A Consistent Ethic Of Love
Children's sermon
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Object:
There is probably no other topic in American life that inflames passions as deeply as that of abortion -- as we were reminded again with last week's anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing the practice. Both advocates and opponents of abortion see themselves as defending basic human rights, and for many people trying to navigate through the competing calls to protect the lives of unborn children while respecting women's prerogatives to make decisions about their own bodies is a difficult and conflicted process that requires the wisdom of Solomon. But for those on the barricades at the forefront of the abortion wars (on both sides), there is little room for debate -- as exemplified by those participating in last week's massive March for Life, for whom the sanctity of human life is non-negotiable.
At first glance, it appears that the Jeremiah passage appointed by the lectionary for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany provides abortion opponents with solid scriptural support for their position. But in this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Dean Feldmeyer cautions us that a much more appropriate text for approaching not only abortion but also many other contentious issues is Paul's famous paean to love in First Corinthians, which serves as this week's lectionary epistle text. Dean points out that it is only in the context of an overarching approach to life grounded in love that we can attempt to deal with all of the various ethical dilemmas raised by abortion... and that love, rather than judgment and condemnation, is the only truly viable starting point for determining where we stand.
Team member Ron Love offers some additional thoughts on this week's gospel text, in which Jesus' blunt words turn his hometown folk into a raging mob intent on hurling him off a cliff. Jesus clearly feels no constraints about saying exactly what he really means, even if it offends his audience. Ron contrasts this with several examples from recent headlines of public figures who felt the need to keep the true meaning of their words hidden in the shadows, lest they face the consequences of having their true intentions revealed. There is definitely freedom in being able to say what you really think -- and Ron tells us that we should emulate Jesus by standing up and speaking the truth of the scriptures, no matter the ramifications.
A Consistent Ethic of Love
by Dean Feldmeyer
Jeremiah 1:4-10; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you..." (Jeremiah 1:4-5a)
Jeremiah's autobiographical account of his calling provides a plethora of preaching points: the nature of God's call (I appointed you); our reluctance in the face of God's call (I am only a boy); God's response to our reluctance (do not say, "I am only a boy"); God's faithfulness (I am with you to deliver you); our faithfulness in preaching (I have put my words in your mouth).
Unfortunately, despite the fertile preaching ground this passage presents, it is to the issue of abortion that it is most often applied in the contemporary American church. It is regularly used by anti-abortion advocates as biblical evidence that human fetuses are apparently fully known by God as persons before they are even formed in the womb and purposed by God before they are born.
If we preachers elect to use this passage as an opportunity to enter the minefield that is abortion, we must make sure that we do so in the context of a consistent, biblical ethic based in love and supported by sound biblical scholarship.
THE WORLD
(This section is informed heavily by David Clary's article for the Associated Press.)
January 22, 2013 marked the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court's landslide (7-2) Roe v. Wade decision making abortion constitutionally legal.
Since an abortion is a medical procedure it is protected by patient confidentiality laws, so it is nearly impossible to know precisely the number of abortions that occur in this country every year -- but the most conservative estimates put the total number performed since Roe v. Wade at about 50-55 million. If that number is correct, roughly one third of American women over 18 have experienced abortions, and while the number of abortions in the U.S. is at the lowest point in the past 40 years, the debate doesn't appear to be going away.
According to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 70% of Americans believe that Roe v. Wade should stand, the highest level of support since polls began tracking it in 1989. About 9% believe that abortion should be illegal in all cases, with no exceptions for rape or incest.
Both sides of the abortion debate see themselves as champions of civil rights, "trying to expand the frontiers of human freedom," says Jon Shields, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. That, he says, is "a recipe for permanent conflict."
Alan Guttmacher, an obstetrician/gynecologist who was an early advocate for abortion rights and who served in the 1960s as president of Planned Parenthood, wrote shortly after the Roe v. Wade decision that "the ironic fact is that those who oppose and those who favor legalization of abortion share a common goal -- the elimination of all abortion." One side wants to do so by making it illegal, the other side seeks to do so by making birth control so widely and easily available that there would no longer be any unwanted pregnancies.
Those who oppose legalized abortion argue from the point of view that a fetus is a fully formed human being from the moment of conception and has all the rights of a human being, especially the right to life. Some believe that exceptions can be made in the case of rape or incest, others do not.
Those in favor of legalized abortion hold that a woman's right to control her own body trumps the right of a fetus to live therein. There is no consensus in the pro-choice camp as to when a fetus achieves full personhood -- some set that time at the point of "viability," when the fetus can survive outside the womb without extraordinary medical measures, others set it at the point of birth. Most, however, agree that all that can be done should be done to keep abortions "legal, safe, and rare."
The argument usually boils down to competitive rights. Whose rights will prevail: Those of the fetus to continue living within and taking its sustenance from the mother, or those of the mother to control her own body?
When the church enters the debate we must be sure that we do so from sound biblical scholarship.
THE WORD
Let us be clear from the outset that the purpose of Jeremiah in telling the story of his calling is not to make a scientific argument about the nature of fetal viability -- when and how it occurs in the womb. Jeremiah makes no claim to any such scientific knowledge.
Jeremiah's goal is to give an account of how he became a prophet of God. He did not leap into that role suddenly, recently, or out of some fanciful or egotistical notion of his own wisdom and importance. Jeremiah was called to prophesy in his youth by the voice of YHWH himself, and he came to the job hesitantly and reluctantly over a long period of time.
It was only after God gave young Jeremiah some assurance that he was not going forth alone but with God as his constant companion and guide that he accepted his calling and since that day it had been a constant burden.
If we would be faithful to the biblical witness in creating an ethical position on abortion, we would do better to leave Jeremiah and allow ourselves to be guided by the epistle reading for this day -- 1 Corinthians 13.
In his first letter to the Corinthian church, Paul speaks to the church's bitter arguments over the gifts of the spirit, reminding them that God distributes gifts to all for the common good. Then he admonishes them to "seek the higher gifts," and in chapter 13 he explains what those higher gifts are: faith, hope, and love.
And the greatest of the higher gifts is love.
While this passage has become a staple of the wedding liturgy in many churches, the love of which Paul speaks is not eros, that romantic love we celebrate on Valentine's Day, but rather agape, or charity (the King James Version probably is more correct). Agape is that deep, profound, and abiding concern for the welfare of others. It is that love which accepts and edifies its object with no regard for reciprocity.
This love of others that seeks only their welfare is what should and must guide the church as we seek an ethical approach to the subject of abortion.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
An ethic of abortion based in agape will seek the optimum welfare of both the mother and the fetus she carries. It will also be part of a consistent ethic which holds that human life, all human life, is loved by God.
It may very well be that this is the archetypal example of which Dietrich Bonhoeffer speaks when he says that responsible action is that which "has not to decide simply between right and wrong and between good and evil but between right and right and between wrong and wrong. As Aeschylus said, 'right strives with right' " (Ethics [Touchstone, 1995; translated by Neville Horton Smith from the 6th German edition, 1949]).
The well-crafted sermon that is brave enough to take on this topic will be grounded firmly in Paul's hymn to love and return there often. It will, of necessity, pose more questions than it answers.
