Giving Things Up
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For October 14, 2018:
Giving Things Up
by Mary Austin
Mark 10:17-31
The man who runs up to Jesus with such urgency gets an impossible choice from Jesus. Looking around at the shabby band of fishermen and farmers around Jesus, he must wonder why in the world he should give up his wealth and social position to become like…them?
Kansas City mayoral candidate Jason Kander faced a similar choice recently. A favorite in the mayoral race, Kander dropped out, announcing that he needed time to deal with depression and PTSD resulting from his military service in Afghanistan. His decision to quit the mayor’s race appears to have coalesced last week. “Last Tuesday, I found out that we were going to raise more money than any Kansas City mayoral campaign ever has in a single quarter,” Kander’s announcement said. “But instead of celebrating that accomplishment, I found myself on the phone with the (Veterans Affairs) Veterans Crisis Line, tearfully conceding that, yes, I have had suicidal thoughts. And it wasn’t the first time.” Kander said he first contacted the VA for help about four months ago.
Kander showed a kind of personal openness that is rare in public life. Giving up something that feels like a sure thing is painful. His public statements point to a level of desperation akin to the rich man talking to Jesus, and also to a larger purpose.
The wealthy man shows us the costs and pain of following Jesus, and also the costs and pain of not being able to follow.
In the Scriptures
This story shows up in all three synoptic gospels, and Mark simply gives us the description that the man is wealthy. We’re used to thinking of him as “the rich young ruler,” but Mark doesn’t tell us that he’s young or a ruler, only that he’s wealthy. Something prompts him to run up to Jesus, unusual for a wealthy man, who could send a servant ahead of him. He kneels, and asks his question. He wonders what he has to do to inherit eternal life, but an inheritance is given because of who we are, not what we do.
Jesus is on a journey -- it turns out that this journey is toward Jerusalem, and his eventual death. Perhaps that’s why he has less patience than he might with this young man. Time is short. There won’t be time for the young man to consider and reconsider his path.
The wealthy man believes that he’s done everything he can do…short of committing himself, and going all in with Jesus. Jesus asks him to give up his money, which also means giving up his status and importance. He would be giving up a way of life where he’s in control for a life where God is in control. That would be hard for any of us, to give up the layers of privilege in our lives. We are all accustomed to the unseen privilege that comes with education, income, skin color, and the role of pastor.
After the wealthy man goes away, the disciples have their own questions for Jesus. They have already done what Jesus asked this man to do. For the wealthy young man, there’s a dramatic financial cost. For the disciples, there’s a cost in lost relationships, as people who don’t understand what they’re doing, in lost income as they travel with Jesus, and even in the loss of their place in the traditional way of worship. The two stories mirror each other, as each explores the cost of following Jesus.
The non-canonical Gospel of the Nazarenes adds to this story.
The other of the rich men said to him "Master, what good thing shall I do and live?" He said to him "Man, perform the law and the prophets." He answered him "I have performed them." He said to him "Go, sell all that thou hast and divide it to the poor, and come, follow me." But the rich man began to scratch his head, and it pleased him not. And the Lord said to him "How can you say 'I have performed the law and the prophets'? seeing that it is written in the law 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,' and look, many of your brothers, sons of Abraham, are clad with dung, dying for hunger, and your house is full of much goods, and there goes out therefrom nought at all unto them."
The young man actually hasn’t fulfilled all the commandments, Jesus says, because so many people are still in need. He hasn’t really done what he thinks he has done. In this version of the story, to follow Jesus, he would need to give up his self-image, along with his money, to truly follow.
The rich man points us all to the things that we would be hard-pressed to give up, too.
In the News
In the past few weeks, people have been talking about the feeling of entitlement, which Psychology Today says we recognize mostly by its effect on us. ”When people feel entitled, they want to be different from others. But just as frequently they come across as indifferent to others. That’s why they often provoke such negative responses in those they encounter, especially those they don’t personally know.” We feel it coming from others. “Entitlement is an enduring personality trait, characterized by the belief that one deserves preferences and resources that others do not.” It’s hard to put our finger on, but we sense it in the wealthy man who meets up with Jesus, among others.
Jason Kander’s decision to get out of the mayoral race comes across as an anti-entitlement move. He surprised people, largely because he “was seen as a clear favorite to win the mayor’s race next April.” He stepped away from that in a humbling effort to regain his mental health. We’re accustomed to people dropping out of races that are going badly, or people leaving public life ahead of a scandal, announcing that they “want to spend more time with family.” We’re not used to people leaving something where success seems to be waiting.
One of the things that stood out from Judge (now Justice) Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing was his sense of entitlement. Answering questions from Senator Amy Klobuchar, Kavanaugh allowed himself to be rude and dismissive to a U.S. Senator. When she asked him about his drinking, her questions “elicited his rudest, and what many believe was his most revealing, behavior.” “So you’re saying you never drank so much that you didn’t remember the night before?” she asked the nominee. Perfect question: It went to the reliability of Kavanaugh’s memory, the consistency of his self-accounting, his history of reckless behavior and his capacity to be honest. “It’s -- you’re asking about, you know, blackout,” Kavanaugh said, his chin dimpling in what looked like despair. “I don’t know. Have you?” “Could you answer the question…. Is that your answer?” “Yeah. And I’m curious if you have.” “I don’t have a drinking problem, Judge.” “Yeah, nor do I,” Kavanaugh said. With his chippy answers, Kavanaugh seemed to close the case against himself. He was out of evasions, down to the bottom of his box of tricks: raw pain and projection. He couldn’t think straight under pressure. He was willing to show aggression toward a woman and a U.S. senator.”
Columnist Brett Younger Baptist New Service notes that Kavanaugh, like many people, fails to see how privileged he is. “In a non-response to a question from Senator Mazie Keiko Hirono of Hawaii, U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh said, “I got into Yale Law School. That’s the number one law school in the country. I had no connections there. I got there by busting my tail in college…”A Supreme Court justice has to recognize that there are many smart, hard-working people who do not get to go to Yale. Kavanaugh probably did study hard and workouts at Tobin’s House must have been strenuous, but it is stunning that he would claim that he went to Yale with “no connections.” Kavanaugh should know that many intelligent, industrious people do not have two parents who are lawyers -- one a Circuit Court Judge -- and a grandfather who went to Yale. Most cannot afford a private high school where the tuition is $60,280 a year. Many high school campuses are not 93 acres. None of the public high schools in my area have an 11-lane swimming pool with a diving area. Kavanaugh may be surprised to learn that not all high schools have their own nine-hole golf course. (Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, by the way, is also a Georgetown Prep graduate, class of 1985, so perhaps we could argue that some other high school could be represented on the Supreme Court.) Kavanaugh’s experience at an elite prep school, an elite college and an elite law school is not normal. Some teenagers cannot go to workouts after school, because they have to go to work after school to help their family pay the bills. Many do not have beach houses. Most never belong to a fraternity…” Like the wealthy man who approaches Jesus, many of us fail to see the layers of privilege in our lives. Younger adds, “Some privileged people desperately want to believe that they deserve everything they have. Kavanaugh gives the impression that he feels entitled. He expresses anger more easily than sympathy.”
It's hard to know how any of us would act in the crucible that Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings turned out to be, but the hearings reveal plenty that could be given up on both sides of the aisle, in service to civility and cooperation.
In the Sermon
With the end of his life approaching, Jesus has a sense of urgency about his invitation to the young man, and in his communication with the disciples. The sermon might look at what questions are urgent for us. What is God prompting us to do, right now? What should we be doing quickly, instead of with the slow pace that our denominations and governing boards require. Where is God trying to move us quickly?
Or the sermon might look at things that are hard to give up. Not just money, but the things that come with money. Having money means we get treated with more deference, and we get better service and more attention in stores, schools, and public places. The police treat us better, and the justice system works better for people with money. What, for us, would be hard to give up to follow Jesus? Where are we cherishing some sense of entitlement?
The wealthy man asks what he needs to “do to inherit eternal life?” The people who inherit eternal life are the family members of Jesus. Elsewhere, he outlines his new vision of family, where his brothers and sisters are those who do the will of God. The wealthy man could become part of the family by making himself equal to everyone else, by giving away his money to join this new kind of family. Instead he separates himself from the rest of God’s family by holding onto his money. He wants to belong, and he goes away sad, but not quite sad enough. The sermon might look at how we join God’s family, and how we make ourselves into brothers and sisters in faith.
The man goes away sad, and the sermon might look at that holy sorrow, and where it might lead him. Have we had time of deep sorrow, knowing that we’re not where God wants us to be? How do we use sorrow as a spiritual guide, leading us closer to God?
The wealthy man who leaves Jesus to go on with his life is an image of each of us, in some ways. In these days when so many people are suffering, the rich man invites us to look at our own privileges, and what we hold onto. If our hands and minds are too full, we won’t be able to fit through the eye of a needle, either. Thankfully, Jesus has enduring hope for each one of us. With God, all things are possible.
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SECOND THOUGHTS
Eliter Than You
by Dean Feldmeyer
Mark 10:17-31
In The Culture
We’ve been hearing the word “elite” a lot lately.
Both sides of the political divide like to use it as a pejorative to describe the other.
Conservatives talk about “liberal elites” who control the media in the service of socialism. Liberals talk about “wealthy elites” who go to ivy leagues colleges and think society’s rules don’t apply to them.
The Oxford English dictionary offers a classical definition of “elite” as a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society. In this sense, it is not necessarily a bad thing to be part of an elite group.
Navy Seals are considered the elite of the U.S. armed forces.
Elite universities are hard to get into and have stringent qualifications and requirements which make the degrees they award more valuable than those of other schools.
Cordon Bleu schools of culinary arts create the world’s elite chefs, and only the elite restaurants receive Michelin stars.
But there is a down side to being elite. The Oxford dictionary offers this as a secondary definition of “elite:” A group or class of people seen as having the most power and influence in a society, especially on account of their wealth or privilege.
These folks don’t have power and influence because of their skills and abilities, their gifts and graces, but because of their wealth and their position of privilege. They run the company because they were born into the family that owns the company. They sit on the throne because their father or mother sat on the throne. They hold high offices in the government because they went to school with someone who did.
Shamus Khan, the chair of the sociology department at Columbia University, and the author of Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School speaks of how the idea of elitism can be twisted into something that is good for neither the individual nor the culture at large.
The classical root of “privilege,” privus lex, he explains, means “private law.” Our contemporary elites have both the sense and the experience that the rules don’t really apply to them and that they can act without much concern for the consequences. Elite schools like Georgetown Prep and Yale have long cultivated this sensibility in conscious and unconscious ways.
“What makes these schools elite is that so few can attend. In the mythologies they construct, only those who are truly exceptional are admitted -- precisely because they are not like everyone else. Yale President Peter Salovey, for instance, has welcomed freshmen by telling them that they are “the very best students.” To attend these schools is to be told constantly: You’re special, you’re a member of the elect, you have been chosen because of your outstanding qualities and accomplishments.
“Schools often quite openly affirm the idea that, because you are better, you are not governed by the same dynamics as everyone else. They celebrate their astonishingly low acceptance rates and broadcast lists of notable alumni who have earned their places within the nation’s highest institutions, such as the Supreme Court. I heard these messages constantly when I attended St. Paul’s, one of the most exclusive New England boarding schools, where boys and girls broke rules with impunity, knowing that the school would protect them from the police and that their families would help ensure only the most trivial of consequences.”1
He goes on: “According to research by psychologists Paul Piff and Dacher Keltner, elites’ sense of their own exceptionalism helps instill within them a tendency to be less compassionate. This may have its roots in the fact that there seem to be two different sets of consequences for the rich and the rest.”2
In The Scripture and The Pulpit
In this Sunday’s gospel lection, Jesus is confronted with one of these wealthy elites who believes that his elite status should afford him a guaranteed front row seat in the kingdom of God.
Jesus is just setting out on a journey when this wealthy man runs up to him and asks, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
The first two words he utters reveal that his desire is to direct the conversation himself and, assuming that Jesus is as shallow and self-absorbed as all the other teachers he has met, he begins with flattery.
But Jesus is having none of this flattery business. He brushes it off with a mild rebuke: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” Then, without waiting for a counter reply, he goes on to answer the man’s inquiry.
Follow the commandments. We are Jews, after all. Our salvation lies within the Torah.
The man’s has his answer ready: “But I’ve done all that since I was a kid.” Surely, in other words, there must be something else. The desire, of course, is that Jesus will say, “Nope. That’s it. If you’ve done all that, you’re good to go. Your seat in heaven is secure. Aisle B, seat number 332, just two over from the aisle.”
