the simple joys of living. May we remember the excitement that comes with following Christ. Bless these protest palms, O God of Justice. May they remind us that Empire is not a thing of the past. May they make us bold and brave to stand up against injustice. Bless these funeral palms, O God of Comfort. May they remind us of the road that lies ahead. May they encourage us in times of grief and pain. We give you thanks for the parade, the protest, the processional. Guide our steps through this holiest of weeks as we cry out together "Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna!" Amen. ~ written by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood, Pastor, First Congregational United Church of Christ in Manhattan, Kansas. Call to Worship The story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, tells us that after his celebrated arrival. He went into the Temple and looked around at everything. As we gather here for worship today may it be with a sense that Jesus has walked in too and is looking around. May our eyes be open to see Him, may our hearts be ready to be seen by Him, may our worship be worthy of His presence, and may we be transformed so that we see the world through His eyes. Amen. (Ann Sidell) Responsive Reading Psalm 118:1-2,19-29 UMH 839 Song of Praise God of Grace and God of Glory UMH 577 Prayer of Confession (Luke 19) Lord Jesus, we are a fickle people, quick to turn away. We are quick to flock to you when all is well, but we are prone to scatter when there is opposition or criticism. Too often we have kept silent before you, afraid to proclaim your praise. It is easy to join the crowd as you ride triumphantly into Jerusalem— singing our joys and expectations, dancing our hopes and dreams. It is far more difficult to stand by you as the crowd cries for your crucifixion. Forgive our weakness when we turn away. Strengthen us for the journey ahead as we relive your suffering and death, that we might stay beside you to the end. Give us the courage to shout our hosannas, not only today, but each and every day. Amen. (Bryan Schneider-Thomas) Words of Assurance (Psalm 118) The Lord is our strength and might. Jesus is our salvation. In Jesus our sins are forgiven. In Jesus our cries are answered, our salvation is at hand. Blessed be the name of the Lord. (Bryan Schneider-Thomas) Scripture Luke 23:1-9 Sermon Life with Passion 1. If you look in the dictionary- there are 2 definitions to the word passion. strong and barely controllable emotion. "a man of impetuous passion" 2. the suffering and death of Jesus. "meditations on the Passion of Christ" From Oxford Languages Today is Palm Passion Sunday. In the 50’s and 60’s (way before my time) these used to be two different Sundays. In the 70’s the catholic church changed it, and so did other churches that follow the liturgical calendar of seasons. Rarely, do I do a palm Sunday sermon, because usually, I want everyone to relive the passion story in preparation for Easter. This year I felt that I had to preach this sermon. I know that some of your have heard of Rob Bell. Our Sunday School class has at least talked about looking at some of Rob Bell’s videos. He is a now former pastor who filmed a series about 20 years ago now, where he would explain Christianity in everyday terms. His series NOOMA is very popular. He continues to write and record audio books. His latest, which came out about a month ago is called “Handling your Fire – Passion, burnout, routines and resilience. This is a series of six sessions that talk about clergy and other Christians being burned out in their calling. After listening to the second session on passion – I knew that I had to share it with you, I don’t know if he meant it for palm Sunday – but it fits perfectly. His message shutters our traditional understanding of thinking about passion and prepares us for Easter new life. According to Bell, Jesus has a passion for the conditions of the people that he encountered along the countryside in the year long travel to Jerusalem. As he witnessed the poor conditions for himself, he knew that he had to go to the capital Jerusalem and to address the political powers that be. He knew that it would kill him. Power does all that it can to eliminate threats. They executed him as a enemy of the state – the status quo. But it was a death that made all of the difference in the world. Bell calls Jesus’ act his good gift to the world. Eucharist literally means good character, good act, or good gift. Jesus didn’t fight power with guns, threats, or even with power. He fought with love, his good character. He gave himself not just for a better more caring government, but for a better spirit in the world – a spirit of giving and generosity. I will have to talk more fully about Rob Bells audio book at some other time. But basically, he uses the term eucharist – not just to talk about Jesus, but to also talk about his followers, including us – the body of Christ. We are all called to give ourselves to make the world a better place. We are all people of passion in the first definition. There is something inside of each of us – that we love to do. That something brings us joy. It may be something that we do so much or so passionately that we are worn out sometimes. We get tired, but it is a good tired. When we are down, this is the thing that makes us feel better. It is the thing that brings us true joy. It is the thing that bubbles up from our deep center. Our deep center is where God lives inside of us. But you know life does not always does not always encourage us to live in our deep center, or to even spend too much time there. As we get older, we are told there are more important things in life. Life is not about us. If we live in our truth for too long, we will be crucified. Jesus followed his passion, knowing that he would suffer, and yet he seemed to know it was for a greater good for himself and others. Our common understanding of the passion story is that Jesus suffered for our sins. So during holy week we are supposed to feel guilt, shame