Being Mortal – Atul Gawande
The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple – James Carse
Klara and the Sun – Kazuo Ishiguro
On the Road with St. Augustine – James Smith
This Tender Land – William Kent Kreuger

• We meet in the church library on the third Wednesday of each month at 7pm
• Generally we will read 120-150 pages in a session
• Highlight passages that inspire you – or amuse you – or infuriate you.
• We get together with cheese, crackers, and wine in person
• You may also attend virtually through the magic of Zoom
• We normally spend two months per book.
• We are grateful to the pastor who designed this style of book group!
  The history of how this got started is here.

29th November, 2020

Isaiah 64:1-9 CEV  / Mark 13:24-37 CEV

Prelude
Immanuel (from the squalor of a borrowed stable)
words and music by Stuart Townend, arr. by Carol Tomquist,
played by church musician Annie Center,
used and reported under CCLI Streaming License 20261246

Intro / Call to Worship 

I’m glad to welcome you to online worship with Olympic View Community Church.  We seek to welcome all of God’s children to join us in bearing witness to the radically transforming power of God’s love. 

This week we begin our Advent journey together, that time of expectation and waiting for the arrival of the promise offered in the holy child of Christmas.  As we still are living into a different reality as we enter this season, we will be observing this season from our own spaces instead of gathered together.  But we can still find ways to share and participate in the wonder and anticipation of Advent.  Each week we will light the Advent candles participating remotely, yet sharing together in this beloved ritual.

Advent Lighting Liturgy Video

Reader 1:   In a world of war, famine and pandemic, where children grow up as orphans, where families go hungry and entire regions face destruction by illness, God we call upon you to come.

Reader 2: In a world where so many have lost hope, we call upon you, Lord of Hope, to come.

Reader 1: In this season of Advent, we wait for the coming of Hope into our world.  We await the birth of the Christ-child, the coming of God into our lives in a new way.

Reader 2:  Come, Messiah, Come, and Save Us.

Advent candle video with prayer

Prayer: Dear God, we pray for the hope that is in Christ to come into our lives in a new way.  We await the birth of the Christ-child, the coming of God into our lives in a new way.  Amen.

Music video “O Savior, Rend the Heavens Wide”
Lutheran Service Book LSB #355
Lutheran Warbler

In our reading from Isaiah this week, we hear of the promise of God’s redemptive power, and our part in that redemption as God’s molding clay.  As we listen to these words, let’s think how we have been, or are being molded, for God’s work in today’s world.

First Testament Reading Isaiah 64:1-9 CEV

Rip the heavens apart! Come down, Lord; make the mountains tremble.

Be a spark that starts a fire causing water to boil. Then your enemies will know
who you are; all nations will tremble because you are nearby.

Your fearsome deeds have completely amazed us; even the mountains shake
when you come down.

You are the only God ever seen or heard of who works miracles for his followers.

You help all who gladly obey and do what you want,  but sin makes you angry.

Only by your help can we ever be saved.

We are unfit to worship you; each of our good deeds is merely a filthy rag.

We dry up like leaves; our sins are storm winds sweeping us away.

No one worships in your name or remains faithful. You have turned your back on us and let our sins melt us away.

You, Lord, are our Father. We are nothing but clay, but you are the potter  who molded us.

Don’t be so furious or keep our sins  in your thoughts forever! Remember that all of us are your people

Scripture Video Isaiah 64:1-9 |
Lectionary bible reading

A Time of Prayer

Today we come together as a community to share together our joys and concerns, and lift them to God in prayer.  If you would like to share a specific request to be included in our communal prayer time, please leave a comment in the video below, or email myself at:  vicarglenn at gmail.com, and I’ll make sure to include that request in next week’s service, as well as send a prayer chain email, if you would like.

Joys and Concerns

We lift up our sister Tammy Worden as she travels to Utah to begin a new chapter in her life.  We pray for safe travels and success in her new endeavor.

We also keep Matthew Schultz in our prayers as he begins his fight with colon cancer that has spread to his lungs, liver, and spleen.

Let us also remember Goldie Barnes and her extended family with the passing of her sister Shirley this week from lung cancer.

We can also take joy in being able to provide Thanksgiving meals for 69 families this week, serving 300 people.

Let’s bring these concerns and others in our lives to God together in prayer.

Pastoral Prayer

Into our troubles and weaknesses, Into the barren places of our souls, Come Lord,
Into the war torn and the refugee, Into those who live in conflict, Come Lord,
Into the homeless and the unemployed, Into those who feel abandoned, Come Lord,
Into the sick and the disabled, Into those with Coronavirus and with cancer, Come, Lord,
Into the poor and the starving, Into those who are oppressed or abused, Come Lord,
Into the lives of loved ones, Into those from whom we are estranged, Come Lord,
Into our joys and celebrations, Into our work and our achievements, Come, Lord,

Come down, come in, come among us and make us whole.

O Christ we long for your coming. Hasten that day when those who seek you in every nation will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south and sit at a table in Your Kin-dom. Hasten the day when your Kin-dom will come in all its glory and suffering and pain and sickness and oppression and death will be overcome forever. Hasten the day when we will be resurrected as a great multicultural family and live in peace, harmony, joy and love together in your kin-dom.  Amen.

In our gospel lesson this morning, Jesus presents an apocalyptic version of things to come.  As we listen to these words from Mark, let’s think about what hope we find in the redemption to come, and how we share that hope with others.

Gospel Lesson Mark 13:24-37 CEV

In those days, right after that time of suffering, “The sun will become dark,
and the moon will no longer shine.

The stars will fall, and the powers in the sky will be shaken.”

Then the Son of Man will be seen coming in the clouds with great power
and glory. 

He will send his angels to gather his chosen ones from all over the earth.

Learn a lesson from a fig tree. When its branches sprout and start putting
out leaves, you know summer is near. 

So when you see all these things happening, you will know that the time has almost come. 

You can be sure that some of the people of this generation will still be alive when all this happens. 

The sky and the earth will not last forever, but my words will.

No one knows the day or the time. The angels in heaven don’t know, and
the Son himself doesn’t know. Only the Father knows. 

So watch out and be ready! You don’t know when the time will come. 

It is like what happens when a man goes away for a while and places his servants in charge of everything. He tells each of them what to do, and he orders the guard to keep alert. 

So be alert! You don’t know when the master of the house will come back. It could be in the evening or at midnight or before dawn or in the morning. 

But if he comes suddenly, don’t let him find you asleep. 

I tell everyone just what I have told you. Be alert!

Scripture Video Mark 13:24-37 |
No One Knows The Day Or Time
Lectionary bible reading

Message – Hope

So now we are entering into the season of Advent again. That time every year when we talk a lot about “waiting,” “anticipating,” and “keeping awake and ready.”  It’s that time every year when pastors around the world struggle yet again to try to make this season unique from the more popular Christmas season that follows.  But this year, more than others, I think we have a better understanding of what it means to “wait and anticipate.”  After all, that’s largely what 2020 has meant for us. 

We’ve been waiting for the COVID19 numbers to get better, for the restrictions to be eased, for a vaccine, for the results of the election.  We’ve been waiting for a return to “normal” from many perspectives.  With all the drama and stress that this year has brought, we may think it redundant to be told to “keep awake and vigilant.”  Most of us are already operating in a state of sleep deprivation and over-caffeination. 

In a “normal” year, our list of tasks would be growing to a fever pitch, both in the church and secular world, as we prepare and host or attend holiday gatherings, shop for Christmas presents, decorate our homes and the church.  While family gatherings may be smaller or virtual, and our church is still online, we often seem as a culture to be programmed to only work in high gear, to only be able to function at maximum capacity.  From that perspective, it seems ludicrous to tell us to “stay awake.”  That’s what we have become masters of in an overstimulated, social media driven world, that still promotes the excitement of Black Friday consumerism.  But let’s be clear, while the world’s busyness may seem to be pointed to Christmas, even during a pandemic, it is seldom pointed toward the coming of the Christ child. 
As Advent progresses, the number of shopping days left before the big day offers a countdown that stresses us out and keeps us up late.  These days we are startled into extra hours of wakefulness in a liturgical season that annoyingly presumes we might be asleep.  No wonder we often tune it out, like teenagers hearing a parent’s repetitive lecture and knowing that mom simply does not understand.  But, of course, God does understand. 

In this way, the Scripture from long ago reads us, not the other way around.  In Advent, we are indeed asleep to much of what matters.  Like people who have lived by the train tracks for years, we no longer hear the sound of the train.  For many of us, after years in church, we get used to the noise of Advent, to the coming of Christ, so much so that we no longer notice it.  Or if we do, it no longer jolts us awake and has become instead a low, dull rumble.  New members who have been away from sacramental life return to the season of Advent with delight and wonder as the purple vestments and Advent wreath appear, but after a few years, these signs of the season become mere decoration.

Yet this year is a little different, isn’t it.  What were the routine and rote traditions and rituals that often faded into the background are suddenly absent.  We now feel a sense of loss at what was, and wonder if we will ever be able to recover the “normal” that seems so distant.  In a time meant to promote hopefulness, we often find ourselves feeling hopeless.  In a way, our current crisis has refocused our attention back to the true meaning and purpose of Advent.

This morning’s scriptures are a testament to the promise that this season holds. Both readings were written for people who were going through particularly tough times. In Isaiah, the readers were those Jews who had been exiled to Babylon. They had lost everything, their homes, their Temple, even their God, it seemed.  Yet they hold on to the promise that God will forgive and redeem them; that they are clay yet to be molded to God’s purpose. In our gospel lesson from Mark, the audience would have recently witnessed the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the second Temple, and most would be living in the exile of the Diaspora, permanently separated from all that had defined their lives and faith.  Drawing from the apocalyptic imagery of Daniel, Jesus gives a dramatic image of end times and judgement, and all too often we get caught up in those signs as a road map for the end of things, and try to seek hope in seeing ourselves as the last generation before Christ’s return.  To read these texts as timelines of the future is to miss the point. It’s not the specific details that matter, but the overall promise of God’s providence. Bad things will happen in our lives, we will struggle, sometimes seemingly without the promise of redemption.  But these stories always end with God’s resolution.  The faithful are redeemed; things are made right in the end.  That is the hope to focus on.  This year, much like the ancient Judeans, we too seem to have lost our way of life.  Our “temple” is no longer available to us as it used to be.  We have that same sense of loss and hopelessness of being exiled from much that is “normal.”  But in these stories, we can find comfort that we are not alone, that others have gone through similar circumstances and come through the other side.  When we read the stories of suffering and tribulation in the Bible, too often we focus on what we consider the senseless suffering, and lose the promise of the redemption that follows.  We miss the hope part.  And even more tragic, we also miss the role we play in bringing about that hope.  That is why I like this passage from Isaiah so much.  We are God’s clay.  We are to be molded to be vessels that carry the faith and the hope of that faith.  The promise that we are not forsaken, that God is at work, through us, to bring hope.  The question is, will we allow ourselves to be transformed  into something we may not anticipate.  We can wallow in the loss of what was, or step into the promise of what can be.  Times like these are watershed moments.  Will we seek God at work in new ways and join that work, or will we just give up in wistful resignation?  Will we find ways to spread hope, or succumb to the hopeless so prevalent all around us.  I hope and pray that together we allow ourselves to be molded into the body of Christ, the beacon of hope, our Creator calls us to in this time and place, a shape that may be much different from the old “normal” we pine for.  May our journey be another chronicle of redemption and hope in the story of faith.  Amen.   

Call to Serve. 

As we continue to seek to be a place of compassion and support to our community, seeking to give comfort to those in need, we ask that you give prayerful consideration as to how you may support our efforts.  If you would like to make a donation, gifts can still be mailed to our church office, or online donations can be made through the link in the video description.  Thanks again for all your support, and may we continue to work together to keep being a place of ministry that seeks to promote the growth of God’s shalom around us.  This morning, as Annie shares the following song, let’s give some thought as to how God is calling us to be molded into something different, how we might be beacons of hope in the radically different reality we find ourselves in today.

A Time for Reflection

Reflection on the Word

Light one candle to watch for
Yiddish folk tune,
arr. by Wayne L. World,
played by church musician Annie Center

The Prayer of Thanksgiving

God of hope and wonder,
even surrounded by confusion and trouble
we look for you.
Take these gifts and use
them for acts of justice, peace, mercy, and hope.
Receive also the gifts of our time and our
actions that are just as precious to you as silver and gold. Amen. 

(for credits only) ~ posted on Worship Ways, ucc.org

Blessing/Assurance

As we journey together into the week ahead, 

take with you God’s promise to be with us,
the peace of the Holy Spirit,
and the watchful perseverance of Jesus Christ.
As God came into the world to know us,
now go out into unknown places
with the same compassion that has been given to us. Amen. 

Postlude
Breath of Heaven (Mary’s Song)\
words and music by Amy Grant and Chris Eaton,
arr. by Carol Tornquist, performed by church musician Annie Center,
used and reported under CCLI Streaming License 20261246 

22nd November, 2020

Ezekiel 34:11-16,20-24 CEV  / Matthew 25:31-46 CEV

Prelude For The Beauty of the Earth,
by Conrad Kocher, Folliott Sandford Pierpoint,
played by church musician Annie Center  

Intro / Call to Worship 

O come let us worship and lift our hearts . . .Not because the world is good and last week was awesome, but because the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it,

the God of the whole Earth.

O come let us worship and raise our hands . . . Not because our lives are all sweetness and light, But because even those who walk in darkness can see a great light, the Bright and Morning Star

O come let us worship and bow down . . .Not because God gives us what we want,

But because God gives us what we need –the holy child Jesus, God’s Unspeakable Gift.

I’m glad to welcome you to online worship with Olympic View Community Church.  We seek to welcome all of God’s children to join us in bearing witness to the radically transforming power of God’s love. 

When we gather together at Olympic View, we like to start our service sharing greetings and the peace and shalom of Christ with each other.   Our gospel lesson this morning focuses on how we care for and interact with each other.  As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday this week, let’s think of those we could care for and show kindness to, in thanksgiving and gratitude for all we have received.

Reflection Video Will You Let Me Be Your Servant
(The Servant Song), performed by Mutual Kumquat,
used with permission

Invocation

God,

You call us to service; to be your eyes and ears, hands and voice in this, your world.

To open our eyes not only to the beauty and love which you create, but the injustice,
hate and suffering that humankind generates.

To open our ears not only to the chattering of this coming week, but the searching,
fears and questioning of all whom we shall meet.

To open our hands not only to those we choose our lives to share, but in welcome,
love and fellowship to all who you draw near.

To open our mouths not only to speak platitudes and simple words, but the truths you lay upon our hearts. Your Word for this, your world.

You call us to service, to be your eyes and ears, hands and voice in this, your world.

This morning may your Spirit guide us to better understand and respond to your call, Amen.

We light a candle today to represent the Spirit burning within us, and among us, guiding our time together. (light candle) Amen.

In our reading from Ezekiel this week, we are reminded of the love and concern our Creator has for us, as well as the expectation that we share in that concern for others.

First Testament Reading Ezekiel 34:11-16,20-24  CEV

The Lord God then said:

I will look for my sheep and take care of them myself,

just as a shepherd looks for lost sheep. My sheep have been lost since that dark and miserable day when they were scattered throughout the nations.[a] But I will rescue them

and bring them back from the foreign nations where they now live. I will be their shepherd and will let them graze on Israel’s mountains and in the valleys and fertile fields.

They will be safe as they feed on grassy meadows and green hills.I promise to take care of them and keep them safe,
to look for those that are lost and bring back the ones that wander off, to bandage those that are hurt and protect the ones that are weak. I will also slaughter[b] those that are fat and strong, because I always do right.