But, of course, that is not what Jesus says.
Jesus loves this man so much that he won’t let him get away with buying his way into heaven or thinking that he can.
There’s just one thing more you need to do, he says.
Look closely and you can see the disbelief flash across this man’s face, the question mark in his eyes. Watch as his shoulder’s slump and his body sags with disappointment. “Surely you’re kidding,” his posture says. “Surely you’re just messing with me. How can there be anything else? Do my wealth and privilege, my education and accomplishments, my dedication to the law and my sacrificial obedience to it mean nothing?”
And, here, Jesus pushes his case just one inch more.
No, to God, they mean nothing. You have one more thing you need to do. Sell everything you have and give it to the poor and come, follow me.
You have one more thing to do and that is the very thing you can’t do because you have so much. Sell it all -- your stuff, your education, your title, your position, you’re youthful good looks, your status in the community, your ELITE status in the community… and come, follow me.
See, God lives in a Kingdom of Grace and in that kingdom there is no such thing as elite, so your elite status in this world won’t buy you a ticket even in the back row of the balcony in heaven.
You already have a front row seat reserved and it’s a gift from the God who loves you more than any singing of it.
1 Khan, Shamus. "Kavanaugh is lying. His upbringing explains why." Washington Post, September 28, 2018
2 Ibid.
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ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Chris Keating:
On the lighter side…
Psalm 22:1-15
My God, why?
While newly-confirmed associate supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh (with a “u”) celebrated his promotion this week, poor Brett Kavanagh (no “u”) from Kentucky has been running ragged keeping up phone calls and hate messages. “This is a terrible time to be named Brett Kavanagh,” tweeted Brett Kavanagh, a Louisville, Kentucky, salesperson.
His tweet quickly went viral, attracting support from other eponymous Twitter twins @susancollins826, (not the Senator) who replied, “I feel your pain.” Others in the unfortunate name-sharing club joined the tweet-storm, including a good-natured man named Mike Pence (“Welcome to the club, brother,”), as well as Paul (not-the-Speaker) Ryan, James (never Jimmy) Carter, and a software developer from Pennsylvania named Matt Lauer who advised the Kentucky Kavanagh to “set aside an extra 5 minutes in the checkout line for all the questions that will inevitably be asked. Speaking from experience…”
There’s still no word from anyone named “@Job_from_Uz.”
* * *
Amos 5:6-7, 10-15
Climate change and economic justice
A significant report from a panel of United Nations researchers offers dire predictions of the immediate consequences of climate change, and notes that avoiding significant damage will require transforming the world economy. It’s predictions of major food shortages by 2040, wildfires and massive erosion of coral reefs echo the urgency of Amos’ call to repent.
The report was issued on the same day that the Nobel Prize for economics was awarded to two American economists, including one whose work focused on integrating climate change into long-range macroeconomic analysis.
* * *
Mark 10:17-31
Go, sell what you own (because your kids don’t want it!)
Aging baby boomers are rubbing against a hard truth: their kids don’t want their old stuff, no matter how “vintage” it might be. The rich man, were he alive today, would find himself in a quandary when it came time to off-load his estate. Today’s rich men and women find it hard to pass along grandma’s good china. An article in the Observer last year summarized several articles detailing the conflict between anti-clutter millennials and their possession-burdened parents.
* * *
Mark 10:17-31
Then who can be saved?
Puzzled by Jesus’ demanding instructions, the disciples ask him, “Who can be saved?” Jesus reminds them that being included in the kingdom of God is not a matter of status, prestige or achievement, but is rather an act of grace. Those willing to give up their earthly possessions will receive all that they have sacrificed -- and more.
The Philanthropy Roundtable, a network of American philanthropists, conducts surveys on giving in the United States. Their data may be helpful for upcoming stewardship sermons. “It is easy to think of philanthropy as something done by the very wealthy,” their website notes, “or big foundations, or prosperous companies. Actually, of the $358 billion that Americans gave to charity in 2014, only 14 percent came from foundation grants, and just 5 percent from corporations. The rest -- 81 percent -- came from individuals.”
The Roundtable’s research scrutinized the giving habits of Americans. Generally, faith tends to be an important incentive to giving. Southerners are more generous than New Englanders, for some unexplained reason. Not surprisingly, Utah leads the nation in giving, with Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia rounding out the top five states (based on percentage of adjusted gross income). Citizens of Salt Lake City tend to give between 4-6 percent of their discretionary income to charity, while Bostonians average about two percent. Residents of rural areas and small towns give more than urban dwellers.
As to Jesus’ warning that it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom, the Roundtable’s research suggests that while the wealthy are generous, low-income Americans give more than middle-income donors, and sometimes even more than the wealthy.
The essay concludes:
If instead of the average percentage of income given away by wealthy households, we look at the median percentage (meaning that half gave more than this amount, and half gave less), the wealthy appear less magnanimous. From 2007-2011, the median wealthy household (having annual income of $200,000+ or assets of $1 million+) gave away 3.4 percent of its income.
Interestingly, when rich people live in separate enclaves they are not as generous as when they live interspersed in normal communities. The “How America Gives” study showed that when households earning $200,000 a year make up more than 40 percent of the residents of a particular ZIP code, they give just 2.8 percent of their discretionary income to charity. If they live in more mixed neighborhoods and towns, though, they give an average of closer to 5 percent.
Physical separation and economic stratification corrode social cooperation and generosity. In towns, villages, and cities where Americans of differing fortunes live in more traditional combinations, though, generosity flourishes. And for many Americans, the resulting giving seems to be deeply connected to satisfaction in life.
* * *
Mark 10:17-31
Transformative generosity
The rich man’s religious credentials are impeccable, yet he has struggled to discover that generosity causes the heart to flourish. He seems “stuck” in understanding that the pathway toward God comes from a heart that is transformed by loving generosity. Successful business person Jim Callaway shared his experiences of the transformative aspect of generosity with the writers of Philanthropy Roundtable:
“I came to realize that expanding my philanthropic activities could be both meaningful and fun,” Callaway told Philanthropy magazine in 2015. “Making a lot of money and spending it on yourself is not a lot of fun,” Callaway said in an earlier interview with the Chronicle of Philanthropy. “What is a lot of fun is to live modestly so that you can give to the common good. That’s where happiness really lies.”
* * * * * * * * *
From team member Bethany Peerbolte:
Job 23:1-17
What are the rules?
A favorite game in our youth group is called “Grandpa’s House.” During this game players try to figure out the rules as they play. Only the leader knows the rule or pattern everyone should be following. The leader starts out by saying “I am going to Grandpa’s house and I am bringing_______.” They fill in the blank with something that follows their rule. Then the next player says “I will bring_____.” and fills in the blank with something they thing will follow the rule. The rule could be that everything you bring has to have only five letters in the name. The leader may start by bringing chips, and the next player may say they want to bring hot dogs. Since hot dogs is more than five letters the leader would respond “you can’t bring that,” and move onto the next player. Every so often a player will stumble upon something they can bring, like bread or coats, and the leader would say “yes you can bring that.” Eventually students think they know the rule, only to be disappointed when their next item is turned down. Sometimes students get pretty far thinking they know the rule only to have it seem to change. Arguments inevitably break out about what has been allowed and what has been refused. Thinking the leader has changed or messed up in some way, but once they really know the rule they see their own mistake.
Job is feeling like the rules have been changed. The game he signed up to play was follow God and be blessed. As blessings continue to disappear around Job his friends urge him to repent for whatever is causing this hardship. Job remains firm that he did not do anything wrong, that he has always been a righteous man. The problem is Job is still in the middle of the game. God knows the rule and has never changed, it is only Job’s view of the rule that has changed.
* * *
Job 23:1-17
When God is on a smoke break.
Without fail all hell would break lose the minute my manager stepped outside for a smoke break. It only took him 10 minutes but it was always the longest 10 minutes of a shift. Smoke breaks were the only time during a shift he would demand we leave him alone. Not only would he step out for a cigarette he would hide. If a fight broke out we would have no idea how to find him. One time I was dealing with a particularly angry customer. They were trying to return something to the store that was past our policy deadline. The good news was the item had a warranty the customer could redeem on their own from the manufacturer. The customer did not want to do that, they wanted their money here and now. I ran through all my usual nice phrases of support and empathy. Explained the warranty in a few different ways, but they did not budge. I needed my manager to back me up, but he was on a smoke break. I panicked. I had no authority to do what this customer needed, and I was pretty sure they were not going to wait 10 minutes for my manager to come back to the floor. So I improvised. When the customer finally left, I slumped on the cash register in relief. My manager came up behind me and said “nice job.” He had been listening to the whole interaction from a nearby aisle. He was out of cigarettes and had come back in to help, but saw me doing my best to stay afloat and wanted to see what I would come up with.
Job is mad, like I was, that he is left alone to fend for himself. Job wants God’s input and guidance but when he looks for God, God is on a smoke break. Or so it seems. In reality God is just a few feet away watching to see how Job will respond in a hardship, seeing if he will give into his friends false beliefs, or if he will give up on God all together.
* * *
Psalm 22
It’s worth the breath
Even after Brett Kavanaugh was voted in as a supreme court justice, protesters continued to yell. If there is one thing the Trump administration has done for America it is teaching us how to protest. The number of marches organized sky rocketed this past April. Marches for science, women, for our lives, for black lives, for all lives, are being held in cities, townships, and at the capitol. The difference protests make can be a hard thing to calculate. Some say they do very little and that the time is better spent calling representatives. Others say the show of solidarity is enough to changes ideas.
Psalm 22 shows us the real value of our yelling. It’s place in the book of Psalms shows that lament and anger are emotions worthy of our breath. Even if we feel so forgotten that we yell out asking why God has forsaken us, that is a worthy cry. Crying out to God is not about negotiating a solution, it isn’t even about getting a reply. This psalm is about the act of getting that emotion out, expressing it faithfully, and still falling into God’s arms.
* * *
Psalm 22
Angry Christian Music
Listen to Christian radio for 24 hours and count how many times a song talks about anger. Better yet, count how many times those songs sound angry. If there were no words at all, would the emotion of anger still carry through. Spoiler alert, you will be disappointed. Contemporary Christian music does not venture into the world of anger enough. Skillet may be the only group who is really embracing the lament tradition of Psalms. Secular music is not afraid to get angry. There are whole genres where the main emotional expression is anger and rage. For some reason Christian music has not found a voice for anger.
It’s not because it isn’t biblical. Psalm 22 is a great example of how expressing anger is encouraged. If it was wrong, they would have cut the lament Psalms out of our Bibles. They are still there, reminding us that anger is not bad or wrong. It can be felt and expressed in a biblical and righteous way.
* * *
Hebrews 4:12-16
What’s Tough Love got to do with it?
Those dealing with addiction argue if tough love is more effective or if empathy works better. The tough love crowd argues that holding the line and not having any give on rules is key to recovery. While those who think empathy is best say collaboration and building community is the only lasting way to fight addiction. Tough love says forced treatment is useful to initiate the first step of recovery, and advocates of empathy treatment say the addict needs to buy into the treatment to have a lasting effect. They do agree that not all treatment works the same for every addict. How the motivation to fight the addiction gets found is not as important as helping someone find it any way you can.
Hebrews is a bit like an intervention for Christians. It is not easy to read the truth so plainly. No one wants to have to face their own belief when death and hell are the outcome of unbelief. It is not comforting to hear God’s word will cut through you so smoothly you won’t even realize you are bleeding. That is the reality though. Hebrews can feel a bit like tough love. For some of us it will be the kick in the butt we need to make a change. For others it will be so terrifying we will sink lower in our sin. Thankfully there are books like Philippians with a bit more joy for the latter.
* * *
Mark 10:17-31
Borders Worth Crossing
Growing up near the American-Canadian border, I learned quickly that crossing borders was a pain. It takes careful planning and lots of time to get across a national border. For thousands of students on the American-Mexican border this is a daily hassle. Students get up hours before school starts to stand in lines every morning and every afternoon for a better education. Parents admit the time management is hard, but worth it for their kid’s education.
For the young rich man in Mark’s gospel the hassle of crossing the border into God’s kingdom was too much. He turns away disappointed at the cost. Jesus continues to explain to the disciples just how hard it is to cross the border into the kingdom of God. You might as well be a camel going through the eye of needle if you expect to make it across with your earthly wealth. Peter, in usual form, points out they have left their wealth behind. To which Jesus ensures them that hassle and sacrifice will be worth it when the are on the other side.