The preacher would do well, in the beginning of the sermon, to avoid discussing the "legal" aspects of this topic and stick to the personal moral/ethical questions. What are the concerns that drive a decision to have or forgo an abortion? Is it agape or those other, lesser things Paul rejects as un-loving?
Then, when we come to the question of what should be legal and what should not, we can ask the same questions. What is most loving for all concerned?
Once we have determined what our ethical stand will be, knowing that we have done so "wholly within the domain of relativity, wholly in the twilight which the historical situation spreads over good and evil and... in the midst of innumerable perspectives in which every given phenomenon appears" (Bonhoeffer, Ethics), we must then allow love to guide how we practice that stand in the public forum. How shall we treat those who disagree with us? How shall we demonstrate that we are guided and motivated by love?
Finally, the sermon will remind us that this "test of love" is not held in reserve for the question of abortion alone but for all matters ethical and moral. Our moral/ethical stand on abortion cannot be an outlier in the greater scheme of our morality. It must fit neatly and consistently within an ethic that holds love above all else when making moral decisions -- about economic issues, about war and peace, about crime and punishment, about politics, and about every other issue that shapes our lives together.
For Christians, our stand on abortion must be part of an ethical mosaic that loves every child as much as we love this unborn one and every woman as much as we love this pregnant and troubled mother. Then and only then can our ethical stand on abortion and the acts that flow from it be considered fully responsible because they are "performed in the obligation to God and to our neighbor as they confront us in Jesus Christ" (Bonhoeffer, Ethics).
(I am indebted to and grateful for the work of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernadin, who is credited with coining the phrase "a consistent ethic of life." For more reading on this marvelous challenge for all Christians, see his lectures collected at here.)
SECOND THOUGHTS
Standing in the Shadow
by Ron Love
Luke 4:21-30
In March 2012, President Barack Obama had a sit-down meeting in Seoul with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. They were discussing the controversial issue of a European missile defense shield, which the United States backed and Russia opposed. In the course of the dialogue, when Obama did not know that his microphone was on, he said to Medvedev: "This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility."
The media from coast to coast criticized this comment, implying that the president planned to sneak past Congress a foreign policy doctrine after his second and final election. But everyone also knew the truth of this comment, that once unencumbered from concerns about being reelected Obama was freer to speak his mind and be less hesitant in his actions. What is sad is that for the president and any leader, truth should take precedence over future personal, political, or business gain.
President Obama's second inaugural address demonstrates the freedom of speaking what one truly believes without fear or concern of retribution. Dividing the country right and left, Republican and Democrat, Obama showed little concern for the former when he put forth his social agenda in the 57th presidential iteration, and the first one to promote gay rights and same-sex marriage. During his 18-minute speech he also promoted laws addressing women's rights, the virtue of programs for the retired and disabled, gun control, climate change, and immigration reform.
Putting your personal political stance aside, one wonders why it took being free from the electoral process for the president, who is in this case representative of all political and business leaders, to openly thunder forth his personal beliefs. And those of us who never face reelection for anything, equally find ways to hide from speaking our mind rather than be chastised and criticized by others.
What would happen if we followed the leadership of Jesus in the synagogue? The rabbis and people were amazed at what Jesus said, but at the same time they became angry. However, Jesus was not concerned about their anger; he was only concerned that "today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
It certainly wasn't Lance Armstrong standing in the synagogue. After years of denial that he used performance-enhancing drugs, Armstrong chose to make his public confession before the warm and fuzzy talk show host Oprah Winfrey. Though Winfrey was not restricted in her questioning, she cannot be categorized as an investigative reporter. David Howman, the director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), said of Armstrong, "He's got to follow a certain course. That is not talking to a talk show host." Howman went on to say, "Only when Mr. Armstrong makes a full confession under oath -- and tells the anti-doping authorities all he knows about doping activities -- can any legal and proper process for him to seek reopening or reconsideration of his lifetime ban commence." A testimony under oath would also require Armstrong to reveal the names of all of those involved in his doping scheme and make him liable to those who financially promoted his cycling team and contracted him for advertising endorsements. The farthest Armstrong got into the synagogue was in the shadow of its doorway.
Many stand in the shadow of the synagogue's doorway. When Manti Te'o, a linebacker at the University of Notre Dame, discovered that his online girlfriend was a hoax, he told Katie Couric on an episode of her talk show that "I wasn't as forthcoming about it (as I could have been)," though he went on to say, "But I didn't lie." Then there is Mark Sanford, the former governor of South Carolina, now divorced and engaged, who must have finished his walk along the Appalachian Trail because he is now running for Congress in his previous district. Perhaps the worst shadow to be currently uncovered concerns Archbishop Roger Mahony of the Roman Catholic church's Los Angeles Diocese, and the memos that reveal he purposely shielded pedophile priests and hid them from legal authorities. In keeping one priest hidden from the public so he could not been seen by one of his victims, the Archbishop wrote this as a justification: "... we might very well have some type of legal action filed in both the criminal and civil sectors."
Let us move out of the shadow of the doorway, and like Jesus, stand in the center of the synagogue and proclaim, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
Sermon Preparation
Discuss how we must stand forthright like Jesus -- unashamed, unapologetic, and most certainly unafraid to speak the truth of the scriptures.
ILLUSTRATIONS
William Sloane Coffin said pastors have two roles -- the priestly and the prophetic. If you wish to serve in your role of "disturber of the peace" (Coffin's words) as well as in your priestly capacity this week in worship, Barbara Kay Lundblad's article for the Huffington Post offers a variety of avenues toward disruption. This is especially true because the text from Jeremiah for this week, typically used as a slogan for pro-life sign-bearers, coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling. Lundblad has many thoughtful points to make about what it means to live as the Body of Christ (which could also be linked to the 1 Corinthians and Luke passages) and disagree on abortion (and all the adjacent hot-button issues). She offers a different view of our pro-life calling as people of faith. A snippet from Lundblad's post...
All people of faith are called to be "pro-life." But pro-life is bigger than the claim of one side in the ongoing debates about abortion. Pro-life is good news for the poor and freedom for those oppressed. Pro-life includes all members of the body -- children already born as well as unborn, women as well as any children they may bear. "If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it." Paul didn't give us answers about abortion, but he did remind us that, in spite of our differences, we're all part of the one body.
* * *
Jim Wallis of Sojourners and God's Politics fame has now stepped into the realm of international relations, politics, economics, and stewardship in his work as a co-author of a New Social Covenant (Adobe PDF) and with the Global Action Council on Values. In this work meant to inform and shape the conversation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Wallis and his colleagues issue a call for all stakeholders ("civil society groups, people of faith, and especially young people") to make all decisions in a self-conscious and cooperative way that upholds the three "global values" that the authors say have a "consensus across cultures and religions."
These are the three values:
1) the dignity of the human person;
2) the importance of the common good, which transcends individual interests; and
3) the need for stewardship of the planet and posterity.
Wallis and his colleagues observe that "together these offer a powerful unifying ideal: Valued individuals, committed to one another, and respectful of future generations." They posit that this New Social Covenant will promote human flourishing, happiness, and well-being, and it could "lead to new practices driving both ethical and practical decisions about the economics of our local and global households."