So I, the Lord God, will separate you strong sheep from the weak.

You strong ones have used your powerful horns to chase off those that are weak,

but I will rescue them and no longer let them be mistreated. I will separate the good from the bad.

After that, I will give you a shepherd from the family of my servant King David. All of you, both strong and weak, will have the same shepherd, and he will take good care of you.

He will be your leader, and I will be your God. I, the Lord, have spoken.

Scripture Video Ezekiel 34:11-16,20-24 |
The Lord Is The Good Shepherd
Lectionary bible reading

A Time of Prayer

Today we come together as a community to share together our joys and concerns, and lift them to God in prayer.  If you would like to share a specific request to be included in our communal prayer time, please leave a comment in the video below, or email myself at:  vicarglenn@gmail.com, and I’ll make sure to include that
request in next week’s service, as well as send a prayer chain email, if you would like.

Joys and Concerns

This morning we take joy in Matthew Schultz’s promotion at work, and for his good health days, but also keep him in prayer that a solution can be found for his ongoing health concerns.

We are also thankful for those who serve the church tirelessly, resolving maintenance issues, and organizing Thanksgiving baskets during a pandemic to bring joy to those who might not otherwise have a good holiday.
We lift up all of us who are unable to be with family and friends this year, and seek to remember what is really important, the health and well-being of all.

Let’s bring these concerns and others in our lives to God together in prayer.

Pastoral Prayer

Create a throne room for yourself here, O Christ, but let it be the empty seat beside the anxious the lonely chair next to the confused the vacant pew next to the hungry and reign, O Jesus, as sovereign over the forgotten

May your reign be a mockery to the world but good news to those who seek out truth and may we join them in the search finding you walking the streets
or breaking bread or sitting by bedsides

May we find you in border areas on the edge of things crossing over with the foreigner

May we find you among children learning to finger paint as teachers to those who long to enjoy life again

May we find you with the worried silenced with nothing to say and space enough to keep it

May we find you on the wrong side of the tracks going where you should not
and finding a place to lay your head among the lost

May we find you singing our songs of justice and peace and removing your crown to do so

May we find you with a word that lives in the hopes of the afraid and a comforting peace for those who are broken

May we find you laughing at the powerful unnerving what folk think so secure
while welcoming those who have nothing into your throne room

O Jesus, reigning in the world with your upside down kingdom may we find the faith to stand with you sovereign of life and servant of all

In our gospel lesson this morning, we are reminded of the importance of the “least of these” among us.  As hear these words from Matthew, let’s give some thought as to who are those in need among us, and what we really thing about our role in serving them.

Gospel Lesson Matthew 25:31-46 CEV

When the Son of Man comes in his glory with all of his angels, he will sit on his royal throne.
The people of all nations will be brought before him, and he will separate them, as shepherds separate their sheep from their goats.
He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 
Then the king will say to those on his right, “My father has blessed you! Come and receive the kingdom that was prepared for you before the world was created. 
When I was hungry, you gave me something to eat, and when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I was a stranger, you welcomed me, 
and when I was naked, you gave me clothes to wear. When I was sick, you took care of me, and when I was in jail, you visited me.”

Then the ones who pleased the Lord will ask, “When did we give you something to eat or drink? 
When did we welcome you as a stranger or give you clothes to wear 
or visit you while you were sick or in jail?”

The king will answer, “Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me.”

Then the king will say to those on his left, “Get away from me! You are under God’s curse. Go into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels! 
I was hungry, but you did not give me anything to eat, and I was thirsty, but you did not give me anything to drink. 
I was a stranger, but you did not welcome me, and I was naked, but you did not give me any clothes to wear. I was sick and in jail, but you did not take care of me.”

Then the people will ask, “Lord, when did we fail to help you when you were hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in jail?”

The king will say to them, “Whenever you failed to help any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you failed to do it for me.”

Then Jesus said, “Those people will be punished forever. But the ones who pleased God will have eternal life.”

Scripture Video Matthew 25:31-46     The Final Judgement
Lectionary bible reading

Message – The New Normal

The least of these.  A phrase I’m sure we’ve heard before, at least I hope it’s a concept we’re familiar with. But the question is, who really are the least of these, and who really stands among the sheep and goats?  It might seem obvious, and we certainly have a traditional view that those who are the least of these are all those categories listed:  the thirsty, the hungry, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the prisoner. Basically the downtrodden, the other.  And that basic message is still very valid and appropriate. But let’s look a little deeper and who Jesus was directing this parable at.  

There has been some debate over time about the translation of one little Greek phrase in this passage, and how that interpretation affects the greater meaning of the story.  “Pante ta ethne” literally means “all the nations”, but many times in Matthew that phrase only connatates the Gentiles, or non-Jews. So depending on how we interpret that phrase can have a significant impact on whom this parable was directed to, and how we should apply it.  

The traditional interpretation has been to take the phrase as inclusive and global in perspective. From that point of view, the implication is a much more universal application and the categories mentioned are broad mandates for how we are to encounter anybody experiencing hardship. But if we look at this passage focused just on the Gentiles, then Jesus’ message has a different slant. Focused just on Gentiles implies that they are being judged on how they treat others, particularly those who are followers of Jesus.  

New Testament scholar Daniel J. Harrington points out that the interpretation of this passage as a judgment of Gentiles according to their reception of Jesus’ followers  is often rejected because it leaves the passage “with little relevance for contemporary ethics…”  What, though, could be more pertinent in our time than the question of the religious other?  If we accept that this passage is directed at Gentiles, then the implication is that they are being judged for how they treat the religious “others” in their midst.  They would have no idea that they were caring for the “Son of Man” in their midst.  They would be judged solely on their ethical treatment of the “others” among them.  Nevertheless, they “inherit the kingdom” as a reward for their ethical treatment of Christ’s followers, who to them would have been religious and ethnic outsiders.  There’s no mention of them reluctantly “tolerating” the views of these new missionaries, or that there was any sort of conversion to this new faith.  The righteous simply cared for the “others,” the strangers who came among them. They would have known nothing of reward or punishment.  They just did what was right. Following that interpretation then, the goats are judged harshly not due to a lack of faith, but as a result of their own moral failure in working, or not working with others.  

So the question naturally arises:  If the Gentiles, who knew nothing about the deep Jewish tradition of caring for strangers and knew nothing about Jesus’ message to love as God loves, are expected to know enough to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick and imprisoned, regardless of where they come from or what they believe, how much more is expected of those who are in the fold, who are taught to emulate that inclusion  and love, who know what’s expected of us?  And why don’t we always?  

What is it that keeps us from seeing Christ always in the downtrodden among us? Some of these parables at the end of Matthew include some pretty scary judgement imagery and this week continues that theme. One might even say these parables are thematic. But again, to focus on the fear of ultimate judgment and eternal suffering is to miss the point.  

Fear, now, as it was in first century Palestine, is the problem, not the solution.  The Romans and Jewish elite used fear to keep people in line. The fear of divine wrath, the fear of real physical hardship under a brutal military occupation, the fear of loss of livelihood and security were all real threats in that time. And how much has really changed?  

It seems to me we still labor under similar circumstances in this world.  Sure the players have changed. Rome has a new face and flag today, but still dominates the world through military might. Religious authorities represent a somewhat different faith but the message is still the same, isn’t it? Repent or suffer the consequences.  But the problem with a culture of fear is it leads to not adhering to the basic tenets that Jesus laid out as the kin-dom life free from such stress.  

Fear causes people to fixate on the many things they have not done or cannot do. They wallow in guilt because they’re afraid to take that risk. They think things like,  “I turn my head away when I encounter a homeless person. I’m wasteful with food when others are starving.” The guilt list goes on and on doesn’t it.  When we obsess with the security of our own salvation, we truly miss the whole point the ministry of Jesus was trying to make. 

What happens if we read this passage from a faith perspective instead of a fear perspective?  Do we then see more the kin-dom at hand that we can empower and participate in? Instead of fear and damnation, do we see hope and possibilities?  This passage is truly about kin-dom living here and now. It’s all about faith, putting our trust in God and stepping out in confidence, not holding back in fear and trepidation. It’s looking the homeless in the eye and acknowledging them.  It’s picking up a sleeping bag on Black Friday and walking it right out to someone camped out down the street.  It’s forming or joining a prison ministry.  It’s living simply so you have the resources to help others. And it can be taking that leap of faith.  Pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone, where the world tells us there’s too much risk, while our God tells us mountains can be moved with sufficient faith alone.  

Ours is a dynamic Deity always on the move.  What was the tried and true work of the church yesterday may be moot and ineffective today.  Who are the “least of these today?”  What efforts are being made to alleviate their suffering, or more importantly, what efforts are being made to resolve the circumstances that made them “less than” in the first place. We need to be careful that we don’t fall into the trap of “mission-trip mentality” where we consecrate poverty and oppression because Christ is mystically among the downtrodden and we seek to commune with Christ in the impoverished and mistreated person. We then will make the experience about us, and what we did to help, “I gave so little and gained so much.”  Our calling is to bring an end to the unjust mechanisms that led to the situation in the first place, not just provide temporary relief for today.  

So how does that happen, changing the very way the world works?  Well, first of all, it’s giving the world a model to follow.  When they look to the church, they should see people and resources that are always devoted to the “other,” the stranger in our midst. They should be the guest of honor at our banquets, not the other way round.  People should see a body that looks outward, not inward, forward, not backward. People of the present, the here and now.  That’s how you change things, you refuse to accept the status quo.  

Imagine what could be if all the self-proclaimed Christians in this country flatly refused to accept hunger in the world, or poverty. What impact would that have, if we really focused here and now on the “least of these” without judgment.  For too long now, Christianity has had tunnel vision to the end times, to the return of Christ.  If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard things like, “When will Jesus come again?  Surely it must be soon, things can’t get any worse,” I wouldn’t need a salary.  

The problem with that line of thought is, Jesus is already here. We see him in the least of us.  We see Jesus in the child going to bed hungry.  We see Jesus in the stranger who is of a different ethnic group, someone who doesn’t look like me. We see Jesus in the prisoner, provided we ever go to visit.  

These sisters and brothers are not metaphors to be used as colorful examples.  They are real people. The question is, are we real followers of a real Jesus?  A real Jesus that shows up at our door, looking for help. A real Jesus who struggles just to get by, or struggles just to be able to live as who they are. How do we respond when we meet that Jesus?  

There’s the story of Martin of Tours who was a Roman soldier and a Christian. One cold winter day, as he was entering a city, a beggar stopped him and asked for alms. Martin had no money; but the beggar was blue and shivering with cold and Martin gave what he had. He took off his soldier’s coat, worn and frayed as it was; he cut it in two and gave half of it to the beggar man. That night he had a dream. In it he saw the heavenly places and all the angels and Jesus in the midst of them; and Jesus was wearing half of a Roman soldier’s cloak. One of the angels said to him, “Master, why are you wearing that battered old cloak? Who gave it to you?” And Jesus answered softly, “My servant Martin gave it to me”  

We live in a world that is struggling with fear and desperation. We fear disease, we fear political change, we want to return to “normal.” But was “normal” such a great thing? Perhaps we need to think how “normal” worked for the Jesus in the “others” around us, in the “least of these in our world.”

I hope and pray we as individuals, and more importantly as a community of faith, find more ways to be more like Martin. As servants of the living God, we are called to a different walk than what the world presents to us as “normal”, and higher expectations as such. Though rather than offering our coat to a stranger, maybe the better path would be to make sure all had coats to begin with, to redefine what the “normal” we go back to should be. A pipe dream, or a potential reality?  That choice is ours.  Amen. 

Call to Serve. 

As we continue to seek to be a place of compassion and support to our community, we ask that you give prayerful consideration as to how you may support our efforts.  If you would like to make a donation, gifts can still be mailed to our church office, or online donations can be made through the link in the video description.  Thanks again for all your support, and may we continue to work together to keep being a place of ministry that seeks to promote the growth of God’s shalom around us.  This morning, as Annie shares the following song, let’s give some thought as to what we can do as individuals, and as the body of Christ in this world, to redefine what “normal” should be from God’s perspective.

A Time for Reflection

Reflection on the Word Video
10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)
Words and Music by Matt Redman and Jonas Myrin,
arranged by Carol Tornquist, played by church musician Annie Center,
used and reported under CCLI Streaming License 20261246

The Prayer of Thanksgiving

Loving and merciful One, we thank you for the community in which you have placed us, for the brothers and sisters with whom we walk this pilgrim journey.

Yet, we confess that we fail to love as you love. We push aside those whom we believe are the least in your Kingdom. We fail to see your Kingdom in parables because we fail to see your Kingdom in each other. Form in us a new vision of community in which there is neither East nor West, neither South nor North.

We pray for the sake of your Kingdom that both is and is not yet. Amen.

Blessing/Assurance

May God, who comes to us in the things of this world, bless your eyes
and be in your seeing.

May Christ, who looks upon you with deepest love, bless your eyes
and widen your gaze.

May the Spirit, who perceives what is and what may yet be, bless your eyes and sharpen your vision.

May the Sacred Three bless your eyes and cause you to see.

As we extinguish this candle, carry its divine spark into your lives this week, sharing God’s love and light with all you encounter.  Amen.

Postlude My Tribute, by Andrae Crouch
performed by church musician Annie Center,
used and reported under CCLI Streaming License 20261246

8th November, 2020

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 CEV / Matthew 25:1-13 CEV

Prelude
played by church musician Annie Center  

Intro/Call to Worship

We come to hear the stories of other people in another world long ago.

We come to hear the stories that are also about us today in this place.
God, give us ears to listen. eyes to see, hearts to accept. Amen

I’m glad to welcome you to online worship with Olympic View Community Church.  We seek to welcome all of God’s children to join us in bearing witness to the radically transforming power of God’s love.

This morning, let’s begin our time together listening to the old spiritual Keep your lamp trimmed and burning.  Based on our gospel reading from Matthew today, as we listen to this moving piece, let’s think how we stay prepared of followers of Christ, and how we use our lights to keep hope in a better future alive in today’s world.

Reflection video Keep your light trimmed and ready
Blind Willie Johnson
posted to YouTube by Heart Poet 76

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prVjqD2prV8

Invocation

Holy God,
We hear echoes of your Wisdom in Christ Jesus
The One you sent to dwell in our midst and lead us to abundant life.
Keep us alert to the call to follow,
ready to respond with justice and joy
in your holy moment,
which is always Now.

We light a candle today to represent the Spirit burning within us, and among us, guiding our time together. (light candle) Amen.

In our reading from Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians today, we hear of the hope we all have in Christ.  As we listen to these words, let’s think about where we seek hope in our daily lives.

Epistle Reading 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 CEV

My friends, we want you to understand how it will be for those followers who have already died. Then you won’t grieve over them and be like people who don’t have any hope. 

We believe that Jesus died and was raised to life. We also believe that when God brings Jesus back again, he will bring with him all who had faith in Jesus before they died. 

Our Lord Jesus told us that when he comes, we won’t go up to meet him ahead of his followers who have already died.

With a loud command and with the shout of the chief angel and a blast of God’s trumpet, the Lord will return from heaven. Then those who had faith in Christ before they died will be raised to life. 

Next, all of us who are still alive will be taken up into the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the sky. From that time on we will all be with the Lord forever. 

Encourage each other with these words.

