Gatekeepers and Humility
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For August 28, 2022:
Gatekeepers and Humility
by Tom Willadsen
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16, Luke 14:1, 7-14, Proverbs 25:6-7
Three busloads of people seeking asylum in the United States arrived in New York City, Wednesday, August 10. The buses came from the Texas/Mexico border. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is scoring huge political points by sending these individuals and families to a city whose shelter system is already at capacity. Grannies Respond, along with other non-profits, is working to offer hospitality and welcome to people who have fled their homelands. While both the Texas governor and New York City’s Mayor, Eric Adams, accuse the other side of weaponizing this humanitarian crisis, Grannies Respond may be entertaining angels unaware.
In the Scriptures
Hebrews 13:1-8
Today’s lection has some good advice as the letter to the Hebrews concludes. The first two verses contain some interesting and timely thoughts about love. The “mutual love” in v. 1 is φιλαδελφια — Philadelphia in English. (Sports fans, if you’ve ever wondered why announcer says, “We’re in the City of Brotherly Love today…” it’s because of the Greek, not because the love Philadelphia fans show to anyone. Seriously, they are reputed to have booed Santa Claus.) In the next verse the term for showing hospitality to strangers is φιλοξενια, literally “love of strangers,” the opposite of the English term xenophobia.
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Today’s gospel passage takes place in the context of a meal with prominent Jewish leaders. The part that is omitted from the lection is another occasion when Jesus cures someone on the sabbath. He’s been doing that regularly in recent lectionary passages. At one level the substance of the reading can be seen as a simple etiquette lesson. When one is a guest, one should be humble — and maybe one’s humility will lead to being raised to high status in everyone’s esteem. When one is a host, one should intentionally invite people who cannot reciprocate hospitality. There’s a blessing in it for you. A deeper reading would point out that since all food (“all blessings” if we believe what we sing in the Doxology every week) flow from God, and one can never repay God for everything, then inviting people who cannot offer hospitality in return is basically what God does for every living thing.
Proverbs 25:6-7
This passage says the same thing that Jesus says in Luke 14:7-11.
In the News
While we haven’t seen children in cages recently, the crisis at the United States’ border with Mexico has not gone away. The former President used fear of immigrants as a campaign strategy, asserting that columns of people were travelling north through Mexico to invade the United States. His approach was to build a wall to keep the undesirables out. When Covid-19 hit, the former President used the pandemic as a pretext to stop processing people seeking asylum status in the United States at the southern border. The former President also began Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which became known as Remain in Mexico, which kept asylum seekers from entering the United States to formally begin the asylum process. This policy was in violation of international law.
Currently the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has blamed the surge of immigrants seeking entry into the United States, many seeking asylum status, as having been created by President Biden. The fact is the number of people seeking to enter the United States, legally and illegally, ebbs and flows, depending on many factors, among them the economy of countries to the south of the United States and public safety. Natural disasters, like Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which left about 20% of Honduras’ population homeless and set the economy back 50 years (by the estimate of President Juan Orlando Hernandez) drove many people to seek residence in other countries.
While he denied it for a while, Texas Governor Greg Abbott admitted that his state is sending asylum-seekers from the borderland to New York City — a 44 hour bus ride. It is a brilliant political move by one who is considering running for President in 2024.
In the age of sound bites and identity politics it’s easy to forget that each person riding the bus from McAllen, Texas to New York City has already experienced enormous trauma and disruption. No one leaves their home and seeks asylum without a well-founded fear of persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Asylum seekers have been forced from their homes because they fear for their lives. They cannot go home again. The system processing asylum seekers in the United States is cumbersome and currently overloaded. It takes an average of 2,000 days for an asylum application to be adjudicated for those seeking to settle in Illinois, for example.
The United States claims to be a nation of immigrants. We forget, or deny, that there were people living here before Europeans began “settling” on this land and driving away or killing those who already lived here. And “immigrant” is not an accurate term for people who were brought to here as slaves from Africa. Still, we point with pride to the words of Emma Lazarus’ poem, “The New Colossus,” which are inscribed on the Statue of Liberty
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
While this poem was never a statement of policy — indeed, it was composed for an auction to raise funds for the statue’s pedestal, it does point to an ideal that our nation has, in our best moments, aspired to.
In the Sermon
For the past month and a half I have been “between churches.” These weeks have allowed me to visit nearby churches as a stranger, a foreigner, an alien. While at one church a member identified me, welcomed me and asked whether I was new to town. This guy hit all the right notes of welcome. The reception at other churches has been nearly non-existent.
At the first church I visited I was acknowledged with a nod by the armed security guard as I entered. I found a seat in the sanctuary without receiving a bulletin or communion elements. I found my way back to the narthex and helped myself. The only person who recognized me as a visitor was the preacher for the day, herself a visitor. I had to ask where to put my offering after finding an envelope.
On my most recent visit to a new church I found the first two doors locked less than ten minutes before worship was scheduled to start. After two wrong turns I found my way to the sanctuary. One person made eye contact and smiled after I sat down.
The churches I have served would not do much better, I must admit. Protestant churches in the Midwest operate like clubs more than franchise locations for the propagation of the grace of Jesus Christ. A stranger is disruptive; he might ask where the restroom is or if he needs to pay for his donut at fellowship.
What would happen if we shifted our perspective on strangers, aliens and foreigners? I’ve seen this before and it can work.
A church I served several years ago began a monthly community breakfast. One Saturday morning a month between 8 and 10 a.m., anyone who found their way into our fellowship hall could have a free, hot breakfast. Some of the crew was apprehensive about meeting strangers.
“What do I say to a homeless person?”
“How about, ‘Good morning. Welcome. How did you hear about our breakfast?’”
Most of our guests weren’t homeless. Some who we thought were, weren’t. Every one of them was interesting. Every. Single. Guest. Had a story to tell. All we had to do was listen. When we started to think of our guests’ stories as gifts we came to expect that they brought something for us. We stopped counting how many sausage links the first guy through the door had eaten and started to get to know a person. A friend.
I do not know how to apply this principle to national immigration policy. But if we could focus on the gifts that strangers bring, if we could shift from xenophobia to xenophilia we would all be better off. Since the Lord is the host at every banquet, those of us who see ourselves as the gatekeepers need a little more humility. It’s not our home we’re welcoming them into.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Truths and Consequences
by Dean Feldmeyer
Psalm 81:1, 10-16, Hebrews 13:1-8, 5-15
The Two Great Truths of Parenting
The first Truth of Parenting is this: Our kids grow up and move away.
The Second Truth of Parenting is this: We have to accept the First Truth of Parenting.
We have no choice, really, do we? They grow up, mature, move away and into lives of their own making. There’s not much we can do about it. I mean, even if we wanted to, we can’t.