This all sounds a bit like the social covenant of love behind this week's passage from Paul's letter to the Corinthians. Much more than a glib go-to for weddings, this poetic piece is really better understood as a covenant of how we must live as one body, the Body, in love for and with one another. Love is patient, kind, generous, humble, committed, truthful, strong, hopeful, and enduring, it says. Could it be that when we uphold this kind of social covenant of love, our vision becomes clear (v. 12) and our understanding grows completion? If that is so, then let's get to talking about and covenanting in love for one another and for the wide world. For, as Wallis puts it at the end of his recent blog (http://sojo.net/blogs/2013/01/24/call-new-social-covenant) on this topic, "What better conversation could we have for the common good?"
* * *
If you've spent any time in arcades, you may remember a venerable old machine called a "Love Tester." Once upon a time it probably occupied a place of honor near the entrance, but these days it's likely tucked away in a dark corner, replaced by glitzy, high-tech video games.
The "Love Tester" is decidedly low-tech. What it is, essentially, is a metal handgrip with an array of electric lights behind it. The harder you squeeze the handgrip, the more lights come on. Each light symbolizes a rung on the ladder of physical attractiveness, from repulsive wimp to red-hot lover. Someplace on the machine, written in small print, is this stern disclaimer: "For Amusement Only" -- as though anybody could ever mistake the Love Tester for a real piece of scientific apparatus!
Surely no one takes it seriously -- the Love Tester's more of a joke... an "amusement." Yet even so, for a generation or more this little amusement has raked in enough nickels, dimes, and quarters for the arcade owners to keep it around.
Why is that? Why do visitors continue to plunk their hard-earned money into the Love Tester? Could it be that there's a little part of all of us that secretly wishes there were really such a thing as a Love Tester? Think of it: You could bring your friend, family member, or spouse to the Love Tester any time you want and check that person out. You could analyze the one you love to see if the spark is still there, if the feelings still run strong.
First Corinthians 13 is about a different sort of love test. It's not a test of attractiveness to the opposite sex, but rather a test of that rare and selfless kind of love the Greeks call agape.
* * *
As Christians we know we are called to love. As human beings, we do not always know what it takes to act lovingly. For this reason, 1 Corinthians 13 proves helpful. In these few short verses, Paul lists as many as 20 different characteristics of love.
Those that are negatively worded give insight into behaviors that are to be avoided. Love is not jealous or boastful. It is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrong. These admonitions make a good list of diagnostic questions: Am I jealous, boastful, or proud? Do I have a scornful attitude? Do I rejoice at the wrong others think they do? Am I always angry? Do I hold grudges?
Love expects more than the avoidance of negative behavior. It requires positive action. As Paul put it: Love is patient and kind. It rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. We need to keep before us those issues. Do I look for ways to be constructive? Do I believe the best about people? Do I endure whatever is hurled at me?
* * *
The obscurity and apparent heterodoxy of much of the work of the English poet, artist, and visionary William Blake prevented him from attaining during his life the sort of celebrity he enjoys today. Filled with a deep and powerful vision of a loving God, he saw a world around him which mouthed the words of love, but whose actions opposed God's ways. His best-known work is the hymn "Jerusalem," which, set to Hubert Parry's stirring melody, became almost an unofficial national anthem for England, but which Blake intended as a polemic against the greed and inhumanity of the industrial revolution. Another poem contrasting God's love and the way the world "loves" is found in Blake's Songs of Innocence, published in 1794:
"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair."
So sung a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet;
"Love seeketh only self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite."
* * *
In this week's passage from Luke's gospel, Jesus is busy blowing apart the tribal loyalties of the people from his hometown.
"Remember Elijah?" he says. "He didn't come to save Israel's widows during the famine. Who was it that he fed? A widow from Sidon in Lebanon. A foreigner. An outsider."
He continues, "Remember Elisha? All those lepers in Israel, and he cleansed Naaman the Syrian. What do you suppose that's all about?"
Anytime the church thinks it can shut its doors, decide whom Jesus came to save and where and in whom God can show up, the church better think again.
Pastor and Emerging Church guru Nadia Bolz-Weber warns against any attempts to domesticate or confine the power of God's loving salvation in Jesus in her "Sermon on Pirates in the Nativity and How God Incarnates the Impossible Among the Unlikely":
In a way, the story of Jesus' birth is about God redeeming the whole world through making the impossible happen to the unlikely. Which is important to remember since within the first few hundred years, Christianity had lost its original dinginess, its origins of marginalized people and out-of-wedlock pregnancies and beloved prostitutes and dinner parties with all the wrong people and loving the enemy, which all quickly gave way to respectability and fancy robes and emperors and pageantry.
But if you really look at the story of God coming to us in Jesus, how it involved such people of low-estate and scandalous circumstances ,it starts to not make a whole lot of sense that today being part of church so often means checking at the door any part of you that may have perfectly fit in at the weird birth of our Lord. The parts of you that smell like they live outside, or the parts of your story that seem scandalous like Mary's pregnancy or kind of disturbing like Elizabeth's pregnancy. It's weird how much we've sanitized this Christianity thing, because anyone who thinks that respectability and status and being nice is what the Gospel is about never really listened closely to the original cast recording. Which includes songs sung by pregnant teenagers and pagan magicians and pregnant old women. Songs of pulling tyrants down from their thrones.
See, I think that if we were deciding the respectable and church-y way for God to come among us it would have been for God to appear already powerful as a grown human in raiment and glory in some place really impressive, like Rome. Or, like, at the White House prayer breakfast. And at our version of God's great appearance on earth would be all the important people with titles like emperor and king and Chief Executive Officer and they would dress really fancy with those amazing sash things. And if we were choosing who should bear the message about God's coming it wouldn't be John the Baptist, it would be like, Ted Koppel. Or someone with a low authoritative voice, a strong jaw, and a necktie. And then God would come to dwell with us surrounded with all the people worthy to be a part of such an impressive event.
But that's not what we get in the story of Jesus. Because if God just acted in ways we thought made sense or that were respectable and predictable to us we could all just be our own Gods.
* * *
The people in Jesus' hometown grow angry when it seems like they won't get all the benefits that Jesus will give to other people, in other places. He outlines how people come to know the abundant grace of God, and then goes on to say that it's for other folks, people who seem like strangers to them.
We often put prisoners in the category of people who don't deserve anything, and Maria Finn writes on the Daily Good website about a garden program on Rikers Island that offers grace to prisoners there.
As Finn writes, "Rikers Island [is] the infamous jail, known, ominously, as The Rock. It holds 12,000 pretrial detainees who can't afford to post bail, as well as 4,000 prisoners sentenced to a year or less in jail. Eight years ago only overgrown weeds covered the two acres that now make up the Rikers Island gardens. Since that time more than 300 'students,' as a select group of Rikers inmates are called, have passed through the prison's GreenHouse Program, run by James Jiler for the Horticultural Society of New York."
Gardens flourish, and so do the inmates. The article quotes James Jiler as saying, "This place is about transformation," adding, "the students learn that if you can transform this environment, you can transform your life, yourself. We try to use the program at the gardens to help people build self-esteem." Students plant and tend flowers that are sent to gardens around New York, allowing the students to give back to the city. This lessens their sense of isolation. Jiler adds: "Most people view prisons as sinkholes.... We want to be contributing to society here. This way, by giving back to projects such as the library gardens, the students feel like part of the community and less marginalized."
