It's Complicated
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For June 10, 2018:
It’s Complicated
by Chris Keating
1 Samuel 8:4-11
Aging wasn’t kind to Samuel. His power-hungry sons exchanged faithfulness for worldly gain, accepting bribes like sleazy politicians and twisting justice to suit their own means. Like Gideon and Eli before him, Samuel was discovering that righteousness isn’t always inherited.
Samuel might not have been surprised when the contingent of elders confronted him, but still their words stung. “Give us a king,” they demanded, hinting that Sam’s senescence was becoming an issue. “We want to be like other nations.”
He probably shook his head and may have added a good tongue lashing in response. Samuel knows that despite their anxious demand to become like other nations, the reality is far more complicated. Israel had been called to be unlike other nations. As he turns to God in prayerful reflection, Samuel is probably saying, “Oh, this ain’t gonna end well.”
Things are much more complicated than they first appear.
Samuel would certainly have agreed with Lord Acton’s maxim (“power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”). Acton’s adage, an oft repeated theme in barroom debates and high school essays, can seem nearly cliché at times. The quest for power has become ever more complex, though the oxidizing forces of absolute power creating political corruption abound in our world. Recently, for example, 68 percent of nonvoters cited widespread political corruption as the reason they chose to abstain from voting.
But the flipside is also true: tossing out the scoundrels often leads to unforeseen complications. Centralizing power can lead to further difficulties. A recent visit to Cuba offered me insights into how consolidated government power both cultivates and stagnates possibility among people. The destabilizing effects of Fidel Castro’s powerful socialist communist regime are evident. Yet, as Cubans like to say, the situation is complicated: despite a rotting infrastructure and average wages of less than $25 a month, Cubans values universal healthcare, a lack of violent crime, and free education. It’s complicated.
Samuel knows that the desire to be like other nations is a dangerous and complicated path. The truth of the matter is that the power God yearns to bestow upon Israel is a power that is just, shared, and rooted in covenantal love and faithfulness -- a power structure much different from other nations.
In the News
Questions about the nature and use of power and authority abound, just as they did centuries ago. Following a slew of presidential pardons last week -- described by one writer as Donald Trump’s pardon-palooza -- the President on Monday exercised his power as Tweeter in Chief to proclaim that he has “the absolute right” to pardon himself. He added that such an action is unnecessary, since he believes he has not done anything wrong.
Legal scholars disagree about whether a self-pardon would be possible, emphasizing the fundamental rule of law that no one may be the judge in his or her own case. But even mentioning the idea created ripples of unrest.
"If a president can pardon himself, it's virtually a monarchy, at least as far as the president is concerned,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer on Monday. “If the presidents had the power to pardon themselves, we'd no longer be a democracy.”
Other presidents, including Barack Obama, have been accused of assuming sovereign power. Republicans jabbed at Obama for his extensive use of executive orders, including efforts to keep immigrants from being deported. As historian David Cannadine noted in 2015, nineteenth century critics of President Andrew Jackson painted him as “King Andrew the First,” making caricatures of him clad in kingly garb and yielding a royal veto. Others cited for consolidating power included Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and his cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt.
It’s nothing new. Cannadine observes such denunciations are hardly surprising. While the framers of the Constitution solidly denounced monarchy, Cannadine notes that European monarchies were the models of government they knew best. “From the outset,” he concludes, “the American presidency was vested with what might be termed monarchical authority, which meant that it really was a form of elective kingship.”
It is, as our Cuban tour guide might say, complicated.
As our new, sleek, Chinese-made tour bus pushed through Havana’s city streets, examples of the impact of 60 years of centralized communist socialism popped into view. Once glitzy hotels, built in the 1950s by American mobsters, look like aging Las Vega performers. Neighborhood bodegas are fully of empty shelves. A bright orange 1952 Chevy passes a banged up Soviet made compact. Power is intermittent, and food is rationed.
Someone asked one of the guides about the effects of poverty. Shrugging his shoulders, he said, “I mean, anyone who wants a job can get one,” adding that few people earn more than $30 a month. He continued by touting what might have been a government-approved checklist of responses: universal healthcare, free college tuition, no mortgage payments, a lack of homelessness. “Are we poor?” he said. “I don’t know.” And then -- on cue, “It’s complicated.”
On the whole, Cubans are light-hearted about issues of political power. As we drove past the U.S. Embassy, the guide referred to the allegations of a supersonic sound attack on the American mission by calling out, “Cover your ears!” Officially, however, there is little humor. Not far from the U.S. Embassy stands a statue of a woman holding a child representing Elian Gonzalez, the sole survivor of a capsized boat of Cuban refugees and center of a conflict between the two countries in 1999. The woman is pointing at the U.S. Embassy in a not-so-subtle indictment of American power.
But Cubans cannot freely exercise the same sort of disagreement toward their own leaders. There is no guarantee of free speech, and human rights violations abound. Centralized power means limited freedom and burdensome oppression, something Samuel explains to those elders who called upon him to anoint a king. “He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers,” Samuel warns.
In other words, be careful about demanding a king -- it’s likely to be complicated.
In the Scripture
A strange thing happens between chapters 7 and 8 of 1 Samuel. Where the earlier chapter portrays Samuel’s leadership as vigorous and robust, the next shows him weakened by age. In Chapter 7, Samuel calls upon Israel to set aside the worship of idols, leads them in striking down the Philistines, and administers justice with faithfulness and righteousness. But as the story continues, Samuel ages and his sons become corrupt.
The times they are a'changing. “You are old,” the leaders of Israel tell him, “and your sons do not follow in your ways.” The answer, they claim, is to become like other nations. “Give us a king to govern us,” they demand. That’s the ticket! Let’s be like those other countries. Their demands, fueled by anxiety and uncertainty, mimic the actions of anxiety-bound leaders of congregations who decide that the only way to grow is by firing the pastor, or hiring a new youth director. “We can be like First Razzle Dazzle Church down the street.”
Yet anxiety seldom promotes health. The situation, as God and Samuel both know, is much more complicated. Samuel tries to hold his tongue. He could have lectured them on their own history, recalling the days when they were slaves in Egypt. He could have talked about the bricks and straw, the acts of oppression and how God had released them from captivity. He could have reminded them of Moses injunction that they were not to be like other nations.
Instead, Samuel prays. “They have not rejected you,” says the Lord,” but they have rejected me from being king over them.” God adjures Samuel to warn them, and to remind the people of what will happen. When the people still insist, God relents and allows a king to be appointed. The situation, as Walter Brueggemann observes, is more complicated than it would appear:
In the Sermon
Brueggemann observes that chapter 8 of 1 Samuel remind us of the character, identity and vocation of Israel. As Brueggemann notes the chapter highlights Israel’s restlessness with its “peculiar identity” as God’s beloved. It no longer wants to be Yahweh’s alone; it wants to be like other nations. The questions that emerge from this exploration of their yearning for a powerful ruler are questions relevant to our contemporary world. One can hear Lord Acton clearing his throat, preparing a lecture on the absolutizing of power.
Yet the situation is more complicated. What emerges in the text is a complex wrestling between competing traditions. Perhaps Yahweh is already at work pondering a time in the not-so distant future when Samuel will be gone and David will be king. There is a sorting through and process of discernment evident in this text which is instructive to our contemporary setting. What does it mean for a community of faith to address the relationship between faith and civic power? As Brueggemann concludes (p. 66), the narrative does not solve this tension but does hint that the questions are urgent.
Samuel’s urgent pleading offers the preacher an opportunity to explore how people of faith may address large questions of power, leadership, and social justice. Samuel knows that a powerful leader may make Israel like “the other nations,” but the theological question is whether or not it is useful for Israel to claim this identity. In other words, do we really want to be like all the other kids?
Fundamentally, as Samuel explains, a monarch will distort and abuse power in ways antithetical to God’s purposes. A monarch will oppress and despise, not seek out and love. A monarch’s power will not be a power that will cause a people to flourish. This could be a common thread in our discordant political discussions -- that power, prized too greatly by either political party or person in power, is a power that will corrupt and not lead to the kin-dom imagined by God.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in a midrash on another section of the Hebrew Bible, offers these inciteful reflections:
In other words, to quote my Cuban amigo, it’s complicated. It’s all very complicated.
SECOND THOUGHTS
The Luxury of Despair
by Dean Feldmeyer
2 Corinthians 4:12-5:1
Christians cannot afford the luxury of despair.
We have been given a spirit of resurrection, a spirit of renewal and reconciliation, a spirit of hope and faith and love -- a Holy Spirit that comes directly from “the one who raised the Lord Jesus” and will raise us as well.
These are gifts of great value, gifts that we dare not reject or squander or waste by falling into hopelessness and despair. They have been given to us so that we may be triumphant in life and in death.
Yes, we face obstacles and hurdles, some that we must overcome, and some that we must accept and work around, but these are temporary problems produced by temporary agencies on the temporary plane of existence.
The gifts which God has bestowed upon us come not from the temporary but from the eternal plane, the plane upon which Jesus walked both before and after his resurrection. They do not wear out or tarnish, they do not rust or shrink or die. They are made of enduring, imperishable stuff.
