The Joy Conundrum
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
On the final Sunday preceding Pentecost, many congregations will be observing Ascension Sunday, using those lectionary readings rather than those appointed for the seventh Sunday of Easter. But whichever set of texts you will be working with, there are some common themes. The first lesson for both sets is essentially the same -- despite some minor variation in the verses bookending the main pericope, they both focus on Luke's account of the Ascension from the first chapter of Acts (1:6-11). The cosmology of the Ascension seems quaint and curious to a modern world culture with a sophisticated scientific understanding of our world -- but if we get caught up in trying to figure out how it actually happened, we risk falling into the same trap as that of the distracted disciples described in our Acts text. We see them "gazing up toward heaven," mouths agape, when two angels appear to shake them back into reality -- pointedly asking the disciples, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?" In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Dean Feldmeyer points out that rather than a perplexed reaction of shock and awe, our texts this week tell us that the proper response to the Ascension is one of joy. But as Dean notes, it's very difficult to feel that joy in the midst of such unimaginable suffering as the residents of Joplin, Missouri, are coping with this week in the wake of the deadliest tornado strike in decades. How do we offer a message of joy that respects the very real misery they are feeling? Dean suggests that we ought not to provide superficial, Panglossian bromides about "everything working out for the best." Instead, our scripture from First Peter provides us with an explicit and timely answer to this seeming conundrum: "But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ's sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed" (1 Peter 4:13).
Team member Ron Love shares some additional thoughts about the recent predictions of the Rapture in the context of this week's Acts passage. The date of May 21 may have been the brainchild of one gadfly preacher, but it received plenty of media exposure (not to mention the attention of seemingly every humorist in the land). Indeed, the continuing popularity of doomsday movies as well as the Left Behind series of novels suggests how much of a chord end-times prophecies strike in the populace (whether or not they're taken seriously). Ron notes that the man behind the May 21st date, Harold Camping, may have been "flabbergasted" that his prediction was faulty, but we certainly shouldn't be -- Jesus clearly tells his disciples that "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority" (Acts 1:7).
The Joy Conundrum
by Dean Feldmeyer
Luke 24:44-53; Psalm 47; 1 Peter 4:12-14
The Easter season comes to a close with Ascension Sunday, and the lectionary speaks of joy. Luke records that after the ascension of Jesus the disciples "returned to Jerusalem with great joy" (24:52). The Psalmist sings, "Clap your hands, all you peoples; shout to God with loud songs of joy" (Psalm 47:1).
One can't help but wonder, however, how these passages will play in Joplin, Missouri, where our brothers and sisters are still digging out from under the rubble that used to be their homes and businesses. Are these the verses that will be read at the funerals of those whose lives were snatched away by an uncaring and unfeeling Mother Nature?
How about the churches and communities up and down the Mississippi, flooded when the gates were opened and the levees blown? Dare we ask them to be joyful even as they watch everything they own floating away?
We look upon that devastation and we are reminded that there are no assurances. Everything we have worked a lifetime to accumulate -- indeed, even those we love -- can be snatched away from us in a moment.
How do we as people of faith live joyfully, as scripture asks us to do, when we have lived through what one Missouri woman called "15 minutes of hell," never knowing what the next 15 minutes may bring?
It is to the solving of this very human, theological riddle -- the joy conundrum -- that we apply ourselves this week.
THE WORLD
At 5:40 p.m. on Sunday, May 22, the strongest and deadliest tornado on record struck the city of Joplin, Missouri. It was classified as an EF-5, multi-vortex tornado -- winds in excess of 200 mph and multiple funnels dipping to the earth. It traveled through the center of the city on a path that would turn out to be ten miles long and in some places two miles wide, destroying a third of the city. At this writing, 135 fatalities have been recorded. Over 230 people are still missing. The level of destruction reduced seasoned reporters to stunned silence. Photographers have compared the stormscape to photos of post-nuclear Hiroshima.
So devastating was the level of destruction and so focused was the news coverage upon the Joplin tornado that most people don't realize on that same night another tornado, an EF-3, touched down in the northern area of Minneapolis, Minnesota, killing one man, injuring a dozen others, and leaving hundreds homeless. The following night tornadoes spawned by the same weather system struck Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arkansas, killing 12 people in three states.