* * * * * * * * *
From team member Ron Love:
Heresy
Eutyches, (born c. 375 -- died 454), was a monastic superior in the Eastern Church at Constantinople. He is regarded as the founder of Eutychianism, a heresy that set forth as doctrine that the humanity of Christ and the divinity in Christ were of one nature. Eutychians believed Christ’s divinity was swallowed up his humanity “like a drop of wine in the sea.” Jesus was only one nature of God and man.
In 450, Emperor Theodosius II convened the fourth Council of Chalcedon in 451. The Council banished Eutyches, condemned his heresy, and established a centrist doctrine that came to serve as the touchstone of Christian orthodoxy in East and West. The Council held that Christ had two perfect and indivisible, but distinct, natures: one human and one divine. The Council was attended by 520 bishops, the largest gatherings to date. The Council reaffirmed the Nicene Creed of 325 that read in part:
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
* * *
Discipleship
In March 1939, Japanese Consul-General Chiune Sugihara and his wife Yukiko were sent to Kaunas to open a consulate service. Kaunas was the temporary capital of Lithuania at the time and was strategically situated between Germany and the Soviet Union. After Hitler's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Chiune Sugihara had barely settled down in his new post when Nazi armies invaded Poland and a wave of Jewish refugees streamed into Lithuania. They brought with them chilling tales of German atrocities against the Jewish population. They escaped from Poland without possessions or money, and the local Jewish population did their utmost to help with money, clothing and shelter.
Things began to change for the very worst on June 15, 1940, when the Soviets invaded Lithuania. It was now too late for the Lithuanian Jews to leave for the East. Ironically, the Soviets would allow Polish Jews to continue to emigrate out of Lithuania through the Soviet Union if they could obtain certain travel documents.
Against this terrible backdrop, with all Soviet ambassadors having left the country, the Japanese Consul Chiune Sugihara suddenly became the linchpin in a desperate plan for survival, as the Nazis began preparations for an invasion of Lithuania. The fate of thousands of families depended on his humanity.
It was then that some of the Polish refugees came up with a plan that offered one last chance for freedom. They discovered that two Dutch colonial islands, Curacao and Dutch Guiana, (now known as Suriname) situated in the Caribbean, did not require formal entrance visas. Furthermore, the honorary Dutch consul, Jan Zwartendijk, told them he had gotten permission to stamp their passports with entrance permits.
There remained one major obstacle. To get to these islands, the refugees needed to pass through the Soviet Union. The Soviet consul, who was sympathetic to the plight of the refugees, agreed to let them pass on one condition: In addition to the Dutch entrance permit, they would also have to obtain a transit visa from the Japanese, as they would have to pass through Japan on their way to the Dutch islands.
In late July 1940, after receiving repeated visa denials from Tokyo, Sugihara had a difficult decision to make. He was a man who was brought up in the strict and traditional discipline of the Japanese. On one hand, he was bound by the traditional obedience he had been taught all his life. On the other hand, he was a samurai who had been told to help those who were in need. He knew that if he defied the orders of his superiors, he might be fired and disgraced, and would probably never work for the Japanese government again. This would result in extreme financial hardship for his family in the future. Chiune and his wife Yukiko even feared for their lives and the lives of their children, but in the end, could only follow their consciences. The visas would be signed.
For 29 days, from July 31 to August 28, 1940, Mr. and Mrs. Sugihara sat for endless hours writing and signing visas by hand. Hour after hour, day after day, for these three weeks, they wrote and signed visas. They wrote over 300 visas a day, which would normally be one month's worth of work for the consul. At the end of the day, Yukiko would massage his fatigued hands. He did not even stop to eat. His wife supplied him with sandwiches. Sugihara chose not to lose a minute because people were standing in line in front of his consulate day and night for these visas. Hundreds of applicants became thousands as he worked to grant as many visas as possible before being forced to close the consulate and leave Lithuania. Consul Sugihara continued issuing documents from his train window until the moment the train departed Kovno for Berlin on September 1, 1940. And as the train pulled out of the station, Sugihara gave the consul visa stamp to a refugee who was able use it to save even more Jews.
In 1945, the Japanese government unceremoniously dismissed Chiune Sugihara from the diplomatic service. Chiune Sugihara could at first only find work as a part-time translator and interpreter. For the last two decades of his life, he worked as a manager for an export company with business in Moscow. This was his fate because he dared to save thousands of human beings from certain death.
These Jews who were saved became known as Sugihara Survivors. Chiune Sugihara, and his wife Yukiko, are honored as “Righteous Gentiles” for their efforts to save Jews during the Holocaust.
* * *
Truth
John Woolman, (1720-1772), was a British-American Quaker leader and abolitionist. His Journal, which he began when he was 36-years-old, was published posthumously in 1774, and is still recognized today as one of the classic records of the spiritual inner life.
When he was 21, he made his first appearance as a preacher of Quaker doctrine, exercising his ministry without financial remuneration, in keeping with his religion’s practice. In 1743 he took up tailoring, which afforded a modest income, augmented at times by other work.
Beginning in 1743 he made frequent and often difficult preaching journeys, visiting Maryland’s eastern shore, where he carried his message against slaveholding, and the Rhode Island coast, where he brought his antislavery doctrine to the attention of shipowners. In Indian villages of the Pennsylvania frontier, he supported Moravian missionary attempts, sought to curtail the sale of rum to the Indians, and worked for a more just Indian land policy.
Woolman maintained a strict manner of life, making his trips on foot whenever possible, wearing undyed garments, and abstaining from the use of any product connected with the slave trade. He was successful in getting Quaker communities to go on record against slavery and in persuading many individuals to free their slaves.
Some of the quotes from his journal and other publications are:
-- Conduct is more convincing than language.
-- To Turn all the treasures we possess into the channel of universal love becomes the business of our lives.
-- To say we love God as unseen and at the same time exercise cruelty toward the least creature moving by His life or by life derived from Him, was a contradiction in itself.
-- If a man successful in business expends a part of his income in things of no real use, while the poor employed by him pass through difficulties in getting the necessaries of life, this requires his serious attention.
* * *
Ministry
Charlotte Digges "Lottie" Moon (1840–1912) was a Southern Baptist missionary. She spent nearly 40 years (1873–1912) living and working in China.
A spirited and outspoken girl, Lottie was indifferent to her Christian upbringing until her early teens. She underwent a spiritual awakening after a series of revival meetings in 1858 on the college campus.
She taught school, but after her younger sister Edmonia accepted a call to go to North China as the first single woman Baptist missionary in 1872, Lottie decided to follow her. By this time the Southern Baptist Convention had relaxed its policy against sending single women into the mission field. On July 7, 1873, the Foreign Mission Board officially appointed 32-year-old Lottie as a missionary to China.
The Moon’s were a progressive family as Lottie’s older sister Orianna was a physician who served as a Confederate Army doctor during the American Civil War.
Lottie discovered her passion: direct evangelism. Most mission work at that time was done by married men, but an important reality was discovered -- only women could reach Chinese women. Lottie, though, was denied being an evangelist and had to continue teaching school. She had come to China to “go out among the millions as an evangelist, only to find herself relegated to teaching a school of forty “unstudious” children. She felt chained down, and came to view herself as part of an oppressed class -- single women missionaries. Her writings were an appeal on behalf of all those who were facing similar situations in their ministries. In an article titled The Woman's Question Again, published in 1883, Lottie wrote:
Can we wonder at the mortal weariness and disgust, the sense of wasted powers and the conviction that her life is a failure, that comes over a woman when, instead of the ever broadening activities that she had planned, she finds herself tied down to the petty work of teaching a few girls?
Lottie waged a slow but relentless campaign to give women missionaries the freedom to minister and have an equal voice in mission proceedings.
When Lottie Moon arrived in China she said, “If I had a thousand lives, I would give them all for the women of China.”
* * *
Ministry
Jonah Pokrovsky, (1888-1925), in his last years of life was the Bishop of Manzhuria, which was a part of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR). He served in Northern China in the years immediately following the Bolshevik Revolution.
In 1918, during the Revolution, Fr. Jonah was arrested by the communists and suffered beatings to the point of loss of consciousness and imprisonment. During the Revolution he was able to withdraw to the borders of Western China, being subjected to all kinds of hardships while crossing the Pamir cliffs, often forced to grab on to jagged ledges and the sparse shrubbery of the ice-covered cliffs with wounded hands. After crossing the Gobi Desert, he finally reached Beijing, where he was received into the Ecclesiastical Mission. He was soon consecrated Bishop of Manzhuria. During his short time as bishop, Fr. Jonah transformed the Orthodox community in Manzhuria.
Saddened by the destitute nature of the people, many without clothes, food, water and medical supplies, he set forth to minister to the indigent. During his few short years spent in Manzhuria he was able to establish: 1. An orphanage that held up to 30 children ranging from the ages of five to fourteen 2. A children's school accommodating up to 500 students 3. A dining hall for the poor, feeding up to 200 people daily 4. Free ambulatory care and medicine for the poor 5. A library.
Fr. Jonah, who was made a Saint, was a caring for a priest who died of typhoid fever. He subsequently contracted chronic tonsillitis and then, due to complications, developed blood poisoning. As he was dying, he wrote a final epistle to his flock, reminding them of the need to love one another, confessed one final time to Archbishop Methodius of Beijing, received Holy Communion, blessed those who were in his chamber, and then he put on the silk stole worn by clergy and began loudly and with prostrations, to read the canon for the departure of the soul. Finally, overcome with weakness, he laid down on his bed and said, “God’s will be done. Now I shall die,” and he indeed died within minutes.
In his final epistle Bishop Jonah wrote:
...I began here with the words of the Apostle of Love: Children, love one another... And I am ending with these same words: Love one another. This is your archpastor's commandment...Do not abandon the children... Forgive me for the sake of Christ. Do not forget me in your holy prayers... And so until eternity when we shall all stand at the Dread Judgment.
* * *
Martyrdom
Saint Ursula, whose given name was Angela, is a Romano-British saint. Her legend is that she was a princess who, at the request of her father King Dionotus of Dumnonia in south-west Britain, gave her permission to sail along with 11,000 virginal handmaidens to join her future husband, the pagan governor Conan Meriadoc of Armorica. After a miraculous storm brought them over the sea in a single day to a Gaulish port, Ursula declared that before her marriage she would undertake a European pilgrimage. She headed for Rome with her followers and persuaded Sulpicius, the bishop of Ravenne, to join them. After setting out for Cologne, which was being besieged by the Huns, all the virgins were beheaded in a massacre. The Huns' leader fatally shot Ursula with a bow and arrow. She died on October 21, 383.
St. Ursula’s Church in Cologne, sits on the site where the holy virgins were killed. The Basilica of St. Ursula in Cologne holds the relics of Ursula and her 11,000 companions. It contains what has been described as a veritable collection of ribs, shoulder blades, and femurs, arranged in zigzags and swirls and even in the shapes of Latin words. The Golden Chamber, a 17th-century chapel attached to the Basilica of St. Ursula, contains sculptures of their heads and torsos.
The Roman Catholic Church speaks of the martyrs as follows: “At Cologne in Germany, commemoration of virgin saints who ended their life in martyrdom for Christ in the place where afterwards the city's basilica was built, dedicated in honour of the innocent young girl Ursula who is looked on as their leader.”
Ursula is the patron of the Order of St. Ursula (Ursulines), a congregation of nuns dedicated to educating girls.
* * *
Truth
Lady Ursula von Münsterberg, the grand-daughter of the King of Bohemia, had lived at the Convent of Mary Magdelene the Penitent in Freiberg. She had lived there since the death of her parents when she was a very young girl. On October 6, 1528, at the age of 38, she fled that life forever.
That October evening was fine, but the light breeze carried with it a hint of the frost to come. The rising quarter moon cast a silver sheen over the stone walls of the old convent. In the distance, an owl hooted. Nothing stirred within the convent walls, save perhaps the quietly whispered prayers of someone observing a lonely midnight vigil.
The three women let themselves quietly out of a side door. Their long heavy cloaks and hoods disguised them, but as they moved an observer might have been able to catch a glimpse of nuns’ clothing brushing the cobbles. They carried small packs of provisions. Just before they disappeared into the shadows of the trees, the leader of the trio looked back at the quiet walls for the last time. This convent had been the only home she had known since childhood.
Ursula’s escape from the convent was the culmination of at least two years of “deliberation and suffering.” In a letter to her cousins, Ursula wrote, “I do not want to conceal my feelings and deliberations from your graces, and therefore I have written this work with my own hand, out of my own heart, and without the help, advice or contribution of any other person on earth…. Through this [work], your graces will discover that this has not happened out of thoughtlessness, but because I am accountable to the judgment of God for my soul, and am sure that neither your graces nor any other creature on earth can excuse me before God.”