and sorrow. We are supposed to wallow in our sins all in the name of reliving the passion. Bell points out that as Jesus followed his passion for the healing of the world – he was well aware that there were evil heartless people in the world. And yet fear of suffering was not enough to stop him. Good Friday was just one story in a year long ministry. He knew there would be pain, but it would not be the final word. Suffering was not the price of sin. It was not a necessary evil to experience the good. For Bell, suffering is a part of the life that we live on this earth. Whether we are in touch with the God in our center, or we never open a bible in our life – our lives are full of problems. No matter who we are, something is going to happen in life. For some of us, suffering is all that there is. It stops us from acting. All we can see is darkness in the world beyond. For others, we get up, we live, we trust the unknown, we move forward on spite of our suffering. Suffering is a condition, not a life sentence. The difference is passion – a determination to move through to our destiny. Jesus passion was healing a broken world. That passion was his gift to the world. That gift, the eucharist, was he whole life. He knew that his joy was beyond the cross. As Bell talks about his own fall from grace, he talks about eucharist living, eucharist giving, eucharist gauge and eucharistic rhythm. Eucharistic living is listening to that deep inner voice that tells us what brings us true joy. Eucharistic giving is giving out of our deep inner joy and not out of our suffering. Eucharistic gauge – is the ability to realize when we are empty and depleted inside. It is not just giving, but also receiving. We as Christians are always encouraged to give, but we are reluctant to receive. We forget that we have two different hands, and giving and receiving are not one act, it is two. We get to the point that we don’t realize that we don’t have anything to give. Burnout is feeling guilty to receive. Eucharistic rhythm is knowing when you are empty inside. Acknowleging that you are tired, knowing what fills your spirit. Working and resting in rhythm, giving and receiving in joy. Bell says that Jesus knew eucharistic rhythm very well. He poured out his life, emptying himself in order to restore the system and others. But it was not an obligation. I thought this was an important message for passion Sunday. I think we are all suffering in some way. We watch others around us suffer. We watch suffering on tv every day. So I don’t think that palm Sunday should be a time to relive more suffering and focusing on negativity. Negativity is already here, we don’t need to create it. Living in this world for the last two and a half years has been exhausting. I started reading Bell’s book because I am exhausted, not quite at burnout, but just exhausted. Some of that exhaustion was there way before the pandemic started. I have talked to so many of my colleagues who are saying, I don’t want to be a Christian anymore – I think I need an easier life. And yet we forgot the meaning of eucharist – the good gift. We are in the habit of giving, but have forgotten how to receive. We lost sight of the meaning of the passion of Christ. Christ knew his joy was beyond suffering, he trust God with his prayers, he gave out of his generosity, not obligation. What if he mission on the cross was not a sacrifice – where he loses so everybody wins. Would that stop us as Christians from sacrificing ourselves on behalf of everybody else. What if Christ was not a living sacrifice, but a living eucharist – good gift? How would that effect our faith? Would we really think of Easter as new life? Christ actions should remind us that we are the eucharist – the body of Christ. We are God’s good gift to heal the world. We find that gift by listening to the joy within ourselves. Giving that gift away in order to receive more joy. We give ourselves permission to rest, we develop a language for being tired. We give out of what we have and not what we lack. Finally, don’t get me wrong I do think that there is a place in our lives for sacrifice, for suffering, for guilt, for shame. And even in our faith. It just shouldn’t stop us from following Christ to the cross and to the resurrection. May Christ’s actions bring us peace, justice and wellbeing in the days to come. Let us pray…… Prayer Wonderful God, we bow before you in gratitude for the life you have given us in Jesus Christ. In him, you have shown us that your love has no boundary. There is no place you will not go to be with us and for us. As you came into Jerusalem long ago, come into our hearts this day. Hear our cries and heal our hurts and hold us close. We pray for our world, your world. We pray for all that is happening in Ukraine, for refugee and soldiers, for leaders and aid workers, for citizens struggling amidst terror and violence. We pray that your spirit would bring forth peace and righteousness, comfort and strength. We pray for those who are sick, for those on the long road of recovery, for those struggling with uncertain diagnoses and seemingly never-ending treatments. We pray for those who mourn, for those bearing the burden of grief day by day. We pray for those who wait and watch and pray as loved ones suffer. We pray for those who are alone, those who are hungry, those without hope. We pray for the discouraged and the downtrodden, for those unable to look beyond the troubles of this day. We pray for those facing difficult choices, those weighing many options, those dealing with unclear directions on life’s journey. We pray for those beginning new ventures, trying new things, opening themselves up to fresh possibilities. O God, as this holiest of weeks unfolds before us and we retrace the suffering and the death of Jesus and claim once again the promise of resurrection, we pray that you would seal in our hearts the message of these holy days — that in Jesus you are with us and for us in all things, even suffering, even death and that in Jesus you have overcome every