For city dwellers, nature itself often feels alien, and the program provides a connection to plants and birds, as well as back to the community.
* * *
In this tough economic climate, when it seems like there aren't enough jobs to go around, people feel -- understandably -- bitter about the jobs that have moved overseas. Many people feel like we can barely support the population we have, let alone allow immigrants to move here.
Walter A. Ewing of the Immigration Policy Center sees deeper connections between immigrants and people born here, and makes a case that immigrants actually benefit the U.S. economy. Ewing cites a 2012 report (Adobe PDF) from the Information Technology Industry Council, Partnership for a New American Economy, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which says that "Every foreign-born student who graduates from a U.S. university with an advanced degree and stays to work in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] has been shown to create on average 2.62 jobs for American workers -- often because they help lead in innovation, research, and development." Ewing adds: "A 2007 study by researchers at Duke University and Harvard University concluded that one quarter of all engineering and technology-related companies founded in the United States from 1995 to 2005 'had at least one immigrant key founder,' and that these companies 'produced $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers in 2005.' Similarly, a 2011 report from the Partnership for a New American Economy (Adobe PDF) concluded that immigrants were founders of 18% of all Fortune 500 companies, many of which are high-tech giants. As of 2010, these immigrant-founded companies generated $1.7 trillion in annual revenue and employed 3.6 million workers worldwide. President Obama has noted on many occasions that these companies include Google, Yahoo!, eBay, and other well-known names."
The divisions between us may not be as sharp as we often believe, and those who feel that immigrants to America are taking something from us may be surprised to find that we are the ones receiving something.
* * *
Kids are often warned not to talk to strangers, but defining what constitutes a stranger is difficult. As the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says on its website: "When questioned, children will often describe a 'stranger' as someone who is 'ugly or mean.' They don't perceive nice-looking or friendly people as 'strangers.' And if someone talks to a child or is even around a child more than once, that person loses his or her 'stranger' status. The child then thinks he or she 'knows' the person. Children also want to be helpful, thrive on adult approval, and respond to adult authority. So, if someone with ill intent asks them to perform a task or tells them something has happened to a loved one, chances are good the child can be tricked."
The Center adds: "The 'stranger-danger' message becomes even more confusing for children since they can't tell by looking at someone whether or not the person is 'good' or 'bad.' Wouldn't it be great if we could point out the 'bad' people to our children and be done with it? Whether it's in a grocery store or at a baseball game, adults break the rule of 'don't talk to strangers' all the time. But adults have the benefit of experience, judgment, and decision-making skills; children do not. And sometimes adults are wrong. So, if we can't identify 'bad' people, we certainly can't expect our children to."
Those "other people" are harder to identify than we think. For kids, who have a lot to teach us, the idea of a stranger disappears quickly. Some people are dangerous to children, but most often they're someone we know, despite all of our focus on strangers.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: In you, O God, we take refuge;
People: let us never be put to shame.
Leader: In your righteousness deliver us and rescue us;
People: incline your ear to us and save us.
Leader: Be to us a rock of refuge, a strong fortress.
People: Rescue us, O God, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.
OR
Leader: God calls us to receive love and life eternal.
People: Our hearts are restless for the life God offers.
Leader: God desires for all creation to find wholeness.
People: We offer ourselves to be God's instruments of redemption.
Leader: In offering others God's love, we discover it for ourselves.
People: In sharing God's life, we find eternal life.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
"I'll Praise My Maker While I've Breath"
found in:
UMH: 60
H82: 429
PH: 253
CH: 20
"All Creatures of Our God and King"
found in:
UMH: 62
H82: 400
PH: 455
AAHH: 147
NNBH: 33
NCH: 17
CH: 22
LBW: 527
ELA: 835
W&P: 23
AMEC: 50
STLT: 203
Renew: 47
"God, Whose Love Is Reigning O'er Us"
found in:
UMH: 100
"God of the Sparrow"
found in:
UMH: 122
PH: 272
NCH: 32
CH: 70
ELA: 740
W&P: 29
"Christ for the World We Sing"
found in:
UMH: 568
H82: 537
W&P: 561
AMEC: 565
Renew: 299
"Where Charity and Love Prevail"
found in:
UMH: 549
H82: 581
NCH: 396
LBW: 126
ELA: 359
"Love Divine, All Loves Excelling"
found in:
UMH: 384
H82: 657
PH: 376
AAHH: 440
NNBH: 65
NCH: 43
CH: 517
LBW: 315
ELA: 631
W&P: 358
AMEC: 455
Renew: 196
"O Love, How Deep"
found in:
UMH: 267
H82: 448/449
PH: 83
NCH: 209
LBW: 88
ELA: 322
W&P: 244
"As the Deer"
found in:
CCB: 83
Renew: 9
"For the Gift of Creation"
found in:
CCB: 67
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who is love and who is life: Grant us the grace to live our lives fully in your love that we may treat others and the issues of life with care and justice always; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
Help us, O God who is life and who is love, to not only offer you our worship but also to offer you our lives as vessels for your love. Help us to be so in love with you that we serve others with that love. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to look at issues through the lens of love.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We talk about you as a God of love, but we do not apply that ethic to our own actions -- we look for what is pragmatic or in our own best interest. We fail to ask what is best for others. Forgive us and renew your Spirit within us that we may think and act in your love. Amen.
Leader: God is love and those who live in God must live in love. Know that God's Spirit is upon us and within us so that we may live as God's people.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord's Prayer)
Praise and glory be to you, O God, Creator of the universe and the giver of life.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We talk about you as a God of love, but we do not apply that ethic to our own actions -- we look for what is pragmatic or in our own best interest. We fail to ask what is best for others. Forgive us and renew your Spirit within us that we may think and act in your love.
We give you thanks for the gift of life and for your love that fills it and gives it meaning. We thank you for all the ways your love is reflected in creation. We thank you for the bounty of the earth and for those who act in your Spirit.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for each other in our need and especially for those who find it hard to believe in love or a God of love. We pray for those whose lives are taken from them and for those whose sense of meaning is destroyed by the circumstances of their existence.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father... Amen.
(or if the Lord's Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children's Sermon Starter
Ask the children about different scenarios where people act out of greed, justice, mean-spiritedness, or love. Ask them which is a loving way to act. Love is much more than how we feel about Mom or ice cream. Love, especially when we talk about it at Church, is about how we treat people.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Agape
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Object: a large piece of cardboard with the word "agape" printed on it
Good morning, boys and girls! I want to ask you some questions today about a certain English word that we use a lot. The word is "love." We use this word in a different ways. For instance, we might say that we saw a movie and we "loved" it. Have you ever said that? (let the children answer) We might also say that we "love" our parents. Now, is there any difference between the kind of love we have for our parents and the kind of love we meant when we said we loved the movie? (let them answer) I surely hope so! Still, in both cases we used the same word. The problem is that in English we have only the one word for love, and we use it in different ways.
Now, the New Testament of the Bible was written in Greek, and in Greek there are three different words for love. When the Bible talks about faith, hope, and love and says that the greatest of these three is love, it uses this Greek word for love. (Show the cardboard sign with "agape" written on it.) This kind of love, agape, is a totally unselfish love. It's the kind of love that Jesus has for us, the kind of love that he showed when he went to the cross and died for us. It's the kind of love that we need to have for God. There is no greater love than this. It certainly means a lot more than when we say we love a movie, a toy, or a game.