The Roman Catholic nun became a follower of Martin Luther’s Protestantism that allowed for a personal religion. In a religious tract regarding her departure from the convent she wrote, “To say that the monastic vow is a second baptism and washes away sins, as we have heard from the pulpit, is blasphemy against God, as if the blood of Christ were not enough to wash away all sins.”
Ursula and the two young nuns who accompanied her sought refuge and lived with Martin Luther’s family in Wittenberg for a short time. Her later life remains largely unknown, and it’s believed she died only six years later.
* * *
Truth
“Eighty-six years I have served Christ, and he never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my king who saved me?”
This is considered one of the most important confessions in the history of Christendom. It was spoken by Polycarp, under the persecution by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus in 162, as his last opportunity to recant before being executed as a subservient of the state. Though thousands of Christians met a similar fate and must be duly recognized for their steadfastness, Polycarp, because of his position in the church and his chronological age at the time of his death, has decorously received special recognition.
His family was converted to Christianity when he was a young child. John the Apostle personally taught Polycarp the teachings of Jesus. Through his relationship with the evangelist he had the opportunity to converse with many individuals, other apostles and commoners alike, who personally knew Jesus. Upon the death of the twelve apostles and Paul, the church looked to Polycarp and other individuals who knew the gospel writers personally as undisputed authorities for the interpretation of their writings. As bishop of Smyrna (now Izmir in Turkey) he forthrightly condemned the heresies of Gnosticism and Maricionsim.
* * *
Discipleship
George Whitefield is one of the most recognized evangelists in American history. He was born in England but during his lifetime made seven cross-Atlantic trips. He had a powerful voice that could be heard by crowds that exceeded 20,000. Benjamin Franklin himself calculated this figure at a revival in Philadelphia. He was also a great humanitarian, establishing orphanages and raising money for their upkeep. The first home he established, Bethesda Orphanage in Georgia, still cares for the souls of youth to this day. Whitefield and John Wesley were close friends. This is especially remarkable due to their opposing theological positions, with Whitefield a Calvinist who strongly adhered to the doctrine of predestination. Notwithstanding, it was Wesley who Whitefield requested to preach his funeral service.
At the Chapel in Tottenham-Court Road on Sunday, November 18, 1770, John Wesley delivered a eulogy for his good friend. There is a line in the sermon that all of us would like to have spoken regarding our service to the Lord, “Is there not a point of still greater importance than this, namely, to drink into his spirit? -- herein to be a follower of him, even as he was of Christ?”
Wesley composed a hymn to be sung at the conclusion of the service to commentate his friend, challenging all to be servants of God. Titled “Servant of God, Well Done!” it reads:
Servant of God, well done!
Thy glorious warfare’s past;
The battle’s fought, the race is won,
And thou art crowned at last.
Of all thy heart’s desire
Triumphantly possessed;
Lodged by the ministerial choir
In thy Redeemer’s breast.
In condescending love,
Thy ceaseless prayer He heard;
And bade thee suddenly remove
To thy complete reward.
Ready to bring the peace,
Thy beauteous feet were shod,
When mercy signed thy soul’s release,
And caught thee up to God.
With saints enthroned on high,
Thou dost thy Lord proclaim,
And still to God salvation cry,
Salvation to the Lamb!
O happy, happy soul!
In ecstasies of praise,
Long as eternal ages roll,
Thou seest Thy Savior’s face.
Redeemed from earth and pain,
Ah! when shall we ascend,
And all in Jesus’ presence reign
With our translated friend?
Come, Lord, and quickly come!
And, when in Thee complete,
Receive Thy longing servants home,
To triumph at Thy feet.
* * *
Discipleship
Dr. James Dunn, returning home after caring for the wounded during the battle of Antietam, told his wife about the heroism of a woman whom he met for the first time, Clara Barton. Dr. Dunn related how this nurse preformed battlefield surgery using only a pocket knife. He told of the time a bullet passed through the sleeve of her coat as she served water to a stricken soldier. He could not comprehend her stoicism as she held patients, enduring amputations absent of chloroform.
After describing the exploits of this remarkable woman, the physician asked his wife, “Now what do you think of Miss Barton?” Mrs. Dunn thoughtfully responded, “In my feeble estimation, General McClellan, with all his laurels, sinks into insignificance beside the true heroine of the age, the angel of the battlefield.” From that day forward Clara Barton had a title, “Angel of the Battlefield.” Or simply, to most, her calling card was “Professional Angel.”
(Back to top of page)
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship:
Leader: Sometimes we feel like God has abandoned us.
People: Sometimes it seems like God is so far away from us.
Leader: Yet we know that our God is Holy.
People: Our ancestors trusted and found deliverance.
Leader: It is our God who has given us life.
People: It is on God we will place our trust.
OR
Leader: Come let us join together as we worship our God.
People: From many places we come together as one family.
Leader: All of us are God’s beloved children.
People: We are all sisters and brothers in Christ.
Leader: There is no elite status in the Church for all are servants.
People: We serve God and one another with joy.
Hymns and Songs:
Holy God, We Praise Thy Name
UMH: 79
H82: 366
PH: 460
NNBH: 13
NCH: 276
LBW: 535
ELA: 414
W&P: 138
From All That Dwell Below the Skies
UMH: 101
H82: 380
PH: 229
NCH: 27
CH: 49
LBW: 550
AMEC: 690
STLT: 381
It’s Me, It’s Me, O Lord
UMH: 352
NNBH: 496
CH: 579
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
UMH: 358
H82: 652/653
PH: 345
NCH: 502
CH: 594
LBW: 506
W&P: 470
AMEC: 344
Amazing Grace
UMH: 378
H82: 671
PH: 280
AAHH: 271/272
NNBH: 161/163
NCH: 247/248
CH: 546
LBW: 448
ELA: 779
W&P: 422
AMEC: 226
STLT: 205/206
Renew: 189
This Is a Day of New Beginnings
UMH: 383
NCH: 417
CH: 518
W&P: 355
The Gift of Love
UMH: 408
AAHH: 522
CH: 526
W&P: 397
Renew: 155
Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone
UMH: 424
AAHH: 554
NNBH: 221
AMEC: 155
Humble Yourself in the Sight of the Lord
CCB: 72
Renew: 188
As We Gather
CCB: 12
Renew: 6
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
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 recognizes the sacred worth of all your children:
Grant us the grace to esteem others as highly as we do ourselves
and to be willing to step down from positions of privilege;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you hold each of your children in high regard. You see us all as being persons of sacred worth. Help us to also see others as you do and to be willing to abase ourselves that others might be lifted up. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our wanting to be held in high esteem by others.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have sought the best seats and the highest places so that we may receive praise from others. When we find ourselves in places of privilege we are reluctant to step down even though others suffer because of our sense of entitlement. We have failed to live as servants of others as Jesus did and as he commanded us. Forgive us and renew our hearts and minds by the power of your Spirit that we may truly be members of you realm. Amen.
Leader: God welcomes all into new realm God is creating as we amend our lives and strive to live into its ethos. Receive God’s love and grace and serve others as Christ has served you.
Prayers of the People
Glory and honor are yours, O God, because you are the Creator of all. We worship you for your loving kindness that is extended to all your creation.
(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 the best seats and the highest places so that we may receive praise from others. When we find ourselves in places of privilege we are reluctant to step down even though others suffer because of our sense of entitlement. We have failed to live as servants of others as Jesus did and as he commanded us. Forgive us and renew our hearts and minds by the power of your Spirit that we may truly be members of you realm.
We thank you for all the blessings of this life. We thank you that others have followed the example of the Christ and have lowered themselves so that we might be lifted up.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all your children in their need. We pray for those who struggle in this life while others receive more than they 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.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Talk to the children about your memories of playing with others as a child and how the person who owned the ball and bat, the video gamer, etc. often got to choose what was played. Talk about how that doesn’t feel good. Perhaps share an experience when the person was thoughtful and let others choose. Jesus invites us to share with others, not just candy, but decisions, as well.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Too much!
by Tom Willadsen
Mark 10:17-31
(This is sort of a two-fer -- there’s a good idea for Advent as well as a similarly themed message for Proper 23 | OT 28 | Pentecost 21.)
For the message for this Sunday you will need a transparent container, an ample supply of an acceptable small edible and kids who trust you and are eager to play along. (You want that last one every Sunday!)
“Too much!”
The Mark passage’s exchange between Jesus and the devout man who wanted to inherit eternal life has some details that are easy to overlook.
The man says he has kept the commandments since he was in his youth. Apparently he suspected, or feared, that devotion to the law was not sufficient for one to “inherit” eternal life.
That word “inherit,” is a legal term. Inheritances are not earned, they are granted, or passed down. The terminology betrays some confusion in the man’s thought. When he learned that he must give away his possessions to the poor and follow Jesus he was “shocked and went away grieving.” His piety is not enough, the pathway to eternal life, is to store riches in heaven and follow Christ.
He has too much to lose, so he turns from Christ, returns to his possessions.
This is a teaching moment for the disciples. Jesus tells them that it’s really, really hard for those with wealth to enter the kingdom of heaven. “So who can get in?” they ask.
“Well,” Jesus replies, “it’s not possible for mortals, but God can make it possible.”
You know the story. How can you lead children to understand the peril of having too much stuff?
Here’s a tactic I used at the start of Advent a few years ago. The church calls the season “Advent;” the rest of the world keeps track of the season by counting shopping days.
I asked my congregation to collect catalogues they received in the mail starting in the middle of October. On the first Sunday in Advent, which was a communion Sunday, and whose text was Isaiah 40, about making a straight level road in the desert for the Messiah, before the children we called forward, I instructed people to bring their catalogues to the front of the sanctuary. There were dozens of brown grocery sacks, heavy with catalogues for gifts to purchase for loved ones. They created a fence around the communion table. No one could reach it. I asked the kids to come forward, as forward as they could, and help me figure out what to do. If the aisle is the road that needs to be straight and lead directly to the destination, what could we do?
One child suggested we just make a wide circle, and get to the communion table from the back. That’s not a straight path. What else could we do?
Another suggested we could move the sacks of catalogues to the side. What a great idea! But it was really hard. The sacks were heavy, some of them broke and spilled all over the floor. It was a big, chaotic mess.
Exactly. The kind of mess that they would see around their Christmas tree when they open their presents. Do you see how things, ordinary, physical things can block us from following Christ?
This, of course, is one of the messages that mainline churches have been preaching at least since the debut of the Charlie Brown Christmas special in 1965.
In the case of today’s text you’ll want to have some kind of sweet that meets approval in your congregation. Among the little ones at my church there were some with several allergies that determined what could be passed out that would not exclude anyone. Also, there were germophobes who insisted that only individually wrapped treats should ever be shared. Whatever. You know your territory.
You’ll want a lot of these. Ask who likes them. Give one to each one who does. Ask who likes them a lot. Give some more. Ask if it’s possible to like them too much. (Now tell them to put their Thinking Caps on.)
Bring out a jar, or other transparent container, and put a small figurine in it. Maybe a Lego mini figure. Tell them about this person who loved the treat that they have just gotten. That this person really, really liked the treat, and that was all he ever wanted…lots and lots of them. Start dropping them into the jar. Keep dropping them. Inundate the poor thing. Make it so that the container is overflowing and the figure cannot be seen anymore.
He’s got a lot of really good things. Ask whether the kids think the figure is happy. Ask whether she could move, or breathe, or live any kind of life, drowning in all this abundant good stuff.
Wrap up by pointing out that the man who talked to Jesus had a lot of stuff. So much that it kept him from following Jesus. Sometimes it’s possible to have too much of good things.
Be sure to pass out any leftover treats to the congregation -- and don’t forget the choir. Watch carefully so that no one gets crushed by the weight of Skittles or M&M’s.
Point out that John 10 says the message of the gospel is abundance but that it is for some other Sunday. Today your point is the peril of too much.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, October 14, 2018, issue.
Copyright 2018 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.
- Giving Things Up by Mary Austin -- Does it cost more to follow Jesus or not to follow? The wealthy man has the same question for Jesus that we all have -- what do we need to give up to follow along?
- Second Thoughts: Eliter Than You by Dean Feldmeyer -- In a kingdom of grace, it matters not how elite you are.
- Sermon illustrations by Chris Keating, Ron Love and Bethany Peerbolte.
- Worship resources by George Reed that deal with elitism and giving up privilege.
- Too Much! Children’s sermon by Tom Willadsen -- How can you lead children to understand the peril of having too much stuff?