power that would hurt or destroy. AMEN (John Wurster) Lord’s Prayer UMH 895 Stewardship Moment Moment for Stewardship Luke’s description of that long-ago procession includes so many gifts! The owners of the colt, willing to let the disciples take it for Jesus. The people spreading their cloaks on the road. Those singing out their praise, “Blessed in the king who comes…” In this time of worship, what gifts have you brought to offer? Something you treasure? Something personal? Something from deep within? When we recognize how God continues to abundantly provide for us, and what amazing grace it is for Jesus to have shared his very life blood, let us offer the best of our lives! Prayer of Thanksgiving Good and giving God, we offer these gifts to you as fuel for the fire of your on-going creation. May all we offer be received, used, and taken in to expand the power of YOU in this world. (Center for Faith and Giving) Song of Dedication Were You There UMH 288 Announcements Closing Prayer Passing from joy into sorrow and on to elation, we come to Christ this holy week. Today is only a part of the story. Jesus’ triumph leads to his death, his death to his resurrection. May the journey of this week lead you into the fullness of Christ’s love. (Bryan Schneider-Thomas) Community Time Stripping the Sanctuary First Verse of Psalm 22 with Response 1 Leave in Silence and darkness Children’s Sermon 1. Prominently display two crowns: a golden crown (perhaps from the Christmas pageant props) and a crown of thorns. In the sermon, explore two kinds of kings. The first lives in a palace, is strong enough to scare off enemies, and make rules for the country. Paint a picture—not of an evil king, but of one who is authoritarian. Then describe the king that Jesus became by spending his life taking care of his people and finally dying for them. 2. After describing how we treat kings (we do whatever they say, we try to please them, we give them the best of everything, we bow or defer to them), explore who and what we tend to treat as "king of our life." Children often let a special adult, such as a teacher or professional sports figure/hero, become their king. In some neighborhoods, a child may become king of the block and totally run the show (this king may be an overtly evil gang leader or a benevolent natural leader to whom the other children always defer). The scriptural challenge is not to let anyone but Jesus be King in our lives. Jesus and his ways are to be more important than any other child or adult leader. (Carolyn C. Brown) Additional Illustrations There Is Still Hope The reality is that, if we figure to survive in this world, we had better have hope. The ancients knew that. Do you remember Pandora? Mythology has her as a lady endowed with every charm...the gift of all the gods. She was sent to earth with a little box which she had been forbidden to open, but curiosity finally got the better of her...she lifted the lid and out from that box escaped every conceivable kind of terror. Pandora made haste to close the box up again, but it was too late. There was only one thing left...HOPE. That was the ancients' way of saying how important hope is. Even when all else is lost, there is still hope. This was what had sustained the Israelite faithful from generation to generation. This was what energized the crowd along Jesus' parade route that day. David E. Leininger, Sunday's Coming! The Tomb Is Easier than the Cross In just a matter of days Holy Week takes us from the mountain of festive palms to the mountain of Golgatha’s despair. And that is why we resist it so. I mean, do we really need the emotional rollercoaster of Holy Week? What’s so wrong with just jumping from one parade to the next and skipping all the sacrifice and death stuff? What’s wrong with simply moving on to the joy of Easter, with its white bonnets, Easter eggs, family, friends, big ham dinner, and of course the empty tomb. Well, I think we know the answer to that. For starters, an empty tomb, at face value, is a lot easier to deal with than a dying, bleeding Savior on a cross. Add to that all the pain and suffering that comes with Holy Week, is it any wonder that the human tendency is to try and ignore the events of the week and simply move on to the Easter celebration? But as much as we’d like to skip Holy Week we know that the only way to Easter is through the cross. We know where the parade of Palm Sunday leads and we also know that we’re part of that parade. That is to say, we know this intellectually. Our hearts are another story. Our hearts may be more in sync with the disciples and the fear and disbelief that led them to run away. It would seem that 2000 years later Jesus’ disciples are still running away. Jeffrey K. London, And When You Think It's All Over The Triumph and the Tragedy Go with me now to the year 1942. The first American troops are marching into London. We are entering the conflict known as World War II. The people of London are cheering the American soldiers. The friendly reception exhilarates the young soldiers. They sing as they march. Suddenly the troops turn into a main street and a strange hush falls over the scene. The happy songs die on their lips. They are looking for the first time upon an area in London that has been blown to bits. They see the great wounds on the city inflicted by falling bombs. They suddenly realize the city has suffered terribly. In these young soldiers’ hearts, one moment celebration; the next, great sadness. The triumph and the tragedy. Palm Sunday. Good Friday. Life happens. King Duncan, Collected Works, www.Sermons.com Save Us When we wave our palms and boldly cry out, "Hosanna," do we dare imagine what we really want God to save us from? Save me from anger. Save me from cancer. Save me from depression. Save me from debt. Save me from the strife in my family. Save me from boredom. Save me from getting sent back to Iraq. Save me from the endless cycle of violence. Save me from humiliation. Save me from staring at the ceiling at three a.m. wondering why I exist. Save me