Fortunately, life teaches us how to do this by giving us small doses throughout the parenting experience so we become immune to their effects. (Kinda like ancient royalty would do with poison, right?)
I have a friend who put her child on a school bus for the first time and then got in her car and followed the bus to the school every day of the first week of school to make sure her son got where he was supposed to be. “I didn’t want to do it. I knew it was crazy,” she said when she recounted the story as we sat around the Euchre table. “But I couldn’t help myself. It was like a compulsion.”
Another couple I know, when their daughter got her driver’s license, secretly put one of those tracking apps on her cell phone so they would always know where she was. “It wasn’t that we didn’t trust her,” they told me. “We were afraid she might be in an accident or need us and not be able to reach us.” That was their story and they were sticking to it.
It even happened to me and I’m the very picture of a hip, progressive, broad-minded parent. (Wife smirks.) But hey, both of my kids moved out of the house on the same weekend. Our oldest had commuted the fist two years of college but, in his junior year, he and some buddies decided to rent an apartment near campus. That was the same year that our daughter started school at a college that was close but too far away to commute.
They both moved out on the same day. The. Same. Day!
When the truck pulled away with our daughter waving out the window, we went up to their bedrooms, swept up the dust bunnies, then went downstairs and looked at all the old pictures on the refrigerator and cried.
Then we realized that, for the first time in 20 years, we could order the pizza the way we wanted it and things weren’t so bad, after all.
Over that pizza, sated with a few more tears, we agreed that this was as it should be. They grow up, move away, have their own friends and their own lives, make their own decisions — some bad, some good — and have to live with the consequences. And all we can do is be there for them to help pick up the pieces when the decisions don’t work out.
In the Scripture: God The “Father”
With the very opening line of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus leads us to see that the appropriate, authentic relationship with God, the relationship toward which we are to strive is, metaphorically, a familial one. God is the metaphorical parent and we are the metaphorical children.
God created us, raised us up, taught us through Jesus and the prophets, forgave us when we were disobedient, welcomed us when we had to come back home, helped us pick up the pieces when we failed, and loved us unconditionally through it all.
But for the relationship to be an authentic one, God has to let us go, let us ignore God’s advice and make our own decisions and live with the consequences of those decisions. And that, according to Psalm 81, is exactly what God does even when God knows that our decisions are going to create disastrous results. “So, I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels.”
God lets us drive too fast, not wear seatbelts, take drugs, drink too much alcohol, not do our homework, smoke, and even hurt each other. God lets us destroy the oceans and pollute the air. God lets us eat more than we need while others starve. God lets us ignore the needs of those around us if that’s what we want to do.
God even lets us drop bombs on each other knowing full well that he bombs we drop are likely to kill guilty and innocent alike.
And God lets us experience the consequences of those choices: the pain, the misery, the hate, the despair. And it breaks God’s heart. Listen to the next verse of the Psalm: “O that my people would listen to me, that [they] would walk in my ways!”
Regardless of the heartbreaking pain God endures, God, out of love, does not step in and rescue us from the consequences of our own choices.
In the News
The American Southwest is undergoing and unprecedented monsoon season this year. Flash floods are plaguing Dallas, Las Vegas, Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Phoenix, and even Death Valley. Scores of towns are being overwhelmed by rains that come down so fast that the ground — ground that has been undergoing a drought for the past 20 years — can’t absorb it fast enough. So, this rain isn’t going to solve the drought problem.
When a drought lasts for more than 20 years it isn’t just a one-and-out kind of problem. There has to be an underlying issue that must be addressed and, in this case, the issue is climate change. But, for the past two decades, that issue was either ignored or denied and labeled a hoax and now the southwestern United States is paying the price for that recalcitrance.
Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, provides water to about 25 million people but it is now at its lowest level since it was originally filled. Experts say that, if the lake’s volume continues to fall at the present rate for five more years, the water level will be too low to generate electricity at the Hoover Dam, electricity that serves over 40 million souls.
To address the problem, states and municipalities have joined the federal government in proposing mandatory water reduction laws even as the population of the affected areas grows.
In Arizona, for example, farmers will bear the brunt of the reductions, while cities and one tribe will see small reductions under the state's drought contingency plan, though some have also made voluntary efforts to reduce water use. Next year, in some counties, as much as 30% of Arizona’s farmland will have to go unplanted.
In Las Vegas, if you insist on watering your lawn you must do it after dark when evaporation isn’t such a big problem, and, if you overwater and water runs into the street, you will be fined. In fact, the city of Las Vegas will pay you $6 per square foot to tear out your grass and replace it with desert flora.
“I think it's a wake-up call for everyone that we need to start planning for the river that scientists tell us we're probably going to have not the one we remember or might wish for,” says Kevin Moran, senior director of the Colorado River Program for the Environmental Defense Fund. He adds that it will be crucial for states and water users to continue to work together to adapt and conserve as much of the watersheds out west as possible to prepare for worsening conditions in the future.
Interior Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Tanya Trujillo says, “We are seeing the effects of climate change in the Colorado River Basin through extended drought, extreme temperatures, expansive wildfires, and in some places flooding and landslides, and now is the time to take action to respond to them.”
For the sake of those living in the drought affected areas, let’s hope they do. Because, by the looks of it, God is saying, “You made this bed; now you sleep in it.”
In other news, the United States of America continues to worship at the altar of the 2nd Amendment, insisting on the unfettered saturation of the country with guns while, daily, we suffer the consequence of innocent lives lost to gun violence.
We insist on living by the myth that we must have guns to protect us from people with guns and the one with the most guns, wins. And all the while we are killing and wounding each other in record breaking numbers.
As of August 22, of this year, there have been 28,454 gun related deaths in the U.S. 13,010 have been homicides, murders, or unintentional shootings. 15,444 have been suicides. In addition to deaths, there have been 25,319 non-fatal gun related injuries.
There have been 486 mass shootings (4 or more people wounded or killed not counting the shooter) and 219 mass murders.
Of those killed, 217 have been children under the age of 11. 867 have been teenagers between 12 and 17 years of age.
This is the consequence when a country has more guns than people. We are being killed by our own gun fetish and to ask God to do something about it when we refuse to do so would be the very apex of hypocrisy.
In the Sermon
None of this is to say that God has abandoned us completely.
True, like a loving and responsible parent, God allows us to experience the consequences of our choices, even, and especially, our bad choices.
But God doesn’t leave us totally alone. A quick internet or concordance search will take you to literally scores of biblical passages that make this clear.
But wouldn’t it be better to avoid the feeling of abandonment altogether if we can? The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews offers some strategies for doing that in today’s reading (Hebrews 13: 1-8, 15-16) and the key is obedience.