Scripture Video 1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18     
What To Expect When The Lord Returns
Lectionary bible reading
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqofHKktT54

A Time of Prayer

Today we come together as a community to share together our joys and concerns, and lift them to God in prayer.  If you would like to share a specific request to be included in our communal prayer time, please leave a comment in the video below, or email myself at:  vicarglenn@gmail.com, and I’ll make sure to include that request in next week’s service, as well as send a prayer chain email, if you would like.

Joys and Concerns

This morning, let’s continue to keep Matthew Schultz in our prayers as he
continues to struggle with his health treatment and the stress resulting from his ongoing condition.

Let’s bring these concerns and others in our lives to God together in prayer.

Pastoral Prayer

Oh God, as for you, You did not keep earth waiting When darkness covered her shores And chaos hurried to destroy.

As for you You did not keep silent When you knew a word Was all the difference between life and death.

As for you You did not hide When discoveries threatened to change The world we thought we knew.

As for you You did not keep away When wanderers walked the earth In search of home and purpose.

As for you You did not lie still When the faithful few departed And even prophets were afraid.

As for you You did not leave us But came as one of us In the hour of deepest need.

As for you You did not let death contain you But rose in garden and city street Love and hope in your wake.

So to you is due our praise Our thanks, our hearts To you is the glory now and always From all peoples and places of earth

As for me As for me, God You know me better than I know myself, As for me I would serve the Lord Put off waiting Find my voice. Enter life in its fullness,

Offer hope where there is none, Take the hand of friend and stranger,

So for the courage to do all this Hear my prayer

As for me and my household, my church, my community. As for us together though often apart, You know our strengths and weaknesses, Our gifts and shortcomings. As for us we would serve our God In the small things, Of friendship, Kind words, Visiting the sick, Caring for the grieving.  So for the love to do all this. Hear our prayer

As for us we would serve our God In the big issues Of poverty, War, Violence, Greed. Giving where there is need. Speaking for those who cannot be heard. Challenging the system that divides your world. So for the patience to do all this. Hear our prayer

As for you God Come again to cold hearts, Weary bodies, Confused minds. To fill with spirit. And renew with life. That service will be true. Love be real And glory be to Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Now and always Amen

In our gospel lesson this morning, we are reminded of the importance to be ready and prepared for the work at hand.  As we hear these words from Matthew, let’s think about our level of preparedness, and what the work at hand really is for us today.

Gospel Lesson Matthew 25:1-13 CEV

The kingdom of heaven is like what happened one night when ten girls took their oil lamps and went to a wedding to meet the groom.[a] 

Five of the girls were foolish and five were wise. 

The foolish ones took their lamps, but no extra oil. 

The ones who were wise took along extra oil for their lamps.

The groom was late arriving, and the girls became drowsy and fell asleep. 

Then in the middle of the night someone shouted, “Here’s the groom! Come to meet him!”

When the girls got up and started getting their lamps ready, 

the foolish ones said to the others, “Let us have some of your oil! Our lamps are going out.”

The girls who were wise answered, “There’s not enough oil for all of us! Go and buy some for yourselves.”

While the foolish girls were on their way to get some oil, the groom arrived. The girls who were ready went into the wedding, and the doors were closed. 

Later the other girls returned and shouted, “Sir, sir! Open the door for us!”

But the groom replied, “I don’t even know you!”

So, my disciples, always be ready! You don’t know the day or the time when all this will happen.

Scripture Video Matthew 25: 1-13    A Story About Ten Girls
Lectionary bible reading

Message – Hopeful

This has been quite a week in our national journey, hasn’t it?  For many of us, it’s been quite the wild ride of an election.  Certainly, there was much anticipation that this likely wouldn’t be so cut and dry, and we should have been prepared for some anxiety and stress.  But even the best plans don’t always eliminate the worry about what might happen if things don’t go like we hope.  I myself made plans with a friend to disconnect from all news and social media on Election Day in an attempt to avoid getting caught up in the stress of the uncertainty that would be dramatized by those platforms.  Yet by early morning, we both had caved to Twitter and Google for updates.  After all, it’s human nature to want to know what’s coming next, to be able to have a sense of control and preparation for any possibility.  

When we feel we have some level of control, we feel more confident, and even hopeful in what may come next.  But what happens when we find ourselves in places where we have little control?  Like the anxious events of this week, how do we find hope in those places where we have little control, where we are stuck waiting and watching to see what happens?  What do we do when our best laid plans do not convey the security we hoped for?  

In our gospel lesson this week, Jesus tells the story of a wedding party to illustrate what it can be like to live in this liminal space of uncertainty.  A rather fitting illustration, I would think.  Anybody who has ever been involved with planning and organizing a wedding knows that it is far from a controlled, stress free experience.  Even before my time as a minister, I had many opportunities to be part of the wedding parties of good friends, to assist in the planning and execution of those major life events.  And while the bride and groom do their best to carefully plan every minute detail, the reality is that something will undoubtedly go wrong.  In every wedding I’ve ever been a part of, that is the one constant.  It may not be a major thing, but something will not happen exactly as planned.  That’s actually part of my premarital counseling now, to advise to be prepared for the unexpected, because it will happen. 

 In Jesus’ time, the scale of wedding celebrations was much different than what most of us think of in our culture, making the possibility of issues even greater.  It was customary for the groom to prepare a place for his bride. Usually, it was 12 months’ time—going to his father’s house, preparing a room for him and his wife. Often this meant adding onto the house itself, or making some renovations to the house. But sometimes it was a separate house entirely. Now, while 12 months was customary, it could be sooner…it could be later. No one knew when he would come to claim her, so they needed to wait. They needed to be ready. They needed to be prepared.  

They did know he would likely come in the middle of the night, as was tradition.  It’s at this point in the story that Jesus picks up his parable. The bridesmaids are waiting in the middle of the night. They are to be prepared to greet the bridegroom when he arrives, and escort him to the wedding ceremony. And that’s an interesting detail in itself. Usually, when the bridegroom’s presence would be made known, the bridesmaids would escort the bride to him. 

Jesus changes their roles, having the bridesmaids escorting the groom to the bride. This is just one hint of Jesus telling us about the nature of our God—because it’s always God who comes to us; always Christ who comes to His bride, not the other way around.  At any rate, because they didn’t know the precise day or hour of his arrival, they needed to bring along lamps with oil to keep it lit. 

I think when we hear talk of “lamps” in the Bible, we often have the image of a small thing, a little bigger than the size of your hand, with a handle to carry it. Those were for indoor use, though. The lamps mentioned here would be better described as torches on long poles. These sorts of torch-lamps were for outdoor use; especially for such processions. They would trim the strips at the end, drench them in oil, then light it. That would keep it lit for about 15-20 minutes—so they’d need to do it again and again and again. A significant amount of oil would’ve been needed to stay lit for the length of the procession. 

The wedding party had a job to do to prepare for this ceremony!  But, as the story goes, not all of the bridesmaids were prepared. And when the bridegroom did arrive, boy were they surprised. “Give us some of your oil,” the foolish ones demanded. When they finally made it to the wedding, they were shocked when the groom—the man who had invited them to be part of his wedding party in the first place—denies them. He shuts the door in their face and says, “I never knew you.” Scary words for a Gospel, “good news” reading. “I never knew you.”  And so, this parable serves a warning, a cautionary tale for us. So, we are always a bridesmaid, always THE bride—the church—actively preparing for the bridegroom’s arrival.  Such is the nature and hope of our faith. We live in the promise that like the bridegroom, God is at work, planning the ceremony and preparing a place for us.  Yet we live in the anticipation and uncertainty like the wedding party in our story, and often in the anxiety of that uncertainty.  

This week in bible study, we talked a lot about finding hope in our faith when it doesn’t seem like there is any hope to be found in our worldly situation.  It can be tough, yet that is the promise of the bulk of the stories in scripture.  In all those tales of suffering and adversity, the one constant is God at work, bringing salvation and resolution in the end.  Our job is to be prepared, to stay faithful to the journey we are called to, to keep our lamps oiled and trimmed, no matter how dark and hopeless the night may seem. The events of this week only highlight the hopelessness and anxiety we can feel in this life of waiting.  Yet part of keeping our lamps lit is also giving hope to those whose lights have gone out.  

Like the members of a wedding party, we are not in charge of ensuring all goes to plan, but we are called to do our part in the ceremony.  We are called to keep our lamps lit, to offer the hope and promise of a bright new day at the end of a dark night.  In our own national journey, we have the promise of new leadership, of a change from the divisiveness and hate that have plagued us for years.  

As God’s light in this world, we can choose to seek healing, reconciliation, and positive change, or we can let our wicks burn up and our oil run dry, and give in to the pessimism and malaise.  Being in a wedding party is not just dressing up and looking pretty, it’s being part of something bigger.  Our part in this event is finding the hope in our God at work in this world, and sharing that work and hope with others.  

What choice will you make in the coming days and months?  While there is promise in the change to come from this week’s events, there will also be much work to be done.  Will you keep your lamp lit and join in the work, or will you let it go dark?  I hope we all find ways to share the love light of our bridegroom, and always keep our lamps lit.  Amen.

Call to Serve. 

As we continue to seek to be a place of compassion and support to our community, we ask that you give prayerful consideration as to how you may support our efforts.  If you would like to make a donation, gifts can still be mailed to our church office, or online donations can be made through the link in the video description.  Thanks again for all your support, and may we continue to work together to keep being a place of ministry that seeks to promote the growth of God’s shalom around us.  This morning, as Annie shares the following song, let’s give some thought as to how we can seek hope for ourselves in the gospel of Christ, and how we can offer hope to others in a world so often lacking in hope.

Reflection on the Word

played by church musician Annie Center

The Prayer of Thanksgiving

God, we have come, and given generously of our gifts. 
Take, bless and multiply them
so that they may be a blessing in your world.
In Jesus’ name.  Amen.   

Blessing/Assurance

Keep your lamps filled and your hearts open, ready for the call of God.
Go in peace, counting on the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the sweet communion of* the Holy Spirit.
Amen! 

Postlude
performed by church musician Annie Center,
used and reported under CCLI Streaming License 20261246 

1st November, 2020

Micah 3:5-12 CEV / Matthew 23:1-12  CEV

Prelude ~ I Will Sing the Wondrous Story
Music by Peter Bilhorn – played by church musician Annie Center  

Intro/Call to Worship

When we stand at the edge of fear and worry, God invites us to step into the waters of faith and trust. When we stand at the edge of the world’s pain and need, Jesus invites us to step into the land of humble service. When we stand at the edge of our hunger and thirst: the Spirit invites us to sit at the Table of grace. 

I’m glad to welcome you to online worship with Olympic View Community Church. We seek to welcome all of God’s children to join us in bearing witness to the radically transforming power of God’s love. 

Our tradition at Olympic View is to begin our service greeting and wishing each other
peace and sharing the love of Christ with each other.  This morning as we gather on
All Saints Day, let’s reflect on those saints we’ve encountered in our own lives, and
how we can work to be that same presence of Christ’s love and peace in our own
journeys of faith, as we watch this short, but poignant reflection on what it really
means to be a saint.

Reflection video All Saints Day – Archdiocese of Sydney

We tend to think of saints as spiritual heroes Regularly seeing visions or reaching mystic heights We could never approach. But the feast of All Saints tells us not to lose heart. We might not move into a hospital to care for plague victims Or a prison to care for those on death row.
But we can each find a place to serve God And needy humanity whom He puts in our way. Sanctity isn’t the monopoly of the few It is the God-given destiny of all:  Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP 

Invocation

God, companion and guide,  

we would be lost without your direction—wanderers in  the wilderness of our own making. We praise you for dealing so graciously with your people in the past, when you guided them to freedom and a promised new life.  We are heirs of that promise fulfilled in Jesus, our Redeemer and Lord. Through him, you have established for us a permanent direction for our lives and as we dwell in him, our lives are blessed with fruitfulness. Holy God, may this time of worship be a joyful response of praise and thanksgiving for all that you have done, for all that you are doing, and for all that you will continue to do for us and all people through the power of the Holy Spirit and in the name of Jesus.  Amen.

We light a candle today to represent the Spirit burning within us, and among us, guiding our time together. (light candle) Amen.

In our reading from Micah today, the prophet reminds us the importance of being true to our faith commitments, to leading an ethical life.  Let’s think about how true our own choices are as we hear these prophetic words.

First Testament Reading Micah 3:5-12 CEV

You lying prophets promise security for anyone  who gives you food, but
disaster for anyone who refuses to feed you. Here is what the Lord says to
you prophets:

   “You will live in the dark, far from the sight of the sun,  with no message from me.

You prophets and fortunetellers will all be disgraced, with no message from me.”

But the Lord has filled me with power and his Spirit. I have been given the courage  to speak about justice and to tell you people of Israel that you have sinned.

So listen to my message, you rulers of Israel! You hate justice and twist the truth.

You make cruelty and murder a way of life in Jerusalem.

You leaders accept bribes  for dishonest decisions. You priests and prophets teach and preach, but only for money. Then you say, “The Lord is on our side.  No harm will come to us.”

And so, because of you, Jerusalem will be plowed under  and left in ruins. Thorns will cover the mountain where the temple now stands

A Time of Prayer

Today we come together as a community to share together our joys and concerns, and lift them to God in prayer.  If you would like to share a specific request to be included in our communal prayer time, please leave a comment in the video below, or email myself at:  vicarglenn@gmail.com, and I’ll make sure to include that request in next week’s service, as well as send a prayer chain email, if you would like.

Joys and Concerns

This morning, as COVID 19 cases continue to spike around the country, let’s pray for all those affected by this terrible disease, and may God move in the hearts of all of us to take the precautions to ensure the safety of all.

Let’s also remember those who struggle emotionally with the isolation and lack of contact these times have caused.  May they find peace and comfort.

As we approach Election Day this week, let’s pray for peace and compassion on all sides, and may God move in the hearts of all to seek love and understanding, not hate and divisiveness.  

Let’s bring these concerns and others in our lives to God together in prayer.

Pastoral Prayer

We say we want you to walk with us, beloved God. But we are not comfortable with the path that is set before us. We would like a smooth, newly paved road, with clear markings and bright bold signs, telling us what to do; warning us of what lies ahead. But the journey of discipleship is like a rough mountain path. There are rocks, ruts, dust, dirt, holes. There may be wolves or robbers at any turn. We don’t know if we dare to risk discipleship if it means struggle.

But you have called us to rely on your guidance and direction. You remind us that God has never failed us yet. We have been brought to new vistas and new opportunities of service that we never would have encountered on the safe road. And this is because in all our trials, you do walk with us.

In our troubles and concerns, Lord, we need your presence and comfort. We have so many fears and anxieties. Our hearts break and are burdened with the illnesses and grief of loved ones. We hear the news of disaster and catastrophe in this world and wonder how much of this we can stand. In our troubles and trials, Lord, remind us that we have your strength on which to rely. As we have faithfully brought before you the names of loved ones in need of your healing and comfort, remind us that we too are recipients of that same healing love. Strengthen us. Walk with us, Lord. Lift us high and give us confident strides as we follow your will and your path. Amen.

In our reading from Micah today, the prophet reminds us the importance of being true to our faith commitments, to leading an ethical life.  Let’s think about how true our own choices are as we hear these prophetic words.

Gospel Lesson Matthew 23:1-12 CEV

Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples:

The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law are experts in the Law of Moses. 

So obey everything they teach you, but don’t do as they do. After all, they say one thing and do something else.

They pile heavy burdens on people’s shoulders and won’t lift a finger to help. 

Everything they do is just to show off in front of others. They even make a big show of wearing Scripture verses on their foreheads and arms, and they wear big tassels[a] for everyone to see. 

They love the best seats at banquets and the front seats in the meeting places. 