Let's ask God to help us have this kind of love for Him and for others.
Prayer: Dear Father in heaven, please help us love you in the way that you love us. Help us love others also so that we can show agape love as you want us to do. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, February 3, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
At first glance, it appears that the Jeremiah passage appointed by the lectionary for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany provides abortion opponents with solid scriptural support for their position. But in this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Dean Feldmeyer cautions us that a much more appropriate text for approaching not only abortion but also many other contentious issues is Paul's famous paean to love in First Corinthians, which serves as this week's lectionary epistle text. Dean points out that it is only in the context of an overarching approach to life grounded in love that we can attempt to deal with all of the various ethical dilemmas raised by abortion... and that love, rather than judgment and condemnation, is the only truly viable starting point for determining where we stand.
Team member Ron Love offers some additional thoughts on this week's gospel text, in which Jesus' blunt words turn his hometown folk into a raging mob intent on hurling him off a cliff. Jesus clearly feels no constraints about saying exactly what he really means, even if it offends his audience. Ron contrasts this with several examples from recent headlines of public figures who felt the need to keep the true meaning of their words hidden in the shadows, lest they face the consequences of having their true intentions revealed. There is definitely freedom in being able to say what you really think -- and Ron tells us that we should emulate Jesus by standing up and speaking the truth of the scriptures, no matter the ramifications.
A Consistent Ethic of Love
by Dean Feldmeyer
Jeremiah 1:4-10; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you..." (Jeremiah 1:4-5a)
Jeremiah's autobiographical account of his calling provides a plethora of preaching points: the nature of God's call (I appointed you); our reluctance in the face of God's call (I am only a boy); God's response to our reluctance (do not say, "I am only a boy"); God's faithfulness (I am with you to deliver you); our faithfulness in preaching (I have put my words in your mouth).
Unfortunately, despite the fertile preaching ground this passage presents, it is to the issue of abortion that it is most often applied in the contemporary American church. It is regularly used by anti-abortion advocates as biblical evidence that human fetuses are apparently fully known by God as persons before they are even formed in the womb and purposed by God before they are born.
If we preachers elect to use this passage as an opportunity to enter the minefield that is abortion, we must make sure that we do so in the context of a consistent, biblical ethic based in love and supported by sound biblical scholarship.
THE WORLD
(This section is informed heavily by David Clary's article for the Associated Press.)
January 22, 2013 marked the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court's landslide (7-2) Roe v. Wade decision making abortion constitutionally legal.
Since an abortion is a medical procedure it is protected by patient confidentiality laws, so it is nearly impossible to know precisely the number of abortions that occur in this country every year -- but the most conservative estimates put the total number performed since Roe v. Wade at about 50-55 million. If that number is correct, roughly one third of American women over 18 have experienced abortions, and while the number of abortions in the U.S. is at the lowest point in the past 40 years, the debate doesn't appear to be going away.
According to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 70% of Americans believe that Roe v. Wade should stand, the highest level of support since polls began tracking it in 1989. About 9% believe that abortion should be illegal in all cases, with no exceptions for rape or incest.
Both sides of the abortion debate see themselves as champions of civil rights, "trying to expand the frontiers of human freedom," says Jon Shields, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. That, he says, is "a recipe for permanent conflict."
Alan Guttmacher, an obstetrician/gynecologist who was an early advocate for abortion rights and who served in the 1960s as president of Planned Parenthood, wrote shortly after the Roe v. Wade decision that "the ironic fact is that those who oppose and those who favor legalization of abortion share a common goal -- the elimination of all abortion." One side wants to do so by making it illegal, the other side seeks to do so by making birth control so widely and easily available that there would no longer be any unwanted pregnancies.
Those who oppose legalized abortion argue from the point of view that a fetus is a fully formed human being from the moment of conception and has all the rights of a human being, especially the right to life. Some believe that exceptions can be made in the case of rape or incest, others do not.
Those in favor of legalized abortion hold that a woman's right to control her own body trumps the right of a fetus to live therein. There is no consensus in the pro-choice camp as to when a fetus achieves full personhood -- some set that time at the point of "viability," when the fetus can survive outside the womb without extraordinary medical measures, others set it at the point of birth. Most, however, agree that all that can be done should be done to keep abortions "legal, safe, and rare."
The argument usually boils down to competitive rights. Whose rights will prevail: Those of the fetus to continue living within and taking its sustenance from the mother, or those of the mother to control her own body?
When the church enters the debate we must be sure that we do so from sound biblical scholarship.
THE WORD
Let us be clear from the outset that the purpose of Jeremiah in telling the story of his calling is not to make a scientific argument about the nature of fetal viability -- when and how it occurs in the womb. Jeremiah makes no claim to any such scientific knowledge.
Jeremiah's goal is to give an account of how he became a prophet of God. He did not leap into that role suddenly, recently, or out of some fanciful or egotistical notion of his own wisdom and importance. Jeremiah was called to prophesy in his youth by the voice of YHWH himself, and he came to the job hesitantly and reluctantly over a long period of time.
It was only after God gave young Jeremiah some assurance that he was not going forth alone but with God as his constant companion and guide that he accepted his calling and since that day it had been a constant burden.
If we would be faithful to the biblical witness in creating an ethical position on abortion, we would do better to leave Jeremiah and allow ourselves to be guided by the epistle reading for this day -- 1 Corinthians 13.
In his first letter to the Corinthian church, Paul speaks to the church's bitter arguments over the gifts of the spirit, reminding them that God distributes gifts to all for the common good. Then he admonishes them to "seek the higher gifts," and in chapter 13 he explains what those higher gifts are: faith, hope, and love.
And the greatest of the higher gifts is love.
While this passage has become a staple of the wedding liturgy in many churches, the love of which Paul speaks is not eros, that romantic love we celebrate on Valentine's Day, but rather agape, or charity (the King James Version probably is more correct). Agape is that deep, profound, and abiding concern for the welfare of others. It is that love which accepts and edifies its object with no regard for reciprocity.
This love of others that seeks only their welfare is what should and must guide the church as we seek an ethical approach to the subject of abortion.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
An ethic of abortion based in agape will seek the optimum welfare of both the mother and the fetus she carries. It will also be part of a consistent ethic which holds that human life, all human life, is loved by God.
It may very well be that this is the archetypal example of which Dietrich Bonhoeffer speaks when he says that responsible action is that which "has not to decide simply between right and wrong and between good and evil but between right and right and between wrong and wrong. As Aeschylus said, 'right strives with right' " (Ethics [Touchstone, 1995; translated by Neville Horton Smith from the 6th German edition, 1949]).
The well-crafted sermon that is brave enough to take on this topic will be grounded firmly in Paul's hymn to love and return there often. It will, of necessity, pose more questions than it answers.
The preacher would do well, in the beginning of the sermon, to avoid discussing the "legal" aspects of this topic and stick to the personal moral/ethical questions. What are the concerns that drive a decision to have or forgo an abortion? Is it agape or those other, lesser things Paul rejects as un-loving?
Then, when we come to the question of what should be legal and what should not, we can ask the same questions. What is most loving for all concerned?