The Mississippi River, swollen from deep snow in the north and heavy rain in the middle of the country, is putting so much pressure on the levees and flood walls that some have had to be opened, allowing homes and farms in sparsely populated areas to be flooded in order to save the densely populated cities downstream. All the figures aren't in, yet but the Natchez Democrat reports that just over 1,600 homes were evacuated in Mississippi alone.
With all this recent weather news it's hard to believe that it was only a month ago that tornadoes ripped across Alabama, killing over 130 people in a single night.
Meanwhile, the Japanese continue digging out of the rubble that used to be their homes and businesses before the earthquake and tsunami on April 7.
While the Midwest and South struggle to deal with record rainfall, Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, and other southwestern states are suffering the effects of extreme drought and the wildfires that follow such conditions.
Enough, already!
It can seem overwhelming and not a little bit depressing just to read and hear about all of this, much less live through it.
Yet, there on the front page of the Joplin Globe is a picture of a gray-haired, bespectacled lady in pink blouse and black sweater, her arms outstretched toward the sky as she sings a hymn of praise to God . The caption under the picture says: Church member Shani Black, of Joplin, holds her hands up in praise during a community prayer service Wednesday evening, May 25, 2011, for all affected by Sunday's tornado at the Joplin Family Worship Center.
What is it with these Christians, anyway? Don't they get it? Don't they know when they're whipped? How dare they express anything like joy in the midst of such devastation, destruction, depression, and despair?
Yet that is exactly what the lectionary asks of us this Sunday: Joy.
THE WORD
The lectionary readings for Ascension Sunday (the last Sunday of Easter) would have us believe that the operative mode for post-Easter, post-Ascension Sunday would be one of joy. Before we ask about the nature of this joy, however, it might be helpful to notice what the texts do NOT say.
Nowhere do we hear that "everything happens for a reason," or that "God has his reasons that we can't understand." We are not told to "let a smile be our umbrella" or to "keep a stiff upper lip." The texts are curiously devoid of tired and meaningless clichÈs that discount or ignore the pain of genuine tragedy. Neither do Luke nor the psalmist blame God for the horrors that life sometimes visits upon us.
We are not told that our problems are a blessing in disguise, and we are not advised to adopt Scarlett O'Hara's remedy for troubles by saying, "I'll think about that tomorrow." We do not hear Bobby McFerrin singing in the background "Don't Worry, Be Happy."
Indeed, happiness is not the issue here. Vacuous laughter, exaggerated smiles, and empty positivism are out of place in this discussion. The texts are not trying to convince us that our problems aren't real, our tragedies aren't tragic.
The issue here is joy -- joy that is felt and expressed even in the midst of pain and tragedy.
Luke gives us a clue as to how we come by this joy by placing it in the context of two other things. Return to verses 52-53 and notice that "they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God." Do you see the bookends there?
Joy happens in the context of worship! Before there is joy, there is worship. After there is joy, there is worship. They worship in and out of the church. They worship God in the temple, and they worship God in the incarnate Christ. The psalm is a hymn meant to be sung in worship.
Joy, as it turns out, is that sense of reassurance, that sense of ultimate victory, that sense of triumph that comes to us when we worship God in Christ. We weep, we mourn, we grieve, yes, but we do so as those who have faith. And having faith, we have hope. And having hope, we ultimately have joy.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
The Indicative:
The text gives us an excellent opportunity to exorcise from our theology those empty axioms and clichÈs that abound in pop theology at times of great tragedy. Some of them are listed above and no doubt you have heard others. The call to joy is not a call to muddled thinking and silly, shallow moralizing.
We Christians live in the real world where real tragedies cause real pain, where we are not in control, where uncertainty hangs over us like a dark and threatening cloud. We live in a world where those things that are most precious to us can be ripped away from us in the blink of an eye.
Yet at the same time we live in the embrace of a God who loves us more than any singing of it, who gives us friends and family to nurture us and support us, and who blankets us with the promise that death and loss and grief and pain do not have the last word and that in the struggle between life and death, love and loss, life and love will always ultimately win.
This reassurance comes to us most vividly in the context of worship.