Do as God instructs; follow the way of Jesus, says the author, and the consequences, while not always comfortable, will be an authentic sense of well-being and communion with God:
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
Hebrews 13: 1-8,15-16
Trustworthy is Better Than Smart
The writer of Hebrews reminds the community, “Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” This spiritual advice matches the discoveries of modern neuroscience. As Amy Cuddy explains, “When we meet someone new, we quickly answer two questions: “Can I trust this person?” and “Can I respect this person?” In our research, my colleagues and I have referred to these dimensions as warmth and competence respectively. Usually we think that a person we’ve just met is either more warm than competent or more competent than warm, but not both in equal measure. We like our distinctions to be clear—it’s a human bias.” She adds, “But we don’t value the two traits equally. First we judge warmth or trustworthiness, which we consider to be the more important of the two dimensions.”
Showing hospitality isn’t just an act of faith; it fits our need to know people and be known by them, so trust can develop.
* * *
Hebrews 13: 1-8,15-16
Mutual Love with the Earth
Biologist and member of the Potawatomi Nation Robin Wall Kimmerer echoes the writer of Hebrews, and the instruction to “let mutual love continue.” Dr. Kimmerer finds that kind of love with her garden, and with her daughters, flowing back and forth between human beings and the earth. She recalls a day in her garden, noting that her daughters “complain about garden chores, as kids are supposed to do, but once they start they get caught up in the softness of the dirt and the smell of the day and it is hours later when they come back into the house. Seeds for this basket of beans were poked into the ground by their fingers back in May. Seeing them plant and harvest makes me feel like a good mother, teaching them how to provide for themselves.”
Love is visible in good food. “How do I show my girls I love them on a morning in June? I pick them wild strawberries. On a February afternoon we build snowmen and then sit by the fire. In March we make maple syrup. We pick violets in May and go swimming in July. On an August night we lay out blankets and watch meteor showers. In November, that great teacher the woodpile comes into our lives. That’s just the beginning. How do we show our children our love? Each in our own way by a shower of gifts and a heavy rain of lessons.
Maybe it was the smell of ripe tomatoes, or the oriole singing, or that certain slant of light on a yellow afternoon and the beans hanging thick around me. It just came to me in a wash of happiness that made me laugh out loud, startling the chickadees who were picking at the sunflowers, raining black and white hulls on the ground. I knew it with a certainty as warm and clear as the September sunshine. The land loves us back. She loves us with beans and tomatoes, with roasting ears and blackberries and birdsongs. By a shower of gifts and a heavy rain of lessons. She provides for us and teaches us to provide for ourselves. That’s what good mothers do.”
Let mutual love continue, as the earth’s goodness unfolds in signs of love.
* * *
Luke 14: 1, 7-14
Finding the Right Place
In this parable, Jesus highlights the virtue of humility, of not claiming too high a place at the banquet. The flip side of the parable is also true, as we need people to get us to the right place at the table. Visionary Trabian Shorters recalls growing up in Pontiac, MI, in a town heavy with auto factories. As Shorters recalls, “the schools didn’t discover that I had a high IQ. My mother knew it way sooner, and she advocated for me to get into these different programs my entire early school life, and it was very hard. Folks were not willing to test me; they weren’t willing to consider me in those ways. I don’t know if it was the school system or racially motivated or whatever, but she had to work at it. She had to push at it. The first scholarship I got was to a place called Roeper, and that was a consequence of my mom pushing. And their criteria for even considering me was that I take an IQ test.
So once I get the IQ test and I go to Roeper, and all of a sudden I’m a smart kid now. And so all my toys change — I don’t get to — it’s not G.I. Joe with the Kung Fu Grip anymore; now I’ve got to get science kits and electronic — which I liked, honestly, but I also wanted to do normal stuff. So I’d definitely get nerd toys, and not long after that, the PC comes out and so I get a chance to start building computers, which I really liked, and also programming them. So I’m on the nerd track, in full bloom.”
That led to another scholarship at an exclusive school, “a fantastic private boarding school hidden behind cobblestone walls in Bloomfield Hills. And it’s very much like being transported off-planet, because I had lived, up till that point, around poor folk and with what I call “regular folk.” I’d been around regular folk, and Cranbrook is not a regular-folk community.”
The dramatically different place at the educational table has fueled his adult work around questions of equity and diversity. Being invited to this table was sharp turn in the direction of his life.
* * *
Luke 14: 1, 7-14
Inviting People to the Table
The “Boston Miracle” is an effort to reduce violence in the City of Boston, which has grown hugely from its bewildered beginnings. In a season of terrible violence among young people in Boston, the Rev. Jeffrey Brown and others took a then-unusual step. They invited young members of gangs to talk to them about what would stop the violence.
One of the early successes was a cease fire in 2006. The group of pastors and community leaders working to reduce the violence floated the idea of a truce, a halt in the shootings. Because they had invited young community members to join the conversation, they could work out what a cease fire would look like, and how it would work. “And what the youth said in response to that was that you’re not going to be able to get us to do that cold turkey,” Jeffrey said. “So why don’t you start with a period of time, like a cease-fire? So we created that between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, and we called it season of peace. They gave us the directions for what to do, you know? “I had them in a room, and I made the pitch for the season of peace and asked for their approval. And that’s when I got my first indication that this might work, because a young guy “gets up, and he says, ‘All right, so do we stop shooting at midnight on Wednesday night? Or do we stop on Thanksgiving morning? And do we start shooting again on December thirty-first or on January first?’ “And it was a conflict for me,” Jeffrey said, “because I was like, ‘I don’t want you to start shooting at all.’ But I said, ‘Okay, you stop shooting Wednesday night and you can start again after New Year’s Day.’ Now, you know, ethically I was like, ‘I can’t believe you told them they could start shooting after the first of the year.’ But we were trying to get them to establish peace and give them a sense of what it’s like to be able to go into a neighborhood and not have to look over your shoulder every five seconds.” As you can imagine, in Boston at that tense time, there was little confidence that a bunch of clergy members could usher in a period during which gang members would suddenly stop shooting each other. “The first time we did that season of peace, the cops were like, ‘Hey, good luck,’” almost with a wink and a snicker, Jeffrey recalled.
And then the first twenty-two days after that there were no shootings, no shots fired, nada. Gary French, who was in charge of the Boston police gang unit, called me, and he kept calling me every day, saying, ‘Nothing happened yesterday.’ And he wanted to know, ‘What did you do? Who did you talk to?’ The police wanted all this information from us.”