from bitterness. Save me from arrogance. Save me from loneliness. Save me, God, save me from my fears. In viewing Palm Sunday from that angle, we can begin to see the potential for some real depth in this celebration, for embedded in our quaint pageantry is an appeal to God that originates in the most vulnerable places inside of us; and it bubbles, almost beyond our control, to the surface. "Hosanna." "Save us." Please God take the broken places that will tear us apart and make them whole. We beseech you, God, jump into the water and drag our almost-drowned selves to shore. "Save us." "Hosanna." Scott Black Johnston, Save Us What Is Good For Us Is Hidden Martin Luther often spoke of this aspect of the theology of the cross, concerning how God works in a hidden way through contrasts. In a series of lectures that Luther gave in 1515 and 1516 on the Book of Romans, he wrote: "For what is good for us is hidden, and that so deeply that it is hidden under its opposite. Thus our life is hidden under death, love for ourselves under hate for ourselves ... salvation under damnation, heaven under hell ... And universally our every assertion of anything good is hidden under the denial of it, so that faith may have its place in God, who is a negative essence and goodness and wisdom and righteousness, who cannot be touched except by the negation of all our affirmations." Martin Luther had one more observation about why God operates this way - under contrasts and opposites. In another of his sermons, he put it this way: "He thrusts us into death and permits the devil to pounce on us. But it is not his purpose to devour us; he wants to test us, to purify us, and to manifest himself ever more to us, that we may recognize his love. Such trials and strife are to let us experience something that preaching alone is not able to do, namely, how powerful Christ is and how sincerely the Father loves us. So our trust in God and our knowledge of God will increase more and more, together with our praise and thanks for his mercy and blessing. Otherwise we would bumble along with our early, incipient faith. We would become indolent, unfruitful and inexperienced Christians, and would soon grow rusty." Mark Ellingsen, Preparation and Manifestation, CSS Publishing Palm/Passion Sunday In the newer church calendars, today is called Palm/Passion Sunday. I must admit I have a hard time remembering that. For me, last Sunday will always be Passion Sunday and this Sunday is Palm Sunday. However, the liturgical experts in the church are trying to remind us that the two Sundays belong together because you cannot divorce the two; the significance of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem is that it was all a misunderstanding of His life and mission which eventually led to His death upon the cross. Jesus committed the unpardonable sin of not being the kind of Messiah everybody was expecting. The word "Passion" may give us pause. We're used to the kind of "passion" that Hollywood puts out. But the first meaning of the word given in Webster's Unabridged is "originally, suffering or agony, as of a martyr," and the second meaning: "the agony and sufferings of Jesus..." How about that? "When he drew near and saw the city he wept over it, saying, "Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace...." (Luke 19:41-42a) Donald B. Strobe Closed for Good Friday The bank meltdowns in 2008 reminded me of a true story that I ran across somewhere about a man who was standing in line at a bank last spring when there was a commotion at the counter. A woman was distressed, exclaiming, “Where will I put my money? I have all my money and my mortgage here!! What will happen to my mortgage?!” It turned out that she had misunderstood a small sign on the counter. The sign read, "WE WILL BE CLOSED FOR GOOD FRIDAY.” I guess she wasn’t familiar with the events of Holy Week, because she thought that the bank was going to be closed “for good” that coming Friday. “WE WILL BE CLOSED FOR GOOD . . . FRIDAY.” King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com Eight Days Eight days changed the world. These eight days have been the topic of a million of publications, countless debates, and thousands of films. These eight days have inspired the greatest painters, the most skilled architects, and the most gifted musicians. To try and calculate the cultural impact of these eight days is impossible. But harder still would be an attempt to account for the lives of men and women who have been transformed by them. And yet these eight days as they played out in Jerusalem were of little significance to anyone but a few people involved. What happened on those eight days? During the next eight Sundays of Lent and Easter we will look at these eight days in depth but for now let’s summarize: 1. On Sunday the first of the eight days, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey to the shouts of Hosanna, fulfilling an old prophecy in Zechariah 9:9. 2. On Monday he walked into the Jerusalem Temple overturning tables where money exchange occurred, Roman drachmas were being exchanged for Jewish shekels. Roman coins were not allowed. The image of Caesar was a violation of the second commandment. But the Temple authorities were using the Commandment as means to cheat the people and making the Temple a place of profit rather than a place of prayer. 3. On Tuesday Jesus taught in parables, warned the people against the Pharisees, and predicted the destruction of the Temple. 4. On Wednesday, the fourth day, we know nothing. The Gospel writers are silent. Perhaps it was a day of rest for him and his weary and worried disciples. 5. On Thursday, in an upper room, Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples. But he gave it a new meaning. No longer would his followers remember the Exodus from Egypt in the breaking of bread. They would remember his broken body and shed blood. Later that evening in the Garden of Gethsemane he agonized in prayer at what lay ahead for him. 6. On Friday, the fifth day, following betrayal, arrest, imprisonment, desertion, false trials, denial, condemnation, beatings and sentencing, Jesus carried his own cross to “The Place of the Skull,” where he was crucified with two other prisoners. 7. On Saturday, Jesus lay dead in a tomb bought by a rich man named Joseph. 8. On Sunday, his Passion was over, the stone had been rolled away. Jesus was alive. He appeared to Mary, to Peter, to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and to the 11 disciples gathered in a locked room. His resurrection was established as a fact. Brett Blair and Staff, www.Sermons.com

