Showing posts with label Liturgy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Liturgy. Show all posts
Monday, November 21, 2011

Cycle Repeated: Year B, Advent 1

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This Week's Lectionary Texts:
Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:33-37

This Week's Podcast:


This Week's Reflection:
321 by Melissa Bridgman
Happy New Year! I never get tired of doing that with congregations. Most folks give me strange looks and think that I've lost my mind. But, for Christians, this Sunday marks the beginning of a new year on the liturgical calendar. After being reminded that Christ is King and reigns eternal, we begin the process of waiting all over again - waiting, watching, longing, hoping - for Christ to come.

I've often thought how wonderful it would be to skip all these days leading up to the big feasts of Christmas and Easter. On this Sunday, we are reminded of a quaking earth and darkness and sin. Man, it would be much more fun to just skip right over to that precious baby being born. So, why do we have to remind our congregations every year? Why do we have to go through this over and over and over again? I know of a woman who likes to say, "I know the end of the story already! Why do we have to do this?"

We Americans don't do well with delayed gratification. In fact, we have built a culture upon finding ways to have instant gratification - fast food, high speed internet access, on-demand movies - so waiting for something that we know will be wonderful is really, really hard for us. Why wait? Why repeat this process each and every year?

It isn't some deep theological reason. It is simply that we need to remember. We need to be reminded because we tend to get caught up in our lives and we forget. Oh, we say we remember. We say that we understand the implications of the coming of the Savior, but we really just gloss over it and carry on with our lives just like usual. So, once a year, every year, we come to a brand new year in the Church and on that first day of the new year, we hear scriptures that remind us that we are sinful, that the world can be very dark, and that we need to get ready. We are reminded of these things so that we reconnect with the fact that WE REALLY NEED A SAVIOR and face the promise that A SAVIOR IS ON HIS WAY. Not just a baby Jesus born in a stable all those years ago, but the King of Kings coming to save us when he returns. A Savior that we wait for, anxious and ready, a Savior who bursts onto the scene again and again.

We may know the end of the story already, but it isn't enough to know it. We need to live it out, to experience this anticipation, this longing, this hope, so that our waiting is active and our longing is shared. Our kids understand this, though they may be waiting for new Lego's or baby dolls or electronics. May we expectantly wait for the coming of the Messiah as if we don't know the end of the story, as if we are counting the hours until Christmas morning where we will find Him waiting for us beside the tree. May we understand the need to go through this cycle every year so that our faith remains fresh, active, and real. Happy New Year, y'all! Jesus is on his way.

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Monday, October 24, 2011

Balance: Year A, Ordinary 31

This Week's Lectionary Texts
Joshua 3:7-17 or Micah 3:5-12
Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37 or Psalm 43
1 Thessalonians 2:9-13
Matthew 23:1-12


This Week's Reflection
"He doesn't walk the talk." 

"She doesn't practice what she preaches." 

These are harsh words and words that no preacher ever wants to hear said about him or herself. I imagine the Pharisees felt the same way when they heard Jesus, as Matthew writes in chapter 23, say that very thing about them.

I find myself being sympathetic with the Pharisees, though. As a preacher myself, I often feel that the sermons I write (or this blog for that matter) are like a conversation between me and God. The congregation simply has the opportunity (or burden) of eavesdropping on that conversation. So, I preach about a lot of things that I don't necessarily feel that I have "mastered." I preach a lot of words that I don't yet know how to walk day in and day out in my life.

So, what are we preachers, we broken and sinful preachers, to do with this text from Matthew this week? I think that just maybe the problem comes in when we begin to believe that we are not broken, not sinful. The problem occurs when we believe that everything we say is good and right and that everything we do supports all that is good and right. I'm not a big fan of Christianity that promotes in its believers a feeling of being no better than a worm (no offense to all the worms out there), but there is some place for a balance between thinking that we are God's gift to proclamation and thinking that we could never say anything that would be meaningful for anyone.

Jesus says to his disciples, "Listen to them. What they say is good. Just don't do what they do." Maybe it is a call for balance in living our lives between humility and vanity. This is a good lesson for preachers and for our congregations alike.
Maybe it is a call for balance in living our lives between humility and vanity.
This makes me think of the Joshua text in which God is giving him a bit of a pep talk. As if Joshua is wondering how in the world he will follow in the footsteps of the great Moses, God tells him how. God will make it possible, God will exalt him, God will lead him so that he can lead others. While Joshua may not feel worthy, may even feel a bit like a worm, God proves to him that all that is needed to lead will be provided. Right down to stopping a river from flowing so that the people can cross. It wasn't Joshua's power that did that. That was God.