And when they are in the market, they like to have people greet them as their teachers.

But none of you should be called a teacher. You have only one teacher, and all of you are like brothers and sisters. 

Don’t call anyone on earth your father. All of you have the same Father in heaven. 

None of you should be called the leader. The Messiah is your only leader. 

Whoever is the greatest should be the servant of the others. 

If you put yourself above others, you will be put down. But if you humble yourself, you will be honored.

Scripture Video Matthew 23:1-12
Jesus Condemns The Pharisees & Teachers
Of The Law | Lectionary bible reading

Message Staying True

 I once heard a story about a young lawyer who was setting himself up in his first private practice. As he sat in his office, which was basically bare except for his desk with a telephone on it and a bookcase filled with important-looking legal books, he wondered how long it would be before he got his first client. Then, as luck would have it, he saw a man across the road cross the street and stride towards his front door. Feeling nervous and wanting to make a good impression on the working class man, he quickly picked up the phone receiver and began talking to an imaginary client on the phone. The man, now standing in the office in front of his desk, waited several minutes while he concluded his conversation with this very important client. Finally after ending the conversation, he looked up at the man, now directly in front of his desk and with an air of superiority said to the man “Can I help you?” The man looked at the young lawyer and without missing a beat said “I’m from the phone company. I’m here to connect your phone.” An amusing story to be sure, but it highlights an important point in today’s gospel reading from Matthew.  He points out the hypocritical behavior of the religious authorities of his day, behaving in much the same way as the young lawyer acts in this story.  Like him, they liked to be seen in a certain light, “sitting on Moses’ seat,” having the position of power and authority.  They certainly didn’t hesitate to take advantage of the perks that came with that authority, like seats of honor at gatherings, in the synagogue and the public square.  

In today’s world, they would always be sitting in the VIP section, or the skybox at sporting events.  To be sure, they wore the outward symbols of that position:  the longer tassels, the bigger phylacteries. And just to clarify what a phylactery is, it’s a little black box with a piece of scripture inside.  You may have seen pictures of Hassidic Jews with this on their foreheads, held on by being wrapped around the arm with a leather strap.   These were men who took advantage of their position as the heirs to Moses, as the religious authorities of their day. But that begs the question, what is wrong with being recognized with respect and authority?  

James Hunter in his book “The Servant” presents a powerful picture of what it really means to be a leader/servant. He shares: leadership is ultimately rooted in our will. Not forcing our will on others, but demonstrating our will to serve.  There is a big difference between leading through power and leading through authority. Many people can simply force people to do what they want because they have the power to make them. However, few people like to be forced to do anything. Eventually such “power driven leadership” destroys relationships.  On the other hand, some have the ability to lead through authority. Authority is different than power. Power is something you have and force on people. Authority is something you gain – it’s given to you by the people you lead. How does one gain authority from those they lead? Only through service and sacrifice. 

When people see that you have their best interests at heart, when they see you are willing to sacrifice and serve them they will be willing to follow. That’s servant leadership, that’s authority. So, if that respect and authority is earned and deserved, nothing is wrong with that.  But the problem here is that these men were in that position to guide and assist people in their own faith struggles.  But instead of helping them to find comfort and support in their journeys of faith, this group only added to their burdens.  

It helps to understand what’s going on by knowing a little about the events that had led them to this place. The controversy was being obedient to the “Law of Moses”, or the Torah.  In the time before the Romans destroyed the Temple and scattered the Jewish population of Palestine, the 600 odd laws developed from the Torah to ensure personal piety and integrity applied primarily to the religious authorities of the Temple.  However, by the time Matthew is written, the Temple is gone, and the Jewish people are now scattered across the Gentile Roman world, and the Pharisaic leaders want some way to ensure that these people maintain their unique Jewish identity and not simply adapt and conform to Gentile ways and customs.  So they began to teach that all people must follow every rule that they do, governing every minute detail of everyday life.  For the Pharisees, this is easy because they have been trained and raised in this life, and it is their vocation.  

But for the average woman and man, this put a terrible burden on living an ordinary life.  Different dishes for different food, exact measurements for how much you can walk on the Sabbath, who you can eat with, who you can speak to, how you conduct business, the list goes on and on.  In addition, there were growing tensions between the synagogues and the new church in Christ spreading across the Greco-Roman world at the same time.  

Matthew’s followers are right in the middle of all this.  It’s clear that Matthew was focused on a primarily Jewish audience and for those followers, this struggle would be real.  Do we follow the laws and the Pharisees as well as Christ they would have wondered?  So it’s no coincidence that in Matthew, Jesus creates common ground between the Jews who follow Christ and those who have yet to convert.  He starts out by validating the teachings of the scribes and Pharisees, telling his audience to follow their instructions.  The Torah and ethical teachings of the Old Testament have merit, so don’t write them off, in other words.  But he points out that the problem is the disconnect between what they teach and how they behave.  Now Jesus talks about the Jewish leaders but let’s keep in mind that Matthew would have been read by the leaders of the early church as well.  Power structures rose pretty quickly in that arena too.  Priests, bishops, and a hierarchy appeared almost out of thin air in the first century.  

There’s a variety of lessons we can draw from this story.  First, your walk and your talk should match.  Matthew is contrasting mere talking with actually doing.  A good illustration of this comes from the life of President Theodore Roosevelt.  During one of his political campaigns, a delegation called on Theodore Roosevelt at his home in Oyster Bay, Long Island. The President met them with his coat off and his sleeves rolled up. “Ah, gentlemen,” he said, “come down to the barn and we will talk while I do some work.” At the barn, Roosevelt picked up a pitchfork and looked around for the hay. Then he called out, “John, where’s all the hay?”  “Sorry, sir,” John called down from the hayloft. “I ain’t have time to toss it back down again after you pitched it up while the Iowa folks were here.” Teddy knew the importance of appearances, as did the religious authorities of Jesus’ time.  As I mentioned earlier, the Pharisees dumped all these laws, which were virtually impossible to follow in a normal daily life, on the laps of all the average people, yet did nothing to try to understand their impact or help people find a way to have a life of integrity without losing the joy of living life.  

Which brings us to another lesson.  The burden of the law is crippling.  Trying to keep up with all those rules and regulations governing every minute detail is making the common life miserable.  Yet we know that part of Christ’s mission is to clarify and simplify the law, to bare it down to its most basic components, “To love the Lord your God with all your mind, body and soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself, on this rests all the law and the prophets.”  A law based on showing love and compassion is the much easier yoke to bear in following Christ than trying to follow the priestly code.  It is a life focused outwards, instead of obsessing over personal piety.  The fasting called for in the law that Jesus promotes comes from Isaiah 58, “to loose the chains of injustice, to set the oppressed free, to share your food with the hungry, to provide the wanderer with shelter, to clothe the naked.”  

This is the lighter yoke of Jesus, not the false piety of the Pharisees. For them, leading a pure pious life meant all the people living out the Priestly code to the letter.  Now don’t misunderstand, Jesus is concerned with purity as well, but he differs greatly in how that is defined.  He rightly understood the difficulty in performing all those codes, and to try to do so he felt was misdirected.  He grasped the concept that the original laws of Moses were meant to guide how we live together as a community, how we relate to each other.  For him, the key traits were love, mercy, and the desire to lift others up in humility, particularly those in lower states than yourself.  So how do we measure up?  Which measure do we use to guide our actions?  

There’s a story of a man who sat down to supper with his family and said grace, thanking God for the food, for the hands which prepared it, and for the source of all life. But during the meal he complained about the freshness of the bread, the bitterness of the coffee, and the sharpness of the cheese. His young daughter questioned him, “Dad, do you think God heard the grace today?” He answered confidently, “Of course.” Then she asked, “And do you think God heard what you said about the coffee, the cheese, and the bread?” Not so confidently, he answered, “Why, yes, I believe so.” The little girl concluded, “Then which do you think God believed, Dad?” The man was suddenly aware that his mealtime prayer had become a rote, thoughtless habit rather than an attentive and honest conversation with God. By not concentrating on that important conversation, he had left the door open to let hypocrisy sneak in. 

Like that man, we have our own conversations and decisions to consider as well. Are we legalistic, caught up in obsessing over every moral code of Old Testament law or are we focused on love and compassion for others?  And what about our sense of power and entitlement?  Do we like to wear the garments of success and privilege or do we embrace humility?  Do we nod and agree with the pastor on Sunday then go back to seeking the best swag we can get during the week?  These are the questions we need to keep in mind, and use to guide our actions in our day to day life.  It’s not rocket science.  In all things, are we thinking about others besides ourselves?  How often do we use the pronoun “them” when we should be thinking “us?”  

Our culture abounds in this kind of hypocrisy these days on these same concepts.  How much do we hear in the news about the power plays in Washington, about certain leaders who revel in their own vestments that highlight their self-importance and privilege.  And what, as Christians are we to do?  Part of the problem with so many empty seats in churches these days is people don’t see us walking our talk.  We talk about love and justice on Sunday, but in the public arena biblical legalism rules the day.  Hypocrisy is a turn off for most people.  We need to get back to the source, to actually focus on Christ as Christians.  I pray that we choose to follow the priestly code that Christ gives, as the priesthood of all believers and start living the truth we claim,  Amen.

Call to Serve. 

As we continue to seek to be a place of compassion and support to our community, we ask that you give prayerful consideration as to how you may support our efforts.  If you would like to make a donation, gifts can still be mailed to our church office, or online donations can be made through the link in the video description.  Thanks again for all your support, and may we continue to work together to keep being a place of ministry that seeks to promote the growth of God’s shalom around us.  This morning, as Annie shares the following song, let’s give some thought as to how we can better walk in faith and truly reflect the gospel we promote.

Reflection on the Word

Lord Make Us Servants of Your Peace
Harmonization by Jeffrey Rickard
performed by church musician Annie Center,
used and reported under CCLI Streaming License 20261246 played by church musician Annie Center
https://youtu.be/3zMFIqxOFFk

The Prayer of Thanksgiving

We offer our whole selves to you, O God, creator of everything. It is a joy and a blessing to share our gifts with one another. As we offer these things for the work
of your church, help us to be mindful of all that we can do together as the Body of Christ.  Amen.

Blessing/Assurance

Wisdom continues to call to us, to lead us back to God. Listen to the voice of
wisdom from our ancestors in the faith. Understand the ways of the saints who
lived their lives as examples for us. Follow Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and
the life, and know that you are forgiven, loved, and restored. Continue to seek
God’s ways. Incline your heart to wisdom and justice, and live into God’s righteousness and peace. Amen. 

As we extinguish this candle, carry its divine spark into your lives this week, sharing God’s love and light with all you encounter.  Amen.

Postlude Like a Wandering Aramean
Text and Music by Delmas L. Keeney
performed by church musician Annie Center,
used and reported under CCLI Streaming License 20261246

25th October, 2020

Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18 CEV / Matthew 22:34-46 CEV

Prelude
When The Morning Stars Together
played by church musician Annie Center  

Intro/Call to Worship

In a world that cries out, “Fear me!”
We will listen to Jesus’ words,
“Don’t be afraid!”

In a world that wants us to hate the other…
We will live Jesus’ call to,
“Love God.

Love your neighbour, as you love yourself.”

In a world that radicalizes…
We, too, will be radical.
Radical with our hospitality.
Radical with our hope.
Radical with our love.

Then come to this place,
ready to be who we are called to be.
Let us gather together
and worship God. 

I’m glad to welcome you to online worship with Olympic View Community Church.  We seek to welcome all of God’s children to join us in bearing witness to the radically transforming power of God’s love.

Our tradition at Olympic View is to begin our service greeting and wishing each other peace and sharing the love of Christ with each other.  As we focus on the importance of love this morning, let’s think how we share that blessed love with our neighbors, as we listen to this beautiful rendition of the Love Chapter from Corinthians.

Reflection video Charity (Jesus Reduce Me To Love)
with Lyrics – Kenn Gulliksen

Invocation
Happy are we, O God, when our hearts are full,
our ways are yours, our spirits enlivened by your call. 
Happy are we, O God, when our lives are guided by delight.
We gather here today for just that, holy God. 
We gather to draw on all you would give us
to be more fully yours.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen. 

(for credits only)  Posted on Worship Ways at ucc.org

We light a candle today to represent the Spirit burning within us, and among us, guiding our time together. (light candle) Amen.

In our reading from Leviticus this morning, God lays out what our focus should be, on others as ourselves, interacting from a place of love.  As we think of how we communicate with others in this age of social media, let’s give some thought as to how these words should impact how we should act with each other in the contentious world in which we live.

First Testament Reading Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18 CEV

The Lord told Moses 2 to say to the community of Israel:

I am the Lord your God. I am holy, and you must be holy too!

Be fair, no matter who is on trial—don’t favor either the poor or the rich.

Don’t be a gossip, but never hesitate to speak up in court, especially if your testimony can save someone’s life.

Don’t hold grudges. On the other hand, it’s wrong not to correct someone who needs correcting. 

Stop being angry and don’t try to take revenge. I am the Lord, and I command you to love others as much as you love yourself

Scripture Video Leviticus 19:1-2,15-18
Moral And Religious Laws
Lectionary bible reading

A Time of Prayer

Today we come together as a community to share together our joys and concerns, and lift them to God in prayer. If you would like to share a specific request to be included in our communal prayer time, please leave a comment in the video below, or email myself at:  vicarglenn@gmail.com, and I’ll make sure to include that request in next week’s service, as well as send a prayer chain email, if you would like.

Joys and Concerns

Let’s bring these concerns and others in our lives to God together in prayer.

Pastoral Prayer

God of the mountaintop

in prayer You walk us to the highest point

from which we are offered

an opportunity

to view the world as You see it,

and the world as You would wish it to be.

There is much to be thankful for,

for we enjoy opportunities

of good health and reasonable living standards;

of times of relaxation and times to work;

of a roof over our heads,

and opportunities to feed our bellies,

and our imaginations and the aching of our hearts.

From your vantage point

we praise You for all that is good for us,

and allow You

to draw our eyes from our concerns

to those of our neighbours,

our community,

our world.

In prayer

our eyes are drawn

to see those in need of love

in our community,

both here in church

and in the parish of which we are part.

Help us not to be afraid of what is different or unknown to us,

but instead willing

to offer friendship

and accept the opportunities

to grow in knowledge and experience.

Our eyes are drawn

to places of power and leadership

as we look for those who govern

to offer leadership

in difficult times.

May those who seek to serve

as politicians and leaders of communities

find themselves shaped

by the words, hopes and ideals

of those who place their trust in them.

Our eyes are drawn

to places of hunger and need.

Teach us to share

the resources we would covet,

and enable us through the activity of Your Spirit

in prayer and with action

to be part of a creation

where all are treated fairly

and all have enough to eat.

As You,

Lord of vision,

draw our eye back to the world of which we are part

may our lives be shaped by You

to offer others a vision

of Your love

shown in our faith in Jesus Christ. Amen.

In our gospel lesson this morning, Jesus again is quizzed by the religious authorities to try and trap him heresy.  He responds with how God has consistently led us in our relationships, with God, and each other.  As we listen to these words from Matthew, let’s give some thought as to what our personal priorities are, and how much they are in sync with the relationship focus we are called to.

Gospel Lesson Matthew 22:34-46 CEV

After Jesus had made the Sadducees look foolish, the Pharisees heard about it and got together. 

One of them was an expert in the Jewish Law. So he tried to test Jesus by asking, 

“Teacher, what is the most important commandment in the Law?”

Jesus answered: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. 

This is the first and most important commandment. 