To paraphrase what Paul says just a few verses prior to these: We may be hard pressed on every side, but we are not crushed; we may be perplexed, but we are not in despair; we may be persecuted, but we are not abandoned; we may be struck down, but we are not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 4: 8-9)
In other words, “We do not lose heart.” (v. 16)
She Did Not Lose Heart
We take as our inspiration, people like Tammy Duckworth.
Following in the footsteps of her father, who served in World War II, and ancestors who served in the Revolutionary War, Ladda Tammy Duckworth joined the Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps as a graduate student at George Washington University in 1990. She became a commissioned officer in the United States Army Reserve in 1992 and chose to fly helicopters because it was one of the few combat jobs open to women. As a member of the Army Reserve, she went to flight school, later transferring to the Illinois Army National Guard in 1996. She also worked as a staff supervisor at Rotary International headquarters in Evanston, Illinois.
Duckworth was working towards a Ph.D. in political science at Northern Illinois University, with research interests in the political economy and public health in southeast Asia, when she was deployed to Iraq in 2004. On November 12 of that year, the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting was hit by a rocket propelled grenade fired by Iraqi insurgents. She lost her right leg near the hip and her left leg below the knee from injuries sustained in the attack and subsequent crash. The explosion "almost completely destroyed her right arm, breaking it in three places and tearing tissue from the back side of it.” The doctors "reset the bones in her arm and stitched the cuts" to save her arm. She was the first American female double amputee from the Iraq war and she received a Purple Heart and was promoted to Major at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where she was presented with an Air Medal and Army Commendation Medal.
Having received a medical waiver, she continued to serve as a lieutenant colonel in the Illinois Army National Guard along with her husband, Major Bryan W. Bowlsbey, a signal officer and fellow Iraq War veteran.
While in the Illinois Army National Guard, she also served as Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs in the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (2009–2011), and she was the Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs (2006–2009).
She retired from the Illinois Army National Guard in October 2014 as a lieutenant colonel.
That might have been the end of Tammy Duckworth’s very impressive and inspirational story but retirement did not mean a life of idle leisure to Colonel Duckworth. She decided to go into politics. A member of the Democratic Party, she represented Illinois's 8th district for two terms (2013–2017) in the United States House of Representatives. Later, she was elected to the United States Senate, where she continues to serve, today.
Duckworth was the first Asian American woman elected to the House of Representatives, the first disabled woman to be elected to Congress, the first female double amputee in the Senate, the first Senator to give birth while in office, and the first member of Congress born in Thailand. (Her American father and Thai mother were working and living there at the time.) Duckworth is the second Asian-American woman serving in the U.S. Senate.
The Daughters of the American Revolution erected a statue with Duckworth's likeness, and that of the Revolution's Molly Pitcher in Mount Vernon, Illinois, in 2011. The statue was erected in honor of female veterans.
Tammy Duckworth’s perseverance is an inspiration.
But you don’t have to be a double amputee or a United States Senator to be a model of perseverance.
The Good Worth Fighting For
About a year ago, my daughter and her husband bought a huge house, over 4,000 square feet. It was built in 1959 and fashioned sort of like a hunting lodge. It has six bedrooms, four baths, a six-car garage, a swimming pool and it sits on three acres of wooded land on the bank of the Alum Creek near the center of Columbus, Ohio.
It’s beautiful and the price was less than what they might have spent on a much smaller, more conventional house in the suburbs. There’s only one catch: It’s a fixer-upper. It sat empty for more than 2 years. It was in the middle of a remodel when the owner stopped the work and put the house on the market.
They are living in the house and swimming in the pool and working on it when and as they can but it’s going to be several years before it is anything like they want it to be.
A few weeks ago, my daughter called my wife to vent as she does regularly these days. They have several parts of the house that have to be completely rewired and the electrician didn’t show up. He got stuck at another job and it’s going to be a couple of days before he can get back to her and they can turn on the air conditioning in at least part of the house. The plumber did show up and allegedly fixed something but it still doesn’t work. She’s going to have to get him to come back.
She started doing the yard work and landscaping but it took almost three times more mulch than she planned. Over 125 bags. The paint she bought for one of the master bedroom looks awful. There a family of raccoons in part of the attic.
She stopped almost mid-sentence. “I know,” she said. “First world problems, right?”
Right. She has plenty to eat and a roof over her head. She has a family that loves her and is there to help on a moment’s notice when we are needed. She has a house that, in a few years, will be the envy of Architecture Digest and she and her husband have an income that will allow them to take on a project such as this.
She and her mom both laughed together and then started talking about how those “first world problems” will probably be resolved. Then they changed the subject and talked about something else -- Game of Thrones or something.
But the point is, she did not lose heart. She redoubled her efforts and kept going.
Tammy Duckworth did not lose heart. She kept going.
As Christians, we are called to not lose heart, to persevere through our problems whether they be of the first world type or the third world type, whether they be physical problems or problems that find their home in the emotions or the intellect. And we are called to exhibit a perseverance that stretches beyond our own problems and into the problems of the whole world
Never have I heard this universal kind of perseverance described better than in The Lord of the Rings -- the Two Towers. It comes up in a conversation between Frodo and Sam:
What is that good in the world, that good worth fighting for?
For us, for Christians, it is the Good News of God as it comes to us in Jesus Christ. It is the good news of God’s love and acceptance for you and for me, and for us all.
And that is good news, indeed.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
Mark 3:20-35
Who Counts as Family
In this story from Mark’s gospel, Jesus reminds us that family can be more than the people we’re related to by birth. Some family is chosen. Our younger friends, who are getting married and having children later, are choosing their family members from an unusual place. Adweek reports that people in their thirties see their pets as family members, even as “starter children.” Now, “three-fourths of Americans in their 30s own a dog and over half own a cat. Marketers say they’ve noticed that the perception of pets has changed with this generation.” Pets teach them the qualities they feel they’ll need as parents, and they make lifestyle choices based on their pets’ needs. They want to take their pets out with them, and so public spaces need to be pet-friendly. One woman says she “considers her dog to be her baby and thinks this experience has prepared her for the ‘real deal’ down the line thanks to the specific routines, checkups and preferences she now takes into consideration.” She adds, “Obviously there will be bigger challenges as a parent to a human baby, but for now, my fur baby keeps my hands full.” People can be vexing, so some people are choosing to claim their pets as family members.
* * *
Mark 3:20-35
Choosing Your Family
Jesus raises the possibility that our family bonds come from something other than birth and blood relationships. Friends fill the place of family for many people. Especially as we age, the friends who are chosen family have a protective effect. It’s “so crucial, in fact, that having supportive friendships in old age was found to be a stronger predictor of wellbeing than having strong family connections. [A new study] found that both family and friend relationships were associated with better health and happiness overall. But at advanced ages, the link remained only for people who reported strong friendships.”
Perhaps, the benefits are stronger “for older people because, by that point, those friendships have stood the test of time. “You have kept those people around because they have made you happy, or at least contributed to your well-being in some way,” says Chopik [the study author.] “Across our lives, we let the more superficial friendships fade, and we’re left with the really influential ones.” But Chopik says the power of friendship on physical and mental health is often ignored in research -- especially in older people, where relationships with spouses and children are often considered more important.” The study author adds, “The general point is that the more support, the more positive interactions, the better. The important thing is having people you can rely on, for the good times as well as the bad.” Having people around us who share our joys and sorrows, who see the world the way we do, who cushion us against sorrow is a powerful gift.
* * *
2 Corinthians 4:13--5:1
Being Renewed
“Our inner nature is being renewed,” Paul writes. One guaranteed form of renewal for both spirit and body is surprisingly simple: resting. Physician Matthew Edlund says, “Rest is the original transformative technology. Through rest we rebuild, rewire and renew ourselves -- literally.
The process is fast. The skin on your face is replaced in two weeks. Gut lining cells take two days. And that’s complete replacement.” We feel obligated to keep going, to keep working, to keep getting more done, and Dr. Edlund says that we miss out on the renewing power available to us in sleep. “Sleep is a large part of life’s music, but because we generally don’t recall what we do in sleep, we don’t think much happens. Plenty happens. If we did remember them, we might consider the different phases of sleep as whole new sets of consciousness…In sleep, we grow new brain cells. In sleep we lie down and rewire memories. No sleep, no new brain cells. And our reworked brains are literally different when we wake up, sort of like those science fiction stories where people awaken each day a whole new person. Every night we have rewired, rebuilt, reset, reconstructed, and redone our brains.” God’s gift of rest is part of our renewal.
* * *
2 Corinthians 4:13--5:1
Lessons from the Dying
Frank Ostaseski is the founder of the Zen Hospice Project, the first Buddhist hospice in America, and the author of The Five Invitations: What the Living Can Learn From the Dying. As we come near death, as “our outer nature is wasting away,” as Paul write to the church in Corinth, there are still spiritual gifts to be given and received. He says, reflecting on the end of life, “Death is difficult. It's messy and it's painful sometimes, but most of all, it's normal. When we learn to turn toward the experience, we turn toward what it has to offer us. When we know that life is absolutely precarious, then we understand just how precious it is. We want to jump into our life with both feet. We want to tell people that we love them. It’s the precariousness of life that shows us what's really important, what really matters. So, to welcome is to include, and to say, "Oh, this is part of life." What can I do with it? What can I learn from it? How can it help me to love more?”