It seems like a similar message is found in Micah. Beware of those who think that it all rests on their shoulders. Beware of those who preach peace, but act in violence. Beware of those who claim power that is not theirs to claim. It is the power of God that makes anything possible.

So, I don't walk the talk and I don't practice what I preach - but, I'll keep working on relying on the power of God. And, in so doing, I'll trust that I'll get better and better at both as balance comes my way.

This Week's Artwork
(in order of appearance)
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Monday, October 17, 2011

Religious, Not Christian: Year A, Ordinary 30


This Week's Lectionary Texts
Deuteronomy 34:1-12 or Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18
Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17 or Psalm 1
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Matthew 22:34-46







This Week's Resources
A Prayer for Pastors by a Pastor
Dear God who continues to call us, we come to you, broken, hurt, abused, and confused. Like Paul, we too often feel mistreated by the very people we long to serve in ministry to you. We struggle constantly with the question of how to be in the institution, but not of the institution. Help us, God. Help us when we are victims of the religious. Help us to remember the moment when we knew beyond a shadow of doubt that you had called us to ordained ministry. And, help us when we become religious leaders forgetting how to truly follow the Christ. Heal us. Heal the Church. May the healing of one aid the healing of the other so that the body of Christ on this earth become the true representation of his love. Amen.

A Litany
One:  When the religious elite stone the woman caught in adultery,
All:  Love God. Love your neighbor.
One:  When the lineage of the Messiah is called into question,
All:  Love God. Love your neighbor.
One:  When Moses is taken just to the edge of the land promised,
All:  Love God. Love your neighbor.
One:  When the Apostle Paul is mistreated by folks in the church,
All:  Love God. Love your neighbor.
One:  When the single teenaged mother comes into worship,
All:  Love God. Love your neighbor.
One:  When the man with autism yells out in the sanctuary,
All:  Love God. Love your neighbor.
One:  When we can't agree on the color of the new fellowship hall carpet,
All:  Love God. Love your neighbor.
One:  When the rules are broken,
All:  Love God. Love your neighbor.
One:  "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."
All:  "This is the first and greatest commandment."  
One:  "Love your neighbor as yourself."
All:  "All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Amen.

Think on this:
What are ways in which your congregation could physically represent putting God and neighbor above our religious nature in the Church? I do not intend to imply that being religious is only negative (I am very religious!), but in the context of these passages this week, how can we put ourselves in the place of Pharisees and Sadducees and ask God to help us to be more open to the top two commandments that Jesus shares in the Matthew passage rather than excluding people because of our religious notions of what the rules mean? 

Is there a particular wrong in the life of the congregation that was caused by religiosity taken too far? What symbols could be used in worship to represent a letting go of that event? Would a renewal of baptism or a service of healing be in order?

To take the idea of setting rules aside that may stand in our way of serving Jesus to the extreme, perhaps your congregation should do away with a bulletin this week (if your tradition is to rely on such). Or maybe this Sunday is the day to bring forward some persons who would not normally be acceptable in the sight of the members. Have them participate in leading worship by reading the scriptures or singing an appropriate song.

This Week's Reflection
I attended a conference for ordained ministers last week and I realized something. Most pastors have been through some kind clergy killing event within a particular congregation. I heard pastors repeat again and again, "I come to this conference every year because it is just for us clergy so that we can worship and be fed and taken care of." My first call after seminary ended only two years later and it was not pretty. As I told my kids just today, "It takes two to tango," but at the time I felt persecuted, abused, and unloved. If I'm being honest, there are still moments when the sting of those days sneaks up on me again. I mention the conference because I realized how many of us have had similar experiences. I mention these kinds of experiences because of the passage this week from Thessalonians. Paul is still stinging from trouble with the Philippians. It seems that he has even considered dropping out of the whole pastor business. Even though he and his companions have been treated so poorly by the church, he brings the love of God to the people in Thessalonica saying that with that love, he also brings his very self to them.