The second most important commandment is like this one. And it is, “Love others as much as you love yourself.” 

All the Law of Moses and the Books of the Prophets[a] are based on these two commandments.

While the Pharisees were still there, Jesus asked them, 

“What do you think about the Messiah? Whose family will he come from?” They answered, “He will be a son of King David.”

Jesus replied, “How then could the Spirit lead David to call the Messiah his Lord? David said,

’The Lord said to my Lord:
Sit at my right side – until I make your enemies
into a footstool for you.’

If David called the Messiah his Lord, how can the Messiah be a son of King David?” 

No one was able to give Jesus an answer, and from that day on, no one dared ask him any more questions

Scripture Video Matthew 22:34-46
The Most Important Commandment
Lectionary bible reading

Message – Love Triangle

When we think about what is most important to us, what our focus in life is, what comes to mind?   A lot of us would probably say our family or our friends, while others may put their careers first.  Certainly I’m sure our faith would probably rank high on the list as well.  How we answer that question may change as we journey through life.  Our family, our friends, our job, even our faith, may take center stage at different times in our lives.  Sometimes it may be a little difficult to tell what is at our center.  We may say it is our children, but discover too late that, from all the missed suppers and trips away from home, they could not tell.  We may say that it is our faith, but wonder if anyone from the outside notices anything that is different about us because we are Christian. 

One way to tell what is at our center is to pay attention to the rules we make for ourselves.  These may be formal rules, but often they are more informal things we do not name but regularly follow.  For example: “Put 10 percent of your paycheck into savings.” “Always be home in time to read to the kids.”  Paying attention to the rules we make is revealing,  because by and large the rules we live by orient us to our center, to what is most important, to what we want to make sure we attend to. 

The same was true in Jesus’ day.  So perhaps it is not surprising that one of the Pharisees asks Jesus which rule, or commandment, is most important.  What stands at the center of the kin-dom Jesus preaches about?  Consistent with his responses to other tests offered by religious authorities in this section of Matthew, Jesus does not give him the clear answer he expects.  Instead of one core commandment, Jesus responds with two. 

The first commandment, “to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” is probably the most well-known part of the Torah.  Called the Shema, it is probably the most prominent prayer in the Hebrew tradition.  It could well be called the cornerstone of Jewish faith and practice; its importance in that faith cannot be overstated.  While often used as a prayer, it is more a defining statement of who God is, “the Lord our God is One.”  It states the monotheistic nature of Israel’s God that set that deity apart and above the pagan gods of the neighboring cultures of the Near East.  The Shema reinforces this basic truth about God and in turn, commands Israel to love the Lord with everything they’ve got.  This command and truth about God are intricately linked.  Because God is One, you shall love the Lord with the entirety of your being.  The Lord is distinct from all the pagan deities in unique Oneness, and as a result you may love the Lord without reservation.  There is no competition with any other gods.  This special relationship between God and Israel is what set them apart, made them unique, made them feel special.   That answer would be respected by the elders and scholars in attendance. 

But that was only the first part.  Jesus adds, “a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” That addition would have thrown the religious authorities, for sure.  By adding this second commandment, with the implication that it is “like” the first, not only threatens the exclusivity of the Jewish nation’s relationship with God, it implies something about the nature of God.  There is an intimate connection between the two, a unity, as if they were two sides of the same coin.  There is no love of God without love of neighbor, and love of neighbor is love of God.  Also implicit here is the recognition that love of neighbor is inextricably tied to a properly ordered self-love. One cannot give oneself away in love to God and neighbor if a healthy self has never been formed in the first place. 

To many of the Pharisees, this image of God is at once unsettling and a stumbling block.  If the God of Israel loves all nations as much as Israel, then everything about their identity is threatened.  If God esteems all people groups as God’s chosen, and requires a corresponding love by the chosen people, are the Pharisees now supposed to love others as much as themselves?  They have spent a great deal of time narrowing and outlining exactly who qualifies as a neighbor worthy of such love, those who are essentially just like themselves.  Now are they called to love the unclean and rejected as much as this Jesus loves them?  This upends their entire concept of what faith is.  Instead of a binary system involving just love of self and love of God, they are now faced with a triangular perspective:  love of God, love of neighbor, love of self.  This is the triadic habit of thought and practice to which Jesus calls us.  It is a calling to reflect on every issue, every decision, every action, in this triangular way, to ask in all things:  how are we loving God and neighbor and self in this?  This is the question that should attend our discernments as individuals and as communities of faith.  Whether in how we allocate resources, what constitutes creative and faithful worship, or what the proper relationship is between the church and state, or any of the countless other issues we must sort through in our daily walks of faith:  we must discern how we might love God and neighbor and self in all that we say and do. 

Unfortunately, we live in a culture that entices us to begin and end with rugged individualism:  what are my needs, my rights, my desires?  What will bring me self-actualization and contentment?  Unfortunately, this kind of thinking has gotten us to the point in which we find ourselves now.  How do we promote the common good when our center is focused solely on what gives ourselves fulfillment?  The results are all too easy to see:  the fracturing of society, the vitriol in our public discourse, our culture centric behavior that has led to the suffering of others, human and creation alike.  It seems like everything revolves around a “me” perspective:  my rights, my life, my country.  Even within the body of Christ, we often incorporate this expressive individualism.  Our congregations often succumb to the temptation to turn from self to God without consideration of neighbor.  Thus we begin with our needs as sinner and end with God’s salvation in Christ, cleanly circumventing the hurting neighbor. 

The church, however, is called to cultivate the habit of triadic reflection and practice, to recognize that no discernment is complete until love of God and neighbor and self has been expressed.  Thus the mission of the church is all the more critical in the self-focused, troubled world in which we live.  We must hear the stories, stories that render another way of being in the world, a way free of self-absorbed delusion and despair, a way that opens out to neighbor and ultimately to  the God who is the source and end of all things.  Our lives and the life of the world depend on us picking up the habit, of joining into this love triangle and living in relationship with each other and our Creator.  I hope and pray we can find ways to step outside ourselves in everything we say, think, and do, and model caring for ourselves, and others for a world where so many find themselves so isolated, alone, and despondent.  May we be the light in the darkness they seek.  Amen.

Call to Serve. 

As we continue to seek to be a place of compassion and support to our community, we ask that you give prayerful consideration as to how you may support our efforts.  If you would like to make a donation, gifts can still be mailed to our church office, or online donations can be made through the link in the video description.  Thanks again for all your support, and may we continue to work together to keep being a place of ministry that seeks to promote the growth of God’s shalom around us.  This morning, as Annie shares the following song, let’s give some thought as to what role we can play in our own lives this week in ushering the kin-dom of God into this world, and truly giving to God what belongs to God, our very effort and being.

A Time for Reflection

Reflection on the Word

Let’s sing unto the Lord
music by Carlos Rosas
played by church musician Annie Center

The Prayer of Thanksgiving

With what you see before us, God, we demonstrate our deepest love.

Receive our gifts – our very best – as sweet offerings before you.

May they be the blessing to others that they have been for us. Amen.

Commission/Benediction

Go now, with courage in our God.

Declare the message of the gospel
which God has entrusted to us,
and in wholehearted love for God and for others,
share not only the message, but your very selves.

And may God be your haven;
May Christ Jesus lead you into love – heart, soul and mind;
And may the Holy Spirit bless the work of your hands
……..and gladden all your days.

We go in peace to love and serve God,
……..In the name of Christ. Amen.

As we extinguish this candle, carry its divine spark into your lives this week, sharing God’s love and light with all you encounter.  Amen.

Postlude
Praise God, for whom all blessings flow

performed by church musician Annie Center, arr. By Phillip Keveren

18th October, 2020

Isaiah  45:1-7  CEV / Matthew 22:15-22  CEV

Intro/Prelude
O Jesus, May Grateful Hymns
played by church musician Annie Center  

Though there are rulers, presidents, kings, queens, God is the Lord of all life.
In God we live and move and have our being. God requires our faithfulness and our service. We reach out to others with the same kind of love with which God has touched our lives. Come, let us worship the Lord who is always with us.
Let us praise God who walks daily by our side.  Amen.

I’m glad to welcome you to online worship with Olympic View Community Church. 
We seek to welcome all of God’s children to join us in bearing witness to the radically transforming power of God’s love. 

Our tradition at Olympic View is to begin our service greeting and wishing each other peace.  This morning, let’s open our time together with the following prayer for peace written by local Seattle pastor Rev. Mindi Welton-Mitchell of the Queen Anne Baptist church

Invocation/Reflection Prayer

Peace, Peace, O God. We crave it, we desire it, we long for it to become our reality in our lifetime. But we know peace cannot come without justice. May Your justice delay no longer, O God. May we pursue justice on behalf of those who are oppressed, marginalized, and rejected. May we pursue justice in our daily lives, for peace must begin with ourselves as we seek justice. May we find Your peace even as we dismantle the painfulness of racism in our lives. May Your peace be made known to us in the face of oppression and evil. May Your peace prevail in our hearts, in our waking up and lying down, in every breath, for peace is in Your presence. Through Your peace, break open our hearts to Your love, for peace and love must go together, and love demands justice. In seeking peace in our daily lives, may we live into the path You have led us, a path of hope and reconciliation that begins with justice and love. May we do this, and live, knowing You are with us, now and always, Prince of Peace. Amen.

We light a candle today to represent the Spirit burning within us, and among us, guiding our time together. (light candle) Amen.

In our reading from the Isaiah this morning, the prophet speaks of Cyrus the Persian king, being the instrument of God in undoing the reigns of unjust rulers.  As we hear these words, let’s think about who fulfills that purpose in today’s world, or perhaps who should.

Words of the Prophet Isaiah  45:1-7 CEV

The Lord said to Cyrus, his chosen one:

I have taken hold of your right hand to help you capture nations and remove kings from power. City gates will open for you;  not one will stay closed.

As I lead you,  I will level mountains and break the iron bars on bronze gates of cities.

I will give you treasures hidden in dark and secret places. Then you will know that I, the Lord God of Israel,  have called you by name.

Cyrus, you don’t even know me! But I have called you by name and highly honored you because of Israel,  my chosen servant.

Only I am the Lord!  There are no other gods.I have made you strong, though you don’t know me.

Now everyone from east to west will learn that I am the Lord. No other gods are real.

I create light and darkness, happiness and sorrow.  I, the Lord, do all of this.

Scripture Video Isaiah  45:1-7 

A Time of Prayer

Today we come together as a community to share together our joys and concerns, and lift them to God in prayer.  If you would like to share a specific request to be included in our communal prayer time, please leave a comment in the video below, or email myself at:  vicarglenn@gmail.com, and I’ll make sure to include that request in next week’s service, as well as send a prayer chain email, if you would like.

Joys and Concerns

This morning, we are grateful for the safe and uneventful travels of Roger and Kathy Edmark back to Japan.

We are also grateful for all those who were able to join in Goldie Barnes’ birthday drive-by last weekend.  It was such a joy to see so many friends participate.

This morning, let’s continue to keep Sylvia Hershberger’s mother in prayer, as she continues to struggle with some confusion and agitation following her fall and surgery.  Let’s also remember Sylvia’s sister-in-law Connie, as she continues her treatment for cancer.

We are thankful as well for being able to do an abbreviated CROP walk this year in sunny, but breezy weather, doing our part to fight food instability.

Let’s bring these concerns and others in our lives to God together in prayer.

Pastoral Prayer

God of majesty, Your glory fills the earth and the heavens. You are the maker of all that is, of all that is good,  of all that seeks good, of all beauty and truth and nobility. You surpass all that we think of you. You are found in places that we do expect to find you. You speak to us in ways that are so ordinary that we often fail to hear you and you reveal yourself in things that are so wonderful that we often fail to grasp that you are behind them and in them. Lord, we pray that you may help us to see you and hear you this day. 

In silence now, O Lord,  we ask that you speak to us and that you hear us and help us. We offer to you our prayers— and  we offer to you our hearts and minds and souls  so that you may fill them with what you want us to have.

Father and Mother of us all—we know you care for all that you have made and for all whom you have made. Hear now our prayers for our world and for the nations that fill it— for those who hunger and thirst for the bread and water you give in abundance, for the justice and the mercy that you want all to experience, for the peace and the wholeness that you want all to know.

Tender and caring Lord,hear our prayers for those whose pains and sorrows and joys and thanksgiving s are upon our hearts this day. We lift them up before you by name in our hearts  and with the words of our lips…..

Lord, hear our prayer, and in your love, answer.  Amen.

Our gospel lesson this morning, we have the familiar story of Jesus being challenged by the Pharisees regarding how one should be faithful as citizens of an empire.  As we listen to these words from Matthew, let’s think where our loyalties lie, and what we give to God versus the emperors of our day.

Gospel Lesson Matthew 22:15-22 CEV

The Pharisees got together and planned how they could trick Jesus into saying something wrong. 

They sent some of their followers and some of Herod’s followers[a] to say to him, “Teacher, we know that you are honest. You teach the truth about what God wants people to do. And you treat everyone with the same respect, no matter who they are.

Tell us what you think! Should we pay taxes to the Emperor or not?”

Jesus knew their evil thoughts and said, “Why are you trying to test me? You show-offs!

Let me see one of the coins used for paying taxes.” They brought him a silver coin,

and he asked, “Whose picture and name are on it?”

“The Emperor’s,” they answered.

Then Jesus told them, “Give the Emperor what belongs to him and give God what belongs to God.” 

His answer surprised them so much that they walked away

Scripture Video Matthew 22:15-22

Message – Divine Currency

Politics and religion. The often taboo subjects at polite gatherings. The two perspectives most likely to stir up controversy and conflict in our daily interactions.  Yet in some ways, two topics that are also invariably related to each other. The moral compass of a ruler or government affects the just or unjust outlook and approach of said body, and likewise, the participation or endorsement of religious bodies with governments lends validity to those bodies. The debate over the role of faith and government is certainly not a new concept. What is relatively new is our concept of the separation of faith and government. Throughout human history, these two aspects of life have been intertwined. The biblical stories are no different. 

Both of our stories this morning address this topic from different perspectives. In Isaiah, God is praising the Persian ruler Cyrus as being God’s divine instrument, one who destroys the unjust governments he encounters. Cyrus, who is a pagan ruler from a foreign country. But one who conquers the Babylonians who destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, and led most of the Jews into exile in Babylon. This follows the corruption of both the Northern and Southern kingdoms of Israel, with both of them turning away from their covenant with God and embracing the worship of other Gods, even incorporating that worship into their state worship in their respective temples. 

 In our Wednesday Zoom bible study, we’ve been studying the books of Amos and Hosea, prophets who pointed out the injustice and heresy of those governments and societies, and warned of the negative consequences of breaking that covenant, of becoming too self-focused and unjust.  The kings and ruling class of both kingdoms had lost that commitment to follow God’s way, and became self-indulgent and focused on their own prosperity, at the expense of others.  

Likewise, in our gospel reading, the Pharisees are trying to trap Jesus into becoming enmeshed in the conflict between faith and the leadership of his day. They pose the question to him as to whether faithful Jews should pay taxes to the emperor or not.  It’s a very loaded question. If Jesus agrees to paying the tax, he is casting himself with those that support the client king Herod and his Roman overlords, and he would put himself at odds with the Zealots and nationalists, alienating himself from the very people he lifts up, the oppressed and downtrodden. If he advocates for not paying the tax, then he opens himself up to charges of sedition and treason by those authorities. Either choice is perilous; either he betrays his people or he declares defiance towards Rome. But rather than get pulled into this trap, Jesus poses a counter question, “Whose picture is on a coin?”  In pointing out the likeness of the emperor on the coin, he calls to mind the prohibition on construction idols and graven images. What faithful Jew would have any likeness of Moses or Abraham? Yet that nuance seems to have been lost on the Pharisees. They don’t seem to see the problem with possessing as many pagan likenesses as possible. In demonstrating what should be a problem for observant Jews, Jesus poses his question in terms of ownership.  This coin belongs to the emperor; his likeness declares his kingdom. This kingdom is marked by wealth, military strength, and brutality, all the political power rests with the emperor.  He is the personification of all the wealth and strength of Rome, and the tax belongs to him.  By contrast, what can we say “belongs” to God?  