Who Will Carry on When I am Gone?

March 16, 2019 Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18 Second Sunday of Lent Year B Who will carry on when I am gone? Children’s Sermon Exegetical Aim: God has made the greatest promise of all. Props: None. Lesson: I have a question for you this morning. What is a promise? (response) That’s right. A promise is when you say you are going to do something and you really mean you are going to do it no matter what. How many of you have ever made a promise? (response) When you made your promise did you do anything extend your hand as if you are shaking hands with someone with your hands? (shake hands). Everyone shake hands like you are making a promise and you really mean it. Are there other things that people do when they make a promise? (response) What’s the one where you say, "Cross your heart…? (hope to die, stick a needle in your eye. Ok, everyone do it with me. Everyone cross your heart. (response) Now, hope to die. (response) Ok, stick a needle in your eye. (response) I don’t know what that’s all about but it sounds like someone is pretty serious about keeping their promise. When I was a kid there was one way to seal a promise that was extra strong. If someone sealed a promise this way, you knew that they wouldn't break it. Do you know what it was? (response) It was called a "pinky promise." How do you do it? Who can show me? (response) Good! If you ever make a promise, remember to keep it. Especially if it's a "pinky promise." Application: In the bible God made some pretty serious promises. One time he made a promise to Abraham and Abraham wasn't so sure God was going to keep his promise. So God made a very serious promise and do you know what kind of promise it was? (response) I like to call it a “heifer, goat, ram, turtledove, pigeon promise.” Do you know what a heifer, goat, ram, turtledove pigeon promise is? (response) Well, when Abraham lived they didn’t shake hands or make pinky promises. They would sacrifice an animal—the bigger the animal the more serious the promise. So God made a promise to Abraham and sacrificed not just one animal but five: a heifer, that’s a cow, a goat, a ram, a turtledove, and a pigeon. What do you think Abraham said? (response) He said, “Wow God you must be serious!” Pinky promises are pretty good but a heifer, goat, ram, turtledove, pigeon promise from God is even greater. Let’s Pray: God you have made such great promises not only to Abraham but to us as well. Amen. ChristianGlobe Network, Inc, Old Testament Children's Sermons, by Brett Blair Genesis 15:1-12 Common English Bible (CEB) God’s covenant with Abram 15 After these events, the LORD’s word came to Abram in a vision, “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I am your protector.[a] Your reward will be very great.” 2 But Abram said, “LORD God, what can you possibly give me, since I still have no children? The head of my household is Eliezer, a man from Damascus.”[b] 3 He continued, “Since you haven’t given me any children, the head of my household will be my heir.” 4 The LORD’s word came immediately to him, “This man will not be your heir. Your heir will definitely be your very own biological child.” 5 Then he brought Abram outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars if you think you can count them.” He continued, “This is how many children you will have.” 6 Abram trusted the LORD, and the LORDrecognized Abram’s high moral character. 7 He said to Abram, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as your possession.” 8 But Abram said, “LORD God, how do I know that I will actually possess it?” 9 He said, “Bring me a three-year-old female calf, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a dove, and a young pigeon.” 10 He took all of these animals, split them in half, and laid the halves facing each other, but he didn’t split the birds. 11 When vultures swooped down on the carcasses, Abram waved them off. 12 After the sun set, Abram slept deeply. A terrifying and deep darkness settled over him. Footnotes: a. Genesis 15:1 Or shield or benefactor b. Genesis 15:2 Heb uncertain Common English Bible (CEB) Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible Genesis 15:17-18 Common English Bible (CEB) 17 After the sun had set and darkness had deepened, a smoking vessel with a fiery flame passed between the split-open animals. 18 That day the LORD cut a covenant with Abram: “To your descendants I give this land, from Egypt’s river to the great Euphrates, Common English Bible (CEB) Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible Today is the second Sunday of lent. By now we should well on our Lenten journey, remembering our Lenten words of lent, prayer, fasting, helping others, and repentence. If we have decided to give something up for lent, we are well on that journey of learning to live without that treasured item. The second Sunday of lent is always the time when a new word is introduced – that word is promise. More specifically, that word is covenant. A covenant is a one sided promise. A promise where one person does all of the work, and the other person agrees to receive the benefits. That word describes our relationship with God. God does all of the work, and we receive the benefits. God makes a lot of promises to us all throughout the bible. Here are some of those promises that God makes. What can be said about God's promises to us? 1. He has promised to supply every need we have. The Bible says: "But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus". That's Philippians 4:19. Now notice, God has obligated Himself only to the extent of our needs. That would include food, clothing, shelter, companionship, love, and salvation thru Jesus Christ. It would not include the multiplicity of luxuries that we have come to think of as needs. 