Once we have determined what our ethical stand will be, knowing that we have done so "wholly within the domain of relativity, wholly in the twilight which the historical situation spreads over good and evil and... in the midst of innumerable perspectives in which every given phenomenon appears" (Bonhoeffer, Ethics), we must then allow love to guide how we practice that stand in the public forum. How shall we treat those who disagree with us? How shall we demonstrate that we are guided and motivated by love?
Finally, the sermon will remind us that this "test of love" is not held in reserve for the question of abortion alone but for all matters ethical and moral. Our moral/ethical stand on abortion cannot be an outlier in the greater scheme of our morality. It must fit neatly and consistently within an ethic that holds love above all else when making moral decisions -- about economic issues, about war and peace, about crime and punishment, about politics, and about every other issue that shapes our lives together.
For Christians, our stand on abortion must be part of an ethical mosaic that loves every child as much as we love this unborn one and every woman as much as we love this pregnant and troubled mother. Then and only then can our ethical stand on abortion and the acts that flow from it be considered fully responsible because they are "performed in the obligation to God and to our neighbor as they confront us in Jesus Christ" (Bonhoeffer, Ethics).
(I am indebted to and grateful for the work of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernadin, who is credited with coining the phrase "a consistent ethic of life." For more reading on this marvelous challenge for all Christians, see his lectures collected at here.)
SECOND THOUGHTS
Standing in the Shadow
by Ron Love
Luke 4:21-30
In March 2012, President Barack Obama had a sit-down meeting in Seoul with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. They were discussing the controversial issue of a European missile defense shield, which the United States backed and Russia opposed. In the course of the dialogue, when Obama did not know that his microphone was on, he said to Medvedev: "This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility."
The media from coast to coast criticized this comment, implying that the president planned to sneak past Congress a foreign policy doctrine after his second and final election. But everyone also knew the truth of this comment, that once unencumbered from concerns about being reelected Obama was freer to speak his mind and be less hesitant in his actions. What is sad is that for the president and any leader, truth should take precedence over future personal, political, or business gain.
President Obama's second inaugural address demonstrates the freedom of speaking what one truly believes without fear or concern of retribution. Dividing the country right and left, Republican and Democrat, Obama showed little concern for the former when he put forth his social agenda in the 57th presidential iteration, and the first one to promote gay rights and same-sex marriage. During his 18-minute speech he also promoted laws addressing women's rights, the virtue of programs for the retired and disabled, gun control, climate change, and immigration reform.
Putting your personal political stance aside, one wonders why it took being free from the electoral process for the president, who is in this case representative of all political and business leaders, to openly thunder forth his personal beliefs. And those of us who never face reelection for anything, equally find ways to hide from speaking our mind rather than be chastised and criticized by others.
What would happen if we followed the leadership of Jesus in the synagogue? The rabbis and people were amazed at what Jesus said, but at the same time they became angry. However, Jesus was not concerned about their anger; he was only concerned that "today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
It certainly wasn't Lance Armstrong standing in the synagogue. After years of denial that he used performance-enhancing drugs, Armstrong chose to make his public confession before the warm and fuzzy talk show host Oprah Winfrey. Though Winfrey was not restricted in her questioning, she cannot be categorized as an investigative reporter. David Howman, the director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), said of Armstrong, "He's got to follow a certain course. That is not talking to a talk show host." Howman went on to say, "Only when Mr. Armstrong makes a full confession under oath -- and tells the anti-doping authorities all he knows about doping activities -- can any legal and proper process for him to seek reopening or reconsideration of his lifetime ban commence." A testimony under oath would also require Armstrong to reveal the names of all of those involved in his doping scheme and make him liable to those who financially promoted his cycling team and contracted him for advertising endorsements. The farthest Armstrong got into the synagogue was in the shadow of its doorway.
Many stand in the shadow of the synagogue's doorway. When Manti Te'o, a linebacker at the University of Notre Dame, discovered that his online girlfriend was a hoax, he told Katie Couric on an episode of her talk show that "I wasn't as forthcoming about it (as I could have been)," though he went on to say, "But I didn't lie." Then there is Mark Sanford, the former governor of South Carolina, now divorced and engaged, who must have finished his walk along the Appalachian Trail because he is now running for Congress in his previous district. Perhaps the worst shadow to be currently uncovered concerns Archbishop Roger Mahony of the Roman Catholic church's Los Angeles Diocese, and the memos that reveal he purposely shielded pedophile priests and hid them from legal authorities. In keeping one priest hidden from the public so he could not been seen by one of his victims, the Archbishop wrote this as a justification: "... we might very well have some type of legal action filed in both the criminal and civil sectors."
Let us move out of the shadow of the doorway, and like Jesus, stand in the center of the synagogue and proclaim, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
Sermon Preparation
Discuss how we must stand forthright like Jesus -- unashamed, unapologetic, and most certainly unafraid to speak the truth of the scriptures.
ILLUSTRATIONS
William Sloane Coffin said pastors have two roles -- the priestly and the prophetic. If you wish to serve in your role of "disturber of the peace" (Coffin's words) as well as in your priestly capacity this week in worship, Barbara Kay Lundblad's article for the Huffington Post offers a variety of avenues toward disruption. This is especially true because the text from Jeremiah for this week, typically used as a slogan for pro-life sign-bearers, coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling. Lundblad has many thoughtful points to make about what it means to live as the Body of Christ (which could also be linked to the 1 Corinthians and Luke passages) and disagree on abortion (and all the adjacent hot-button issues). She offers a different view of our pro-life calling as people of faith. A snippet from Lundblad's post...
All people of faith are called to be "pro-life." But pro-life is bigger than the claim of one side in the ongoing debates about abortion. Pro-life is good news for the poor and freedom for those oppressed. Pro-life includes all members of the body -- children already born as well as unborn, women as well as any children they may bear. "If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it." Paul didn't give us answers about abortion, but he did remind us that, in spite of our differences, we're all part of the one body.
* * *
Jim Wallis of Sojourners and God's Politics fame has now stepped into the realm of international relations, politics, economics, and stewardship in his work as a co-author of a New Social Covenant (Adobe PDF) and with the Global Action Council on Values. In this work meant to inform and shape the conversation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Wallis and his colleagues issue a call for all stakeholders ("civil society groups, people of faith, and especially young people") to make all decisions in a self-conscious and cooperative way that upholds the three "global values" that the authors say have a "consensus across cultures and religions."
These are the three values:
1) the dignity of the human person;
2) the importance of the common good, which transcends individual interests; and
3) the need for stewardship of the planet and posterity.
Wallis and his colleagues observe that "together these offer a powerful unifying ideal: Valued individuals, committed to one another, and respectful of future generations." They posit that this New Social Covenant will promote human flourishing, happiness, and well-being, and it could "lead to new practices driving both ethical and practical decisions about the economics of our local and global households."
This all sounds a bit like the social covenant of love behind this week's passage from Paul's letter to the Corinthians. Much more than a glib go-to for weddings, this poetic piece is really better understood as a covenant of how we must live as one body, the Body, in love for and with one another. Love is patient, kind, generous, humble, committed, truthful, strong, hopeful, and enduring, it says. Could it be that when we uphold this kind of social covenant of love, our vision becomes clear (v. 12) and our understanding grows completion? If that is so, then let's get to talking about and covenanting in love for one another and for the wide world. For, as Wallis puts it at the end of his recent blog (http://sojo.net/blogs/2013/01/24/call-new-social-covenant) on this topic, "What better conversation could we have for the common good?"