The dying process inspires a lot of fear, but he says it doesn’t need to be that way. “Many years ago, when my son was 4 or 5 years old (he's a grown man now), I had a preschool with a friend of mine, and we used to take the children to the woods to find dead stuff. They'd pick up a rusty old car part or a dead leaf or a twig or some bones, perhaps from a dead animal, and we'd gather them up and put them out for show and tell. The children were so curious about this. They weren't at all afraid of death. They had great stories about how this piece of bark was a bed for a mouse and the rusty old car part was part of a space ship that had fallen down from the sky. One little girl said to me, ‘I think the leaves that fall from the trees are so generous to make room for the new leaves.’ I wish as adults we could recognize that everything is changing in the world. Seasons come and go. Everything's changing except me, right? Well, No! When we do that we pull ourselves out of the stream of change. We isolate ourselves and become frightened. When we recognize that we are in the stream with everybody else, we are kinder to one another. I think it engenders a certain kind of letting go, a willingness not to take ourselves and our ideas so seriously.” Our outer nature changes and moves toward an end, but our inner nature can be full of grace and vitality, endlessly renewed, by God’s grace.
* * *
2 Corinthians 4:13--5:1
Endings
Hospice practitioner and philosopher Frank Ostasteki often receives questions from people who are fearful about the end of life. Paul promises the church in Corinth that even as our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed, and Ostasteki helps people think about the renewal that comes from pondering the end of life. He recalls, “I was speaking with a group of folks in Silicon Valley not long ago, and I said death is inevitable. One guy raised his hand and he said, “I'm not so sure about that. A lot of us in this room are working on that.” I said, “Great, let's step back from this word ‘death’ for a moment. Let's just begin to look at endings. You want to know what death has to teach -- look at endings.”
He goes on, “How do you meet endings in your life? Do you go unconsciously around them? For example, when you're at a gathering of friends, do you leave, either emotionally or mentally, before the event is over? Do you ghost out the door because you think nobody knows that you were there, so they won't notice that you've gone, or you are the last one in the parking lot waving to all the participants who came to the conference? Do you feel sad and teary-eyed with endings, or are you anxious and indifferent with them?” How we think about other endings can guide us toward the end of our earthly lives.
He adds, “We treat dying in this country and in many countries as if it was simply a medical event, and it is so much more than that. It is so much more profound, and there is no one single model that is large enough to embrace all that happens at the time of dying. Dying is much more about our relationship through love to suffering the experience of death itself to God or whatever image of ultimate kindness we hold.” There’s so much more to our inner nature than we ever fully take in!
* * *
2 Corinthians 4:13--5:1
Urban Renewal, with Bees
Detroit is one of the many cities with a blight problem. Even as its outer nature has wasted away due to population shifts and the decline of the auto industry, people have worked hard to renew the spirit of the city. “For over a decade, Detroit has been at the center of the country’s urban farm movement. The gardens and farms established on the city’s vacant land are a practical answer to both poverty and blight. Now, urban bees are moving in. That’s obviously a good thing for the city farms, but it’s also helping with the blight. The Detroit Blight Removal Task Force assembled by former President Barack Obama recommended the city remove 40,000 blighted properties within five years. That was four years ago. As the city bulldozed battered homes and buildings, about 24 square miles of vacant land has opened up. Some of it has become unsanctioned dumping grounds, perpetuating a cycle of blight. “People want to see their areas cleaned up. They want to see all the blight removed,” says Timothy Paule, a Detroit resident and beekeeper. “And that costs money. So, bees.”
After an illness, which he treated with local honey when nothing else worked, Paule got interested in bees. His partner suggested that a vacant lot might be a good site for beekeeping. “Paule and [his partner] Lindsey took beekeeping courses and joined the Southeastern Michigan Beekeepers and Southeastern Beekeepers. It was Lindsey who concocted the plan to create urban bee farms using vacant lots in Detroit, where side lots sell for as low as $100 to encourage use and revitalization. When the couple bought their first lot, it was filled with dilapidated furniture, old tires, weeds, and other trash. “Anything you can name,” Lindsey says, “it was there.” Cleanup was a cooperative effort. Friends and community partners helped.”
They acquired bees from local beekeepers, and now have several hives. The bees are good for plants, and good for residents’ spirits. It gives a boost to the city’s economy and vitality to see vacant lots filled with new purpose. “And Detroit tourists can book $25 hour-long tours to the farm through Airbnb.com, which Paule says is especially important. “People visiting from other places sometimes want to go into the inner city and see what’s going on in the community versus what’s going on at major businesses or retail stores.” The money is invested back into the farm.” The city’s inner nature is being renewed, vacant lot by vacant lot.
From team member Ron Love:
Wisdom
Murder on the Orient Express is a detective novel by Agatha Christie. The novel was published on January 1, 1934. The book features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, who is known for solving what are seemingly impossible crimes. Poirot is known to solve a case by his ability cognitively analyze the evidence and sequence of events. On the train, while it was stuck in a snowdrift, a murder occured. The murder has to be on board the train, as it was stuck in the snow, no one could come or leave. M. Bouc, the director of the railway, upon learning the expertise of Poirot, asks Poirot to solve the crime. In the dialogue of encouraging Poirot to take on the case, Bouc accentuates Poirot’s ability as a crime solver: “But have I not heard you say often that to solve a case a man has only to lie back in his chair and think?...I have faith in you…I am assured that it is no idle boast of yours. Lie back and think -- use (as I have heard you say so often) the little grey cells of the mind -- and you will know!”
Application: In all of our lectionary readings for today, we repeatedly encounter individuals who did not “lie back and think” about the ramifications of disobeying God.
* * *
Wisdom
Abraham Lincoln spoke at the close of the Illinois Republican State Convention, which was held on Springfield on June 16, 1858. On the previous day the convention had taken the unprecedented move of naming Lincoln their candidate for the Senate. Normally, Senate candidates were chosen in January when the new legislature convened. The speech that Lincoln delivered was aimed at Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas and any Republicans who might think of supporting Douglas. Douglas was not present at the convention. Douglas was the designer of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which would allow the residents of these new territories to vote for or against slavery. This provision caused an overwhelming number of people to flood into the territories in order to vote on the issue. It also resulted in violence. In his speech before the delegates Lincoln said: “We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed -- ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.”
Application: Lincoln was a student of the scriptures and often applied biblical principles to his public speeches. We need to be students of the Bible so we can apply its wisdom to our words and actions.
* * *
Wisdom
There was a lot of speculation, none of which was founded on fact, as to why the chair next to Prince William was vacant during the May 19 royal wedding of his brother, Prince Harry. Most came to believe that the chair was empty as a symbolic remembrance of their mother Princess Diana. The truth was the chair was directly in front of Queen Elizabeth, and it was left empty so she could view the altar unobstructed.
Application: In all of our lectionary readings for today, we repeatedly encounter individuals who jumped to conclusions, rather than seeking out the facts.
* * *
Decision
On May 19 Meghan Markel married Prince Harry in a glamorous royal wedding. As Markel, who will now be called the Duchess of Sussex, entered Saint George’s Chapel, there were 110 steps from the entrance to the altar. As she walked those steps, trailing a shimmering 16-foot veil, she was walking 110 steps of a life-changing decision.
Application: In our lectionary readings for today, we repeatedly encountered individuals who had to make life-changing decisions.
* * *
Obedience
On May 19 Meghan Markel married Prince Harry in a glamorous royal wedding. Half-way down the aisle, she was taken by the arm of her future father-in-law, Prince Charles. When they reached the altar together, Prince Harry, his son, softly said, “Thanks, Pa.” Harry then looked at Meghan and said, “You look mazing. I’m so lucky.”
Application: In our lectionary readings for today we have a number of individuals whose disobedience to God made them unable to say, “Thanks, Pa.” We must live an obedient life, who as Jesus taught, we are all children of God -- we all can say “Thanks, Pa.”
* * *
Wisdom
Perhaps the most surprising unorchestrated event at the May 19 royal wedding of Meghan Markel to Prince Harry was the sermon delivered by Chicago-based Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry. The Anglicans at Saint George’s Chapel were totally unprepared for a dramatic and enthusiastic sermon delivered by a black preacher. Curry’s 14-minute sermon implored listeners to harness the power of love to make “this old world a new world.” Several times Curry quoted Martin Luther King, Jr. The Bishop also deviated from his prepared text when he discussed the antebellum South and slavery. During this fiery sermon the royal family remained stoic, but were yet quietly surprised by this exuberant oratory that was unfamiliar to the pulpit at Saint George’s Chapel.
Application: We need the courage and the wisdom to preach the gospel message. If others, as we see in our lectionary readings, were courageous enough to speak perhaps the disobedience acts recorded in Genesis and First Samuel could have been avoided.
* * *
Love
On May 19 Meghan Markel married Prince Harry in a glamorous royal wedding. According to royal tradition set by the Queen Mother at her 1923 wedding, Markel’s bouquet was placed at the grave of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey.