The Imperative:
As people of faith, people of hope, and people of joy, we worship God as God comes to us, incarnate in Jesus Christ. We worship God by making Jesus our focus, our example, our Lord. We hear what he said and we do as he instructed. We walk in his footsteps, even to Calvary.
We worship God as God comes to us in the gathered community. We pray aloud with our eyes open, we clap our hands and shout loud songs of joy. We kneel together at the Lord's Table, we hold each other's hands, and we dry each other's tears.
Sometimes, even in the midst of great sorrow, we -- like that lady on the front page of the Joplin Globe -- raise our hands in praise and thanksgiving.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Flabbergasted
by Ronald Love
Acts 1:6-14
Flabbergasted! I guess that's how we all were when the Rapture failed to occur on Saturday, May 21, at 6:00 p.m. in your time zone. Some were flabbergasted from disappointment; some were flabbergasted from bewilderment; some were flabbergasted from laughter.
Harold Camping, the founder of Family Radio International and the doomsday predictor, told Will Kane, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, that he was "flabbergasted" when his biblical numerology failed. Camping said he was retreating from public view until Monday morning. Family Radio changed the home page on their website from the posting for several months leading up to the predicted Rapture, which headlined the biblical verse "blow the trumpet... warn the people," to showing a globe with the new headline "Sound a New Life."
Camping, the 89-year-old civil engineer, who was not to be undone after his failed 1994 prediction, emerged on Monday morning with an update. The Rapture did happen, but it was a "spiritual" Rapture. God in his "mercy" chose to spare the world the anguish of the five-month Tribulation when the final destruction will be on October 21st. The October event would not be a "rolling" tribulation beginning at 6:00 p.m. in each time zone, but one awful cataclysmic event brought on by a worldwide earthquake. According to Camping, "It won't be a spiritual October 21st, the world is going to be destroyed all together, but it will be very quick."
Flabbergasted, but it is also profitable. Family Radio has $104 million in assets, and in 2009 received $18.3 million in donations. The broadcast and satellite TV network is sent out in 61 languages. In the last weeks of the prediction, contributions so increased for Family Radio that Camping's "prophecy" could be plastered on 5,000 billboards across the world.
Flabbergasted, but it is also pathetic. Late-night comedians had countless jokes, newspapers were filled with sarcastic editorials, and even respected network evening news broadcasters (ABC, NBC, CBS) had tongue-in-check monologues. Atheists set up collection centers to care for your family pets while you were gone. They also organized parties where they sent helium balloons skyward at the 6 o'clock hour, complete with shoes attached to the balloons to simulate those who were ascending. At midday on May 21st, the two top trends on Twitter were #endofworldconfessions and #myrapturelist.
Flabbergasted, but it is also tragic. Lyn Benedetto cut the throats of her 11- and 14-year-old daughters so they would not have to endure the time of trial. Keith Bauer quit his job as a truck driver and drove his family from Maryland to Oakland, the headquarters of Family Radio, so he could be present with Camping for the Rapture.
Marie Exley sat in front of her television set to get the early 6 o'clock reports from the far end of the globe so she would be assured the rapture was rolling her way. Adrienne Martinez, pregnant, gave up medical school and used her life savings to promote Camping's prophecy. Retired New York MTA worker Robert Fitzpatrick also emptied his bank account to promote the message.
Flabbergasted, but it is also understood. Psychologists report that individuals are so dissatisfied with their lives they long for the Day of Judgment. Many so fear going to hell that they welcomed the opportunity to piously promote Camping's prophecy. This is why the movie 2012 is so popular. This is also why Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins of the Left Behind series edge out John Grisham as the most popular novelists in America.
Flabbergasted. That should also be the feeling of the institutional church for failing to biblically educate a nation and a world. When Peter quotes Jesus as saying, "It is not for you to know the times..." (Acts 1:7), he is as clear in his message as all the other biblical authors who dared not make end-time predictions. And they were not acting in isolation, as they were following the very teaching of Jesus, who said, "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
CRAFTING THE SERMON
I. Recount the end-time predictions and the events of recent weeks as they relate to Harold Camping.
II. Provide a historical review of other false end-time predictions. [For helpful resources, see Steven Gertz, "How Will It All End?" from Christianity Today and Issue 61of Christian History: "The End. A History of the Second Coming"]
III. Discuss the biblical passages that deal with the end times.
ILLUSTRATIONS
A story in the book of Numbers shows how tempting it is to give up in the face of great odds. Moses sent spies across the border of Canaan, one from each tribe, to search out the land and see what obstacles it presented. When they returned, they brought with them a bunch of grapes so large that it required two men to carry it. They described a countryside flowing with milk and honey, filled with fruits abundant in size and number.