* * *
If you've spent any time in arcades, you may remember a venerable old machine called a "Love Tester." Once upon a time it probably occupied a place of honor near the entrance, but these days it's likely tucked away in a dark corner, replaced by glitzy, high-tech video games.
The "Love Tester" is decidedly low-tech. What it is, essentially, is a metal handgrip with an array of electric lights behind it. The harder you squeeze the handgrip, the more lights come on. Each light symbolizes a rung on the ladder of physical attractiveness, from repulsive wimp to red-hot lover. Someplace on the machine, written in small print, is this stern disclaimer: "For Amusement Only" -- as though anybody could ever mistake the Love Tester for a real piece of scientific apparatus!
Surely no one takes it seriously -- the Love Tester's more of a joke... an "amusement." Yet even so, for a generation or more this little amusement has raked in enough nickels, dimes, and quarters for the arcade owners to keep it around.
Why is that? Why do visitors continue to plunk their hard-earned money into the Love Tester? Could it be that there's a little part of all of us that secretly wishes there were really such a thing as a Love Tester? Think of it: You could bring your friend, family member, or spouse to the Love Tester any time you want and check that person out. You could analyze the one you love to see if the spark is still there, if the feelings still run strong.
First Corinthians 13 is about a different sort of love test. It's not a test of attractiveness to the opposite sex, but rather a test of that rare and selfless kind of love the Greeks call agape.
* * *
As Christians we know we are called to love. As human beings, we do not always know what it takes to act lovingly. For this reason, 1 Corinthians 13 proves helpful. In these few short verses, Paul lists as many as 20 different characteristics of love.
Those that are negatively worded give insight into behaviors that are to be avoided. Love is not jealous or boastful. It is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrong. These admonitions make a good list of diagnostic questions: Am I jealous, boastful, or proud? Do I have a scornful attitude? Do I rejoice at the wrong others think they do? Am I always angry? Do I hold grudges?
Love expects more than the avoidance of negative behavior. It requires positive action. As Paul put it: Love is patient and kind. It rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. We need to keep before us those issues. Do I look for ways to be constructive? Do I believe the best about people? Do I endure whatever is hurled at me?
* * *
The obscurity and apparent heterodoxy of much of the work of the English poet, artist, and visionary William Blake prevented him from attaining during his life the sort of celebrity he enjoys today. Filled with a deep and powerful vision of a loving God, he saw a world around him which mouthed the words of love, but whose actions opposed God's ways. His best-known work is the hymn "Jerusalem," which, set to Hubert Parry's stirring melody, became almost an unofficial national anthem for England, but which Blake intended as a polemic against the greed and inhumanity of the industrial revolution. Another poem contrasting God's love and the way the world "loves" is found in Blake's Songs of Innocence, published in 1794:
"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair."
So sung a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet;
"Love seeketh only self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite."
* * *
In this week's passage from Luke's gospel, Jesus is busy blowing apart the tribal loyalties of the people from his hometown.
"Remember Elijah?" he says. "He didn't come to save Israel's widows during the famine. Who was it that he fed? A widow from Sidon in Lebanon. A foreigner. An outsider."
He continues, "Remember Elisha? All those lepers in Israel, and he cleansed Naaman the Syrian. What do you suppose that's all about?"
Anytime the church thinks it can shut its doors, decide whom Jesus came to save and where and in whom God can show up, the church better think again.
Pastor and Emerging Church guru Nadia Bolz-Weber warns against any attempts to domesticate or confine the power of God's loving salvation in Jesus in her "Sermon on Pirates in the Nativity and How God Incarnates the Impossible Among the Unlikely":
In a way, the story of Jesus' birth is about God redeeming the whole world through making the impossible happen to the unlikely. Which is important to remember since within the first few hundred years, Christianity had lost its original dinginess, its origins of marginalized people and out-of-wedlock pregnancies and beloved prostitutes and dinner parties with all the wrong people and loving the enemy, which all quickly gave way to respectability and fancy robes and emperors and pageantry.
But if you really look at the story of God coming to us in Jesus, how it involved such people of low-estate and scandalous circumstances ,it starts to not make a whole lot of sense that today being part of church so often means checking at the door any part of you that may have perfectly fit in at the weird birth of our Lord. The parts of you that smell like they live outside, or the parts of your story that seem scandalous like Mary's pregnancy or kind of disturbing like Elizabeth's pregnancy. It's weird how much we've sanitized this Christianity thing, because anyone who thinks that respectability and status and being nice is what the Gospel is about never really listened closely to the original cast recording. Which includes songs sung by pregnant teenagers and pagan magicians and pregnant old women. Songs of pulling tyrants down from their thrones.
See, I think that if we were deciding the respectable and church-y way for God to come among us it would have been for God to appear already powerful as a grown human in raiment and glory in some place really impressive, like Rome. Or, like, at the White House prayer breakfast. And at our version of God's great appearance on earth would be all the important people with titles like emperor and king and Chief Executive Officer and they would dress really fancy with those amazing sash things. And if we were choosing who should bear the message about God's coming it wouldn't be John the Baptist, it would be like, Ted Koppel. Or someone with a low authoritative voice, a strong jaw, and a necktie. And then God would come to dwell with us surrounded with all the people worthy to be a part of such an impressive event.
But that's not what we get in the story of Jesus. Because if God just acted in ways we thought made sense or that were respectable and predictable to us we could all just be our own Gods.
* * *
The people in Jesus' hometown grow angry when it seems like they won't get all the benefits that Jesus will give to other people, in other places. He outlines how people come to know the abundant grace of God, and then goes on to say that it's for other folks, people who seem like strangers to them.
We often put prisoners in the category of people who don't deserve anything, and Maria Finn writes on the Daily Good website about a garden program on Rikers Island that offers grace to prisoners there.
As Finn writes, "Rikers Island [is] the infamous jail, known, ominously, as The Rock. It holds 12,000 pretrial detainees who can't afford to post bail, as well as 4,000 prisoners sentenced to a year or less in jail. Eight years ago only overgrown weeds covered the two acres that now make up the Rikers Island gardens. Since that time more than 300 'students,' as a select group of Rikers inmates are called, have passed through the prison's GreenHouse Program, run by James Jiler for the Horticultural Society of New York."
Gardens flourish, and so do the inmates. The article quotes James Jiler as saying, "This place is about transformation," adding, "the students learn that if you can transform this environment, you can transform your life, yourself. We try to use the program at the gardens to help people build self-esteem." Students plant and tend flowers that are sent to gardens around New York, allowing the students to give back to the city. This lessens their sense of isolation. Jiler adds: "Most people view prisons as sinkholes.... We want to be contributing to society here. This way, by giving back to projects such as the library gardens, the students feel like part of the community and less marginalized."
For city dwellers, nature itself often feels alien, and the program provides a connection to plants and birds, as well as back to the community.
* * *
In this tough economic climate, when it seems like there aren't enough jobs to go around, people feel -- understandably -- bitter about the jobs that have moved overseas. Many people feel like we can barely support the population we have, let alone allow immigrants to move here.