With a tax we know exactly how much is due, and the remainder is ours. What can we expect to hold back from God?  What is “ours” in contrast to God’s?  As the psalmist states in Psalm 24, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.”  Yet this concept of images leads to an interesting consideration.  Where do we find God’s image?  What in creation is made in God’s image?  Did not God make humans in God’s image?  If that is the case, then we would be the coins of God’s realm. 

Jesus calls the Pharisees “hypocrites” first for their uncritical loyalty to the crown, but also for their belief that they can treat God like a great tax collector who can be appeased with a “minimal” tax. They are hypocrites because they honor the pagan emperor and are loyal subjects of his kingdom, yet they hold back from the Lord of the covenant and neglect their true citizenship in God’s kin-dom.  It’s important to note that Jesus is not establishing a doctrine of dual kin-doms. He is not declaring that the state is autonomous in its sphere, while the reign of God is confined to its corner.  In pointing out their misguided loyalty, Jesus is declaring the preeminence and priority of God’s kin-dom. God’s kin-dom is the original will and plan of God for humanity and creation. It is not a case that we need to carve out space for God from the secular empire.  The problem is not how to partition the power in proper proportions; the problem for the believer is how to justify allegiance to the emperor while remaining faithful to God. No one can serve two masters.  

What about us?  Do we try to serve two masters?  We are deep in the throes of possibly one of the most divisive election seasons of our history as a nation. We hear a lot about making our country “great again,” about the importance of our dominance on the world economic and political stage. And while this kind of rhetoric has gained more prominence in recent years, it is certainly nothing new.  We are raised to pledge our allegiance to the symbols of our government, we open civic events honoring the state, much of our culture is built around pride and commitment to that state.  So, how much like the Pharisees are we?  Are we trying to serve two masters?  Do we too try to make compartments for our faith and our secular lives?  If we are the coins of God’s realm, can we have divided loyalties?  

Jesus makes clear that our priorities lie elsewhere than those of the emperor.  We give to the empire what belongs to the empire, and our focus is on God’s kin-dom, breaking into this world.  Our priority is Jesus’ priority, seeking to live kin-dom lives here and now:  caring for the least of these, seeking justice for those oppressed, welcoming all to the table, AND ensuring all our fed, physically and spiritually.  Our motto has nothing to do with worldly prestige, it is putting God first and foremost, and seeking rulers who govern in line with the values of God’s kin-dom, not the world’s.  So as we weather the last few weeks of this contentious political season, let’s keep our own place in perspective, as God’s currency, and our focus on seeking God’s kin-dom, not the empires of men, and truly consider which master we serve.  Amen. 

Call to Serve. 

As we continue to seek to be a place of compassion and support to our community, we ask that you give prayerful consideration as to how you may support our efforts.  If you would like to make a donation, gifts can still be mailed to our church office, or online donations can be made through the link in the video description.  Thanks again for all your support, and may we continue to work together to keep being a place of ministry that seeks to promote the growth of God’s shalom around us.  This morning, as Annie shares the following song, let’s give some thought as to what role we can play in our own lives this week in ushering the kin-dom of God into this world, and truly giving to God what belongs to God, our very effort and being.

Reflection on the Word

  Lord of Light, Your Name Outshining,
  played by church musician Annie Center

The Prayer of Thanksgiving

As we offer our gifts and lives in this moment,

may we become imitators of you, Gracious God,

who holds nothing back from us,

but is generous and gracious with all that is yours. 

In Jesus’ name, we pray.  Amen.

Blessing/Assurance

Go now as those who have found favor in the sight of God.
Be imitators of Jesus Christ
and an example to all of the life of faith.
To the world in which you live, give your love and service,
and to God, give all that you are and all that you shall be.

And may the glory of God’s goodness be revealed to you;
May the grace and peace of Jesus Christ take root in you;
And may the inspiration of the Holy Spirit fill you with joy.

We go in peace to love and serve the Lord,
……..In the name of Christ. Amen.

As we extinguish this candle, carry its divine spark into your lives this week, sharing God’s love and light with all you encounter.  Amen.

        Postlude
Where Cross the Crowded Ways
performed by church musician Annie Center,

11th October, 2020

Philippians 4:1-9  CEV / Matthew 22:1-14 CEV

Intro/Prelude 

En Medio De La Vida (You Are The God Within Life)
  played by church musician Annie Center 

I’m glad to welcome you to online worship with Olympic View Community Church.  We seek to welcome all of God’s children to join us in bearing witness to the radically transforming power of God’s love. 

Our tradition at Olympic View is to begin our service greeting and wishing each other peace.  In our troubled world of today, let’s take a few moments as we listen to this prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, and think how we can be a channel of God’s peace in our own lives.

Reflection video

Make Me A Channel of Your Peace

Invocation

Gracious God, in love You open wide the doors and welcome us into Your presence—saints and sinners alike. You spread a table before us, filled with the richest fare— a feast of love and mercy for the body and soul.
We come with joy to meet You here, to eat and drink at Your table, to taste and see Your goodness, to celebrate Your grace and mercy in our lives.
May Your Spirit inspire our praise and thanksgiving, our prayers and petitions as we worship together in Your presence.
In the name of Jesus Christ, our host and Lord, Amen.
We light a candle today to represent the Spirit burning within us, and among us, guiding our time together. (light candle) Amen.

In our reading from the Philippians this morning, Paul offers words of wisdom in how to live a faithful life.  As we listen to these words, let’s think what our focus in our own lives is, and how we might act differently.

Epistle Reading

Philippians 4:1-9 CEV
Dear friends, I love you and long to see you. Please keep on being faithful to the Lord. You are my pride and joy.
Euodia and Syntyche, you belong to the Lord, so I beg you to stop arguing with each other.
And, my true partner,[a] I ask you to help them.
These women have worked together with me and with Clement and with the others in spreading the good news.
Their names are now written in the book of life.
Always be glad because of the Lord! I will say it again: Be glad.
Always be gentle with others. The Lord will soon be here.
Don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything. With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God.
Then, because you belong to Christ Jesus, God will bless you with peace that no one can completely understand. And this peace will control the way
Finally, my friends, keep your minds on whatever is true, pure, right, holy, friendly, and proper. Don’t ever stop thinking about what is truly worthwhile and worthy of praise.
You know the teachings I gave you, and you know what you heard me say and saw me do. So follow my example. And God, who gives peace, will be with you

Scripture Video Philippians 4:1-9 |
Paul Encourages The Lord’s Followers
Lectionary bible reading

A Time of Prayer

Today we come together as a community to share together our joys and concerns, and lift them to God in prayer.  If you would like to share a specific request to be included in our communal prayer time, please leave a comment in the video below, or email myself at:  vicarglenn@gmail.com, and I’ll make sure to include that request in next week’s service, as well as send a prayer chain email, if you would like.

Joys and Concerns

This morning, let’s remember Matthew Schultz as he prepares to begin chemotherapy for his ongoing condition.
Let’s also remember Sylvia Hershberger’s mother Rose, who had surgery to repair a broken hip and clavicle this week.
We also express joy in Goldie Barnes’ milestone of her 80th birthday and the efforts of friends and family to make it truly a blessed event.
We’re also thankful for the safe travels of Annie Center, and the opportunities that afforded.
Finally, let’s keep Kathy and Roger Edmark in our prayers as they travel back to Japan today.

Let’s bring these concerns and others in our lives to God together in prayer.

Pastoral Prayer

God, we come into Your presence  with praise and thanksgiving for Your faithful love.

Your love never fails—not even we turn away from You:  when we ignore Your invitation, or desert You for gods of our own making. Even then You do not abandon us,  but reach out—again and again— inviting us back into relationship once more.
As You welcome us, so You welcome our prayers. We bring them to You with confidence,  knowing that You will hear and answer.
We pray for the world You created, and the people who share it with us: 
– for countries caught up in war or violent conflict, 
– for regions of the world struggling with increased cases of COVID-19, 
– for those whose homes and lives are threatened by natural disaster; For these and all the other areas in our world where there is need and despair,

We pray for our country and for its people:   

– for our government leaders, federal and local,   
– for our judicial system, police forces and military, 
– for our cities, towns, and rural communities,  
– for employers and employees, for young and old,
For all who are part of this great country,

We pray for our local community—the people of this city/town,  
– for those who are unemployed,   
– for those in prison,  
– for those who are hungry,  
– for those who are alone and afraid, For all our neighbours, both known and unknown to us,

We pray for this congregation—our brothers and sisters in Christ,   
– for those who are ill. or whose loved ones are ill,   
– for those who are anxious about the future,
– for those struggling with their faith,   
– for those who minister among us,

For all Your people in this place,

Pour out Your Spirit on us! Fix our hearts and minds on what is true and honourable and right. Give us the joy and peace that comes from knowing and doing Your will.

Keep us faithful to the call we have received in Christ Jesus, our Lord, extending Your loving invitation to the world around us. In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Our gospel lesson this morning, Jesus tells the parable of a vengeful king.  As we listen to these words from Matthew, let’s think about the rulers of our time, and how we work to serve the kin-dom not of this world.

Gospel Lesson

Matthew 22:1-14 CEV

Once again Jesus used stories to teach the people:
The kingdom of heaven is like what happened when a king gave a wedding banquet for his son. 
The king sent some servants to tell the invited guests to come to the banquet, but the guests refused. 
He sent other servants to say to the guests, “The banquet is ready! My cattle and prize calves have all been prepared. Everything is ready. Come to the banquet!”
But the guests did not pay any attention. Some of them left for their farms, and some went to their places of business. 
Others grabbed the servants, then beat them up and killed them.
This made the king so furious that he sent an army to kill those murderers and burn down their city.
Then he said to the servants, “It is time for the wedding banquet, and the invited guests don’t deserve to come.
Go out to the street corners and tell everyone you meet to come to the banquet.” 
They went out on the streets and brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike. And the banquet room was filled with guests.
When the king went in to meet the guests, he found that one of them wasn’t wearing the right kind of clothes for the wedding. 
The king asked, “Friend, why didn’t you wear proper clothes for the wedding?” But the guest had no excuse. 
So the king gave orders for that person to be tied hand and foot and to be thrown outside into the dark. That’s where people will cry and grit their teeth in pain. 

Many are invited, but only a few are chosen.

Scripture Video Matthew 22:1-14
The Great Banquet

 
Message – Upside Down

There’s a story of the pastor giving a children’s sermon, where every week the children anticipate him making a new point about Jesus. This particular week he begins by holding up a stuffed squirrel and asking, “Boys and girls, do you know what this is?” Silence. The pastor asks again. Silence. Finally, one little boy is bold enough to shyly raise his hand and offer, “Gee, I know I’m supposed to say Jesus, but it sure looks like a squirrel to me.”  
How much do we do the same thing, try to make every parable we hear be about God or Jesus as the main character? Too often when we do this, we then need to somehow make the moral of that story fit the character traits of God, even when the actions portrayed seem so far from the loving God we come to worship. 
What would happen if we look to find God in the lesser characters?  If we cease to automatically assume the king or rich landowner is God or Jesus?  Today’s scripture is a prime example of this.  Traditional interpretation over the years makes this parable about God as the rich king, coming down hard on the wedding guests for not showing up, murdering them, in fact.  Then when new guests are selected, one who has not brought out his best clothes, or has chosen not to wear the wedding tunic provided, is banished and left to die by the “gnashing of teeth” of the wild beasts.  Does this sound like the kind and just God we usually think of? 
Theologians over the years have tried their best to make this parable fit with God as the king.  Preachers talk about the first wedding guests being the Pharisees and temple authorities of Jesus day who fail to heed the call of Jesus and are destroyed.  Another way of approaching it is to focus on the one without the wedding clothes as someone who refuses to accept Christ, and is cast out.  But what if we consider the possibility of God in this parable being the very one who refuses to give in, to wear the garment provided for him. 
What if God, incarnated in Jesus, is the one cast out to suffer the “gnashing of teeth?” 
How does that change our perspective on this parable? 
Well, for starters, we would need to reevaluate the conception we often have of God as the triumphant king and ruler, in favor of the view that Isaiah 53 provides.  In that scripture, we hear of the “suffering servant’, one who was “despised and rejected by mankind…oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.”  Sounds a lot like the Jesus we hear in Matthew’s gospel, doesn’t it?  Theologian Marty Aiken remarks that instead of seeing the king as making Jesus’ audience think of God, he argues that this king would have sparked in Jesus’ audience thoughts of kings much closer to their situation in history, namely, the Herods, especially the first King Herod. Drawing from historical sources such as Josephus, Aiken shows how the Herods actually behaved in ways very similar to the king in this parable. With a monarch so brutally dictatorial, does Jesus really mean for us to think of divine kingship with this parable instead of the kind of petty dictators such as the Herods who so litter human history with victims?  We are presented with a brutal, tyrannical king doling out terroristic punishment on his subject, particularly on the one who quietly resists, without saying a word in his own defense. 
Jesus himself responds with silence in Matthew more than in any of the other gospels.  For example, Matthew 26:62-63: “The high priest stood up and said, ‘Have you no answer? What is it that they testify against you?’ But Jesus was silent.” And Matthew 27:11-14: “Now Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus said, ‘You say so.’ But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he did not answer. Then Pilate said to him, ‘Do you not hear how many accusations they make against you?’ But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.”  What has happened to that man in the parable is what is about to happen to Jesus.  Jesus ends up looking much more like the guy at the end of the story than the king at the outset.  Yes, we started by hearing the king as God, but by the end of the story, as disciples of the crucified Christ, we are generally more sympathetic to the guy thrown out of the party. 
What do you think?
Is this a case like with the Children’s Sermon of expecting to see Jesus but instead seeing a squirrel?
Is it a case, in other words, of expecting to see God when we hear “king” but Jesus instead giving us something very different?
I think that it is, and I’ve become increasingly convinced that this is the only way to take seriously all the terrible details about how this king behaves. Sometimes a king is simply a king. In fact, in the human world of authority, this is the king we expect to find because all human reigns are based on the authority of violence. Even at “peaceful times,” the “peace” is maintained through the threat of an army or police force. We can see the king in this parable as the tyrant he is, a king who rules with the worst kind of brutality and terrorism, often under the guise of “law and order.”.  But what about the introduction Jesus gives us at the beginning of the parable, introducing this story as an example of the kin-dom of heaven?  Is that image to be compared to the suffering servant exemplified in the man without wedding clothes?  If that’s the case, then we need to look on the king and his kin-dom as the example of the way in which our earthly, violence-based authority is on display.  If that’s the case, it would follow that the kin-dom of heaven looks more like the man who stands silently before him at the end of the parable. In short, it looks like what happened to Jesus when he stood silently in the face of his accusers and let them throw him out into the darkness of death. 
But in examining this concept of the kin-dom of heaven referenced by Jesus in this parable, I think it’s important to reflect on another scripture from this gospel, especially when trying to understand the so-called parables of judgment, like the one in this morning’ Gospel.  In Matthew 11, verse 12, Jesus says, “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kin-dom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it.”
Jesus makes it clear how to identify the kin-dom of heaven.  Human, earthly kin-doms operate by the threat or use of force; they dish out the violence. But Jesus here is telling us straight out that the kin-dom of heaven is about suffering the violence instead of dishing it out. It believes steadfastly, in other words, in the power of love and forgiveness as the greatest powers on earth. So, if we keep this clue in mind from the first part of the Gospel, it helps understand these strange parables at the end of Gospel, which Jesus tells in Jerusalem just as he himself is about to suffer their violence in love and forgiveness.
This morning’s gospel about the violent king and the man not dressed in a wedding garment is about the collision of a typical earthly kin-dom and the kin-dom of heaven.  So does this mean we are bound to the same fate as the guest without wedding clothes, or worse yet, the same fate as Jesus?  Probably not.  But we can expect suffering and trials for standing up to this country and this world’s violent ways. 
The Book of Acts shows us the apostles spending quite a bit of time in prison for standing up for God’s way of love and forgiveness and healing. Paul, in our reading from Philippians today, was written in prison as well.  He tells us in our reading today to rejoice in the Lord, but to also be in the same mind as well. 
And where do we see the kin-dom of heaven today? 
We see it in those who step out of their comfort zone and take the risk of standing against the evil, violent ways of the kin-doms and empires of our day, those who choose to not go with the flow of the ways of society that are unjust, or promote violence as a solution and means of control.  Those who choose not to go along with what culture says is the norm, when those practices cause the hurt and oppression of others.  But even though we may put ourselves at risk, we have the promise of a different kind of banquet, with one who has suffered and died, and succeeded in overcoming the violence of the world through the love and peace of the resurrection.  I pray that we all choose to be the ones who risk being the suffering servant, the one who chooses not to wear the garments of this world, but always seek the love and peace of the kin-dom that draws near.  Amen.