But something spoiled the good news. The people were so giant-like and awesome they made the spies seem like grasshoppers by comparison. The report caused so much despair that it made the Israelites forget all the good possibilities that had been described. They had forgotten the source of their power, the Lord God of Israel, who had chosen his people and led them in safety to this point.
The problems of our day are overwhelming too. It would be easy to shrink from the enormity of the odds we face and simply live a quiet, passive life. But let's not forget the power that's on our side -- the power of the victorious, ascended Lord. He ascended far above all heavens and is seated at the right hand of his Father, where he rules. In the interim, between his ascension and his coming again, we live and work in the assurance that he will triumph.
* * *
I think half the troubles for which men go slouching in prayer to God are caused by their intolerable pride. Many of our cares are but a morbid way of looking at our privileges. We let our blessings get moldy, and then call them curses.
-- Henry Ward Beecher
* * *
Will many worshipers rush to church this Sunday excited because the preacher will preach on Ascension? Surely they must have been thinking about Ascension all week long, right? Wrong. Most of them won't even read the sermon topic for this Sunday in the newsletter -- and if they do they won't think much about it. They've had bigger fish to fry. Balancing their checkbook. Worried about their friend in Joplin or Tuscaloosa -- are they safe? Concerned about that visit to the doctor or worried about one of their children. Nobody here was been sitting around saying, "I just can't wait to hear what the preacher has to say about Ascension."
What's the big deal? Jesus had been warning his disciples for months that this day would come. He would leave them. He would return to the Father. But he also said, "I will not leave you orphans." In John 17 we have his farewell prayer to his disciples. I can just imagine how hard that last meeting was in that Upper Room with his best friends. He loved them one by one. He knew them. They had had ups and downs for the last three and a half years, but their time together had been good. And so, with a lump in his throat, he tried to prepare them for his leave-taking.
Luke records this whole scene in Acts 1. After he told them he would be leaving they asked a very practical question: "Lord, when will you restore the kingdom to Israel?" And weeks ago we talked about this. Jesus said, "It is not for you to know the time nor the period." Then he added, "But when you receive power..." -- and this was the promise of Pentecost. After he said those words, he left. He left the earth and moved upward, upward into the heavens -- out of sight. And they just stood there, shielding their eyes, looking up, squinting -- wondering. They were sad and more than a little afraid. What would they do now?
This is Ascension. The disciples stand there looking up as Jesus departs from them. What does this mean and why did the church put it on the calendar and every year read this scripture and talk about Ascension?
What happens here is a change of focus -- a whole new way of looking at things. There is a term we've been tossing around for this the last few years: "paradigm shift." We see things differently. It was a transition and Luke says that after that event on that hillside everything changed. That's Ascension. Everything changed... and we all know that transitions are hard.
* * *
The late Episcopal priest Wayne Price wrote about some painful transitions in his own life:
Just as we struggle with the rearrangement of life in the midst of and after a tragedy, we wrestle as well with the consequences of the changes we want and pursue. Parents want their children to go to college but their absence from home leaves a great emptiness. We want those new jobs in exciting new places but we have trouble leaving behind the life we have made. We want to retire and do many things we had little time to do when we were working but we find it difficult to live without office, title, and authority. Even changes in our lives that are envied by others are often accompanied by the loss of other good things. Loss hurts.
The question is: Can a particular loss -- from whatever the hammer blows come -- ever contribute to making someone's life all right, to making a person better than before, to bringing him or her to a greater sense of God's love? What part has God in all of this, at its beginning, middle, or end? Who would dare suggest God as a source of the storm? Yet after the trial by fire comes an inevitable opportunity for refashioning the self. The heat that hardens the clay also melts the wax: each of us continues to become, emerge, and change.