Application: Jesus in his healing stories always exhibited love and appreciation.
* * *
Restoration
In the daily devotional The Upper Room, a woman who would only identify herself as Claudia, submitted a thoughtful article. Claudia identified herself as the wife of the president of a major corporation. She explained that her husband was near retirement and their children were grown and living away from home, before she accepted Jesus as her personal savior. With remorse she looked back over those years and realized how different they would have been with Jesus in her life. She would have had a much closer relationship with her daughters, and she would have used her wealth and status in the community for the betterment of people. Claudia continued to be sad and troubled by this loss until one day during her devotions she read this passage: “I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten.” (Joel 2:25) Claudia wrote, “I just rested upon this promise.” She began a new life for herself, no longer-guilt ridden over the “lost years.”
Application: From our lectionary reading, we can understand how Jesus restores the lives of individuals.
* * *
Obedience
In 1946, a California lawyer needed a change in his life. Searching a Whittier-area newspaper, he read this ad: “Wanted: Congressional candidate with no previous political experience to defeat a man who has represented the district in the House for 10 years. Any young man resident of district, preferably a veteran, fair education, may apply for job.” Richard Milhous Nixon answered the ad, and his political career was launched all the way to the White House.
Application: You may or may not agree with the presidency of Nixon, but we have learned from the story of Saul that our only true leader is God.
* * *
Wisdom
A number of years ago I attended a friend’s 20th high school reunion. She graduated from Penn Hills High School, which is a suburb of Pittsburgh, with 1200 other students. The reunion was a rather grand and festive occasion. During this social event I enjoyed being introduced to her old friends. During the course of the evening one could not help but compare notes with others gathered in the banquet hall, questioning and wondering, who was making more money, whose job offered greater prestige, whose children were going to be the superstars of tomorrow. While I was there and thinking back over those preceding 20 years -- which just seem like yesterday -- I could not avoid the self-reflection such an event imposes. The inevitable “what if” question crept into my mind. Would things have been different if…Suppose I would have done this… I’m sorry I didn’t do…But the years are gone, never to be captured again. So, if I dwell only on what could have been, I will always feel a sense of loss.
Application: In our lectionary readings for today, we encounter many mistakes that were made by individual. Yet, under the guidance of God, there was always hope for the future.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship:
Leader: Let us give thank to God with all our heart.
People: We give thanks for God’s steadfast love and faithfulness.
Leader: Though we walk in the midst of trouble, God preserves us.
People: God stretches out the hand of deliverance.
Leader: God will fulfill the divine purpose for us.
People: God’s steadfast love endures forever.
OR
Leader: The God of power and love comes among us.
People: We welcome our God whose love is all powerful.
Leader: God’s love is our foundation and our strength.
People: We receive God’s love and will use it for good.
Leader: The power of God’s love is meant to be shared.
People: We will lavish it on the powerless and the weak.
Hymns and Songs:
I Sing the Almighty Power of God
UMH: 152
H82: 398
PH: 288
NCH: 12
W&P: 31
Praise the Lord Who Reigns Above
UMH: 96
W&P: 46
Hope of the World
UMH: 178
H82: 472
PH: 360
NCH: 46
CH: 538
LBW: 493
W&P: 404
On Eagle’s Wings
UMH: 143
CH: 77
ELA: 787
W&P: 438
Crown Him with Many Crowns
UMH: 327
H82: 494
PH: 151
AAHH: 288
NNBH: 125
NCH: 301
CH: 234
LBW: 170
ELA: 855
W&P: 317
AMEC: 174
All My Hope Is Firmly Grounded
UMH: 132
H82: 665
NCH: 408
CH: 88
ELA: 757
O God of Every Nation
UMH: 435
H82: 607
PH: 289
CH: 680
LBW: 416
ELA: 713
W&P: 626
O Master Let Me Walk with Thee
UMH: 430
H82: 659/660
PH: 357
NNBH: 445
NCH: 503
CH: 602
LBW: 492
ELA: 818
W&P: 589
AMEC: 299
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 is all powerful through love:
Grant us the grace to seek true power
by loving and caring for all your children;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We worship you, O God, because you are the only true power. Your love is the greatest force in all creation and beyond. Help us to understand the wonders of your powerful love that we may use it to assist in your redemption of creation. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our attraction to powers other than God’s and the ease with which we give up hope.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We call you God but then we turn to others for answers. We call you the Almighty and we name you Love but we fail to connect the two names. We are attracted to the power that destroys rather than the power that restores. We look at the power of evil and we despair. We give up hope on your power of love to redeem us and all creation. Forgive our foolishness and center us once more on your love as we experience it in Jesus. Amen.
Leader: God’s love never fails and God’s grace is eternal. Receive these as God’s gifts and live into your faith.
Prayers of the People
All praise and glory are yours, O God, because you are the Almighty. Your love is the power of creation and of redemption.
(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 call you God but then we turn to others for answers. We call you the Almighty and we name you Love but we fail to connect the two names. We are attracted to the power that destroys rather than the power that restores. We look at the power of evil and we despair. We give up hope on your power of love to redeem us and all creation. Forgive our foolishness and center us once more on your love as we experience it in Jesus.
We give you thanks for the power of your love that has been at work in us and in all creation. We see in nature the foundation of your love that shines through. We find the power of your love in those who are faithful to the vision of Jesus. We give your thanks for these.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We remember those who find it difficult to have hope because of the circumstances of their lives. There are those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit. There are those who are oppressed by poverty and want. There are those who suffer from violence and hatred. We lift these up into the light of your love asking that as you bathe them in your love we might also be sources of your love for them.
(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
There are times when we wish or hope for things but we don’t get them. There are times when we wish or hope for something to happen but it doesn’t. It is disappointing when that happens and sometimes it makes us sad. But when we are talking about God and what God is doing in the world we don’t ever need to give up hope. God’s love is more powerful than anything and God’s love will win in the end.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Growing through the Storm
by Bethay Peerbolte
2 Corinthians 4:13--5:1
The trials we face in life can lead some to wonder where is God when we hurt. It is hard to see our growth as we are going through a storm, all we can see is the storm. Trees take a great record of all they have been through. Their rings show every fire, storm, and drought and how those experiences made them stronger. Stored in the unseen parts of its trunk, we can see how trials make us stronger and how they strength is eternal.
In this children’s sermon you will use a picture of a tree’s rings to show how trials make us stronger. Here is the picture I used, but you could also bring in a piece of a stump. If you use your own stump cross section this link will help you interpret the tree’s story.
Say Something Like:
Did you know that trees keep a record of all the storms and problems they have lived through? It’s kind of like a tree diary! How many of you have seen a tree stump? Have you seen all the rings that make up a trunk, like this one (show picture or cross section)? What we see on the outside is a tall strong piece of wood, with bark and branches. On the inside, where we can’t see, are lots of rings and those rings tell a story.
This tree has a fascinating story.
One day this tree sprouted up out of the ground, and that tiny little inside circle is how small it was to begin with. It grew fast! The circles around it show how much it grew each year.
Then something came along and tried to tip the tree over. See how the circles get off center and are bigger on one side, the rings are more oval. That happened because the tree had to push itself the other way. Trees do this by growing more on one side until they are standing up again.
By the time this tree was standing up straight again there were lots of other trees around it that had grown bigger. Our tree could not get enough sun or water and to the rings get really small because it could not grow very much. Soon though something came along and took all the big trees. Since our tree was still small they did not cut the tree down. With all the big trees gone our tree could grow fast.
But then a fire came along. See this big black smudge in the rings? That shows that a fire came through but our tree survived even that. The rings get a little wonky around the burn mark because it had to heal. Eventually even the burn mark is hidden inside the rings and the tree grows and grows and grows.
We can see where the rings get small again from a few years of not having enough water or sun from draught or long winters, but the tree was strong enough to get through them. All the bad things that happened to the tree made it strong enough to handle the future.
All the trouble our tree faced made it stronger. During each storm the tree does it’s best to survive and then thrives when conditions are good. In our Bible lesson today, it says that what is seen will be gone before we know it but what we cannot see will last forever. When the tree was burnt or tipped over for a while you could see that problem from the outside. Over time that problem becomes part of the reason the tree is so strong. By learning to grow through the problem the tree is better able to face future problems.
Our Bible reading says for this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure. I think our tree learned this lesson well.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, June 10, 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.
- It's Complicated by Chris Keating -- Sometimes, as Samuel warns the leaders of Israel, yearning to be like all the other kids in the lunchroom is simply not a good idea. Instead, God yearns for Israel to develop new ways of understanding and sharing power.
- Second Thoughts: The Luxury of Despair by Dean Feldmeyer -- Christians cannot afford the luxury of despair.
- Sermon illustrations by Mary Austin and Ron Love.
- Worship resources by George Reed that deal with power as used by us versus the power of God and not giving up hope.
- Growing through the Storm -- Children's sermon by Bethany Peerbolte -- The trials we face in life can lead some to wonder where God is when we hurt. It is hard to see our growth as we are going through a storm, all we can see is the storm.