2. God has promised that His grace is sufficient for us. (II Corinthians 12:9). In fact, He has made provision for our salvation by His grace through faith. Read Ephesians 2:8. It is through an obedient faith that we have access into the grace of God according to Romans 5:2. 3. God has promised that His children will not be overtaken with temptation. Instead, He assures us that a way of escape will be provided. This promise is recorded in I Corinthians 10:13. Jude wrote: "Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you’re faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy" (Jude v 24). Darius, King of the Medes, said to Daniel, "Thy God whom thou Servest continually, he will deliver thee" (Daniel 6:16). He did deliver Daniel from the den of lions. 4. God has promised us victory over death. He first resurrected Jesus by way of assuring our resurrection. Peter said: "This Jesus hath God rose up, whereof we are all witnesses" (Acts 2:32). Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures" (I Corinthians 15:3,4). Later on he adds: "but thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Corinthians 15:57). 5. God has promised that all things work together for good to those who love and serve Him faithfully (Romans 8:28). It may be difficult for us to see and understand how this is accomplished at times, but God has promised it, and He will deliver. 6. God has promised that those who believe in Jesus and are baptized for the forgiveness of sins will be saved. (Read Mark 16:16 and Acts 2:38). 7. God has promised His people eternal life (John 10:27,28). In closing, let me appeal to you to live so that the promises of God will be yours. God has been making promises all throughout the bible. Today we look at the promise in Genesis 15. Abraham has followed God into an unknown land. His trust in God had paid off. He has a huge household, he has a happy marriage, a successful business, things are going well. But as he looks at all of the wonderful things in his life, Abraham is still sad and frustrated. All of this is wonderful, but when he dies, it will all be for nothing. All of it will go into the hands of a slave, because he is over 70 years old and he has no children to carry on his legacy. God makes a promise not to worry – because his descendants will be as numerous as the stars. For some strange reason, God tells him to make a sacrifice – to bring a lamb, a goat, a cow, a sheep and a pigeon. Abraham is to prepare them by cutting them in half and placing them on the altar. And as he sleeps, a mysterious light appears and passes through each of the animals. This seems like a really strange thing to us, but it all made perfect sense to Abraham. This was how you made a covenant promise to someone. You but the animal in half and passed through it. Basically, you are saying that if you break that promise, then the same could happen to you – you become the sacrifice. God is saying to Abraham that if you don’t have any children, then I deserve to be sacrificed. The good new for us is that God knows that god never breaks his promise. God’s word is always sufficient. What God says will always happen. Today, indeed Abraham has many children. Some are descendants of his son Isaac, some are decendants of his son Ismael, and some are like us, who are children of the covenant, children who have faith in God, because Abraham had faith in God. That is why we make a sacrifice during lent – to honor our relationship with God. To honor God’s promise in our lives. Just as the animals at the altar are a sacrifice, so are our lives. To sacrifice – means to make holy. To dedicate something for the sole purpose of God. To set something aside for God. Lent is our time to think about what needs to be made sacred in our lives, - our finances, our friends, our habits, our thoughts. What part of our lives do we need to stop controlling and be willing to turn it completely over to God. How can we trust God more in our lives. Tight rope worker and the believer Jean Francois Gravelet was considered one of the greatest tightrope walkers in history. He was the first man to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. But that was not enough for him, he liked to show off. One day while crossing, he lowered a rope to a ship, pulled up a bottle of Coke, sat down on the rope to drink it. When he achieved all of that he needed to do more. He crossed in a sack, on stilts, on a bicycle, one day he was blindfolded. By this time, he had the attention of the world, so whenever he would walk across crowds of thousands would come to watch, cheer and scream his name. Finally, one day – he announced that he was the greatest tight rope walker – he asked the crowd if they believed in him. They shouted – we believe. Okay he shouted back, I will walk back across the tightrope. But this time I am going to walk with one of you on my shoulders. – do I have any volunteers? There was not a sound – no one said anything. Until one man finally raised he hand, and said he would be the one to sit on the tightrope walkers shoulder. He rose forward, got on the man’s shoulder and they went across together. Of course the crowd roared – the tightrope walker asked once again – do you believe? He corrected them – when I asked you if you believed – more than 10,000 people shouted yes. But the truth is – there was only one of you who really believed in me. God asks us every day if we believe – how many times in our life do we really answer yes? We are the children of Abraham – when we have faith in God. when we believe in the words of God there is nothing that we cant do and achieve. Sacrificing for lent is not about what we got to do, it is about what we get to do. It is not an