Jeffrey Brown reminded them that it was nothing more, and nothing less, than having the young community members in the conversation — inviting them to move up to a better place at the banquet. He said, “I already told you—it’s looking at the youth not as the problem but as partners.’” (Story from Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges by Amy Cuddy)
* * * * * *
From team member Katy Stenta:
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
We do not Believe
There are many prescriptions about how to live into the faith of God’s community. If Jeremiah 2:4-13 and Luke 14 are about what people are doing wrong, then Hebrews is the prescription of what to do right. Another such text might be this affirmation of faith:
Statement of Faith — We do not believe (Source Unknown)
We do not believe God wills hunger and poverty for the planet’s children.
We do not believe God organizes the death of anyone young or old.
We do not believe God hates our questions and detests our doubts.
We do not believe God wishes us to accept everything without debate.
We do not believe God likes the status quo that denies people liberty and freedom.
We do not believe God is silent in the councils of government.
We do not believe God approves what we have done to religion.
We do not believe God speaks only through words.
We do not believe God can be understood only through the interpretation of scholars.
We do not believe God is limited by human description.
We do believe God loves us.
We do believe God loves us so much that death was crushed, and life began anew.
We believe what we can grasp, and hold and touch, and also what we cannot grasp but know deep within.
We have not seen the empty tomb but we believe in the Risen and Living Christ.
We believe. God, help our unbelief. Amen.
* * *
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Heaven is a food fight
Heaven is like a food fight; the kind that is a raucous party, where everyone is included and no one knows who is sitting where.
Heaven is like a feast, where no one goes hungry, a party where the latecomers are not shamed,
A party that is so fun that everyone feels good about inviting those who would be otherwise left out.
Heaven is a haven without steps: so it does not matter if you are blind or able-bodied, or poor, no one will be above anyone else.
Heaven is a circle, like a pizza pie or a blueberry crumb pie; there will be no first or last, just an everlasting place of love.
Heaven is not pie, the helpings and blessings will never run out, there will always be enough air for all.
Heaven is like a food fight, everyone will be whopped in the face with a pie, and laugh with the joy of it all.
What payment can exist in a place like that? So invite everyone to the food fight, because it’s not going to matter.
* * *
Jeremiah 2:4-13, Hebrews 13 :1-8, 15-16
God is calling us all cracked here. It is not an easy complaint. God says we tried to do it all ourselves, turned to false promises, and created our own containers that are cracked. Our explanations do not hold much water. What an image, in the desert. Especially from our God the Potter. What does it mean when we put nationalism, racism and capitalism before God? What does it mean when we cannot trust ourselves or each other? God has promised that our way produces no profit. It is amazing, when you think about it because the ways of justice: feeding, housing and clothing people, educating and rehabilitating people and giving them medical care almost always have long ranging, good implications. We know this because of the natural case study of wealth differences between Blacks and whites as a result of the GI bill. We also know this because whenever people without houses have their homelessness treated, their other problems inevitably lessen. Regularly feeding children at school is the easiest way to improve their outcomes. We know how to fix our problems, we just need the will to do it.
* * * * * *
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Sing aloud to God our strength.
All: Shout for joy to the God of Jacob.
One: I am your God, who brought you out of Egypt.
All: Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.
One: I would feed you with the finest of the wheat.
All: With honey from the rock I would satisfy you.
OR
One: God calls us to love one another.
All: In loving each other, we are also loving God.
One: God calls us to welcome the stranger.
All: When we welcomes strangers, we are welcoming God.
One: God comes to be our helper in all of life.
All: With God’s help we will also help others.
Hymns and Songs
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
UMH: 139
H82: 390
AAHH: 117
NNBH: 2
NCH: 22
CH: 25
ELW: 858/859
AMEC: 3
STLT: 278
Renew: 57
Lord, Speak to Me
UMH: 463
PH: 426
NCH: 531
ELW: 676
W&P: 593
Spirit Song
UMH: 347
AAHH: 321
CH: 352
W&P: 352
Renew: 248
Pues Si Vivimos (When We Are Living)
UMH: 356
PH: 400
CH: 536
ELW: 639
W&P: 415
Standing on the Promises
UMH: 374
AAHH: 373
NNBH: 257
CH: 552
AMEC: 424
Have Thine Own Way, Lord
UMH: 382
AAHH: 449
NNBH: 206
CH: 588
W&P: 486
AMEC: 345
I Am Thine, O Lord
UMH: 419
AAHH: 387
NNBH: 202
NCH: 455
CH: 601
W&P: 408
AMEC: 283
Cuando El Pobre (When the Poor Ones)
UMH: 434
PH: 407
CH: 662
ELW: 725
W&P: 624
O Young and Fearless Prophet
UMH: 444
CH: 669
STLT 276
You Satisfy the Hungry Heart
UMH: 629
PH: 521
CH: 429
ELW: 484
W&P: 705
Make Me a Servant
CCB: 90
Father, I Adore You
CCB: 64
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
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
ELW: 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 enthroned in power and justice:
Grant us the wisdom to seek justice for all
so that we may live in harmony with you;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you sit in power and justice. You are the true judge of all creation. Help us to join you in seeking wisdom for all your children that we may truly live in harmony with you and your creation. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our seeking to elevate ourselves while debasing others.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have sought our own glory and status often at the expense of others. We have placed our own wants ahead of the needs of others. We want the place of honor in the eyes of those around us more than we want the good for others. We are more concerned with how much we can gather for ourselves than we are with seeing to the needs of others. Forgive our selfish hearts and cleanse them so that we may live as your true children. Amen.
One: God always welcomes those who desire to live in harmony with the divine justice and grace. Receive God’s forgiveness and share it with all those you meet.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory to you, O God of all creation. You are the creating parent of all 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 have sought our own glory and status often at the expense of others. We have placed our own wants ahead of the needs of others. We want the place of honor in the eyes of those around us more than we want the good for others. We are more concerned with how much we can gather for ourselves than we are with seeing to the needs of others. Forgive our selfish hearts and cleanse them so that we may live as your true children.
We give you thanks that you provide for all your children and for all of creation. You hold all life and all things in the power of your loving embrace. You have supplied us with all that we need to live life abundantly and full. All creation praises and thanks you for your loving kindness to all.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all who are in need this day. We know that many are without the very necessities of life lacking proper nutrition, clean water, and adequate shelter. We know many are caught in the violence of war or of crime. Many struggle with illness, injury, and facing death. There are those around us who are lonely, depressed, and anxious. As we lift these up to you we ask that you would also be a healing presence in their lives through us. Hear us as we pray for your children. (Time may be given for vocally or silently naming those in need.)
(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 Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, August 28, 2022 issue.
Copyright 2022 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.
- Gatekeepers and Humility by Tom Willadsen. Since the Lord is the host at every banquet, those of us who see ourselves as the gatekeepers need a little more humility. It’s not our home we’re welcoming them into.
- Second Thoughts: Truths and Consequences by Dean Feldmeyer. The secret to not feeling abandoned by God is to not walk away from God in the first place.