Walter A. Ewing of the Immigration Policy Center sees deeper connections between immigrants and people born here, and makes a case that immigrants actually benefit the U.S. economy. Ewing cites a 2012 report (Adobe PDF) from the Information Technology Industry Council, Partnership for a New American Economy, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which says that "Every foreign-born student who graduates from a U.S. university with an advanced degree and stays to work in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] has been shown to create on average 2.62 jobs for American workers -- often because they help lead in innovation, research, and development." Ewing adds: "A 2007 study by researchers at Duke University and Harvard University concluded that one quarter of all engineering and technology-related companies founded in the United States from 1995 to 2005 'had at least one immigrant key founder,' and that these companies 'produced $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers in 2005.' Similarly, a 2011 report from the Partnership for a New American Economy (Adobe PDF) concluded that immigrants were founders of 18% of all Fortune 500 companies, many of which are high-tech giants. As of 2010, these immigrant-founded companies generated $1.7 trillion in annual revenue and employed 3.6 million workers worldwide. President Obama has noted on many occasions that these companies include Google, Yahoo!, eBay, and other well-known names."
The divisions between us may not be as sharp as we often believe, and those who feel that immigrants to America are taking something from us may be surprised to find that we are the ones receiving something.
* * *
Kids are often warned not to talk to strangers, but defining what constitutes a stranger is difficult. As the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says on its website: "When questioned, children will often describe a 'stranger' as someone who is 'ugly or mean.' They don't perceive nice-looking or friendly people as 'strangers.' And if someone talks to a child or is even around a child more than once, that person loses his or her 'stranger' status. The child then thinks he or she 'knows' the person. Children also want to be helpful, thrive on adult approval, and respond to adult authority. So, if someone with ill intent asks them to perform a task or tells them something has happened to a loved one, chances are good the child can be tricked."
The Center adds: "The 'stranger-danger' message becomes even more confusing for children since they can't tell by looking at someone whether or not the person is 'good' or 'bad.' Wouldn't it be great if we could point out the 'bad' people to our children and be done with it? Whether it's in a grocery store or at a baseball game, adults break the rule of 'don't talk to strangers' all the time. But adults have the benefit of experience, judgment, and decision-making skills; children do not. And sometimes adults are wrong. So, if we can't identify 'bad' people, we certainly can't expect our children to."
Those "other people" are harder to identify than we think. For kids, who have a lot to teach us, the idea of a stranger disappears quickly. Some people are dangerous to children, but most often they're someone we know, despite all of our focus on strangers.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: In you, O God, we take refuge;
People: let us never be put to shame.
Leader: In your righteousness deliver us and rescue us;
People: incline your ear to us and save us.
Leader: Be to us a rock of refuge, a strong fortress.
People: Rescue us, O God, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.
OR
Leader: God calls us to receive love and life eternal.
People: Our hearts are restless for the life God offers.
Leader: God desires for all creation to find wholeness.
People: We offer ourselves to be God's instruments of redemption.
Leader: In offering others God's love, we discover it for ourselves.
People: In sharing God's life, we find eternal life.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
"I'll Praise My Maker While I've Breath"
found in:
UMH: 60
H82: 429
PH: 253
CH: 20
"All Creatures of Our God and King"
found in:
UMH: 62
H82: 400
PH: 455
AAHH: 147
NNBH: 33
NCH: 17
CH: 22
LBW: 527
ELA: 835
W&P: 23
AMEC: 50
STLT: 203
Renew: 47
"God, Whose Love Is Reigning O'er Us"
found in:
UMH: 100
"God of the Sparrow"
found in:
UMH: 122
PH: 272
NCH: 32
CH: 70
ELA: 740
W&P: 29
"Christ for the World We Sing"
found in:
UMH: 568
H82: 537
W&P: 561
AMEC: 565
Renew: 299
"Where Charity and Love Prevail"
found in:
UMH: 549
H82: 581
NCH: 396
LBW: 126
ELA: 359
"Love Divine, All Loves Excelling"
found in:
UMH: 384
H82: 657
PH: 376
AAHH: 440
NNBH: 65
NCH: 43
CH: 517
LBW: 315
ELA: 631
W&P: 358
AMEC: 455
Renew: 196
"O Love, How Deep"
found in:
UMH: 267
H82: 448/449
PH: 83
NCH: 209
LBW: 88
ELA: 322
W&P: 244
"As the Deer"
found in:
CCB: 83
Renew: 9
"For the Gift of Creation"
found in:
CCB: 67
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who is love and who is life: Grant us the grace to live our lives fully in your love that we may treat others and the issues of life with care and justice always; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
Help us, O God who is life and who is love, to not only offer you our worship but also to offer you our lives as vessels for your love. Help us to be so in love with you that we serve others with that love. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to look at issues through the lens of love.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We talk about you as a God of love, but we do not apply that ethic to our own actions -- we look for what is pragmatic or in our own best interest. We fail to ask what is best for others. Forgive us and renew your Spirit within us that we may think and act in your love. Amen.
Leader: God is love and those who live in God must live in love. Know that God's Spirit is upon us and within us so that we may live as God's people.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord's Prayer)
Praise and glory be to you, O God, Creator of the universe and the giver of life.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We talk about you as a God of love, but we do not apply that ethic to our own actions -- we look for what is pragmatic or in our own best interest. We fail to ask what is best for others. Forgive us and renew your Spirit within us that we may think and act in your love.
We give you thanks for the gift of life and for your love that fills it and gives it meaning. We thank you for all the ways your love is reflected in creation. We thank you for the bounty of the earth and for those who act in your Spirit.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for each other in our need and especially for those who find it hard to believe in love or a God of love. We pray for those whose lives are taken from them and for those whose sense of meaning is destroyed by the circumstances of their existence.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father... Amen.
(or if the Lord's Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children's Sermon Starter
Ask the children about different scenarios where people act out of greed, justice, mean-spiritedness, or love. Ask them which is a loving way to act. Love is much more than how we feel about Mom or ice cream. Love, especially when we talk about it at Church, is about how we treat people.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Agape
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Object: a large piece of cardboard with the word "agape" printed on it
Good morning, boys and girls! I want to ask you some questions today about a certain English word that we use a lot. The word is "love." We use this word in a different ways. For instance, we might say that we saw a movie and we "loved" it. Have you ever said that? (let the children answer) We might also say that we "love" our parents. Now, is there any difference between the kind of love we have for our parents and the kind of love we meant when we said we loved the movie? (let them answer) I surely hope so! Still, in both cases we used the same word. The problem is that in English we have only the one word for love, and we use it in different ways.
Now, the New Testament of the Bible was written in Greek, and in Greek there are three different words for love. When the Bible talks about faith, hope, and love and says that the greatest of these three is love, it uses this Greek word for love. (Show the cardboard sign with "agape" written on it.) This kind of love, agape, is a totally unselfish love. It's the kind of love that Jesus has for us, the kind of love that he showed when he went to the cross and died for us. It's the kind of love that we need to have for God. There is no greater love than this. It certainly means a lot more than when we say we love a movie, a toy, or a game.
Let's ask God to help us have this kind of love for Him and for others.
Prayer: Dear Father in heaven, please help us love you in the way that you love us. Help us love others also so that we can show agape love as you want us to do. Amen.
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The Immediate Word, February 3, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