Giving Things Up
by Mary Austin
Mark 10:17-31
The man who runs up to Jesus with such urgency gets an impossible choice from Jesus. Looking around at the shabby band of fishermen and farmers around Jesus, he must wonder why in the world he should give up his wealth and social position to become like…them?
Kansas City mayoral candidate Jason Kander faced a similar choice recently. A favorite in the mayoral race, Kander dropped out, announcing that he needed time to deal with depression and PTSD resulting from his military service in Afghanistan. His decision to quit the mayor’s race appears to have coalesced last week. “Last Tuesday, I found out that we were going to raise more money than any Kansas City mayoral campaign ever has in a single quarter,” Kander’s announcement said. “But instead of celebrating that accomplishment, I found myself on the phone with the (Veterans Affairs) Veterans Crisis Line, tearfully conceding that, yes, I have had suicidal thoughts. And it wasn’t the first time.” Kander said he first contacted the VA for help about four months ago.
Kander showed a kind of personal openness that is rare in public life. Giving up something that feels like a sure thing is painful. His public statements point to a level of desperation akin to the rich man talking to Jesus, and also to a larger purpose.
The wealthy man shows us the costs and pain of following Jesus, and also the costs and pain of not being able to follow.
In the Scriptures
This story shows up in all three synoptic gospels, and Mark simply gives us the description that the man is wealthy. We’re used to thinking of him as “the rich young ruler,” but Mark doesn’t tell us that he’s young or a ruler, only that he’s wealthy. Something prompts him to run up to Jesus, unusual for a wealthy man, who could send a servant ahead of him. He kneels, and asks his question. He wonders what he has to do to inherit eternal life, but an inheritance is given because of who we are, not what we do.
Jesus is on a journey -- it turns out that this journey is toward Jerusalem, and his eventual death. Perhaps that’s why he has less patience than he might with this young man. Time is short. There won’t be time for the young man to consider and reconsider his path.
The wealthy man believes that he’s done everything he can do…short of committing himself, and going all in with Jesus. Jesus asks him to give up his money, which also means giving up his status and importance. He would be giving up a way of life where he’s in control for a life where God is in control. That would be hard for any of us, to give up the layers of privilege in our lives. We are all accustomed to the unseen privilege that comes with education, income, skin color, and the role of pastor.
After the wealthy man goes away, the disciples have their own questions for Jesus. They have already done what Jesus asked this man to do. For the wealthy young man, there’s a dramatic financial cost. For the disciples, there’s a cost in lost relationships, as people who don’t understand what they’re doing, in lost income as they travel with Jesus, and even in the loss of their place in the traditional way of worship. The two stories mirror each other, as each explores the cost of following Jesus.
The non-canonical Gospel of the Nazarenes adds to this story.
The other of the rich men said to him "Master, what good thing shall I do and live?" He said to him "Man, perform the law and the prophets." He answered him "I have performed them." He said to him "Go, sell all that thou hast and divide it to the poor, and come, follow me." But the rich man began to scratch his head, and it pleased him not. And the Lord said to him "How can you say 'I have performed the law and the prophets'? seeing that it is written in the law 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,' and look, many of your brothers, sons of Abraham, are clad with dung, dying for hunger, and your house is full of much goods, and there goes out therefrom nought at all unto them."
The young man actually hasn’t fulfilled all the commandments, Jesus says, because so many people are still in need. He hasn’t really done what he thinks he has done. In this version of the story, to follow Jesus, he would need to give up his self-image, along with his money, to truly follow.
The rich man points us all to the things that we would be hard-pressed to give up, too.
In the News
In the past few weeks, people have been talking about the feeling of entitlement, which Psychology Today says we recognize mostly by its effect on us. ”When people feel entitled, they want to be different from others. But just as frequently they come across as indifferent to others. That’s why they often provoke such negative responses in those they encounter, especially those they don’t personally know.” We feel it coming from others. “Entitlement is an enduring personality trait, characterized by the belief that one deserves preferences and resources that others do not.” It’s hard to put our finger on, but we sense it in the wealthy man who meets up with Jesus, among others.
Jason Kander’s decision to get out of the mayoral race comes across as an anti-entitlement move. He surprised people, largely because he “was seen as a clear favorite to win the mayor’s race next April.” He stepped away from that in a humbling effort to regain his mental health. We’re accustomed to people dropping out of races that are going badly, or people leaving public life ahead of a scandal, announcing that they “want to spend more time with family.” We’re not used to people leaving something where success seems to be waiting.
One of the things that stood out from Judge (now Justice) Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing was his sense of entitlement. Answering questions from Senator Amy Klobuchar, Kavanaugh allowed himself to be rude and dismissive to a U.S. Senator. When she asked him about his drinking, her questions “elicited his rudest, and what many believe was his most revealing, behavior.” “So you’re saying you never drank so much that you didn’t remember the night before?” she asked the nominee. Perfect question: It went to the reliability of Kavanaugh’s memory, the consistency of his self-accounting, his history of reckless behavior and his capacity to be honest. “It’s -- you’re asking about, you know, blackout,” Kavanaugh said, his chin dimpling in what looked like despair. “I don’t know. Have you?” “Could you answer the question…. Is that your answer?” “Yeah. And I’m curious if you have.” “I don’t have a drinking problem, Judge.” “Yeah, nor do I,” Kavanaugh said. With his chippy answers, Kavanaugh seemed to close the case against himself. He was out of evasions, down to the bottom of his box of tricks: raw pain and projection. He couldn’t think straight under pressure. He was willing to show aggression toward a woman and a U.S. senator.”
Columnist Brett Younger Baptist New Service notes that Kavanaugh, like many people, fails to see how privileged he is. “In a non-response to a question from Senator Mazie Keiko Hirono of Hawaii, U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh said, “I got into Yale Law School. That’s the number one law school in the country. I had no connections there. I got there by busting my tail in college…”A Supreme Court justice has to recognize that there are many smart, hard-working people who do not get to go to Yale. Kavanaugh probably did study hard and workouts at Tobin’s House must have been strenuous, but it is stunning that he would claim that he went to Yale with “no connections.” Kavanaugh should know that many intelligent, industrious people do not have two parents who are lawyers -- one a Circuit Court Judge -- and a grandfather who went to Yale. Most cannot afford a private high school where the tuition is $60,280 a year. Many high school campuses are not 93 acres. None of the public high schools in my area have an 11-lane swimming pool with a diving area. Kavanaugh may be surprised to learn that not all high schools have their own nine-hole golf course. (Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, by the way, is also a Georgetown Prep graduate, class of 1985, so perhaps we could argue that some other high school could be represented on the Supreme Court.) Kavanaugh’s experience at an elite prep school, an elite college and an elite law school is not normal. Some teenagers cannot go to workouts after school, because they have to go to work after school to help their family pay the bills. Many do not have beach houses. Most never belong to a fraternity…” Like the wealthy man who approaches Jesus, many of us fail to see the layers of privilege in our lives. Younger adds, “Some privileged people desperately want to believe that they deserve everything they have. Kavanaugh gives the impression that he feels entitled. He expresses anger more easily than sympathy.”
It's hard to know how any of us would act in the crucible that Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings turned out to be, but the hearings reveal plenty that could be given up on both sides of the aisle, in service to civility and cooperation.
In the Sermon
With the end of his life approaching, Jesus has a sense of urgency about his invitation to the young man, and in his communication with the disciples. The sermon might look at what questions are urgent for us. What is God prompting us to do, right now? What should we be doing quickly, instead of with the slow pace that our denominations and governing boards require. Where is God trying to move us quickly?
Or the sermon might look at things that are hard to give up. Not just money, but the things that come with money. Having money means we get treated with more deference, and we get better service and more attention in stores, schools, and public places. The police treat us better, and the justice system works better for people with money. What, for us, would be hard to give up to follow Jesus? Where are we cherishing some sense of entitlement?
The wealthy man asks what he needs to “do to inherit eternal life?” The people who inherit eternal life are the family members of Jesus. Elsewhere, he outlines his new vision of family, where his brothers and sisters are those who do the will of God. The wealthy man could become part of the family by making himself equal to everyone else, by giving away his money to join this new kind of family. Instead he separates himself from the rest of God’s family by holding onto his money. He wants to belong, and he goes away sad, but not quite sad enough. The sermon might look at how we join God’s family, and how we make ourselves into brothers and sisters in faith.
The man goes away sad, and the sermon might look at that holy sorrow, and where it might lead him. Have we had time of deep sorrow, knowing that we’re not where God wants us to be? How do we use sorrow as a spiritual guide, leading us closer to God?
The wealthy man who leaves Jesus to go on with his life is an image of each of us, in some ways. In these days when so many people are suffering, the rich man invites us to look at our own privileges, and what we hold onto. If our hands and minds are too full, we won’t be able to fit through the eye of a needle, either. Thankfully, Jesus has enduring hope for each one of us. With God, all things are possible.
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SECOND THOUGHTS
Eliter Than You
by Dean Feldmeyer
Mark 10:17-31
In The Culture
We’ve been hearing the word “elite” a lot lately.
Both sides of the political divide like to use it as a pejorative to describe the other.
Conservatives talk about “liberal elites” who control the media in the service of socialism. Liberals talk about “wealthy elites” who go to ivy leagues colleges and think society’s rules don’t apply to them.
The Oxford English dictionary offers a classical definition of “elite” as a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society. In this sense, it is not necessarily a bad thing to be part of an elite group.
Navy Seals are considered the elite of the U.S. armed forces.
Elite universities are hard to get into and have stringent qualifications and requirements which make the degrees they award more valuable than those of other schools.
Cordon Bleu schools of culinary arts create the world’s elite chefs, and only the elite restaurants receive Michelin stars.
But there is a down side to being elite. The Oxford dictionary offers this as a secondary definition of “elite:” A group or class of people seen as having the most power and influence in a society, especially on account of their wealth or privilege.
These folks don’t have power and influence because of their skills and abilities, their gifts and graces, but because of their wealth and their position of privilege. They run the company because they were born into the family that owns the company. They sit on the throne because their father or mother sat on the throne. They hold high offices in the government because they went to school with someone who did.
Shamus Khan, the chair of the sociology department at Columbia University, and the author of Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School speaks of how the idea of elitism can be twisted into something that is good for neither the individual nor the culture at large.
The classical root of “privilege,” privus lex, he explains, means “private law.” Our contemporary elites have both the sense and the experience that the rules don’t really apply to them and that they can act without much concern for the consequences. Elite schools like Georgetown Prep and Yale have long cultivated this sensibility in conscious and unconscious ways.
“What makes these schools elite is that so few can attend. In the mythologies they construct, only those who are truly exceptional are admitted -- precisely because they are not like everyone else. Yale President Peter Salovey, for instance, has welcomed freshmen by telling them that they are “the very best students.” To attend these schools is to be told constantly: You’re special, you’re a member of the elect, you have been chosen because of your outstanding qualities and accomplishments.
“Schools often quite openly affirm the idea that, because you are better, you are not governed by the same dynamics as everyone else. They celebrate their astonishingly low acceptance rates and broadcast lists of notable alumni who have earned their places within the nation’s highest institutions, such as the Supreme Court. I heard these messages constantly when I attended St. Paul’s, one of the most exclusive New England boarding schools, where boys and girls broke rules with impunity, knowing that the school would protect them from the police and that their families would help ensure only the most trivial of consequences.”1
He goes on: “According to research by psychologists Paul Piff and Dacher Keltner, elites’ sense of their own exceptionalism helps instill within them a tendency to be less compassionate. This may have its roots in the fact that there seem to be two different sets of consequences for the rich and the rest.”2
In The Scripture and The Pulpit
In this Sunday’s gospel lection, Jesus is confronted with one of these wealthy elites who believes that his elite status should afford him a guaranteed front row seat in the kingdom of God.
Jesus is just setting out on a journey when this wealthy man runs up to him and asks, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
The first two words he utters reveal that his desire is to direct the conversation himself and, assuming that Jesus is as shallow and self-absorbed as all the other teachers he has met, he begins with flattery.
But Jesus is having none of this flattery business. He brushes it off with a mild rebuke: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” Then, without waiting for a counter reply, he goes on to answer the man’s inquiry.
Follow the commandments. We are Jews, after all. Our salvation lies within the Torah.
The man’s has his answer ready: “But I’ve done all that since I was a kid.” Surely, in other words, there must be something else. The desire, of course, is that Jesus will say, “Nope. That’s it. If you’ve done all that, you’re good to go. Your seat in heaven is secure. Aisle B, seat number 332, just two over from the aisle.”