-- Wayne Price, In Transition (Morehouse Publishing), p. 3
* * *
The great writer Loren Eiseley suffered a serious setback in the middle of his teaching career. He wrote in his autobiography of those moments when "the kaleidoscope through which we peer at life shifts suddenly and everything is reordered. Every now and then," he added, "there comes an experience so shaking that the kaleidoscope never quite shifts back to where it was. We must simply deny the experience or adjust our vision."
-- Loren Eiseley, All the Strange Hours, pp. 99-100
* * *
It is a lamentable fact of modern life: the auto accident. If you're driving down an interstate on a busy holiday weekend, chances are you'll see at least one traffic accident, maybe more. Chances are you'll also witness a human behavior that's the bane of the highway patrol and the cause of more tie-ups than the accident itself: "rubbernecking."
That's what they call drivers who lean out the car window, eager to witness some damage. There's something darkly fascinating about that terrible scene: the crumpled metal, the sparkling particles of windshield strewn like fallen stars across the asphalt, the dark puddle that's probably just motor oil (but could be something else).
What's so fascinating about an accident? It's probably not the circumstances of the accident itself. It's the sudden realization that the boundary between life and death is not so far away as we may think -- it's not the high, unscalable wall we imagined it to be. Suddenly, amidst the flashing ambulance lights and the sputtering emergency flares, we remember our mortality. And the thought arises from deep within, unbidden: "There, but for the grace of God, go I."
Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? Is it just rubbernecking? Or something more?
* * *
Back in the days of the American West, there used to be three classes of tickets on the old stagecoaches. No matter which ticket you held, the ride was equally bumpy and dusty -- but the real value of the ticket emerged when the stagecoach got stuck.
If you held a first-class ticket, it was your privilege to remain in the coach while the crew labored to push it out of the ditch. If you held a second-class ticket, you were expected to step down from the coach and stand off to the side. If it was a third-class ticket you held, you had to get out, roll up your sleeves, and push.
Except for those who are young, disabled, or needing the community's special care, there aren't any tickets in the church except third-class tickets. Everyone is expected to work, to use their talents to advance the mission of Jesus Christ. There's no standing around, looking up toward heaven.
* * *
We are so attuned to the spectacular and the dramatic -- Arnold Schwarzenegger, tornadoes everywhere, American Idol, the future of Medicare -- we forget that behind the scenes the real work of grace and joy goes on week after week. We don't hear much about these miracles, but they are alive and present all around us. This is what our texts from 1 Peter and John 17 are all about.
Anne Lamott makes this point powerfully in her book Traveling Mercies, as she tells why she goes to church. She started going to the St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in San Francisco early in her pregnancy. She wasn't married and her life was a mess. But she was intrigued by a little church she heard singing from as she rummaged through objects at a garage sale. The singing was so beautiful that she just stopped and listened. One Sunday she got up the courage to walk through the door and just in the foyer. But she kept going back until one Sunday they had sharing time at the end of the service. Lamott stood up, took a gulp, and confessed that she was pregnant and alone and more than a little scared. She said they began to cheer. Even people raised in Bible-thumping homes in the deep South clapped and clapped. Even the old women whose grownup boys had been in jails or prisons rejoiced with her. And they reached out their arms and adopted this pregnant woman who had no husband and was not even a member. She kept coming to church. And they brought her clothes and blankets for the new baby. They lugged in casseroles that she could freeze and later use. They kept telling her that this new baby was going to be part of their church family. And then, she said, they began to slip her money. A bent-over woman on Social Security would sidle up to her and stuff her pockets with tens and twenties. Mary Williams, way over 80, week after week brought baggies filled with dimes and held together with wire twisties.
Lamott said she brought her new baby, Sam, to church when he was five days old. The congregation stood in line and called him "our baby." In the weeks that followed they would say: "Bring me my baby -- why you trying to hold my baby so long?"