- Sermon illustrations by Mary Austin and Katy Stenta.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
Gatekeepers and Humilityby Tom Willadsen
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16, Luke 14:1, 7-14, Proverbs 25:6-7
Three busloads of people seeking asylum in the United States arrived in New York City, Wednesday, August 10. The buses came from the Texas/Mexico border. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is scoring huge political points by sending these individuals and families to a city whose shelter system is already at capacity. Grannies Respond, along with other non-profits, is working to offer hospitality and welcome to people who have fled their homelands. While both the Texas governor and New York City’s Mayor, Eric Adams, accuse the other side of weaponizing this humanitarian crisis, Grannies Respond may be entertaining angels unaware.
In the Scriptures
Hebrews 13:1-8
Today’s lection has some good advice as the letter to the Hebrews concludes. The first two verses contain some interesting and timely thoughts about love. The “mutual love” in v. 1 is φιλαδελφια — Philadelphia in English. (Sports fans, if you’ve ever wondered why announcer says, “We’re in the City of Brotherly Love today…” it’s because of the Greek, not because the love Philadelphia fans show to anyone. Seriously, they are reputed to have booed Santa Claus.) In the next verse the term for showing hospitality to strangers is φιλοξενια, literally “love of strangers,” the opposite of the English term xenophobia.
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Today’s gospel passage takes place in the context of a meal with prominent Jewish leaders. The part that is omitted from the lection is another occasion when Jesus cures someone on the sabbath. He’s been doing that regularly in recent lectionary passages. At one level the substance of the reading can be seen as a simple etiquette lesson. When one is a guest, one should be humble — and maybe one’s humility will lead to being raised to high status in everyone’s esteem. When one is a host, one should intentionally invite people who cannot reciprocate hospitality. There’s a blessing in it for you. A deeper reading would point out that since all food (“all blessings” if we believe what we sing in the Doxology every week) flow from God, and one can never repay God for everything, then inviting people who cannot offer hospitality in return is basically what God does for every living thing.
Proverbs 25:6-7
This passage says the same thing that Jesus says in Luke 14:7-11.
In the News
While we haven’t seen children in cages recently, the crisis at the United States’ border with Mexico has not gone away. The former President used fear of immigrants as a campaign strategy, asserting that columns of people were travelling north through Mexico to invade the United States. His approach was to build a wall to keep the undesirables out. When Covid-19 hit, the former President used the pandemic as a pretext to stop processing people seeking asylum status in the United States at the southern border. The former President also began Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which became known as Remain in Mexico, which kept asylum seekers from entering the United States to formally begin the asylum process. This policy was in violation of international law.
Currently the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has blamed the surge of immigrants seeking entry into the United States, many seeking asylum status, as having been created by President Biden. The fact is the number of people seeking to enter the United States, legally and illegally, ebbs and flows, depending on many factors, among them the economy of countries to the south of the United States and public safety. Natural disasters, like Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which left about 20% of Honduras’ population homeless and set the economy back 50 years (by the estimate of President Juan Orlando Hernandez) drove many people to seek residence in other countries.
While he denied it for a while, Texas Governor Greg Abbott admitted that his state is sending asylum-seekers from the borderland to New York City — a 44 hour bus ride. It is a brilliant political move by one who is considering running for President in 2024.
In the age of sound bites and identity politics it’s easy to forget that each person riding the bus from McAllen, Texas to New York City has already experienced enormous trauma and disruption. No one leaves their home and seeks asylum without a well-founded fear of persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Asylum seekers have been forced from their homes because they fear for their lives. They cannot go home again. The system processing asylum seekers in the United States is cumbersome and currently overloaded. It takes an average of 2,000 days for an asylum application to be adjudicated for those seeking to settle in Illinois, for example.
The United States claims to be a nation of immigrants. We forget, or deny, that there were people living here before Europeans began “settling” on this land and driving away or killing those who already lived here. And “immigrant” is not an accurate term for people who were brought to here as slaves from Africa. Still, we point with pride to the words of Emma Lazarus’ poem, “The New Colossus,” which are inscribed on the Statue of Liberty
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
While this poem was never a statement of policy — indeed, it was composed for an auction to raise funds for the statue’s pedestal, it does point to an ideal that our nation has, in our best moments, aspired to.
In the Sermon
For the past month and a half I have been “between churches.” These weeks have allowed me to visit nearby churches as a stranger, a foreigner, an alien. While at one church a member identified me, welcomed me and asked whether I was new to town. This guy hit all the right notes of welcome. The reception at other churches has been nearly non-existent.
At the first church I visited I was acknowledged with a nod by the armed security guard as I entered. I found a seat in the sanctuary without receiving a bulletin or communion elements. I found my way back to the narthex and helped myself. The only person who recognized me as a visitor was the preacher for the day, herself a visitor. I had to ask where to put my offering after finding an envelope.
On my most recent visit to a new church I found the first two doors locked less than ten minutes before worship was scheduled to start. After two wrong turns I found my way to the sanctuary. One person made eye contact and smiled after I sat down.
The churches I have served would not do much better, I must admit. Protestant churches in the Midwest operate like clubs more than franchise locations for the propagation of the grace of Jesus Christ. A stranger is disruptive; he might ask where the restroom is or if he needs to pay for his donut at fellowship.
What would happen if we shifted our perspective on strangers, aliens and foreigners? I’ve seen this before and it can work.
A church I served several years ago began a monthly community breakfast. One Saturday morning a month between 8 and 10 a.m., anyone who found their way into our fellowship hall could have a free, hot breakfast. Some of the crew was apprehensive about meeting strangers.
“What do I say to a homeless person?”
“How about, ‘Good morning. Welcome. How did you hear about our breakfast?’”
Most of our guests weren’t homeless. Some who we thought were, weren’t. Every one of them was interesting. Every. Single. Guest. Had a story to tell. All we had to do was listen. When we started to think of our guests’ stories as gifts we came to expect that they brought something for us. We stopped counting how many sausage links the first guy through the door had eaten and started to get to know a person. A friend.
I do not know how to apply this principle to national immigration policy. But if we could focus on the gifts that strangers bring, if we could shift from xenophobia to xenophilia we would all be better off. Since the Lord is the host at every banquet, those of us who see ourselves as the gatekeepers need a little more humility. It’s not our home we’re welcoming them into.
SECOND THOUGHTSTruths and Consequences
by Dean Feldmeyer
Psalm 81:1, 10-16, Hebrews 13:1-8, 5-15
The Two Great Truths of Parenting
The first Truth of Parenting is this: Our kids grow up and move away.
The Second Truth of Parenting is this: We have to accept the First Truth of Parenting.
We have no choice, really, do we? They grow up, mature, move away and into lives of their own making. There’s not much we can do about it. I mean, even if we wanted to, we can’t.