Call to Serve. 

As we continue to seek to be a place of compassion and support to our community, we ask that you give prayerful consideration as to how you may support our efforts.  If you would like to make a donation, gifts can still be mailed to our church office, or online donations can be made through the link in the video description.  Thanks again for all your support, and may we continue to work together to keep being a place of ministry that seeks to promote the growth of God’s shalom around us. As we listen to this interlude played by Annie, let’s reflect on how we can promote the kin-dom of God in our own lives, and how we can be a force in contrast to the violence of the kin-doms of this world.

Reflection on the Word

Be Thou My Vision,
played by church musician Annie Center

The Prayer of Thanksgiving

Gracious God, receive the gift of our lives and this offering of our service to carry your love from this place to a world in need. This we pray in the name of Christ,
whom with you and the Holy Spirit, reign in our hearts and lives, one God now and forever. Amen. 

Blessing/Assurance

Be glad in the Lord always!

Focus your thoughts on all that is true, all that is holy, all that is just, all that is pure, all that is lovely, and all that is worthy of praise. And the peace of God—peace that goes far beyond anything we can comprehend—that peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. So go from here with confidence and joy,

to serve the Lord.

As we extinguish this candle, carry its divine spark into your lives this week, sharing
God’s love and light with all you.
(for credits only) re worship blog

Postlude

How Clear is Our Vocation, Lord,
performed by church musician Annie Center,
used and reported under CCLI Streaming License 20261246 

(for credits only) used and reported under CCLI Streaming License 20261246 

4th October, 2020

Isaiah 5:1-7 CEV / Matthew 21:33-46 CEV

Intro/Prelude

Shout To The Lord,
Words and Music by Darlene Zschech,
played by church musician Annie Center  

I’m glad to welcome you to online worship with Olympic View Community Church. 
We seek to welcome all of God’s children to join us in bearing witness to the radically transforming power of God’s love. 

Our tradition at Olympic View is to begin our service greeting and wishing each other peace.  Every October, people from our church participate in the CROP Walk to raise money to combat hunger and food instability around the globe.  This morning I’m sharing a video of the tremendous impact just providing one pig can make to a family working hard to try to make ends meet.  If you’d like to contribute to our effort, or join us in walking socially distantly, or virtually, there will be a link in the video description to our team.  You can also find out more on our website, www.olympicchurch.org

Reflection video

CROP Hunger Walk 
Raising Animals; Growing Communities 

Invocation

Most Gracious God
we greet you once again in this sacred space.

We have come because we need to be reminded
of your love and your expectations for our living.

We are like the vine you planted, watered and protected.
We know in our hearts
that we need, want and desire your presence in our lives.

So we come in prayer
and listen for your Word to speak to our hearts
and reveal again your desires for us. Amen.

We light a candle today to represent the Spirit burning within us, and among us, guiding our time together. (light candle) Amen.

In our reading from the prophet Isaiah this morning, God is presented as a vineyard owner who planted a wonderful crop, the nation of Israel, only to have wild grapes grow in it’s place.  As we listen to these words, lets reflect on what kind of crops we raise in God’s vineyard today.  Are we being producing good fruit?

Words of the Prophet

Isaiah 5:1-7 CEV

I will sing a song about my friend’s vineyard that was on the side of a fertile hill.

My friend dug the ground, removed the stones, and planted the best vines. He built a watchtower and dug a pit in rocky ground for pressing the grapes. He hoped they would be sweet, but bitter grapes were all it produced.

Listen, people of Jerusalem and of Judah! You be the judge of me and my vineyard.

What more could I have done for my vineyard? I hoped for sweet grapes, but bitter grapes were all that grew.

Now I will let you know what I am going to do. I will cut down the hedge and tear down the wall. My vineyard will be trampled  and left in ruins.

It will turn into a desert, neither pruned nor hoed; it will be covered with thorns and briars.I will command the clouds not to send rain.

I am the Lord All-Powerful!  Israel is the vineyard, and Judah is the garden  I tended with care.I had hoped for honesty  and for justice, but dishonesty and cries for mercy  were all I found.

A Time of Prayer

Today we come together as a community to share together our joys and concerns, and lift them to God in prayer.  If you would like to share a specific request to be included in our communal prayer time, please leave a comment in the video below, or email myself at:  vicarglenn@gmail.com, and I’ll make sure to include that request in next week’s service, as well as send a prayer chain email, if you would like.

Joys and Concerns

This morning we continue to remember the family of our dear Grace Edmark, who passed away last week.

We are thankful for the uneventful, safe travel of Roger and Kathy back from Japan, as well as Haile and Nancy returning from Nebraska.

We continue to pray for those continuing to be affected by fires and natural disasters, and those who seek to give them relief.

Finally, we pray for peace, compassion, and justice to prevail in a world that often seems to be coming apart at the seams.

Let’s bring these concerns and others in our lives to God together in prayer.

Pastoral Prayer

Holy Friend,

health of the sick, comfort of the sad, rebuke of the oppressor,
judge of the greedy, hope of the repentant, friend of the downtrodden; 
    in prayer we lift up to you this world with its outrageous injustices
    yet also its outpouring of human kindness from ordinary people.

Loving God, let your blessing be upon those
   who serve their neighbours without thought of reward,
   who forgive their enemies seventy times seven,
   who care for broken strangers as if they were dearest friends,
   who weep with the bereaved as if they were sisters,
   who heal the diseased not counting the risk to themselves

Let your blessing encourage those
   who work for peace when the only result seems to be more violence,
   who preach and live the Gospel in the face of persecution,
   who feed the hungry although their efforts get misinterpreted,
   and who stand up for the downtrodden in spite of public scorn.

Holy Friend,

   please reach out your hand over each of us gathered here now,
   that our faith may be enlarged and fortified,
   our vision enlightened and extended,
   and our compassion refreshed and widened.

Through Jesus of Nazareth,

   whose love was good enough for the simple,
   too much for the proud and powerful,
   and absolutely amazing for all who shared his cup.

Amen!

Our gospel lesson this morning tells a different vineyard story.  As we listen to Jesus retell the vineyard story from Isaiah for the temple authorities of his time, let’s think how we care for the crops we’ve been given, and how we treat those God sends our way.  What fruit do we bear?

Gospel Lesson  

Matthew 21:33-46 CEV

Jesus told the chief priests and leaders to listen to this story:

A land owner once planted a vineyard. He built a wall around it and dug a pit to crush the grapes in. He also built a lookout tower. Then he rented out his vineyard and left the country.

When it was harvest time, the owner sent some servants to get his share of the grapes. 

But the renters grabbed those servants. They beat up one, killed one, and stoned one of them to death. 

He then sent more servants than he did the first time. But the renters treated them in the same way.

Finally, the owner sent his own son to the renters, because he thought they would respect him. 

But when they saw the man’s son, they said, “Someday he will own the vineyard. Let’s kill him! Then we can have it all for ourselves.” 

So they grabbed him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

Jesus asked, “When the owner of that vineyard comes, what do you suppose he will do to those renters?”

The chief priests and leaders answered, “He will kill them in some horrible way. Then he will rent out his vineyard to people who will give him his share of grapes at harvest time.”

Jesus replied, “You surely know that the Scriptures say, ‘The stone that the builders tossed aside is now the most important  stone of all. This is something the Lord has done,  and it is amazing to us.’

I tell you that God’s kingdom will be taken from you and given to people who will do what he demands. 

Anyone who stumbles over this stone will be crushed, and anyone it falls on will be smashed to pieces.”

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard these stories, they knew that Jesus was talking about them. 

So they looked for a way to arrest Jesus. But they were afraid to, because the people thought he was a prophet.

Scripture Video

Matthew 21:33-46 – Tenants Of A Vineyard
      Lectionary bible reading

Message – Bearing Fruit

Fall is definitely in the air. While the last week or so has been a little bit of leftover summer, the telltale signs are there: the leaves are starting to fall, there’s a crispness to the evening air, and storms and rain have made their first appearance. The change of seasons means getting out those comfy sweaters and jeans, and putting away the shorts and summer wear until next year. For those of us who are not big shoe fans, now we have to actually wear socks, and bid a sad farewell to the flip flops and sandals of warmer weather.

The end of summer has always been a significant time for people throughout the ages. It’s the time of the final harvest of the growing season in most places; the time when the last crops are gathered and the plants prepared to go dormant for the winter. It’s a time to celebrate the rewards of months of hard labor in tilling, planting, and caring for one’s precious crops. Particularly in the hilly, rocky, thin soil of the Near East in Palestine, this would entail clearing the ground of tons of small stones, and building terraces to hold ones crops. Many of our human festivals and religious observances throughout the ages have coincided with this period of harvest and transition.

Both of our scriptures this week reference this imagery of a vineyard and the harvest. In that part of the world in ancient times, much of the work of farming was performed by tenant farmers, people hired by the landowner to do the hard work of making the land productive. In return, they would be allowed a portion of the crops produced, while the rest would be given to the owner. The more one was able to keep for oneself, naturally the more well-off one would be. Likewise, the better, more productive crops one raised, the greater the reward. In an ideal world, this arrangement would benefit both parties. The tenant farmers would be blessed with a secure place to live, with a guaranteed source of income to provide for their needs, and the landowner would receive an income from his land holdings to also sustain the needs of himself and his family. However, as is usually the case, the ideal is rarely the reality when dealing with humans and human imperfections.

Greed and self-interest are certainly nothing new; they’ve been a part of us since day one. When one side or the other does not care for the well-being of the other, the system fails to benefit both. Both of our scriptures today make use of allegory to make this point. They use this vineyard imagery to symbolize the relationship of God to the people, and how that relationship sours when the proverbial vineyard is not managed properly. In Isaiah, God prepares the perfect vineyard to produce a good crops, cleared of stones, planted with choice vines, and protected by a strong defensive hedge with a watchtower. Yet when it comes time for the harvest, instead of premium fruit, it yields wild sour grapes that have little value. The human grapes God expected would demonstrate justice, but instead brought bloodshed, would show righteousness, but instead led to cries of lament.

God responds to this bad crop management with the promise to remove the protections and favorable conditions that have allowed the vineyard to thrive, and let it wither as one does with failed crops. Jesus builds on this imagery in his parable in our gospel reading. In his story, the crops were successful, yet the problem lies with the tenants. When the time comes to share the fruits of their labor with the landowner, they greedily keep everything for themselves, killing off each set of messengers sent by the landowner, including the landowner’s own son. Like the first story, this one is also rife with symbolism. The landowner again is God. However, this time, Jesus is engaging in debate with the temple authorities who are challenging his authority. He tricks them into filling in the ending of the story with a vengeful retribution towards the tenants by the landowner. After falling into this trap, they realize that the tenants in his story are themselves They see God giving them the authority to care for the people, yet they use this gift for their own ends, and when God sends them messengers, prophets, they shun or destroy them in favor of their own self-interests, even condemning God’s chosen messenger, the Messiah.

Clearly these scriptures are full of meaning on several levels, but today I’d like to focus on how we bear fruit in the context of our own vineyard today. Like the priests of Jesus’ day, God has provided a vineyard for us to manage. What are the fruits of our labor? When we think of the church, what is it that comes to mind? Is it a vibrant, verdant field of new growth and possibilities, constantly open to the new revelations that God’s modern messengers bring, or is it an institution that seeks to conserve accumulated dogma, and maintain the reigning social order that sustains it regardless of the potential injustice of that system? Unfortunately, too often our minds are made up about the grasp we have on truth. We come to this parable knowing we know God through Jesus Christ, and we have spent centuries honing the fine details of that relationship through study of every nuance of scripture and the doctrines developed. We anticipate what God will say to us based on what God has already said to us; no less than those who have gone before us, we have mistaken certainty for faith in the living God.

We seek God in prayer certainly, but often we view divine revelation as ending with the biblical canon, limits imposed by human design. How much are we like those tenants in Jesus’ parable? How much do we focus on numbers in the pews, the size of church finances, and the building? What fruit does that produce? To quote our sisters and brothers in the United Church of Christ, “God is still speaking.” We may have chosen to focus on a set list of ancient texts for revelation, and they can be informative, but God never works by our rules. The landowner still sends messengers to us. They may not look like the prophets we expect, but prophets they still are: the homeless that camp out at our door, those who struggle with addiction in our midst, people in our community who struggle against racial discrimination and injustice, those in our midst whose sexual or gender identities that often lead to them being outcast and unaccepted in God’s vineyard.

There’s a story of a time before refrigerators, when people used ice houses to preserve their food. Ice houses 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 ice houses, and covered with sawdust. Often the ice would last well into the summer. One man lost a valuable watch while working in an ice house. 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 ice house 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. Do we really listen to hear God speak? Do we recognize the messengers God sends us? We often lament the dwindling size of our churches and the smaller and smaller gatherings for worship. The question we need to ask ourselves is what is the fruit we are producing? Is it nourishing and what those who hunger seek and need? Or is it what we find comforting and familiar? Like the tenants in our gospel story today, we have a choice. We can embrace and welcome those messengers sent by God and the revelation they bring, or we can choose to turn away and stay in our own comfortable bubble. But what if God is outside the bubble? What kind of fruit can we produce on our own? I hope and pray we can turn our attention outwards, and seek to find God still speaking and at work around us in this time, in this place, recognizing that revelation is not just a book written 2000 years ago, but an ongoing event from a God whose work is never done. Amen.

Call to Serve. 

As we continue to seek to be a place of compassion and support to our community, we ask that you give prayerful consideration as to how you may support our efforts.  If you would like to make a donation, gifts can still be mailed to our church office, or online donations can be made here.  Thanks again for all your support, and may we continue to work together to keep being a place of ministry that seeks to promote the growth of God’s shalom around us.  This morning, let’s listen to the following prayer written by John van de Laar, and give some thought to how those words and sentiments might apply to our own lives, and how we might choose to do things differently.  We will end our prayer by offering thanks for the blessings we’ve been given.