Anne said they kept her going. The people cared and reached out and prayed and loved her and saw her through her hard, hard days. She reports that Mary Williams still gives her bags of dimes even though she is doing much better financially. She says that she usually gives them to homeless people she has met. But she says, "Why do I go to church -- none of my friends go? I go to church because somebody brings me dimes." You see, when Lamott looked around her she saw the face of God. And she found God in the faces -- ordinary faces of people she met at church. No wonder she has dedicated two of her three books "To the people of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church... and her Pastor..." and "for the kids and youth at St. Andrew who taught me how to be a teacher."
* * *
First Peter talks about suffering. In Rebecca West's novel The Fountain Overflows, Cousin Jock puts down the flute he has been playing and exclaims, "What's the good of music if there's all this cancer in the world?" And Cordellia, who is shaken with sorrow, replies through her tears, "What's the harm in cancer, if there's all this music in the world?"
* * *
When Robert Louis Stevenson was nearing the end of his life his wife came in one morning and said, "I suppose in spite of all your trouble you will tell me again that it is a beautiful day."
The great writer answered, "Yes, my dear, I refuse to let that row of medicine bottles be the circumference of my horizon."
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: Clap your hands and shout to God with loud songs of joy.
People: For God, the Most High, is awesome.
Leader: Sing praises to God, sing praises.
People: For God is the ruler of all the earth.
Leader: God sits on the holy throne.
People: The God of Abraham is highly exalted.
OR
Leader: Come into God's presence with songs of joy!
People: How can we sing with joy in these times?
Leader: Joy is not about circumstances, it is about who we are.
People: Don't our circumstances tell who we are?
Leader: No! Whose we are tells who we are!
People: Thanks be to God to whom we belong. Let us sing with joy!
Hymns and Sacred Songs
"Hail Thee, Festival Day"
found in:
UMH: 324
PH: 120
NCH: 262
LBW: 142
ELA: 394
"Hail the Day that Sees Him Rise"
found in:
UMH: 312
H82: 214
NCH: 260
"The Head that Once Was Crowned"
found in:
UMH: 326
H82: 483
PH: 149
LBW: 173
ELA: 432
"All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name"
found in:
UMH: 154, 155
H82: 450, 451
PH: 142, 143
AAHH: 292, 293, 294
NNBH: 3, 5
NCH: 304
CH: 91, 92
LBW: 328, 329
ELA: 634
Renew: 45
"Jesus Shall Reign"
found in:
UMH: 157
H82: 544
PH: 423
NNBH: 10
NCH: 300
CH: 95
LBW: 530
ELA: 434
Renew: 296
"Come Christians Join to Sing"
found in:
UMH: 156
PH: 150
CH: 90
Renew: 50
"Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies"
found in:
UMH: 177
H82: 6, 7
PH: 462, 463
LBW: 265
"When Morning Gilds the Skies"
found in:
UMH: 185
H82: 427
PH: 487
AAHH: 186
NCH: 86
CH: 100
LBW: 545, 546
"We Bring the Sacrifice of Praise"
found in:
CCB: 11
Renew: 3
"This Is the Day"
found in:
CCB: 13
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who holds all creation in your hands: Give us the grace to remember that we are yours and nothing in heaven, earth, or hell can separate us from you great love; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We come to you, O God, in the midst of our turbulent lives. We are beset by troubles and difficulties, but we have come to remember and be reminded that we reside in your hand and nothing can pluck us from there. Amen.
Prayer of Illumination
Send the light of your presence upon our hearts, O God, that the truth of your word may fill our hearts and our minds. Open us to the joy of being your children that we may face the difficulties of our lives. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially the ways we let the circumstances of our lives define who we are.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. The events of our lives take center stage in our minds so easily that we forget that it is being children of the living God that defines us. We think we are okay when things go well and that we are destroyed when things go badly. Forgive us our short-sightedness and bring to our minds once more the great truth that it is your love and care that gives us meaning. Amen.
Leader: Not even our forgetting who and whose we are can destroy God's love for us. We are God's children. We are loved and forgiven by the One who names us.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord's Prayer)
We offer to you, our Creating and Redeeming God, our praises and blessings. You are the source of our being and the One who gives meaning to our lives.