obligation, it is a joy, when we do it for and with God. In his book, If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of The Boat, John Ortberg tells about a very remarkable lady named Henrietta Mears. Ms. Mears taught college-age, single young people for decades at Hollywood Presbyterian Church. She was a formative influence on the life of a whole generation of Christian leaders including Billy Gra¬ham, Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright, former Senate Chaplain Richard Halverson, and hun¬dreds of others. Ms. Mears was frustrated at not being able to give her students first-rate material to educate them, so she began a little publishing enterprise out of a garage. It grew into Gospel Light Publishers, a major Christian publisher in its day. She was also frustrated because she knew so many Christians liv¬ing in crowded Los Angeles who needed someplace to withdraw and be with God outdoors where they could hear him better. So she drove up into the San Gabriel Mountains and found what she thought would be the perfect location. She talked to God about how much it was needed. Then she talked to the man who owned it, and although he hadn’t been inclined to sell it, he never really had a prayer. It grew into Forest Home, one of the premier spiritual conference centers in the country. Henrietta Mears was frustrated by not having a good single-volume intro¬duction to the Bible that could help her students understand what it was all about, so she wrote one herself that sold hundreds of thousands of copies and continues to sell today, decades after her death. She did all these things and many more, despite doing them in a day when many people thought a woman had no business doing such things. Time and again she took the step of faith, and time and again she succeeded. At the end of her remarkable life, as she lay on her deathbed, someone asked her, “Miss Mears, if you had it all to do over again, would you do anything differently?” She thought for a moment and replied, “If I had it all to do over again--I would have trusted Christ more.” (2) In our covenant faith, the faith of Abraham God makes a promise, and all we have to do is trust in that promise. A promise that God loves us, God is with us, and that God has the power to lead every aspect of our lives. Lent is about us learning to trust God more in every circumstance in life. I want to leave you with these words, of faith taken from the jewish bar mitzvah service – words that I think take on new meaning for all of abrahams’s children living in the modern world. In a world torn by pain, a world far from wholeness and peace, a world still waiting to be redeemed, give us to courage to say to that world – there is one God in heaven and on Earth. Whatever we are dealing with – let us fulfill that promise – to trust God to the end. Let us pray……. What we really need to do to get in the Lenten attitude is first relearn what sacrifice means. To sacrifice does not mean to give up. The word sacrifice really means "to make sacred." If we do give up something as a sacrifice, it is only so that we may take it back in a new, transfigured way. Syndicated religion columnist for Scripps Howard News Service, Terry Mattingly, notes that while our emphasis on giving up certain foods during Lent may seem arbitrary and unimportant, it can lead us toward the true meaning of sacrifice, if we let it. But why place such an emphasis on food? Does anyone really think it's spiritually better to eat dark chocolate (no milk) during Lent than it is to eat milk chocolate? Some people forgo steaks or fried chicken, but then manage to eat their weight in forms of seafood that are allowed during the fast, such as shrimp or clams. The bottom line is that our appetites do matter. St. Paul warned the early church to avoid the sinful ways of those whose "end is destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things." But the Bible also warns believers not to turn ancient spiritual disciplines into showy gestures, planting the seeds of pride and arrogance. Yet it's good to open your refrigerator door and have to ask the question: Who's in charge here? "If God isn't in charge of my refrigerator, then He isn't in charge of the rest of my life," said one Orthodox friend. "If God isn't the God of my refrigerator, then He isn't the God of my check book, or my Day Timer, or my television or any of the other THINGS that try to run my life." (Prof. Terry Mattingly directs the Institute of Journalism at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities in Washington, D.C.) This Lenten season, how deep will your commitment be to "make sacred", to take back elements of your life? In today's text from Genesis, Abram confronts God with his greatest fear. He had grown old and wandered far. All at God's instruction. But where was this alleged "Promised Land." Still no sign of it anywhere. Even more frightening, there was still no son to carry Abram's lineage into the future. It was this fear that Abram gave up and that was returned to him as a sacred promise -a covenant sealed by sacrifice - that transformed Abram. With the divine promise Abram could take back his advanced age, take back Sarai's age and apparent barrenness, take back his own confidence in the divinely-directed future he had hoped for and believed in for so long. His age, Sarai's age, the passage of still more years, would all now be counted as sacred - elements that would be used by God to fulfill God's plan, not serve as impediments to block God's plan. In today's gospel text Jesus looks down on Jerusalem, that most holy and sacred city. But Jesus sees it and its inhabitants with a heart that knows what lies ahead. Jerusalem will kill him. Her inhabitants will turn on him, they will abandon him, they will condemn him to death. These are the very same inhabitants Jesus calls to, those he longs to make sacred again through his sacrifice. In one of the gentlest, most blatantly maternal images of the Second Testament, Jesus speaks of gathering these citizens of Jerusalem together