Fortunately, life teaches us how to do this by giving us small doses throughout the parenting experience so we become immune to their effects. (Kinda like ancient royalty would do with poison, right?)
I have a friend who put her child on a school bus for the first time and then got in her car and followed the bus to the school every day of the first week of school to make sure her son got where he was supposed to be. “I didn’t want to do it. I knew it was crazy,” she said when she recounted the story as we sat around the Euchre table. “But I couldn’t help myself. It was like a compulsion.”
Another couple I know, when their daughter got her driver’s license, secretly put one of those tracking apps on her cell phone so they would always know where she was. “It wasn’t that we didn’t trust her,” they told me. “We were afraid she might be in an accident or need us and not be able to reach us.” That was their story and they were sticking to it.
It even happened to me and I’m the very picture of a hip, progressive, broad-minded parent. (Wife smirks.) But hey, both of my kids moved out of the house on the same weekend. Our oldest had commuted the fist two years of college but, in his junior year, he and some buddies decided to rent an apartment near campus. That was the same year that our daughter started school at a college that was close but too far away to commute.
They both moved out on the same day. The. Same. Day!
When the truck pulled away with our daughter waving out the window, we went up to their bedrooms, swept up the dust bunnies, then went downstairs and looked at all the old pictures on the refrigerator and cried.
Then we realized that, for the first time in 20 years, we could order the pizza the way we wanted it and things weren’t so bad, after all.
Over that pizza, sated with a few more tears, we agreed that this was as it should be. They grow up, move away, have their own friends and their own lives, make their own decisions — some bad, some good — and have to live with the consequences. And all we can do is be there for them to help pick up the pieces when the decisions don’t work out.
In the Scripture: God The “Father”
With the very opening line of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus leads us to see that the appropriate, authentic relationship with God, the relationship toward which we are to strive is, metaphorically, a familial one. God is the metaphorical parent and we are the metaphorical children.
God created us, raised us up, taught us through Jesus and the prophets, forgave us when we were disobedient, welcomed us when we had to come back home, helped us pick up the pieces when we failed, and loved us unconditionally through it all.
But for the relationship to be an authentic one, God has to let us go, let us ignore God’s advice and make our own decisions and live with the consequences of those decisions. And that, according to Psalm 81, is exactly what God does even when God knows that our decisions are going to create disastrous results. “So, I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels.”
God lets us drive too fast, not wear seatbelts, take drugs, drink too much alcohol, not do our homework, smoke, and even hurt each other. God lets us destroy the oceans and pollute the air. God lets us eat more than we need while others starve. God lets us ignore the needs of those around us if that’s what we want to do.
God even lets us drop bombs on each other knowing full well that he bombs we drop are likely to kill guilty and innocent alike.
And God lets us experience the consequences of those choices: the pain, the misery, the hate, the despair. And it breaks God’s heart. Listen to the next verse of the Psalm: “O that my people would listen to me, that [they] would walk in my ways!”
Regardless of the heartbreaking pain God endures, God, out of love, does not step in and rescue us from the consequences of our own choices.
In the News
The American Southwest is undergoing and unprecedented monsoon season this year. Flash floods are plaguing Dallas, Las Vegas, Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Phoenix, and even Death Valley. Scores of towns are being overwhelmed by rains that come down so fast that the ground — ground that has been undergoing a drought for the past 20 years — can’t absorb it fast enough. So, this rain isn’t going to solve the drought problem.
When a drought lasts for more than 20 years it isn’t just a one-and-out kind of problem. There has to be an underlying issue that must be addressed and, in this case, the issue is climate change. But, for the past two decades, that issue was either ignored or denied and labeled a hoax and now the southwestern United States is paying the price for that recalcitrance.
Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, provides water to about 25 million people but it is now at its lowest level since it was originally filled. Experts say that, if the lake’s volume continues to fall at the present rate for five more years, the water level will be too low to generate electricity at the Hoover Dam, electricity that serves over 40 million souls.
To address the problem, states and municipalities have joined the federal government in proposing mandatory water reduction laws even as the population of the affected areas grows.
In Arizona, for example, farmers will bear the brunt of the reductions, while cities and one tribe will see small reductions under the state's drought contingency plan, though some have also made voluntary efforts to reduce water use. Next year, in some counties, as much as 30% of Arizona’s farmland will have to go unplanted.
In Las Vegas, if you insist on watering your lawn you must do it after dark when evaporation isn’t such a big problem, and, if you overwater and water runs into the street, you will be fined. In fact, the city of Las Vegas will pay you $6 per square foot to tear out your grass and replace it with desert flora.
“I think it's a wake-up call for everyone that we need to start planning for the river that scientists tell us we're probably going to have not the one we remember or might wish for,” says Kevin Moran, senior director of the Colorado River Program for the Environmental Defense Fund. He adds that it will be crucial for states and water users to continue to work together to adapt and conserve as much of the watersheds out west as possible to prepare for worsening conditions in the future.
Interior Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Tanya Trujillo says, “We are seeing the effects of climate change in the Colorado River Basin through extended drought, extreme temperatures, expansive wildfires, and in some places flooding and landslides, and now is the time to take action to respond to them.”
For the sake of those living in the drought affected areas, let’s hope they do. Because, by the looks of it, God is saying, “You made this bed; now you sleep in it.”
In other news, the United States of America continues to worship at the altar of the 2nd Amendment, insisting on the unfettered saturation of the country with guns while, daily, we suffer the consequence of innocent lives lost to gun violence.
We insist on living by the myth that we must have guns to protect us from people with guns and the one with the most guns, wins. And all the while we are killing and wounding each other in record breaking numbers.
As of August 22, of this year, there have been 28,454 gun related deaths in the U.S. 13,010 have been homicides, murders, or unintentional shootings. 15,444 have been suicides. In addition to deaths, there have been 25,319 non-fatal gun related injuries.
There have been 486 mass shootings (4 or more people wounded or killed not counting the shooter) and 219 mass murders.
Of those killed, 217 have been children under the age of 11. 867 have been teenagers between 12 and 17 years of age.
This is the consequence when a country has more guns than people. We are being killed by our own gun fetish and to ask God to do something about it when we refuse to do so would be the very apex of hypocrisy.
In the Sermon
None of this is to say that God has abandoned us completely.
True, like a loving and responsible parent, God allows us to experience the consequences of our choices, even, and especially, our bad choices.
But God doesn’t leave us totally alone. A quick internet or concordance search will take you to literally scores of biblical passages that make this clear.
But wouldn’t it be better to avoid the feeling of abandonment altogether if we can? The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews offers some strategies for doing that in today’s reading (Hebrews 13: 1-8, 15-16) and the key is obedience.