Reflection  Prayer

How many times each day do You come to me, Jesus? How many quiet prophets,
how many whispered warnings are sent to catch my attention?

And how many times do I pass by unaware of Your calm Presence, unfeeling of Your beckoning gaze?

How often have I shunned Your messengers; sending them away with clipped words
and cold eyes? How often have I hurt the agents of Your care; too busy or self-absorbed to notice Your invitation in their words?

Forgive me, Lord, when through neglect, pre-occupation or wrongfulness,
I turn my back on You. Teach me to see, to listen and to walk with an open heart,
so that I can welcome You, and answer You, when, in grace and love,

You call me to follow.

The Prayer of Thanksgiving

Generous God, you have given so much to us, and we have offered back such small amounts in return. We have often served you as part-time followers, giving a fraction of our time and resources to your mission and an overwhelming share to our own indulgences. We strive to do better, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead – pressing on to the goal of serving Christ with all our being. In his name, we pray. Amen.

Blessing/Assurance

The Creator knows you, for God made you. The Creator knows your heart, your mind, your body, your soul. The Creator knows that you are more than what others suspect. You are more than what others interpret. You are more than what can be perceived. You are made in the image of God, and you are beloved. You are created with the intention to love and care for others and the world. Live into your intention. Seek forgiveness, and know you are forgiven. Seek to repair what is broken, and know that God is at work repairing your heart and soul. Seek to love one another, and know that you are God’s beloved, and with you, God is well pleased. 

As we extinguish this candle, carry its divine spark into your lives this week, sharing God’s love and light with all you encounter.  Amen.

Postlude

Love Will Be Our Home,
Words and music by Steven Curtis Chapman,
performed by church musician Annie Center,
used and reported under CCLI Streaming License 20261246 

27th September, 2020

Philippians 2:1-13 CEV / Matthew 21:23-32 CEV

Intro/Prelude This Is My Father’s World,
written by Maltbie Babcock,
played by church musician Annie Center 

Welcome

I’m glad to welcome you to online worship with Olympic View Community Church.  We seek to welcome all of God’s children to join us in bearing witness to the radically transforming power of God’s love. 

Our tradition at Olympic View is to begin our service greeting and wishing each other peace.  For a change of pace this week, we will be listening to a familiar hymn that we often sing after greeting each other, sung in beautiful 4 part harmony.  Feel free to sing along, and think about the words, “God is love.”  Who could we share God’s love and shalom with this week?

Reflection Video God is Love     (Come, Let Us All Unite to Sing)
posted to YouTube by SM Samonte

Invocation

Join me in a word of prayer.

We come to hear the stories of other people in another world long ago.

We come to hear the stories that are also about us today in this place.

God, give us ears to listen. eyes to see, hearts to accept.

We light a candle today to represent the Spirit burning within us, and among us, guiding
our time together. Amen.

Our Epistle reading this morning from Philippians describes the humble outlook we should have on living our own lives.  As we listen to these words from Paul, let’s think about how much we focus on humility, and how pride may interfere with that focus.

Epistle Reading Philippians 2:1-13 CEV

Christ encourages you, and his love comforts you. God’s Spirit unites you, and you are concerned for others. 
Now make me completely happy! Live in harmony by showing love for each other. Be united in what you think, as if you were only one person. 
Don’t be jealous or proud, but be humble and consider others more important than yourselves. 
Care about them as much as you care about yourselves 
and think the same way that Christ Jesus thought:
Christ was truly God. But he did not try to remain equal with God.
Instead he gave up everything and became a slave, when he became like one of us.
Christ was humble. He obeyed God and even died on a cross.
Then God gave Christ the highest place and honored his name above all others.
So at the name of Jesus everyone will bow down,those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.
And to the glory of God the Father everyone will openly agree,  “Jesus Christ is Lord!”
My dear friends, you always obeyed when I was with you.
Now that I am away, you should obey even more.
So work with fear and trembling to discover what it really means to be saved. 

God is working in you to make you willing and able to obey him.

Scripture Video Philippians 2:1-13 –
Christ’s Example Of True Humility
Lectionary bible reading

A Time of Prayer

Today we come together as a community to share together our joys and concerns, and lift them to God in prayer.  If you would like to share a specific request to be included in our communal prayer time, please leave a comment in the video below, or email myself at:  vicarglenn@gmail.com, and I’ll make sure to include that request in next week’s service, as well as send a prayer chain email, if you would like.

Joys and Concerns

This morning we lift up Grace Edmark as she has been moved to the hospice center at Evergreen in Kirkland and has been declining in the last several days.

We also remember Angela Zimmerman’s mom, who attempted suicide this week, and is hospitalized in North Carolina.  We also lift up Angela who feels helpless so far away.

We remember Nancy and Haile as they look to their return trip back from Nebraska in the next week.  

We also remember Matthew Schultz as he continues to struggle with health issues and finding effective treatments.

We celebrate the rain and windy weather this week, and the relief it brings.

Let’s bring these concerns and others in our lives to God together in prayer.

Pastoral Prayer

Teach us Your ways, God,

that we may come down from our heights and be open to the same Spirit who moved over the face of the waters in the first day of creation and moves also over the chaos of this time to fashion a day like this, a world like ours, a life like ours,

a kin-dom acting as leaven in the bread of earth.

And make us aware of the miracles of life, of warm and cold, of starkness and order, of screaming wind and impenetrable silences, and of the unfathomable mystery of amazing grace in which we are kept.

Teach us Your ways, God, that we may praise You for all the surprising, ingenious ways You bless us, and for all the wondrous gifts You give us, along with all the pain and joy we sustain.

Teach us Your ways, God, that we may accept our own talent openly, nurture it hopefully, develop it faithfully, and give it freely.

Teach us Your ways, God, that we may love Your kindness and practice it toward the hungry of the world, the poor and sick, and oppressed, that we may learn the healing humility that comes from You.

Teach us Your ways, God, so that our hearts are flooded with Your mercy— emptying it of what makes it firmly opposed to Your ways, so that it beats more in rhythm with You and pounds greatly for Your kingdom. Amen.

Our gospel lesson this morning presents a parable about two sons working in a vineyard in response to the question of who has authority.  As we listen to this passage, let’s think what authority drives our actions, and how obedient we are as children of God.

Gospel Lesson Matthew 21:23-32 CEV

Jesus had gone into the temple and was teaching when the chief priests and the leaders of the people came up to him. They asked, “What right do you have to do these things? Who gave you this authority?”

Jesus answered, “I have just one question to ask you. If you answer it, I will tell you where I got the right to do these things. 

Who gave John the right to baptize? Was it God in heaven or merely some human being?”

They thought it over and said to each other, “We can’t say that God gave John this right. Jesus will ask us why we didn’t believe John. 

On the other hand, these people think that John was a prophet, and we are afraid of what they might do to us. That’s why we can’t say that it was merely some human who gave John the right to baptize.” 

So they told Jesus, “We don’t know.” Jesus said, “Then I won’t tell you who gave me the right to do what I do.”

Jesus said: I will tell you a story about a man who had two sons. Then you can tell me what you think. The father went to the older son and said, “Go work in the vineyard today!” 

His son told him that he would not do it, but later he changed his mind and went. 

The man then told his younger son to go work in the vineyard. The boy said he would, but he didn’t go. 

Which one of the sons obeyed his father? “The older one,” the chief priests and leaders answered. Then Jesus told them: You can be sure that tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you ever will! 

When John the Baptist showed you how to do right, you would not believe him. But these evil people did believe. And even when you saw what they did, you still would not change your minds and believe.

Scripture Video Matthew 21:23-32 
A Question About Jesus’ Authority
Lectionary bible reading

Message – Take a Knee

Showing “respect” and “honor” has often been a flashpoint in our culture. We’ve certainly been hearing a lot recently about the meaning and ramifications of choosing to “take a knee” in some public arenas. Different sides would have us attach meaning and significance to these displays, both positive and negative. As I studied the scripture for this week’s sermon, I became aware of how this current controversy fits into the situation Paul is addressing in his correspondence with the Christians in Philippi.  The church there was apparently having problems with conflict and dissent within the body.  Unfortunately, we only get one side of the story when it comes to Paul’s letters.  We hear his response, but aren’t privy to the original letter or specific situation he is responding to.  But we can ascertain a lot from what he says, and sometimes more importantly, how he says it.  

Like the church in Corinth, there seems to be an issue with some in Phillipi feeling they have a better status than others. Roman culture at the time was all about one’s status, which is determined by the conception of the honor one has obtained.  And that honor is determined by one’s integrity as well as one’s participation in the civic rituals and worship of the day. Which is why the early Christians faced so much persecution. By refusing to participate in the cultic worship of the emperor as a living deity, they were considered less honorable. The emperor maintained his control by establishing himself as the hero of the country, as the one whose success maintained

the well-being of the empire. To not revere and to worship him was to disrespect and dishonor not only the emperor, but the country as well. Likewise, the generals and military heroes of the time are considered like that of the gods, given almost a divine status. The upper classes increased their honor and status by publicly supporting and idolizing these figures. I mentioned the language that Paul uses can be very illuminating and that’s particularly relevant in this situation. 

Paul stresses the importance of humility and serving others in today’s reading.  If you are making your focus on other people, you can’t focus on your own honor and privilege.  But more important is how he talks about Christ in this passage.  He intentionally contrasts his imagery of Christ with the propaganda of the emperor.  His audience would have instantly recognized the connection.  On Roman coins of the time, the emperor would be depicted above a sphere, with his foot on the sphere, stressing his dominance over the whole world achieved through military brutality and strength.  Paul contrasts this image with that of a Messiah, who, “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage…”  Jesus could have chosen to claim and seize dominance or equality with God, yet chooses a path of being subordinate, as Paul says, “rather, he made himself nothing, by taking the very nature of a servant.”  

Paul’s letter is, in effect, a rebuttal to what one would call the “Gospel of Augustus.”  All those values that are so praised in Roman culture, honor, hero worship, and excessive allegiance to imperial accomplishments and leadership, are the exact opposite to the values and example that Jesus sets. He doesn’t establish his reign through violence and conflict, but through humility and service, “even to death on a cross.” The concern with maintaining honor, status and privilege is what led Jesus to the cross. The temple leadership was threatened by one claiming to be the messiah and keeper of the true faith. They needed to be rid of this threat. The opposite of all those values that the emperor and the empire stood for. By establishing those values in Christ, he’s pointing out to the Phillipians that the ways of their wordly empire are the opposite of the kingdom they owe their allegiance to. Their interactions with each other would reflect those same attributes.  Humility, service and concern for others before oneself.  

So if Paul were asked about our current controversy concerning “taking a knee,” his response would probably be “why should you care about it?”  Why should the honor system of the empire be a Christian’s concern?  For Paul this would be a distraction from what we are to be concerned with.  Paul is clear that we are to be working to imitate the example set by our Savior.  Our concern is the well-being of others; to be of service to them. Empathy is the name of the game in God’s kingdom.  There is no place for rivalry and conflict.  

In the parable in our reading from Matthew this morning, Jesus talks about those who say one thing and do another. Do we walk around saying we follow Christ, but then not think of others before ourselves?  Do we claim the Christian title, yet participate in the imperial cultic worship of today? The larger church to which we belong, the Church of the Brethren, has a long rich tradition of putting others before ourselves, of devoting ourselves to the service of our fellow humans.  Nothing exemplifies this commitment to humility and service than the simple act of feet washing, following Jesus’ example. Taking a knee in the service of your brothers and sisters.  Kneeling and lovingly washing the feet of another is the ultimate act of humility and service to another.  

Paul talks of Jesus lowering himself to the point of a criminal’s death on the cross in service to us, but we can’t forget about John’s example of our servant savior’s love for his disciples at the last supper.  Rising from the table, girding himself with a towel, and taking on a duty normally considered “beneath” the average person, reserved only for slaves and lowly servants. In that act Jesus demonstrates that none of us are above another, that no one out-classes or out-honors another. When we partake in that act ourselves, it’s a reminder of our Savior’s humility that we are to emulate.  

When we share in the Agape meal afterwards, there is no seat of honor, we are all equal and united in our commitment to follow Christ and serve others. I can preach until I’m blue in the face, but the most effective message on this scripture can be found in the towel and basin.  

As Paul advises, do we have the same mindset in us as in Christ? Do we value honor above relationships? Is our focus on worldly empires and their value and honor systems or on God’s kingdom and it’s values of empathy and service?

 I’d like to close today with a little story about distraction. A man bought a new hunting dog. Eager to see how he would perform, he took him out to track a bear.
No sooner had they gotten into the woods than the dog picked up the trail. Suddenly he stopped, sniffed the ground, and headed in a new direction. He had caught the scent of a deer that had crossed the bear’s path. A few moments later he halted again, this time smelling a rabbit that had crossed the path of the deer. And so, on and on it went until finally the breathless hunter caught up with his dog, only to find him barking triumphantly down the hole of a field mouse.  Sometimes Christians are like that. We start out with high resolve, keeping Christ first in our lives. But soon our attention is diverted to things of lesser importance. One pursuit leads to another until we’ve strayed far from our original purpose. What’s important is that we don’t let ourselves become distracted and caught up in the daily  controversies of the world and allow ourselves to be distracted by and caught up in those dramas that run contrary to those values of Christ we are to emulate. 

 And daily controversies abound these days, don’t they?  It seems impossible to keep on top of it all, and quite frankly, it’s exhausting.  But maybe that’s always been the purpose of these political issues, these questions of “honor?”  They keep us distracted from our true work and focus as disciples. Instead of worrying about who’s right and who’s wrong in the current public debate, we can turn our focus away and get back to a Jesus focus. We can ask ourselves three easy questions from our own Brethren heritage, questions asked in preparation to share the Lord’s supper.  Are we right with God and our neighbor?  Are we humble and focused on God’s kin-dom?  Are we in this world but not of this world?  I hope and pray we have the right answer to those questions.  May we always look around us with empathic eyes that see the world with God’s lens and not the world’s. and be willing to take a knee ourselves.  Amen.

Call to Serve. 

As we continue to seek to be a place of compassion and support to our community, we ask that you give prayerful consideration as to how you may support our efforts.  If you would like to make a donation, gifts can still be mailed to our church office, or online donations can be made through the link in the video description.  Thanks again for all your support, and may we continue to work together to keep being a place of ministry that seeks to promote the growth of God’s shalom around us.  As we listen to this interlude, played by Annie, let’s give some thought how we can humbly be God’s servants this week, using our voice and talents to further the God’s kin-dom in this world, without being distracted by those voices of controversy all around us.

A Time for Reflection

Reflection on the Word

For All The Saints,
written by William Walsham Howe,
played by church musician Annie Center

The Prayer of Thanksgiving

God of abundance, you fill us with good things; you satisfy our thirst; you meet
our every need. From your rock, our blessings flow. Accept what we give in return: our hearts, our hands, our gifts, our love. Use them to answer the cries of a world in need. Amen. 

Commission/Benediction

Go now to will and to work for God’s purposes. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. Be filled with the same love and look to the interests of others. With reverence for God, work out your salvation.

And may God quench your thirst with love and consolation; May Christ Jesus strengthen you and encourage you; And may the Holy Spirit lead you on and make your joy complete.

We go in peace to love and serve the Lord, carrying the spark of the Spirit within us.
……..In the name of Christ. Amen.

Postlude

Tears Are A Language God Understands
written by Gordon Jansen,
played by church musician Annie Center