But, of course, that is not what Jesus says.
Jesus loves this man so much that he won’t let him get away with buying his way into heaven or thinking that he can.
There’s just one thing more you need to do, he says.
Look closely and you can see the disbelief flash across this man’s face, the question mark in his eyes. Watch as his shoulder’s slump and his body sags with disappointment. “Surely you’re kidding,” his posture says. “Surely you’re just messing with me. How can there be anything else? Do my wealth and privilege, my education and accomplishments, my dedication to the law and my sacrificial obedience to it mean nothing?”
And, here, Jesus pushes his case just one inch more.
No, to God, they mean nothing. You have one more thing you need to do. Sell everything you have and give it to the poor and come, follow me.
You have one more thing to do and that is the very thing you can’t do because you have so much. Sell it all -- your stuff, your education, your title, your position, you’re youthful good looks, your status in the community, your ELITE status in the community… and come, follow me.
See, God lives in a Kingdom of Grace and in that kingdom there is no such thing as elite, so your elite status in this world won’t buy you a ticket even in the back row of the balcony in heaven.
You already have a front row seat reserved and it’s a gift from the God who loves you more than any singing of it.
1 Khan, Shamus. "Kavanaugh is lying. His upbringing explains why." Washington Post, September 28, 2018
2 Ibid.
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ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Chris Keating:
On the lighter side…
Psalm 22:1-15
My God, why?
While newly-confirmed associate supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh (with a “u”) celebrated his promotion this week, poor Brett Kavanagh (no “u”) from Kentucky has been running ragged keeping up phone calls and hate messages. “This is a terrible time to be named Brett Kavanagh,” tweeted Brett Kavanagh, a Louisville, Kentucky, salesperson.
His tweet quickly went viral, attracting support from other eponymous Twitter twins @susancollins826, (not the Senator) who replied, “I feel your pain.” Others in the unfortunate name-sharing club joined the tweet-storm, including a good-natured man named Mike Pence (“Welcome to the club, brother,”), as well as Paul (not-the-Speaker) Ryan, James (never Jimmy) Carter, and a software developer from Pennsylvania named Matt Lauer who advised the Kentucky Kavanagh to “set aside an extra 5 minutes in the checkout line for all the questions that will inevitably be asked. Speaking from experience…”
There’s still no word from anyone named “@Job_from_Uz.”
* * *
Amos 5:6-7, 10-15
Climate change and economic justice
A significant report from a panel of United Nations researchers offers dire predictions of the immediate consequences of climate change, and notes that avoiding significant damage will require transforming the world economy. It’s predictions of major food shortages by 2040, wildfires and massive erosion of coral reefs echo the urgency of Amos’ call to repent.
The report was issued on the same day that the Nobel Prize for economics was awarded to two American economists, including one whose work focused on integrating climate change into long-range macroeconomic analysis.
* * *
Mark 10:17-31
Go, sell what you own (because your kids don’t want it!)
Aging baby boomers are rubbing against a hard truth: their kids don’t want their old stuff, no matter how “vintage” it might be. The rich man, were he alive today, would find himself in a quandary when it came time to off-load his estate. Today’s rich men and women find it hard to pass along grandma’s good china. An article in the Observer last year summarized several articles detailing the conflict between anti-clutter millennials and their possession-burdened parents.
- From the Boston Globe: “the anti-clutter movement has met the anti-brown-furniture movement, and the combination is sending dining room sets, sterling silver flatware, and knick-knacks straight to thrift stores or the curb.”
- The Christian Science Monitor: “today’s tech-heavy culture shows few signs of trading in its sleek, modern designs for dark furniture or knick-knacks from bygone eras.”
- The New York Times: “Today’s young adults tend to acquire household goods that they consider temporary or disposable, from online retailers or stores like Ikea and Target, instead of inheriting them from parents or grandparents.”
* * *
Mark 10:17-31
Then who can be saved?
Puzzled by Jesus’ demanding instructions, the disciples ask him, “Who can be saved?” Jesus reminds them that being included in the kingdom of God is not a matter of status, prestige or achievement, but is rather an act of grace. Those willing to give up their earthly possessions will receive all that they have sacrificed -- and more.
The Philanthropy Roundtable, a network of American philanthropists, conducts surveys on giving in the United States. Their data may be helpful for upcoming stewardship sermons. “It is easy to think of philanthropy as something done by the very wealthy,” their website notes, “or big foundations, or prosperous companies. Actually, of the $358 billion that Americans gave to charity in 2014, only 14 percent came from foundation grants, and just 5 percent from corporations. The rest -- 81 percent -- came from individuals.”
The Roundtable’s research scrutinized the giving habits of Americans. Generally, faith tends to be an important incentive to giving. Southerners are more generous than New Englanders, for some unexplained reason. Not surprisingly, Utah leads the nation in giving, with Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia rounding out the top five states (based on percentage of adjusted gross income). Citizens of Salt Lake City tend to give between 4-6 percent of their discretionary income to charity, while Bostonians average about two percent. Residents of rural areas and small towns give more than urban dwellers.
As to Jesus’ warning that it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom, the Roundtable’s research suggests that while the wealthy are generous, low-income Americans give more than middle-income donors, and sometimes even more than the wealthy.
The essay concludes:
If instead of the average percentage of income given away by wealthy households, we look at the median percentage (meaning that half gave more than this amount, and half gave less), the wealthy appear less magnanimous. From 2007-2011, the median wealthy household (having annual income of $200,000+ or assets of $1 million+) gave away 3.4 percent of its income.
Interestingly, when rich people live in separate enclaves they are not as generous as when they live interspersed in normal communities. The “How America Gives” study showed that when households earning $200,000 a year make up more than 40 percent of the residents of a particular ZIP code, they give just 2.8 percent of their discretionary income to charity. If they live in more mixed neighborhoods and towns, though, they give an average of closer to 5 percent.
Physical separation and economic stratification corrode social cooperation and generosity. In towns, villages, and cities where Americans of differing fortunes live in more traditional combinations, though, generosity flourishes. And for many Americans, the resulting giving seems to be deeply connected to satisfaction in life.
* * *
Mark 10:17-31
Transformative generosity
The rich man’s religious credentials are impeccable, yet he has struggled to discover that generosity causes the heart to flourish. He seems “stuck” in understanding that the pathway toward God comes from a heart that is transformed by loving generosity. Successful business person Jim Callaway shared his experiences of the transformative aspect of generosity with the writers of Philanthropy Roundtable:
“I came to realize that expanding my philanthropic activities could be both meaningful and fun,” Callaway told Philanthropy magazine in 2015. “Making a lot of money and spending it on yourself is not a lot of fun,” Callaway said in an earlier interview with the Chronicle of Philanthropy. “What is a lot of fun is to live modestly so that you can give to the common good. That’s where happiness really lies.”
* * * * * * * * *
From team member Bethany Peerbolte:
Job 23:1-17
What are the rules?
A favorite game in our youth group is called “Grandpa’s House.” During this game players try to figure out the rules as they play. Only the leader knows the rule or pattern everyone should be following. The leader starts out by saying “I am going to Grandpa’s house and I am bringing_______.” They fill in the blank with something that follows their rule. Then the next player says “I will bring_____.” and fills in the blank with something they thing will follow the rule. The rule could be that everything you bring has to have only five letters in the name. The leader may start by bringing chips, and the next player may say they want to bring hot dogs. Since hot dogs is more than five letters the leader would respond “you can’t bring that,” and move onto the next player. Every so often a player will stumble upon something they can bring, like bread or coats, and the leader would say “yes you can bring that.” Eventually students think they know the rule, only to be disappointed when their next item is turned down. Sometimes students get pretty far thinking they know the rule only to have it seem to change. Arguments inevitably break out about what has been allowed and what has been refused. Thinking the leader has changed or messed up in some way, but once they really know the rule they see their own mistake.
Job is feeling like the rules have been changed. The game he signed up to play was follow God and be blessed. As blessings continue to disappear around Job his friends urge him to repent for whatever is causing this hardship. Job remains firm that he did not do anything wrong, that he has always been a righteous man. The problem is Job is still in the middle of the game. God knows the rule and has never changed, it is only Job’s view of the rule that has changed.
* * *
Job 23:1-17
When God is on a smoke break.
Without fail all hell would break lose the minute my manager stepped outside for a smoke break. It only took him 10 minutes but it was always the longest 10 minutes of a shift. Smoke breaks were the only time during a shift he would demand we leave him alone. Not only would he step out for a cigarette he would hide. If a fight broke out we would have no idea how to find him. One time I was dealing with a particularly angry customer. They were trying to return something to the store that was past our policy deadline. The good news was the item had a warranty the customer could redeem on their own from the manufacturer. The customer did not want to do that, they wanted their money here and now. I ran through all my usual nice phrases of support and empathy. Explained the warranty in a few different ways, but they did not budge. I needed my manager to back me up, but he was on a smoke break. I panicked. I had no authority to do what this customer needed, and I was pretty sure they were not going to wait 10 minutes for my manager to come back to the floor. So I improvised. When the customer finally left, I slumped on the cash register in relief. My manager came up behind me and said “nice job.” He had been listening to the whole interaction from a nearby aisle. He was out of cigarettes and had come back in to help, but saw me doing my best to stay afloat and wanted to see what I would come up with.
Job is mad, like I was, that he is left alone to fend for himself. Job wants God’s input and guidance but when he looks for God, God is on a smoke break. Or so it seems. In reality God is just a few feet away watching to see how Job will respond in a hardship, seeing if he will give into his friends false beliefs, or if he will give up on God all together.
* * *
Psalm 22
It’s worth the breath
Even after Brett Kavanaugh was voted in as a supreme court justice, protesters continued to yell. If there is one thing the Trump administration has done for America it is teaching us how to protest. The number of marches organized sky rocketed this past April. Marches for science, women, for our lives, for black lives, for all lives, are being held in cities, townships, and at the capitol. The difference protests make can be a hard thing to calculate. Some say they do very little and that the time is better spent calling representatives. Others say the show of solidarity is enough to changes ideas.
Psalm 22 shows us the real value of our yelling. It’s place in the book of Psalms shows that lament and anger are emotions worthy of our breath. Even if we feel so forgotten that we yell out asking why God has forsaken us, that is a worthy cry. Crying out to God is not about negotiating a solution, it isn’t even about getting a reply. This psalm is about the act of getting that emotion out, expressing it faithfully, and still falling into God’s arms.
* * *
Psalm 22
Angry Christian Music
Listen to Christian radio for 24 hours and count how many times a song talks about anger. Better yet, count how many times those songs sound angry. If there were no words at all, would the emotion of anger still carry through. Spoiler alert, you will be disappointed. Contemporary Christian music does not venture into the world of anger enough. Skillet may be the only group who is really embracing the lament tradition of Psalms. Secular music is not afraid to get angry. There are whole genres where the main emotional expression is anger and rage. For some reason Christian music has not found a voice for anger.
It’s not because it isn’t biblical. Psalm 22 is a great example of how expressing anger is encouraged. If it was wrong, they would have cut the lament Psalms out of our Bibles. They are still there, reminding us that anger is not bad or wrong. It can be felt and expressed in a biblical and righteous way.
* * *
Hebrews 4:12-16
What’s Tough Love got to do with it?
Those dealing with addiction argue if tough love is more effective or if empathy works better. The tough love crowd argues that holding the line and not having any give on rules is key to recovery. While those who think empathy is best say collaboration and building community is the only lasting way to fight addiction. Tough love says forced treatment is useful to initiate the first step of recovery, and advocates of empathy treatment say the addict needs to buy into the treatment to have a lasting effect. They do agree that not all treatment works the same for every addict. How the motivation to fight the addiction gets found is not as important as helping someone find it any way you can.
Hebrews is a bit like an intervention for Christians. It is not easy to read the truth so plainly. No one wants to have to face their own belief when death and hell are the outcome of unbelief. It is not comforting to hear God’s word will cut through you so smoothly you won’t even realize you are bleeding. That is the reality though. Hebrews can feel a bit like tough love. For some of us it will be the kick in the butt we need to make a change. For others it will be so terrifying we will sink lower in our sin. Thankfully there are books like Philippians with a bit more joy for the latter.
* * *
Mark 10:17-31
Borders Worth Crossing
Growing up near the American-Canadian border, I learned quickly that crossing borders was a pain. It takes careful planning and lots of time to get across a national border. For thousands of students on the American-Mexican border this is a daily hassle. Students get up hours before school starts to stand in lines every morning and every afternoon for a better education. Parents admit the time management is hard, but worth it for their kid’s education.