Do as God instructs; follow the way of Jesus, says the author, and the consequences, while not always comfortable, will be an authentic sense of well-being and communion with God:
- Live by mutual love in the community of faith.
- Show hospitality to strangers.
- Remember those who are imprisoned.
- Do not forget those who are being tortured.
- Honor your marriage and the marriages of others.
- Do not defile the marriage bed with fornication or adultery.
- Eschew the love of money.
- Develop a sense of contentment with what you have.
- Support your church leaders.
- Do good.
- Share what you have.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:Hebrews 13: 1-8,15-16
Trustworthy is Better Than Smart
The writer of Hebrews reminds the community, “Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” This spiritual advice matches the discoveries of modern neuroscience. As Amy Cuddy explains, “When we meet someone new, we quickly answer two questions: “Can I trust this person?” and “Can I respect this person?” In our research, my colleagues and I have referred to these dimensions as warmth and competence respectively. Usually we think that a person we’ve just met is either more warm than competent or more competent than warm, but not both in equal measure. We like our distinctions to be clear—it’s a human bias.” She adds, “But we don’t value the two traits equally. First we judge warmth or trustworthiness, which we consider to be the more important of the two dimensions.”
Showing hospitality isn’t just an act of faith; it fits our need to know people and be known by them, so trust can develop.
* * *
Hebrews 13: 1-8,15-16
Mutual Love with the Earth
Biologist and member of the Potawatomi Nation Robin Wall Kimmerer echoes the writer of Hebrews, and the instruction to “let mutual love continue.” Dr. Kimmerer finds that kind of love with her garden, and with her daughters, flowing back and forth between human beings and the earth. She recalls a day in her garden, noting that her daughters “complain about garden chores, as kids are supposed to do, but once they start they get caught up in the softness of the dirt and the smell of the day and it is hours later when they come back into the house. Seeds for this basket of beans were poked into the ground by their fingers back in May. Seeing them plant and harvest makes me feel like a good mother, teaching them how to provide for themselves.”
Love is visible in good food. “How do I show my girls I love them on a morning in June? I pick them wild strawberries. On a February afternoon we build snowmen and then sit by the fire. In March we make maple syrup. We pick violets in May and go swimming in July. On an August night we lay out blankets and watch meteor showers. In November, that great teacher the woodpile comes into our lives. That’s just the beginning. How do we show our children our love? Each in our own way by a shower of gifts and a heavy rain of lessons.
Maybe it was the smell of ripe tomatoes, or the oriole singing, or that certain slant of light on a yellow afternoon and the beans hanging thick around me. It just came to me in a wash of happiness that made me laugh out loud, startling the chickadees who were picking at the sunflowers, raining black and white hulls on the ground. I knew it with a certainty as warm and clear as the September sunshine. The land loves us back. She loves us with beans and tomatoes, with roasting ears and blackberries and birdsongs. By a shower of gifts and a heavy rain of lessons. She provides for us and teaches us to provide for ourselves. That’s what good mothers do.”
Let mutual love continue, as the earth’s goodness unfolds in signs of love.
* * *
Luke 14: 1, 7-14
Finding the Right Place
In this parable, Jesus highlights the virtue of humility, of not claiming too high a place at the banquet. The flip side of the parable is also true, as we need people to get us to the right place at the table. Visionary Trabian Shorters recalls growing up in Pontiac, MI, in a town heavy with auto factories. As Shorters recalls, “the schools didn’t discover that I had a high IQ. My mother knew it way sooner, and she advocated for me to get into these different programs my entire early school life, and it was very hard. Folks were not willing to test me; they weren’t willing to consider me in those ways. I don’t know if it was the school system or racially motivated or whatever, but she had to work at it. She had to push at it. The first scholarship I got was to a place called Roeper, and that was a consequence of my mom pushing. And their criteria for even considering me was that I take an IQ test.
So once I get the IQ test and I go to Roeper, and all of a sudden I’m a smart kid now. And so all my toys change — I don’t get to — it’s not G.I. Joe with the Kung Fu Grip anymore; now I’ve got to get science kits and electronic — which I liked, honestly, but I also wanted to do normal stuff. So I’d definitely get nerd toys, and not long after that, the PC comes out and so I get a chance to start building computers, which I really liked, and also programming them. So I’m on the nerd track, in full bloom.”
That led to another scholarship at an exclusive school, “a fantastic private boarding school hidden behind cobblestone walls in Bloomfield Hills. And it’s very much like being transported off-planet, because I had lived, up till that point, around poor folk and with what I call “regular folk.” I’d been around regular folk, and Cranbrook is not a regular-folk community.”
The dramatically different place at the educational table has fueled his adult work around questions of equity and diversity. Being invited to this table was sharp turn in the direction of his life.
* * *
Luke 14: 1, 7-14
Inviting People to the Table
The “Boston Miracle” is an effort to reduce violence in the City of Boston, which has grown hugely from its bewildered beginnings. In a season of terrible violence among young people in Boston, the Rev. Jeffrey Brown and others took a then-unusual step. They invited young members of gangs to talk to them about what would stop the violence.
One of the early successes was a cease fire in 2006. The group of pastors and community leaders working to reduce the violence floated the idea of a truce, a halt in the shootings. Because they had invited young community members to join the conversation, they could work out what a cease fire would look like, and how it would work. “And what the youth said in response to that was that you’re not going to be able to get us to do that cold turkey,” Jeffrey said. “So why don’t you start with a period of time, like a cease-fire? So we created that between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, and we called it season of peace. They gave us the directions for what to do, you know? “I had them in a room, and I made the pitch for the season of peace and asked for their approval. And that’s when I got my first indication that this might work, because a young guy “gets up, and he says, ‘All right, so do we stop shooting at midnight on Wednesday night? Or do we stop on Thanksgiving morning? And do we start shooting again on December thirty-first or on January first?’ “And it was a conflict for me,” Jeffrey said, “because I was like, ‘I don’t want you to start shooting at all.’ But I said, ‘Okay, you stop shooting Wednesday night and you can start again after New Year’s Day.’ Now, you know, ethically I was like, ‘I can’t believe you told them they could start shooting after the first of the year.’ But we were trying to get them to establish peace and give them a sense of what it’s like to be able to go into a neighborhood and not have to look over your shoulder every five seconds.” As you can imagine, in Boston at that tense time, there was little confidence that a bunch of clergy members could usher in a period during which gang members would suddenly stop shooting each other. “The first time we did that season of peace, the cops were like, ‘Hey, good luck,’” almost with a wink and a snicker, Jeffrey recalled.
And then the first twenty-two days after that there were no shootings, no shots fired, nada. Gary French, who was in charge of the Boston police gang unit, called me, and he kept calling me every day, saying, ‘Nothing happened yesterday.’ And he wanted to know, ‘What did you do? Who did you talk to?’ The police wanted all this information from us.”