and covering them with his protective wings like a mother hen. (Luke 13:31 35) This is the meaning of sacrifice: · Abram made his fear of childlessness...sacred. · Jesus made those who would lay hands on him and kill him...sacred. What part of your life needs to be made sacred. · Does your job need to be made sacred? · Does your marriage need to be made sacred? · Does your body need to made sacred? · Does your vocabulary need to be made sacred? · Does your time need to made sacred? · Does your relationship with your kids need to be made sacred? · Does your relationship with your parents need to be made sacred? In the high-speed, high stakes, sometimes high-handed sport of NASCAR auto racing, Dale Earnhardt was the undisputed - though often contested - king. Known as "The Terminator," Earnhardt has been given the lion's share of the credit for popularizing and profit-maximizing NASCAR. Under his leadership NASCAR was transformed from the sport of redneck roughnecks to the most watched sport in America. Everyone...from highbrow, high-profile, multimillionaire Hollywood types, to hardworking, face-in-the-crowd, blue-collar/pink-collar laborer types...came to love watching cars go fast and pass one another. And everyone, it seems, loved Dale Earnhardt. When an unremarkable track accident (hardly worth calling a crash in the spectacular smashup world of NASCAR bash ups) took his life two weeks ago, racing fans were stunned and disbelieving. Earnhardt himself admitted that he played hard and he played for keeps. While he didn't drive "dirty," he certainly wouldn't have been accused of behaving like a gentleman. He was out to win. Every time he drove onto the track, he expected to win. His tough-guy-in-a-tough-sport image came through off track as well. Though a wildly successful and savvy businessman, Earnhardt could still come across like the "hick from-the-sticks" that was his heritage. But Earnhardt had won the admiration, the respect, and even the hearts of his fellow drivers by being honest, hardworking, hard driving, as well as being a loyal friend, a loving father and a compassionate man. What only a few people knew was that although Earnhardt knew he was in a tough, dog-eat-dog-run-over-the-dog business, for years he had practiced small, but significantly meaningful gesture of "sacrifice" during each race he drove. Darrell Waltrip, whose little brother Michael was in the lead as they came into the final quarter of a mile in the 2001 Daytona 500, wrote a memorial tribute to his best friend of 30 years Dale Earnhardt in Newsweek. Waltrip, who retired a year before Earnhardt was killed, tells how his wife Stevie wrote verses of Scripture on notecards and gave them to him before a race. She'd sit down on a Sunday morning and go through the Bible. Then at some point during the race, I"d look at the card. In 1994, just after Dale's close friend, Neil Bonnett, was killed at Daytona, Dale asked her, 'Will you do that for me, too?' From that day on, she made one for me, one for him. We'd meet at the racetrack - she and Dale and I - and she'd have the two Scriptures, mine and his. Dale would read both of them and then he'd say to me, 'You take that one, this one's mine.' Then he's wink at me and say, 'I got the good one, didn't I?' That's what happened two Sundays ago. Dale didn't know if Stevie was even going to be at the track, since I wasn't racing. So when he saw her there with a notecard, he was really pleased. It was Proverbs 18:10: 'The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.' Dale read it, then he looked at her and said, 'I got the good one, now don't I?'" - ("A Farewell Lap for 'The Intimidator,' Newsweek, 5 March 2001, 53). Into the steamy, sometimes seamy life of NASCAR racing, Earnhardt brought these Bible verses, rejoicing in the way they could enter the hot, single-minded cockpit of his race car and bring a transforming peace, an uplifting spirit, to its interior. Earnhardt took back his humanity, his spiritual center, even as his physical self was necessarily at its most intense, its most narrowly focused. He sacrificed his self reliance, his self-absorption in the sport he loved, in order to take back the real love of life, the genuine joy of spirit, that drove him on. When you take back life, when you take back church, you move from what Fred Luter, Jr. of New Orleans (Franklin Avenue Baptist Church) calls a "Got To" Christian to a "Get To" Christian. Here's a "Got To" Christian: I've got to go to church today; I've got to read my Bible; I've got to go to prayer meeting; I've got to serve on the Board of Trustees. Here's a "Get To" Person: I get to play golf today. I get to go to Hawaii on my vacation. I get to see the Dallas Cowboys play. Here's a "Get To" Christian: I get to go to church today. I get to spend time with God today in prayer and Bible study. I get to minister at Hospice this week. What is it? "Got To" or "Get To?" Will you make sacred your life this Lent? Don't give up. Take back. Don't Got To. Get To. ChristianGlobe Networks, Collected Sermons, by Leonard Sweet I want to start out this morning (afternoon) talking about the promises of God. I found this wonderful article on the things that God has promised us All of those promises come from the promise that God made to our mother and father in faith Abraham and Sarah. That they would be the parents of a large nation, kings shall come from this promise. Today – according to recent statistics – 50% of the population of the world attribute Abraham as the father of their faith. That means that there are 3 billion people on the earth who are a part of Abraham and Sarah’s family. There are Christians, Muslims and Jews – the people of the book. Who are a part of God’s promise. And yet in the story, Abraham was 99 years old, Sarah was 89. He already had a son by Hagar, and he had gone on with his life, accepting things just as they were. He had done the best that he could in his life, he was only a man – so when God says that he will have another child, and create another nation – he laughs.