It’s Complicated
by Chris Keating
1 Samuel 8:4-11
Aging wasn’t kind to Samuel. His power-hungry sons exchanged faithfulness for worldly gain, accepting bribes like sleazy politicians and twisting justice to suit their own means. Like Gideon and Eli before him, Samuel was discovering that righteousness isn’t always inherited.
Samuel might not have been surprised when the contingent of elders confronted him, but still their words stung. “Give us a king,” they demanded, hinting that Sam’s senescence was becoming an issue. “We want to be like other nations.”
He probably shook his head and may have added a good tongue lashing in response. Samuel knows that despite their anxious demand to become like other nations, the reality is far more complicated. Israel had been called to be unlike other nations. As he turns to God in prayerful reflection, Samuel is probably saying, “Oh, this ain’t gonna end well.”
Things are much more complicated than they first appear.
Samuel would certainly have agreed with Lord Acton’s maxim (“power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”). Acton’s adage, an oft repeated theme in barroom debates and high school essays, can seem nearly cliché at times. The quest for power has become ever more complex, though the oxidizing forces of absolute power creating political corruption abound in our world. Recently, for example, 68 percent of nonvoters cited widespread political corruption as the reason they chose to abstain from voting.
But the flipside is also true: tossing out the scoundrels often leads to unforeseen complications. Centralizing power can lead to further difficulties. A recent visit to Cuba offered me insights into how consolidated government power both cultivates and stagnates possibility among people. The destabilizing effects of Fidel Castro’s powerful socialist communist regime are evident. Yet, as Cubans like to say, the situation is complicated: despite a rotting infrastructure and average wages of less than $25 a month, Cubans values universal healthcare, a lack of violent crime, and free education. It’s complicated.
Samuel knows that the desire to be like other nations is a dangerous and complicated path. The truth of the matter is that the power God yearns to bestow upon Israel is a power that is just, shared, and rooted in covenantal love and faithfulness -- a power structure much different from other nations.
In the News
Questions about the nature and use of power and authority abound, just as they did centuries ago. Following a slew of presidential pardons last week -- described by one writer as Donald Trump’s pardon-palooza -- the President on Monday exercised his power as Tweeter in Chief to proclaim that he has “the absolute right” to pardon himself. He added that such an action is unnecessary, since he believes he has not done anything wrong.
Legal scholars disagree about whether a self-pardon would be possible, emphasizing the fundamental rule of law that no one may be the judge in his or her own case. But even mentioning the idea created ripples of unrest.
"If a president can pardon himself, it's virtually a monarchy, at least as far as the president is concerned,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer on Monday. “If the presidents had the power to pardon themselves, we'd no longer be a democracy.”
Other presidents, including Barack Obama, have been accused of assuming sovereign power. Republicans jabbed at Obama for his extensive use of executive orders, including efforts to keep immigrants from being deported. As historian David Cannadine noted in 2015, nineteenth century critics of President Andrew Jackson painted him as “King Andrew the First,” making caricatures of him clad in kingly garb and yielding a royal veto. Others cited for consolidating power included Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and his cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt.
It’s nothing new. Cannadine observes such denunciations are hardly surprising. While the framers of the Constitution solidly denounced monarchy, Cannadine notes that European monarchies were the models of government they knew best. “From the outset,” he concludes, “the American presidency was vested with what might be termed monarchical authority, which meant that it really was a form of elective kingship.”
It is, as our Cuban tour guide might say, complicated.
As our new, sleek, Chinese-made tour bus pushed through Havana’s city streets, examples of the impact of 60 years of centralized communist socialism popped into view. Once glitzy hotels, built in the 1950s by American mobsters, look like aging Las Vega performers. Neighborhood bodegas are fully of empty shelves. A bright orange 1952 Chevy passes a banged up Soviet made compact. Power is intermittent, and food is rationed.
Someone asked one of the guides about the effects of poverty. Shrugging his shoulders, he said, “I mean, anyone who wants a job can get one,” adding that few people earn more than $30 a month. He continued by touting what might have been a government-approved checklist of responses: universal healthcare, free college tuition, no mortgage payments, a lack of homelessness. “Are we poor?” he said. “I don’t know.” And then -- on cue, “It’s complicated.”
On the whole, Cubans are light-hearted about issues of political power. As we drove past the U.S. Embassy, the guide referred to the allegations of a supersonic sound attack on the American mission by calling out, “Cover your ears!” Officially, however, there is little humor. Not far from the U.S. Embassy stands a statue of a woman holding a child representing Elian Gonzalez, the sole survivor of a capsized boat of Cuban refugees and center of a conflict between the two countries in 1999. The woman is pointing at the U.S. Embassy in a not-so-subtle indictment of American power.
But Cubans cannot freely exercise the same sort of disagreement toward their own leaders. There is no guarantee of free speech, and human rights violations abound. Centralized power means limited freedom and burdensome oppression, something Samuel explains to those elders who called upon him to anoint a king. “He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers,” Samuel warns.
In other words, be careful about demanding a king -- it’s likely to be complicated.
In the Scripture
A strange thing happens between chapters 7 and 8 of 1 Samuel. Where the earlier chapter portrays Samuel’s leadership as vigorous and robust, the next shows him weakened by age. In Chapter 7, Samuel calls upon Israel to set aside the worship of idols, leads them in striking down the Philistines, and administers justice with faithfulness and righteousness. But as the story continues, Samuel ages and his sons become corrupt.
The times they are a'changing. “You are old,” the leaders of Israel tell him, “and your sons do not follow in your ways.” The answer, they claim, is to become like other nations. “Give us a king to govern us,” they demand. That’s the ticket! Let’s be like those other countries. Their demands, fueled by anxiety and uncertainty, mimic the actions of anxiety-bound leaders of congregations who decide that the only way to grow is by firing the pastor, or hiring a new youth director. “We can be like First Razzle Dazzle Church down the street.”
Yet anxiety seldom promotes health. The situation, as God and Samuel both know, is much more complicated. Samuel tries to hold his tongue. He could have lectured them on their own history, recalling the days when they were slaves in Egypt. He could have talked about the bricks and straw, the acts of oppression and how God had released them from captivity. He could have reminded them of Moses injunction that they were not to be like other nations.
Instead, Samuel prays. “They have not rejected you,” says the Lord,” but they have rejected me from being king over them.” God adjures Samuel to warn them, and to remind the people of what will happen. When the people still insist, God relents and allows a king to be appointed. The situation, as Walter Brueggemann observes, is more complicated than it would appear:
The narrative shows that Yahweh is in theological agreement with Samuel but, in the end, turns against Samuel (and the old tradition), sustaining the new request. The narrative is exceedingly subtle in its presentation of the problem of power in Israel. It has Yahweh give permission but, while giving permission, disapproval is signaled. The monarchy is left theologically doubtful by this ‘permitted-but-disapproved” status. (Brueggeman, First and Second Samuel, Interpretation, p.65)
In the Sermon
Brueggemann observes that chapter 8 of 1 Samuel remind us of the character, identity and vocation of Israel. As Brueggemann notes the chapter highlights Israel’s restlessness with its “peculiar identity” as God’s beloved. It no longer wants to be Yahweh’s alone; it wants to be like other nations. The questions that emerge from this exploration of their yearning for a powerful ruler are questions relevant to our contemporary world. One can hear Lord Acton clearing his throat, preparing a lecture on the absolutizing of power.
Yet the situation is more complicated. What emerges in the text is a complex wrestling between competing traditions. Perhaps Yahweh is already at work pondering a time in the not-so distant future when Samuel will be gone and David will be king. There is a sorting through and process of discernment evident in this text which is instructive to our contemporary setting. What does it mean for a community of faith to address the relationship between faith and civic power? As Brueggemann concludes (p. 66), the narrative does not solve this tension but does hint that the questions are urgent.
Samuel’s urgent pleading offers the preacher an opportunity to explore how people of faith may address large questions of power, leadership, and social justice. Samuel knows that a powerful leader may make Israel like “the other nations,” but the theological question is whether or not it is useful for Israel to claim this identity. In other words, do we really want to be like all the other kids?
Fundamentally, as Samuel explains, a monarch will distort and abuse power in ways antithetical to God’s purposes. A monarch will oppress and despise, not seek out and love. A monarch’s power will not be a power that will cause a people to flourish. This could be a common thread in our discordant political discussions -- that power, prized too greatly by either political party or person in power, is a power that will corrupt and not lead to the kin-dom imagined by God.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in a midrash on another section of the Hebrew Bible, offers these inciteful reflections:
Judaism has an ambivalent attitude towards power. It is necessary. Without it, in the words of Rabbi Hanina, deputy High Priest, “people would eat one another alive” (Avot 3: 2). But Judaism long ago recognized that (to quote Lord Acton), power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Influence -- the relation of prophet to people, teacher to disciple -- is altogether different. It is a non-zero-sum game. Through it, both teacher and disciple grow. Both are enhanced.
In other words, to quote my Cuban amigo, it’s complicated. It’s all very complicated.
SECOND THOUGHTS
The Luxury of Despair
by Dean Feldmeyer
2 Corinthians 4:12-5:1
Christians cannot afford the luxury of despair.