Jeffrey Brown reminded them that it was nothing more, and nothing less, than having the young community members in the conversation — inviting them to move up to a better place at the banquet. He said, “I already told you—it’s looking at the youth not as the problem but as partners.’” (Story from Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges by Amy Cuddy)
* * * * * *
From team member Katy Stenta:Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
We do not Believe
There are many prescriptions about how to live into the faith of God’s community. If Jeremiah 2:4-13 and Luke 14 are about what people are doing wrong, then Hebrews is the prescription of what to do right. Another such text might be this affirmation of faith:
Statement of Faith — We do not believe (Source Unknown)
We do not believe God wills hunger and poverty for the planet’s children.
We do not believe God organizes the death of anyone young or old.
We do not believe God hates our questions and detests our doubts.
We do not believe God wishes us to accept everything without debate.
We do not believe God likes the status quo that denies people liberty and freedom.
We do not believe God is silent in the councils of government.
We do not believe God approves what we have done to religion.
We do not believe God speaks only through words.
We do not believe God can be understood only through the interpretation of scholars.
We do not believe God is limited by human description.
We do believe God loves us.
We do believe God loves us so much that death was crushed, and life began anew.
We believe what we can grasp, and hold and touch, and also what we cannot grasp but know deep within.
We have not seen the empty tomb but we believe in the Risen and Living Christ.
We believe. God, help our unbelief. Amen.
* * *
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Heaven is a food fight
Heaven is like a food fight; the kind that is a raucous party, where everyone is included and no one knows who is sitting where.
Heaven is like a feast, where no one goes hungry, a party where the latecomers are not shamed,
A party that is so fun that everyone feels good about inviting those who would be otherwise left out.
Heaven is a haven without steps: so it does not matter if you are blind or able-bodied, or poor, no one will be above anyone else.
Heaven is a circle, like a pizza pie or a blueberry crumb pie; there will be no first or last, just an everlasting place of love.
Heaven is not pie, the helpings and blessings will never run out, there will always be enough air for all.
Heaven is like a food fight, everyone will be whopped in the face with a pie, and laugh with the joy of it all.
What payment can exist in a place like that? So invite everyone to the food fight, because it’s not going to matter.
* * *
Jeremiah 2:4-13, Hebrews 13 :1-8, 15-16
God is calling us all cracked here. It is not an easy complaint. God says we tried to do it all ourselves, turned to false promises, and created our own containers that are cracked. Our explanations do not hold much water. What an image, in the desert. Especially from our God the Potter. What does it mean when we put nationalism, racism and capitalism before God? What does it mean when we cannot trust ourselves or each other? God has promised that our way produces no profit. It is amazing, when you think about it because the ways of justice: feeding, housing and clothing people, educating and rehabilitating people and giving them medical care almost always have long ranging, good implications. We know this because of the natural case study of wealth differences between Blacks and whites as a result of the GI bill. We also know this because whenever people without houses have their homelessness treated, their other problems inevitably lessen. Regularly feeding children at school is the easiest way to improve their outcomes. We know how to fix our problems, we just need the will to do it.
* * * * * *
WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Sing aloud to God our strength.
All: Shout for joy to the God of Jacob.
One: I am your God, who brought you out of Egypt.
All: Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.
One: I would feed you with the finest of the wheat.
All: With honey from the rock I would satisfy you.
OR
One: God calls us to love one another.
All: In loving each other, we are also loving God.
One: God calls us to welcome the stranger.
All: When we welcomes strangers, we are welcoming God.
One: God comes to be our helper in all of life.
All: With God’s help we will also help others.
Hymns and Songs
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
UMH: 139
H82: 390
AAHH: 117
NNBH: 2
NCH: 22
CH: 25
ELW: 858/859
AMEC: 3
STLT: 278
Renew: 57
Lord, Speak to Me
UMH: 463
PH: 426
NCH: 531
ELW: 676
W&P: 593
Spirit Song
UMH: 347
AAHH: 321
CH: 352
W&P: 352
Renew: 248
Pues Si Vivimos (When We Are Living)
UMH: 356
PH: 400
CH: 536
ELW: 639
W&P: 415
Standing on the Promises
UMH: 374
AAHH: 373
NNBH: 257
CH: 552
AMEC: 424
Have Thine Own Way, Lord
UMH: 382
AAHH: 449
NNBH: 206
CH: 588
W&P: 486
AMEC: 345
I Am Thine, O Lord
UMH: 419
AAHH: 387
NNBH: 202
NCH: 455
CH: 601
W&P: 408
AMEC: 283
Cuando El Pobre (When the Poor Ones)
UMH: 434
PH: 407
CH: 662
ELW: 725
W&P: 624
O Young and Fearless Prophet
UMH: 444
CH: 669
STLT 276
You Satisfy the Hungry Heart
UMH: 629
PH: 521
CH: 429
ELW: 484
W&P: 705
Make Me a Servant
CCB: 90
Father, I Adore You
CCB: 64
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
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
ELW: 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 enthroned in power and justice:
Grant us the wisdom to seek justice for all
so that we may live in harmony with you;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you sit in power and justice. You are the true judge of all creation. Help us to join you in seeking wisdom for all your children that we may truly live in harmony with you and your creation. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our seeking to elevate ourselves while debasing others.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have sought our own glory and status often at the expense of others. We have placed our own wants ahead of the needs of others. We want the place of honor in the eyes of those around us more than we want the good for others. We are more concerned with how much we can gather for ourselves than we are with seeing to the needs of others. Forgive our selfish hearts and cleanse them so that we may live as your true children. Amen.
One: God always welcomes those who desire to live in harmony with the divine justice and grace. Receive God’s forgiveness and share it with all those you meet.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory to you, O God of all creation. You are the creating parent of all 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 have sought our own glory and status often at the expense of others. We have placed our own wants ahead of the needs of others. We want the place of honor in the eyes of those around us more than we want the good for others. We are more concerned with how much we can gather for ourselves than we are with seeing to the needs of others. Forgive our selfish hearts and cleanse them so that we may live as your true children.
We give you thanks that you provide for all your children and for all of creation. You hold all life and all things in the power of your loving embrace. You have supplied us with all that we need to live life abundantly and full. All creation praises and thanks you for your loving kindness to all.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all who are in need this day. We know that many are without the very necessities of life lacking proper nutrition, clean water, and adequate shelter. We know many are caught in the violence of war or of crime. Many struggle with illness, injury, and facing death. There are those around us who are lonely, depressed, and anxious. As we lift these up to you we ask that you would also be a healing presence in their lives through us. Hear us as we pray for your children. (Time may be given for vocally or silently naming those in need.)
(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 Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, August 28, 2022 issue.
Copyright 2022 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.