Today my mother said to me, "People who are judgmental are religious, not Christian. Unfortunately, our churches are full of the religious." We know that Paul is not the only one who came up against this fact. In the gospel lesson from Matthew, we come to the end of the many questions that the religious authorities brought to Jesus in an effort to trap him, to judge him, to make him look bad in front of others, and in hopes of getting him out of their way. "What is the greatest commandment?" Beyond anything they could have ever imagined, Jesus' answer was "The greatest is to love God, period. And, immediately behind that is to love your fellow human beings as much as you love yourself." To these religious people hell-bent on following the rules (pun intended) even when it meant hurting one of God's children, Jesus says, "Could you just love each other? Could you love God, really love God, and then share that love with everybody you meet? Could you do that, please?"

As Kathryn Matthews Huey points out in her Sermon Seeds, all of the questions by the religious folk had been to trip up Jesus, to prove that he wasn't a good Jewish rabbi, that he didn't truly understand the faith. So, to put an end to all the nonsense, Jesus asks them a question to prove that he understands very well the faith, in fact, he understands much better than they. "Whose son is the Messiah?" When they give their very church-y answer, he puts them in their place to show them and anyone who happens to be listening that they don't have everything all worked out as well as they think they do. Sadly, that is what happens to us when we try to wrap God up in a nice neat package as if we have the ability to understand God and God's ways. Luckily, we have Jesus to remind us that we don't have to understand in order to experience God's love and to share that love with others.

Simplistic, yes. But, not simple. Moses was lead right up to the edge, but did not cross into the land that was promised. Even so, the passage from Deuteronomy speaks of the love that God and the people had for Moses, saying, "Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses." And, of course, we find the source material for the Matthew quote in Leviticus when God spoke through the beloved Moses to tell the people, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord."

There are too many religious people in our churches and too few Christians. Don't get mad at me for saying it. Blame my mother! Who, by the way, is the sweetest and most devoted church lady you could ever find. I know that if she and I were to unpack that statement of hers that we would quickly come to disagree about how we define those terms and who we would categorize as each - religious and Christian - but there is truth to be found in that statement. Truth that Jesus fought against and truth that we preachers and pastors better be fighting against too - even if it means we don't get to cross over into the promised land.

Simplistic, yes. But, not simple. This Sunday may God give us strength to preach the truth of love that is God through Jesus, the Messiah. May our religious ways be continuously transformed into Christian ways by the power of the Holy Spirit. Love God, period. And, love everybody else too.

This Week's Artwork
(in order of appearance)
Job Rebuked by His Friends by William Blake
Love your neighbor as yourself by Tom Raterman
blank masks borrowed from brentcunningham.org






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Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Worship Resources:Year A, Ordinary 27


For this week's lectionary texts and reflection, scroll down to previous post.

Some resources to use in worship based on this week's texts:



Call to Worship
One:     We are all part of God's story.
Many:  A story that includes the good, the bad, and the ugly.
One:    We are all part of God's story. 
Many:  A story full of love and grace.
One:    We are part of a story, 
Many:  a story that tells of our relationship with God,
One:     a story in which God forgives us again and again. 
All:      We are part of a story in which we press on toward the goal alongside Jesus and we have come to worship God.

Call to Confession
God gifted us with the law found in the 10 commandments to help us live our best lives. God also gifted us with the grace found in Jesus Christ and promises to forgive us when we repent of our sins. So, now, before God and one another, we confess our sins.

Prayer of Confession
We too often think of you, God, as waiting for us to mess up so that you can reign down your judgement on us. Like a vineyard owner, you expect good things from us and we often let you down as if we are rotten grapes. We envy others. We lie. We steal. We are full of love for self and turn our backs on our neighbors. O God, please forgive us. Make us into the children you created us to be. Make us better. Yes, God, forgive us. Amen.

Assurance of Forgiveness
There is not much in this world that is certain, but we can be certain of this: even while we continue to sin, God forgives us over and over and over again. Never question this fact. Through Jesus Christ, we are forgiven!

Here's a thought:
What if we invited our congregations to share parts of their own stories with God? What if there was a moment around the offering where people had the opportunity to vocalize their role in the story of God with God's people? If you have a large congregation, you could invite two or three people ahead of time to be prepared to do this. A smaller congregation could have "leading questions" listed in the bulletin to help focus the sharing. Those questions could be something like, "In what ways have you seen the grace of God extended to you over and over again?" or "What does it mean to you to press on toward the goal?" If your congregation is one that uses live Twitter feed, these questions could be answered on that feed during worship. In what other ways could we be creative in worship?


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