We have been given a spirit of resurrection, a spirit of renewal and reconciliation, a spirit of hope and faith and love -- a Holy Spirit that comes directly from “the one who raised the Lord Jesus” and will raise us as well.
These are gifts of great value, gifts that we dare not reject or squander or waste by falling into hopelessness and despair. They have been given to us so that we may be triumphant in life and in death.
Yes, we face obstacles and hurdles, some that we must overcome, and some that we must accept and work around, but these are temporary problems produced by temporary agencies on the temporary plane of existence.
The gifts which God has bestowed upon us come not from the temporary but from the eternal plane, the plane upon which Jesus walked both before and after his resurrection. They do not wear out or tarnish, they do not rust or shrink or die. They are made of enduring, imperishable stuff.
To paraphrase what Paul says just a few verses prior to these: We may be hard pressed on every side, but we are not crushed; we may be perplexed, but we are not in despair; we may be persecuted, but we are not abandoned; we may be struck down, but we are not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 4: 8-9)
In other words, “We do not lose heart.” (v. 16)
She Did Not Lose Heart
We take as our inspiration, people like Tammy Duckworth.
Following in the footsteps of her father, who served in World War II, and ancestors who served in the Revolutionary War, Ladda Tammy Duckworth joined the Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps as a graduate student at George Washington University in 1990. She became a commissioned officer in the United States Army Reserve in 1992 and chose to fly helicopters because it was one of the few combat jobs open to women. As a member of the Army Reserve, she went to flight school, later transferring to the Illinois Army National Guard in 1996. She also worked as a staff supervisor at Rotary International headquarters in Evanston, Illinois.
Duckworth was working towards a Ph.D. in political science at Northern Illinois University, with research interests in the political economy and public health in southeast Asia, when she was deployed to Iraq in 2004. On November 12 of that year, the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting was hit by a rocket propelled grenade fired by Iraqi insurgents. She lost her right leg near the hip and her left leg below the knee from injuries sustained in the attack and subsequent crash. The explosion "almost completely destroyed her right arm, breaking it in three places and tearing tissue from the back side of it.” The doctors "reset the bones in her arm and stitched the cuts" to save her arm. She was the first American female double amputee from the Iraq war and she received a Purple Heart and was promoted to Major at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where she was presented with an Air Medal and Army Commendation Medal.
Having received a medical waiver, she continued to serve as a lieutenant colonel in the Illinois Army National Guard along with her husband, Major Bryan W. Bowlsbey, a signal officer and fellow Iraq War veteran.
While in the Illinois Army National Guard, she also served as Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs in the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (2009–2011), and she was the Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs (2006–2009).
She retired from the Illinois Army National Guard in October 2014 as a lieutenant colonel.
That might have been the end of Tammy Duckworth’s very impressive and inspirational story but retirement did not mean a life of idle leisure to Colonel Duckworth. She decided to go into politics. A member of the Democratic Party, she represented Illinois's 8th district for two terms (2013–2017) in the United States House of Representatives. Later, she was elected to the United States Senate, where she continues to serve, today.
Duckworth was the first Asian American woman elected to the House of Representatives, the first disabled woman to be elected to Congress, the first female double amputee in the Senate, the first Senator to give birth while in office, and the first member of Congress born in Thailand. (Her American father and Thai mother were working and living there at the time.) Duckworth is the second Asian-American woman serving in the U.S. Senate.
The Daughters of the American Revolution erected a statue with Duckworth's likeness, and that of the Revolution's Molly Pitcher in Mount Vernon, Illinois, in 2011. The statue was erected in honor of female veterans.
Tammy Duckworth’s perseverance is an inspiration.
But you don’t have to be a double amputee or a United States Senator to be a model of perseverance.
The Good Worth Fighting For
About a year ago, my daughter and her husband bought a huge house, over 4,000 square feet. It was built in 1959 and fashioned sort of like a hunting lodge. It has six bedrooms, four baths, a six-car garage, a swimming pool and it sits on three acres of wooded land on the bank of the Alum Creek near the center of Columbus, Ohio.
It’s beautiful and the price was less than what they might have spent on a much smaller, more conventional house in the suburbs. There’s only one catch: It’s a fixer-upper. It sat empty for more than 2 years. It was in the middle of a remodel when the owner stopped the work and put the house on the market.
They are living in the house and swimming in the pool and working on it when and as they can but it’s going to be several years before it is anything like they want it to be.
A few weeks ago, my daughter called my wife to vent as she does regularly these days. They have several parts of the house that have to be completely rewired and the electrician didn’t show up. He got stuck at another job and it’s going to be a couple of days before he can get back to her and they can turn on the air conditioning in at least part of the house. The plumber did show up and allegedly fixed something but it still doesn’t work. She’s going to have to get him to come back.
She started doing the yard work and landscaping but it took almost three times more mulch than she planned. Over 125 bags. The paint she bought for one of the master bedroom looks awful. There a family of raccoons in part of the attic.
She stopped almost mid-sentence. “I know,” she said. “First world problems, right?”
Right. She has plenty to eat and a roof over her head. She has a family that loves her and is there to help on a moment’s notice when we are needed. She has a house that, in a few years, will be the envy of Architecture Digest and she and her husband have an income that will allow them to take on a project such as this.
She and her mom both laughed together and then started talking about how those “first world problems” will probably be resolved. Then they changed the subject and talked about something else -- Game of Thrones or something.
But the point is, she did not lose heart. She redoubled her efforts and kept going.
Tammy Duckworth did not lose heart. She kept going.
As Christians, we are called to not lose heart, to persevere through our problems whether they be of the first world type or the third world type, whether they be physical problems or problems that find their home in the emotions or the intellect. And we are called to exhibit a perseverance that stretches beyond our own problems and into the problems of the whole world
Never have I heard this universal kind of perseverance described better than in The Lord of the Rings -- the Two Towers. It comes up in a conversation between Frodo and Sam:
Sam: It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam?
Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.
What is that good in the world, that good worth fighting for?
For us, for Christians, it is the Good News of God as it comes to us in Jesus Christ. It is the good news of God’s love and acceptance for you and for me, and for us all.
And that is good news, indeed.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
Mark 3:20-35
Who Counts as Family
In this story from Mark’s gospel, Jesus reminds us that family can be more than the people we’re related to by birth. Some family is chosen. Our younger friends, who are getting married and having children later, are choosing their family members from an unusual place. Adweek reports that people in their thirties see their pets as family members, even as “starter children.” Now, “three-fourths of Americans in their 30s own a dog and over half own a cat. Marketers say they’ve noticed that the perception of pets has changed with this generation.” Pets teach them the qualities they feel they’ll need as parents, and they make lifestyle choices based on their pets’ needs. They want to take their pets out with them, and so public spaces need to be pet-friendly. One woman says she “considers her dog to be her baby and thinks this experience has prepared her for the ‘real deal’ down the line thanks to the specific routines, checkups and preferences she now takes into consideration.” She adds, “Obviously there will be bigger challenges as a parent to a human baby, but for now, my fur baby keeps my hands full.” People can be vexing, so some people are choosing to claim their pets as family members.
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Mark 3:20-35
Choosing Your Family
Jesus raises the possibility that our family bonds come from something other than birth and blood relationships. Friends fill the place of family for many people. Especially as we age, the friends who are chosen family have a protective effect. It’s “so crucial, in fact, that having supportive friendships in old age was found to be a stronger predictor of wellbeing than having strong family connections. [A new study] found that both family and friend relationships were associated with better health and happiness overall. But at advanced ages, the link remained only for people who reported strong friendships.”
Perhaps, the benefits are stronger “for older people because, by that point, those friendships have stood the test of time. “You have kept those people around because they have made you happy, or at least contributed to your well-being in some way,” says Chopik [the study author.] “Across our lives, we let the more superficial friendships fade, and we’re left with the really influential ones.” But Chopik says the power of friendship on physical and mental health is often ignored in research -- especially in older people, where relationships with spouses and children are often considered more important.” The study author adds, “The general point is that the more support, the more positive interactions, the better. The important thing is having people you can rely on, for the good times as well as the bad.” Having people around us who share our joys and sorrows, who see the world the way we do, who cushion us against sorrow is a powerful gift.
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2 Corinthians 4:13--5:1
Being Renewed
“Our inner nature is being renewed,” Paul writes. One guaranteed form of renewal for both spirit and body is surprisingly simple: resting. Physician Matthew Edlund says, “Rest is the original transformative technology. Through rest we rebuild, rewire and renew ourselves -- literally.
The process is fast. The skin on your face is replaced in two weeks. Gut lining cells take two days. And that’s complete replacement.” We feel obligated to keep going, to keep working, to keep getting more done, and Dr. Edlund says that we miss out on the renewing power available to us in sleep. “Sleep is a large part of life’s music, but because we generally don’t recall what we do in sleep, we don’t think much happens. Plenty happens. If we did remember them, we might consider the different phases of sleep as whole new sets of consciousness…In sleep, we grow new brain cells. In sleep we lie down and rewire memories. No sleep, no new brain cells. And our reworked brains are literally different when we wake up, sort of like those science fiction stories where people awaken each day a whole new person. Every night we have rewired, rebuilt, reset, reconstructed, and redone our brains.” God’s gift of rest is part of our renewal.