For the young rich man in Mark’s gospel the hassle of crossing the border into God’s kingdom was too much. He turns away disappointed at the cost. Jesus continues to explain to the disciples just how hard it is to cross the border into the kingdom of God. You might as well be a camel going through the eye of needle if you expect to make it across with your earthly wealth. Peter, in usual form, points out they have left their wealth behind. To which Jesus ensures them that hassle and sacrifice will be worth it when the are on the other side.
* * * * * * * * *
From team member Ron Love:
Heresy
Eutyches, (born c. 375 -- died 454), was a monastic superior in the Eastern Church at Constantinople. He is regarded as the founder of Eutychianism, a heresy that set forth as doctrine that the humanity of Christ and the divinity in Christ were of one nature. Eutychians believed Christ’s divinity was swallowed up his humanity “like a drop of wine in the sea.” Jesus was only one nature of God and man.
In 450, Emperor Theodosius II convened the fourth Council of Chalcedon in 451. The Council banished Eutyches, condemned his heresy, and established a centrist doctrine that came to serve as the touchstone of Christian orthodoxy in East and West. The Council held that Christ had two perfect and indivisible, but distinct, natures: one human and one divine. The Council was attended by 520 bishops, the largest gatherings to date. The Council reaffirmed the Nicene Creed of 325 that read in part:
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
* * *
Discipleship
In March 1939, Japanese Consul-General Chiune Sugihara and his wife Yukiko were sent to Kaunas to open a consulate service. Kaunas was the temporary capital of Lithuania at the time and was strategically situated between Germany and the Soviet Union. After Hitler's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Chiune Sugihara had barely settled down in his new post when Nazi armies invaded Poland and a wave of Jewish refugees streamed into Lithuania. They brought with them chilling tales of German atrocities against the Jewish population. They escaped from Poland without possessions or money, and the local Jewish population did their utmost to help with money, clothing and shelter.
Things began to change for the very worst on June 15, 1940, when the Soviets invaded Lithuania. It was now too late for the Lithuanian Jews to leave for the East. Ironically, the Soviets would allow Polish Jews to continue to emigrate out of Lithuania through the Soviet Union if they could obtain certain travel documents.
Against this terrible backdrop, with all Soviet ambassadors having left the country, the Japanese Consul Chiune Sugihara suddenly became the linchpin in a desperate plan for survival, as the Nazis began preparations for an invasion of Lithuania. The fate of thousands of families depended on his humanity.
It was then that some of the Polish refugees came up with a plan that offered one last chance for freedom. They discovered that two Dutch colonial islands, Curacao and Dutch Guiana, (now known as Suriname) situated in the Caribbean, did not require formal entrance visas. Furthermore, the honorary Dutch consul, Jan Zwartendijk, told them he had gotten permission to stamp their passports with entrance permits.
There remained one major obstacle. To get to these islands, the refugees needed to pass through the Soviet Union. The Soviet consul, who was sympathetic to the plight of the refugees, agreed to let them pass on one condition: In addition to the Dutch entrance permit, they would also have to obtain a transit visa from the Japanese, as they would have to pass through Japan on their way to the Dutch islands.
In late July 1940, after receiving repeated visa denials from Tokyo, Sugihara had a difficult decision to make. He was a man who was brought up in the strict and traditional discipline of the Japanese. On one hand, he was bound by the traditional obedience he had been taught all his life. On the other hand, he was a samurai who had been told to help those who were in need. He knew that if he defied the orders of his superiors, he might be fired and disgraced, and would probably never work for the Japanese government again. This would result in extreme financial hardship for his family in the future. Chiune and his wife Yukiko even feared for their lives and the lives of their children, but in the end, could only follow their consciences. The visas would be signed.
For 29 days, from July 31 to August 28, 1940, Mr. and Mrs. Sugihara sat for endless hours writing and signing visas by hand. Hour after hour, day after day, for these three weeks, they wrote and signed visas. They wrote over 300 visas a day, which would normally be one month's worth of work for the consul. At the end of the day, Yukiko would massage his fatigued hands. He did not even stop to eat. His wife supplied him with sandwiches. Sugihara chose not to lose a minute because people were standing in line in front of his consulate day and night for these visas. Hundreds of applicants became thousands as he worked to grant as many visas as possible before being forced to close the consulate and leave Lithuania. Consul Sugihara continued issuing documents from his train window until the moment the train departed Kovno for Berlin on September 1, 1940. And as the train pulled out of the station, Sugihara gave the consul visa stamp to a refugee who was able use it to save even more Jews.
In 1945, the Japanese government unceremoniously dismissed Chiune Sugihara from the diplomatic service. Chiune Sugihara could at first only find work as a part-time translator and interpreter. For the last two decades of his life, he worked as a manager for an export company with business in Moscow. This was his fate because he dared to save thousands of human beings from certain death.
These Jews who were saved became known as Sugihara Survivors. Chiune Sugihara, and his wife Yukiko, are honored as “Righteous Gentiles” for their efforts to save Jews during the Holocaust.
* * *
Truth
John Woolman, (1720-1772), was a British-American Quaker leader and abolitionist. His Journal, which he began when he was 36-years-old, was published posthumously in 1774, and is still recognized today as one of the classic records of the spiritual inner life.
When he was 21, he made his first appearance as a preacher of Quaker doctrine, exercising his ministry without financial remuneration, in keeping with his religion’s practice. In 1743 he took up tailoring, which afforded a modest income, augmented at times by other work.
Beginning in 1743 he made frequent and often difficult preaching journeys, visiting Maryland’s eastern shore, where he carried his message against slaveholding, and the Rhode Island coast, where he brought his antislavery doctrine to the attention of shipowners. In Indian villages of the Pennsylvania frontier, he supported Moravian missionary attempts, sought to curtail the sale of rum to the Indians, and worked for a more just Indian land policy.
Woolman maintained a strict manner of life, making his trips on foot whenever possible, wearing undyed garments, and abstaining from the use of any product connected with the slave trade. He was successful in getting Quaker communities to go on record against slavery and in persuading many individuals to free their slaves.
Some of the quotes from his journal and other publications are:
-- Conduct is more convincing than language.
-- To Turn all the treasures we possess into the channel of universal love becomes the business of our lives.
-- To say we love God as unseen and at the same time exercise cruelty toward the least creature moving by His life or by life derived from Him, was a contradiction in itself.
-- If a man successful in business expends a part of his income in things of no real use, while the poor employed by him pass through difficulties in getting the necessaries of life, this requires his serious attention.
* * *
Ministry
Charlotte Digges "Lottie" Moon (1840–1912) was a Southern Baptist missionary. She spent nearly 40 years (1873–1912) living and working in China.
A spirited and outspoken girl, Lottie was indifferent to her Christian upbringing until her early teens. She underwent a spiritual awakening after a series of revival meetings in 1858 on the college campus.
She taught school, but after her younger sister Edmonia accepted a call to go to North China as the first single woman Baptist missionary in 1872, Lottie decided to follow her. By this time the Southern Baptist Convention had relaxed its policy against sending single women into the mission field. On July 7, 1873, the Foreign Mission Board officially appointed 32-year-old Lottie as a missionary to China.
The Moon’s were a progressive family as Lottie’s older sister Orianna was a physician who served as a Confederate Army doctor during the American Civil War.
Lottie discovered her passion: direct evangelism. Most mission work at that time was done by married men, but an important reality was discovered -- only women could reach Chinese women. Lottie, though, was denied being an evangelist and had to continue teaching school. She had come to China to “go out among the millions as an evangelist, only to find herself relegated to teaching a school of forty “unstudious” children. She felt chained down, and came to view herself as part of an oppressed class -- single women missionaries. Her writings were an appeal on behalf of all those who were facing similar situations in their ministries. In an article titled The Woman's Question Again, published in 1883, Lottie wrote:
Can we wonder at the mortal weariness and disgust, the sense of wasted powers and the conviction that her life is a failure, that comes over a woman when, instead of the ever broadening activities that she had planned, she finds herself tied down to the petty work of teaching a few girls?
Lottie waged a slow but relentless campaign to give women missionaries the freedom to minister and have an equal voice in mission proceedings.
When Lottie Moon arrived in China she said, “If I had a thousand lives, I would give them all for the women of China.”
* * *
Ministry
Jonah Pokrovsky, (1888-1925), in his last years of life was the Bishop of Manzhuria, which was a part of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR). He served in Northern China in the years immediately following the Bolshevik Revolution.
In 1918, during the Revolution, Fr. Jonah was arrested by the communists and suffered beatings to the point of loss of consciousness and imprisonment. During the Revolution he was able to withdraw to the borders of Western China, being subjected to all kinds of hardships while crossing the Pamir cliffs, often forced to grab on to jagged ledges and the sparse shrubbery of the ice-covered cliffs with wounded hands. After crossing the Gobi Desert, he finally reached Beijing, where he was received into the Ecclesiastical Mission. He was soon consecrated Bishop of Manzhuria. During his short time as bishop, Fr. Jonah transformed the Orthodox community in Manzhuria.
Saddened by the destitute nature of the people, many without clothes, food, water and medical supplies, he set forth to minister to the indigent. During his few short years spent in Manzhuria he was able to establish: 1. An orphanage that held up to 30 children ranging from the ages of five to fourteen 2. A children's school accommodating up to 500 students 3. A dining hall for the poor, feeding up to 200 people daily 4. Free ambulatory care and medicine for the poor 5. A library.
Fr. Jonah, who was made a Saint, was a caring for a priest who died of typhoid fever. He subsequently contracted chronic tonsillitis and then, due to complications, developed blood poisoning. As he was dying, he wrote a final epistle to his flock, reminding them of the need to love one another, confessed one final time to Archbishop Methodius of Beijing, received Holy Communion, blessed those who were in his chamber, and then he put on the silk stole worn by clergy and began loudly and with prostrations, to read the canon for the departure of the soul. Finally, overcome with weakness, he laid down on his bed and said, “God’s will be done. Now I shall die,” and he indeed died within minutes.
In his final epistle Bishop Jonah wrote:
...I began here with the words of the Apostle of Love: Children, love one another... And I am ending with these same words: Love one another. This is your archpastor's commandment...Do not abandon the children... Forgive me for the sake of Christ. Do not forget me in your holy prayers... And so until eternity when we shall all stand at the Dread Judgment.
* * *
Martyrdom
Saint Ursula, whose given name was Angela, is a Romano-British saint. Her legend is that she was a princess who, at the request of her father King Dionotus of Dumnonia in south-west Britain, gave her permission to sail along with 11,000 virginal handmaidens to join her future husband, the pagan governor Conan Meriadoc of Armorica. After a miraculous storm brought them over the sea in a single day to a Gaulish port, Ursula declared that before her marriage she would undertake a European pilgrimage. She headed for Rome with her followers and persuaded Sulpicius, the bishop of Ravenne, to join them. After setting out for Cologne, which was being besieged by the Huns, all the virgins were beheaded in a massacre. The Huns' leader fatally shot Ursula with a bow and arrow. She died on October 21, 383.
St. Ursula’s Church in Cologne, sits on the site where the holy virgins were killed. The Basilica of St. Ursula in Cologne holds the relics of Ursula and her 11,000 companions. It contains what has been described as a veritable collection of ribs, shoulder blades, and femurs, arranged in zigzags and swirls and even in the shapes of Latin words. The Golden Chamber, a 17th-century chapel attached to the Basilica of St. Ursula, contains sculptures of their heads and torsos.
The Roman Catholic Church speaks of the martyrs as follows: “At Cologne in Germany, commemoration of virgin saints who ended their life in martyrdom for Christ in the place where afterwards the city's basilica was built, dedicated in honour of the innocent young girl Ursula who is looked on as their leader.”
Ursula is the patron of the Order of St. Ursula (Ursulines), a congregation of nuns dedicated to educating girls.
* * *
Truth
Lady Ursula von Münsterberg, the grand-daughter of the King of Bohemia, had lived at the Convent of Mary Magdelene the Penitent in Freiberg. She had lived there since the death of her parents when she was a very young girl. On October 6, 1528, at the age of 38, she fled that life forever.
That October evening was fine, but the light breeze carried with it a hint of the frost to come. The rising quarter moon cast a silver sheen over the stone walls of the old convent. In the distance, an owl hooted. Nothing stirred within the convent walls, save perhaps the quietly whispered prayers of someone observing a lonely midnight vigil.