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2 Corinthians 4:13--5:1
Lessons from the Dying
Frank Ostaseski is the founder of the Zen Hospice Project, the first Buddhist hospice in America, and the author of The Five Invitations: What the Living Can Learn From the Dying. As we come near death, as “our outer nature is wasting away,” as Paul write to the church in Corinth, there are still spiritual gifts to be given and received. He says, reflecting on the end of life, “Death is difficult. It's messy and it's painful sometimes, but most of all, it's normal. When we learn to turn toward the experience, we turn toward what it has to offer us. When we know that life is absolutely precarious, then we understand just how precious it is. We want to jump into our life with both feet. We want to tell people that we love them. It’s the precariousness of life that shows us what's really important, what really matters. So, to welcome is to include, and to say, "Oh, this is part of life." What can I do with it? What can I learn from it? How can it help me to love more?”
The dying process inspires a lot of fear, but he says it doesn’t need to be that way. “Many years ago, when my son was 4 or 5 years old (he's a grown man now), I had a preschool with a friend of mine, and we used to take the children to the woods to find dead stuff. They'd pick up a rusty old car part or a dead leaf or a twig or some bones, perhaps from a dead animal, and we'd gather them up and put them out for show and tell. The children were so curious about this. They weren't at all afraid of death. They had great stories about how this piece of bark was a bed for a mouse and the rusty old car part was part of a space ship that had fallen down from the sky. One little girl said to me, ‘I think the leaves that fall from the trees are so generous to make room for the new leaves.’ I wish as adults we could recognize that everything is changing in the world. Seasons come and go. Everything's changing except me, right? Well, No! When we do that we pull ourselves out of the stream of change. We isolate ourselves and become frightened. When we recognize that we are in the stream with everybody else, we are kinder to one another. I think it engenders a certain kind of letting go, a willingness not to take ourselves and our ideas so seriously.” Our outer nature changes and moves toward an end, but our inner nature can be full of grace and vitality, endlessly renewed, by God’s grace.
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2 Corinthians 4:13--5:1
Endings
Hospice practitioner and philosopher Frank Ostasteki often receives questions from people who are fearful about the end of life. Paul promises the church in Corinth that even as our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed, and Ostasteki helps people think about the renewal that comes from pondering the end of life. He recalls, “I was speaking with a group of folks in Silicon Valley not long ago, and I said death is inevitable. One guy raised his hand and he said, “I'm not so sure about that. A lot of us in this room are working on that.” I said, “Great, let's step back from this word ‘death’ for a moment. Let's just begin to look at endings. You want to know what death has to teach -- look at endings.”
He goes on, “How do you meet endings in your life? Do you go unconsciously around them? For example, when you're at a gathering of friends, do you leave, either emotionally or mentally, before the event is over? Do you ghost out the door because you think nobody knows that you were there, so they won't notice that you've gone, or you are the last one in the parking lot waving to all the participants who came to the conference? Do you feel sad and teary-eyed with endings, or are you anxious and indifferent with them?” How we think about other endings can guide us toward the end of our earthly lives.
He adds, “We treat dying in this country and in many countries as if it was simply a medical event, and it is so much more than that. It is so much more profound, and there is no one single model that is large enough to embrace all that happens at the time of dying. Dying is much more about our relationship through love to suffering the experience of death itself to God or whatever image of ultimate kindness we hold.” There’s so much more to our inner nature than we ever fully take in!
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2 Corinthians 4:13--5:1
Urban Renewal, with Bees
Detroit is one of the many cities with a blight problem. Even as its outer nature has wasted away due to population shifts and the decline of the auto industry, people have worked hard to renew the spirit of the city. “For over a decade, Detroit has been at the center of the country’s urban farm movement. The gardens and farms established on the city’s vacant land are a practical answer to both poverty and blight. Now, urban bees are moving in. That’s obviously a good thing for the city farms, but it’s also helping with the blight. The Detroit Blight Removal Task Force assembled by former President Barack Obama recommended the city remove 40,000 blighted properties within five years. That was four years ago. As the city bulldozed battered homes and buildings, about 24 square miles of vacant land has opened up. Some of it has become unsanctioned dumping grounds, perpetuating a cycle of blight. “People want to see their areas cleaned up. They want to see all the blight removed,” says Timothy Paule, a Detroit resident and beekeeper. “And that costs money. So, bees.”
After an illness, which he treated with local honey when nothing else worked, Paule got interested in bees. His partner suggested that a vacant lot might be a good site for beekeeping. “Paule and [his partner] Lindsey took beekeeping courses and joined the Southeastern Michigan Beekeepers and Southeastern Beekeepers. It was Lindsey who concocted the plan to create urban bee farms using vacant lots in Detroit, where side lots sell for as low as $100 to encourage use and revitalization. When the couple bought their first lot, it was filled with dilapidated furniture, old tires, weeds, and other trash. “Anything you can name,” Lindsey says, “it was there.” Cleanup was a cooperative effort. Friends and community partners helped.”
They acquired bees from local beekeepers, and now have several hives. The bees are good for plants, and good for residents’ spirits. It gives a boost to the city’s economy and vitality to see vacant lots filled with new purpose. “And Detroit tourists can book $25 hour-long tours to the farm through Airbnb.com, which Paule says is especially important. “People visiting from other places sometimes want to go into the inner city and see what’s going on in the community versus what’s going on at major businesses or retail stores.” The money is invested back into the farm.” The city’s inner nature is being renewed, vacant lot by vacant lot.
From team member Ron Love:
Wisdom
Murder on the Orient Express is a detective novel by Agatha Christie. The novel was published on January 1, 1934. The book features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, who is known for solving what are seemingly impossible crimes. Poirot is known to solve a case by his ability cognitively analyze the evidence and sequence of events. On the train, while it was stuck in a snowdrift, a murder occured. The murder has to be on board the train, as it was stuck in the snow, no one could come or leave. M. Bouc, the director of the railway, upon learning the expertise of Poirot, asks Poirot to solve the crime. In the dialogue of encouraging Poirot to take on the case, Bouc accentuates Poirot’s ability as a crime solver: “But have I not heard you say often that to solve a case a man has only to lie back in his chair and think?...I have faith in you…I am assured that it is no idle boast of yours. Lie back and think -- use (as I have heard you say so often) the little grey cells of the mind -- and you will know!”
Application: In all of our lectionary readings for today, we repeatedly encounter individuals who did not “lie back and think” about the ramifications of disobeying God.
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Wisdom
Abraham Lincoln spoke at the close of the Illinois Republican State Convention, which was held on Springfield on June 16, 1858. On the previous day the convention had taken the unprecedented move of naming Lincoln their candidate for the Senate. Normally, Senate candidates were chosen in January when the new legislature convened. The speech that Lincoln delivered was aimed at Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas and any Republicans who might think of supporting Douglas. Douglas was not present at the convention. Douglas was the designer of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which would allow the residents of these new territories to vote for or against slavery. This provision caused an overwhelming number of people to flood into the territories in order to vote on the issue. It also resulted in violence. In his speech before the delegates Lincoln said: “We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed -- ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.”
Application: Lincoln was a student of the scriptures and often applied biblical principles to his public speeches. We need to be students of the Bible so we can apply its wisdom to our words and actions.
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Wisdom
There was a lot of speculation, none of which was founded on fact, as to why the chair next to Prince William was vacant during the May 19 royal wedding of his brother, Prince Harry. Most came to believe that the chair was empty as a symbolic remembrance of their mother Princess Diana. The truth was the chair was directly in front of Queen Elizabeth, and it was left empty so she could view the altar unobstructed.
Application: In all of our lectionary readings for today, we repeatedly encounter individuals who jumped to conclusions, rather than seeking out the facts.
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Decision
On May 19 Meghan Markel married Prince Harry in a glamorous royal wedding. As Markel, who will now be called the Duchess of Sussex, entered Saint George’s Chapel, there were 110 steps from the entrance to the altar. As she walked those steps, trailing a shimmering 16-foot veil, she was walking 110 steps of a life-changing decision.
Application: In our lectionary readings for today, we repeatedly encountered individuals who had to make life-changing decisions.
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Obedience
On May 19 Meghan Markel married Prince Harry in a glamorous royal wedding. Half-way down the aisle, she was taken by the arm of her future father-in-law, Prince Charles. When they reached the altar together, Prince Harry, his son, softly said, “Thanks, Pa.” Harry then looked at Meghan and said, “You look mazing. I’m so lucky.”
Application: In our lectionary readings for today we have a number of individuals whose disobedience to God made them unable to say, “Thanks, Pa.” We must live an obedient life, who as Jesus taught, we are all children of God -- we all can say “Thanks, Pa.”