The three women let themselves quietly out of a side door. Their long heavy cloaks and hoods disguised them, but as they moved an observer might have been able to catch a glimpse of nuns’ clothing brushing the cobbles. They carried small packs of provisions. Just before they disappeared into the shadows of the trees, the leader of the trio looked back at the quiet walls for the last time. This convent had been the only home she had known since childhood.
Ursula’s escape from the convent was the culmination of at least two years of “deliberation and suffering.” In a letter to her cousins, Ursula wrote, “I do not want to conceal my feelings and deliberations from your graces, and therefore I have written this work with my own hand, out of my own heart, and without the help, advice or contribution of any other person on earth…. Through this [work], your graces will discover that this has not happened out of thoughtlessness, but because I am accountable to the judgment of God for my soul, and am sure that neither your graces nor any other creature on earth can excuse me before God.”
The Roman Catholic nun became a follower of Martin Luther’s Protestantism that allowed for a personal religion. In a religious tract regarding her departure from the convent she wrote, “To say that the monastic vow is a second baptism and washes away sins, as we have heard from the pulpit, is blasphemy against God, as if the blood of Christ were not enough to wash away all sins.”
Ursula and the two young nuns who accompanied her sought refuge and lived with Martin Luther’s family in Wittenberg for a short time. Her later life remains largely unknown, and it’s believed she died only six years later.
* * *
Truth
“Eighty-six years I have served Christ, and he never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my king who saved me?”
This is considered one of the most important confessions in the history of Christendom. It was spoken by Polycarp, under the persecution by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus in 162, as his last opportunity to recant before being executed as a subservient of the state. Though thousands of Christians met a similar fate and must be duly recognized for their steadfastness, Polycarp, because of his position in the church and his chronological age at the time of his death, has decorously received special recognition.
His family was converted to Christianity when he was a young child. John the Apostle personally taught Polycarp the teachings of Jesus. Through his relationship with the evangelist he had the opportunity to converse with many individuals, other apostles and commoners alike, who personally knew Jesus. Upon the death of the twelve apostles and Paul, the church looked to Polycarp and other individuals who knew the gospel writers personally as undisputed authorities for the interpretation of their writings. As bishop of Smyrna (now Izmir in Turkey) he forthrightly condemned the heresies of Gnosticism and Maricionsim.
* * *
Discipleship
George Whitefield is one of the most recognized evangelists in American history. He was born in England but during his lifetime made seven cross-Atlantic trips. He had a powerful voice that could be heard by crowds that exceeded 20,000. Benjamin Franklin himself calculated this figure at a revival in Philadelphia. He was also a great humanitarian, establishing orphanages and raising money for their upkeep. The first home he established, Bethesda Orphanage in Georgia, still cares for the souls of youth to this day. Whitefield and John Wesley were close friends. This is especially remarkable due to their opposing theological positions, with Whitefield a Calvinist who strongly adhered to the doctrine of predestination. Notwithstanding, it was Wesley who Whitefield requested to preach his funeral service.
At the Chapel in Tottenham-Court Road on Sunday, November 18, 1770, John Wesley delivered a eulogy for his good friend. There is a line in the sermon that all of us would like to have spoken regarding our service to the Lord, “Is there not a point of still greater importance than this, namely, to drink into his spirit? -- herein to be a follower of him, even as he was of Christ?”
Wesley composed a hymn to be sung at the conclusion of the service to commentate his friend, challenging all to be servants of God. Titled “Servant of God, Well Done!” it reads:
Servant of God, well done!
Thy glorious warfare’s past;
The battle’s fought, the race is won,
And thou art crowned at last.
Of all thy heart’s desire
Triumphantly possessed;
Lodged by the ministerial choir
In thy Redeemer’s breast.
In condescending love,
Thy ceaseless prayer He heard;
And bade thee suddenly remove
To thy complete reward.
Ready to bring the peace,
Thy beauteous feet were shod,
When mercy signed thy soul’s release,
And caught thee up to God.
With saints enthroned on high,
Thou dost thy Lord proclaim,
And still to God salvation cry,
Salvation to the Lamb!
O happy, happy soul!
In ecstasies of praise,
Long as eternal ages roll,
Thou seest Thy Savior’s face.
Redeemed from earth and pain,
Ah! when shall we ascend,
And all in Jesus’ presence reign
With our translated friend?
Come, Lord, and quickly come!
And, when in Thee complete,
Receive Thy longing servants home,
To triumph at Thy feet.
* * *
Discipleship
Dr. James Dunn, returning home after caring for the wounded during the battle of Antietam, told his wife about the heroism of a woman whom he met for the first time, Clara Barton. Dr. Dunn related how this nurse preformed battlefield surgery using only a pocket knife. He told of the time a bullet passed through the sleeve of her coat as she served water to a stricken soldier. He could not comprehend her stoicism as she held patients, enduring amputations absent of chloroform.
After describing the exploits of this remarkable woman, the physician asked his wife, “Now what do you think of Miss Barton?” Mrs. Dunn thoughtfully responded, “In my feeble estimation, General McClellan, with all his laurels, sinks into insignificance beside the true heroine of the age, the angel of the battlefield.” From that day forward Clara Barton had a title, “Angel of the Battlefield.” Or simply, to most, her calling card was “Professional Angel.”
(Back to top of page)
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship:
Leader: Sometimes we feel like God has abandoned us.
People: Sometimes it seems like God is so far away from us.
Leader: Yet we know that our God is Holy.
People: Our ancestors trusted and found deliverance.
Leader: It is our God who has given us life.
People: It is on God we will place our trust.
OR
Leader: Come let us join together as we worship our God.
People: From many places we come together as one family.
Leader: All of us are God’s beloved children.
People: We are all sisters and brothers in Christ.
Leader: There is no elite status in the Church for all are servants.
People: We serve God and one another with joy.
Hymns and Songs:
Holy God, We Praise Thy Name
UMH: 79
H82: 366
PH: 460
NNBH: 13
NCH: 276
LBW: 535
ELA: 414
W&P: 138
From All That Dwell Below the Skies
UMH: 101
H82: 380
PH: 229
NCH: 27
CH: 49
LBW: 550
AMEC: 690
STLT: 381
It’s Me, It’s Me, O Lord
UMH: 352
NNBH: 496
CH: 579
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
UMH: 358
H82: 652/653
PH: 345
NCH: 502
CH: 594
LBW: 506
W&P: 470
AMEC: 344
Amazing Grace
UMH: 378
H82: 671
PH: 280
AAHH: 271/272
NNBH: 161/163
NCH: 247/248
CH: 546
LBW: 448
ELA: 779
W&P: 422
AMEC: 226
STLT: 205/206
Renew: 189
This Is a Day of New Beginnings
UMH: 383
NCH: 417
CH: 518
W&P: 355
The Gift of Love
UMH: 408
AAHH: 522
CH: 526
W&P: 397
Renew: 155
Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone
UMH: 424
AAHH: 554
NNBH: 221
AMEC: 155
Humble Yourself in the Sight of the Lord
CCB: 72
Renew: 188
As We Gather
CCB: 12
Renew: 6
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
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 recognizes the sacred worth of all your children:
Grant us the grace to esteem others as highly as we do ourselves
and to be willing to step down from positions of privilege;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you hold each of your children in high regard. You see us all as being persons of sacred worth. Help us to also see others as you do and to be willing to abase ourselves that others might be lifted up. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our wanting to be held in high esteem by others.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have sought the best seats and the highest places so that we may receive praise from others. When we find ourselves in places of privilege we are reluctant to step down even though others suffer because of our sense of entitlement. We have failed to live as servants of others as Jesus did and as he commanded us. Forgive us and renew our hearts and minds by the power of your Spirit that we may truly be members of you realm. Amen.
Leader: God welcomes all into new realm God is creating as we amend our lives and strive to live into its ethos. Receive God’s love and grace and serve others as Christ has served you.
Prayers of the People
Glory and honor are yours, O God, because you are the Creator of all. We worship you for your loving kindness that is extended to all your creation.
(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 the best seats and the highest places so that we may receive praise from others. When we find ourselves in places of privilege we are reluctant to step down even though others suffer because of our sense of entitlement. We have failed to live as servants of others as Jesus did and as he commanded us. Forgive us and renew our hearts and minds by the power of your Spirit that we may truly be members of you realm.
We thank you for all the blessings of this life. We thank you that others have followed the example of the Christ and have lowered themselves so that we might be lifted up.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all your children in their need. We pray for those who struggle in this life while others receive more than they 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.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Talk to the children about your memories of playing with others as a child and how the person who owned the ball and bat, the video gamer, etc. often got to choose what was played. Talk about how that doesn’t feel good. Perhaps share an experience when the person was thoughtful and let others choose. Jesus invites us to share with others, not just candy, but decisions, as well.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Too much!
by Tom Willadsen
Mark 10:17-31
(This is sort of a two-fer -- there’s a good idea for Advent as well as a similarly themed message for Proper 23 | OT 28 | Pentecost 21.)
For the message for this Sunday you will need a transparent container, an ample supply of an acceptable small edible and kids who trust you and are eager to play along. (You want that last one every Sunday!)
“Too much!”
The Mark passage’s exchange between Jesus and the devout man who wanted to inherit eternal life has some details that are easy to overlook.
The man says he has kept the commandments since he was in his youth. Apparently he suspected, or feared, that devotion to the law was not sufficient for one to “inherit” eternal life.
That word “inherit,” is a legal term. Inheritances are not earned, they are granted, or passed down. The terminology betrays some confusion in the man’s thought. When he learned that he must give away his possessions to the poor and follow Jesus he was “shocked and went away grieving.” His piety is not enough, the pathway to eternal life, is to store riches in heaven and follow Christ.
He has too much to lose, so he turns from Christ, returns to his possessions.
This is a teaching moment for the disciples. Jesus tells them that it’s really, really hard for those with wealth to enter the kingdom of heaven. “So who can get in?” they ask.
“Well,” Jesus replies, “it’s not possible for mortals, but God can make it possible.”
You know the story. How can you lead children to understand the peril of having too much stuff?
Here’s a tactic I used at the start of Advent a few years ago. The church calls the season “Advent;” the rest of the world keeps track of the season by counting shopping days.
I asked my congregation to collect catalogues they received in the mail starting in the middle of October. On the first Sunday in Advent, which was a communion Sunday, and whose text was Isaiah 40, about making a straight level road in the desert for the Messiah, before the children we called forward, I instructed people to bring their catalogues to the front of the sanctuary. There were dozens of brown grocery sacks, heavy with catalogues for gifts to purchase for loved ones. They created a fence around the communion table. No one could reach it. I asked the kids to come forward, as forward as they could, and help me figure out what to do. If the aisle is the road that needs to be straight and lead directly to the destination, what could we do?
One child suggested we just make a wide circle, and get to the communion table from the back. That’s not a straight path. What else could we do?
Another suggested we could move the sacks of catalogues to the side. What a great idea! But it was really hard. The sacks were heavy, some of them broke and spilled all over the floor. It was a big, chaotic mess.
Exactly. The kind of mess that they would see around their Christmas tree when they open their presents. Do you see how things, ordinary, physical things can block us from following Christ?
This, of course, is one of the messages that mainline churches have been preaching at least since the debut of the Charlie Brown Christmas special in 1965.
In the case of today’s text you’ll want to have some kind of sweet that meets approval in your congregation. Among the little ones at my church there were some with several allergies that determined what could be passed out that would not exclude anyone. Also, there were germophobes who insisted that only individually wrapped treats should ever be shared. Whatever. You know your territory.
You’ll want a lot of these. Ask who likes them. Give one to each one who does. Ask who likes them a lot. Give some more. Ask if it’s possible to like them too much. (Now tell them to put their Thinking Caps on.)
Bring out a jar, or other transparent container, and put a small figurine in it. Maybe a Lego mini figure. Tell them about this person who loved the treat that they have just gotten. That this person really, really liked the treat, and that was all he ever wanted…lots and lots of them. Start dropping them into the jar. Keep dropping them. Inundate the poor thing. Make it so that the container is overflowing and the figure cannot be seen anymore.
He’s got a lot of really good things. Ask whether the kids think the figure is happy. Ask whether she could move, or breathe, or live any kind of life, drowning in all this abundant good stuff.
Wrap up by pointing out that the man who talked to Jesus had a lot of stuff. So much that it kept him from following Jesus. Sometimes it’s possible to have too much of good things.
Be sure to pass out any leftover treats to the congregation -- and don’t forget the choir. Watch carefully so that no one gets crushed by the weight of Skittles or M&M’s.
Point out that John 10 says the message of the gospel is abundance but that it is for some other Sunday. Today your point is the peril of too much.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, October 14, 2018, issue.
Copyright 2018 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.