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Wisdom
Perhaps the most surprising unorchestrated event at the May 19 royal wedding of Meghan Markel to Prince Harry was the sermon delivered by Chicago-based Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry. The Anglicans at Saint George’s Chapel were totally unprepared for a dramatic and enthusiastic sermon delivered by a black preacher. Curry’s 14-minute sermon implored listeners to harness the power of love to make “this old world a new world.” Several times Curry quoted Martin Luther King, Jr. The Bishop also deviated from his prepared text when he discussed the antebellum South and slavery. During this fiery sermon the royal family remained stoic, but were yet quietly surprised by this exuberant oratory that was unfamiliar to the pulpit at Saint George’s Chapel.
Application: We need the courage and the wisdom to preach the gospel message. If others, as we see in our lectionary readings, were courageous enough to speak perhaps the disobedience acts recorded in Genesis and First Samuel could have been avoided.
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Love
On May 19 Meghan Markel married Prince Harry in a glamorous royal wedding. According to royal tradition set by the Queen Mother at her 1923 wedding, Markel’s bouquet was placed at the grave of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey.
Application: Jesus in his healing stories always exhibited love and appreciation.
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Restoration
In the daily devotional The Upper Room, a woman who would only identify herself as Claudia, submitted a thoughtful article. Claudia identified herself as the wife of the president of a major corporation. She explained that her husband was near retirement and their children were grown and living away from home, before she accepted Jesus as her personal savior. With remorse she looked back over those years and realized how different they would have been with Jesus in her life. She would have had a much closer relationship with her daughters, and she would have used her wealth and status in the community for the betterment of people. Claudia continued to be sad and troubled by this loss until one day during her devotions she read this passage: “I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten.” (Joel 2:25) Claudia wrote, “I just rested upon this promise.” She began a new life for herself, no longer-guilt ridden over the “lost years.”
Application: From our lectionary reading, we can understand how Jesus restores the lives of individuals.
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Obedience
In 1946, a California lawyer needed a change in his life. Searching a Whittier-area newspaper, he read this ad: “Wanted: Congressional candidate with no previous political experience to defeat a man who has represented the district in the House for 10 years. Any young man resident of district, preferably a veteran, fair education, may apply for job.” Richard Milhous Nixon answered the ad, and his political career was launched all the way to the White House.
Application: You may or may not agree with the presidency of Nixon, but we have learned from the story of Saul that our only true leader is God.
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Wisdom
A number of years ago I attended a friend’s 20th high school reunion. She graduated from Penn Hills High School, which is a suburb of Pittsburgh, with 1200 other students. The reunion was a rather grand and festive occasion. During this social event I enjoyed being introduced to her old friends. During the course of the evening one could not help but compare notes with others gathered in the banquet hall, questioning and wondering, who was making more money, whose job offered greater prestige, whose children were going to be the superstars of tomorrow. While I was there and thinking back over those preceding 20 years -- which just seem like yesterday -- I could not avoid the self-reflection such an event imposes. The inevitable “what if” question crept into my mind. Would things have been different if…Suppose I would have done this… I’m sorry I didn’t do…But the years are gone, never to be captured again. So, if I dwell only on what could have been, I will always feel a sense of loss.
Application: In our lectionary readings for today, we encounter many mistakes that were made by individual. Yet, under the guidance of God, there was always hope for the future.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship:
Leader: Let us give thank to God with all our heart.
People: We give thanks for God’s steadfast love and faithfulness.
Leader: Though we walk in the midst of trouble, God preserves us.
People: God stretches out the hand of deliverance.
Leader: God will fulfill the divine purpose for us.
People: God’s steadfast love endures forever.
OR
Leader: The God of power and love comes among us.
People: We welcome our God whose love is all powerful.
Leader: God’s love is our foundation and our strength.
People: We receive God’s love and will use it for good.
Leader: The power of God’s love is meant to be shared.
People: We will lavish it on the powerless and the weak.
Hymns and Songs:
I Sing the Almighty Power of God
UMH: 152
H82: 398
PH: 288
NCH: 12
W&P: 31
Praise the Lord Who Reigns Above
UMH: 96
W&P: 46
Hope of the World
UMH: 178
H82: 472
PH: 360
NCH: 46
CH: 538
LBW: 493
W&P: 404
On Eagle’s Wings
UMH: 143
CH: 77
ELA: 787
W&P: 438
Crown Him with Many Crowns
UMH: 327
H82: 494
PH: 151
AAHH: 288
NNBH: 125
NCH: 301
CH: 234
LBW: 170
ELA: 855
W&P: 317
AMEC: 174
All My Hope Is Firmly Grounded
UMH: 132
H82: 665
NCH: 408
CH: 88
ELA: 757
O God of Every Nation
UMH: 435
H82: 607
PH: 289
CH: 680
LBW: 416
ELA: 713
W&P: 626
O Master Let Me Walk with Thee
UMH: 430
H82: 659/660
PH: 357
NNBH: 445
NCH: 503
CH: 602
LBW: 492
ELA: 818
W&P: 589
AMEC: 299
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 is all powerful through love:
Grant us the grace to seek true power
by loving and caring for all your children;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We worship you, O God, because you are the only true power. Your love is the greatest force in all creation and beyond. Help us to understand the wonders of your powerful love that we may use it to assist in your redemption of creation. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our attraction to powers other than God’s and the ease with which we give up hope.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We call you God but then we turn to others for answers. We call you the Almighty and we name you Love but we fail to connect the two names. We are attracted to the power that destroys rather than the power that restores. We look at the power of evil and we despair. We give up hope on your power of love to redeem us and all creation. Forgive our foolishness and center us once more on your love as we experience it in Jesus. Amen.
Leader: God’s love never fails and God’s grace is eternal. Receive these as God’s gifts and live into your faith.
Prayers of the People
All praise and glory are yours, O God, because you are the Almighty. Your love is the power of creation and of redemption.
(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 call you God but then we turn to others for answers. We call you the Almighty and we name you Love but we fail to connect the two names. We are attracted to the power that destroys rather than the power that restores. We look at the power of evil and we despair. We give up hope on your power of love to redeem us and all creation. Forgive our foolishness and center us once more on your love as we experience it in Jesus.
We give you thanks for the power of your love that has been at work in us and in all creation. We see in nature the foundation of your love that shines through. We find the power of your love in those who are faithful to the vision of Jesus. We give your thanks for these.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We remember those who find it difficult to have hope because of the circumstances of their lives. There are those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit. There are those who are oppressed by poverty and want. There are those who suffer from violence and hatred. We lift these up into the light of your love asking that as you bathe them in your love we might also be sources of your love for them.
(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
There are times when we wish or hope for things but we don’t get them. There are times when we wish or hope for something to happen but it doesn’t. It is disappointing when that happens and sometimes it makes us sad. But when we are talking about God and what God is doing in the world we don’t ever need to give up hope. God’s love is more powerful than anything and God’s love will win in the end.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Growing through the Storm
by Bethay Peerbolte
2 Corinthians 4:13--5:1
The trials we face in life can lead some to wonder where is God when we hurt. It is hard to see our growth as we are going through a storm, all we can see is the storm. Trees take a great record of all they have been through. Their rings show every fire, storm, and drought and how those experiences made them stronger. Stored in the unseen parts of its trunk, we can see how trials make us stronger and how they strength is eternal.
In this children’s sermon you will use a picture of a tree’s rings to show how trials make us stronger. Here is the picture I used, but you could also bring in a piece of a stump. If you use your own stump cross section this link will help you interpret the tree’s story.
Say Something Like:
Did you know that trees keep a record of all the storms and problems they have lived through? It’s kind of like a tree diary! How many of you have seen a tree stump? Have you seen all the rings that make up a trunk, like this one (show picture or cross section)? What we see on the outside is a tall strong piece of wood, with bark and branches. On the inside, where we can’t see, are lots of rings and those rings tell a story.
This tree has a fascinating story.
One day this tree sprouted up out of the ground, and that tiny little inside circle is how small it was to begin with. It grew fast! The circles around it show how much it grew each year.
Then something came along and tried to tip the tree over. See how the circles get off center and are bigger on one side, the rings are more oval. That happened because the tree had to push itself the other way. Trees do this by growing more on one side until they are standing up again.
By the time this tree was standing up straight again there were lots of other trees around it that had grown bigger. Our tree could not get enough sun or water and to the rings get really small because it could not grow very much. Soon though something came along and took all the big trees. Since our tree was still small they did not cut the tree down. With all the big trees gone our tree could grow fast.
But then a fire came along. See this big black smudge in the rings? That shows that a fire came through but our tree survived even that. The rings get a little wonky around the burn mark because it had to heal. Eventually even the burn mark is hidden inside the rings and the tree grows and grows and grows.
We can see where the rings get small again from a few years of not having enough water or sun from draught or long winters, but the tree was strong enough to get through them. All the bad things that happened to the tree made it strong enough to handle the future.
All the trouble our tree faced made it stronger. During each storm the tree does it’s best to survive and then thrives when conditions are good. In our Bible lesson today, it says that what is seen will be gone before we know it but what we cannot see will last forever. When the tree was burnt or tipped over for a while you could see that problem from the outside. Over time that problem becomes part of the reason the tree is so strong. By learning to grow through the problem the tree is better able to face future problems.
Our Bible reading says for this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure. I think our tree learned this lesson well.
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The Immediate Word, June 10, 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.