(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. The events of our lives take center stage in our minds so easily that we forget that it is being children of the living God that defines us. We think we are okay when things go well and that we are destroyed when things go badly. Forgive us our short-sightedness and bring to our minds once more the great truth that it is your love and care that gives us meaning.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which your loving care is made manifest in our lives. We thank you that nothing in this world or the world to come can ever separate us from your great love. We praise you for your constant grace.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We lift up to you our brothers and sisters in their needs. We offer our prayers for their healing and wholeness and most of all that they may ever remember that you love them eternally.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father... Amen.
(or if the Lord's Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Visuals
a judge's gavel, a person swearing on the Bible, etc.
Children's Sermon Starter
Talk to the children about how in a trial the witness is a very important person. A person who will witness for you is very important to you. We are witnesses for Jesus. It is up to us to tell others about Jesus. We do that when we act like Jesus wants us to as well as when we talk about Jesus.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
He Was Lifted Up
Acts 1:1-11
Object: a helium-filled balloon with a string
Good morning, boys and girls! I brought a special balloon with me today. If I let go of my string, what will happen to my balloon? (let the children answer) My balloon will ascend into the air. How many of you have ever had a balloon like this one? (let them answer) Today is Ascension Sunday. It is the day that Christians all over the world celebrate Jesus ascending into heaven. We celebrate this day because it is the day that begins Jesus' rule over heaven and earth. It also assures us that he will return some day. We are all waiting for his return.
Our lesson today is written by a man named Luke. He is writing a letter to a friend. In his letter Luke tells his friend about the many things that Jesus did for people and taught people until the day that he was taken into heaven. Luke says that Jesus was with his disciples and was teaching them. Jesus told his disciples to wait together in Jerusalem where they would receive the power of the Holy Spirit. When he said this, as they were watching him, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.
I'm certain that the disciples were amazed at this. Then something else amazing happened. Two men in white robes stood by the disciples. These two men told the disciples that Jesus has been taken up into heaven and will return in the way that he went into heaven.
We are going to celebrate Ascension Sunday by taking our balloon outside and letting it ascend into heaven just like our lesson says that Jesus ascended. Before we go, I want you to remember Jesus the next time you see a balloon like this one. Remember that Jesus ascended into heaven. Remember too that Jesus will return to us some day. We must be ready for his return.
(Take the children outside and let the balloon ascend.)
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, June 5, 2011, issue.
Copyright 2011 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.
Team member Ron Love shares some additional thoughts about the recent predictions of the Rapture in the context of this week's Acts passage. The date of May 21 may have been the brainchild of one gadfly preacher, but it received plenty of media exposure (not to mention the attention of seemingly every humorist in the land). Indeed, the continuing popularity of doomsday movies as well as the Left Behind series of novels suggests how much of a chord end-times prophecies strike in the populace (whether or not they're taken seriously). Ron notes that the man behind the May 21st date, Harold Camping, may have been "flabbergasted" that his prediction was faulty, but we certainly shouldn't be -- Jesus clearly tells his disciples that "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority" (Acts 1:7).
The Joy Conundrum
by Dean Feldmeyer
Luke 24:44-53; Psalm 47; 1 Peter 4:12-14
The Easter season comes to a close with Ascension Sunday, and the lectionary speaks of joy. Luke records that after the ascension of Jesus the disciples "returned to Jerusalem with great joy" (24:52). The Psalmist sings, "Clap your hands, all you peoples; shout to God with loud songs of joy" (Psalm 47:1).
One can't help but wonder, however, how these passages will play in Joplin, Missouri, where our brothers and sisters are still digging out from under the rubble that used to be their homes and businesses. Are these the verses that will be read at the funerals of those whose lives were snatched away by an uncaring and unfeeling Mother Nature?
How about the churches and communities up and down the Mississippi, flooded when the gates were opened and the levees blown? Dare we ask them to be joyful even as they watch everything they own floating away?
We look upon that devastation and we are reminded that there are no assurances. Everything we have worked a lifetime to accumulate -- indeed, even those we love -- can be snatched away from us in a moment.
How do we as people of faith live joyfully, as scripture asks us to do, when we have lived through what one Missouri woman called "15 minutes of hell," never knowing what the next 15 minutes may bring?
It is to the solving of this very human, theological riddle -- the joy conundrum -- that we apply ourselves this week.
THE WORLD
At 5:40 p.m. on Sunday, May 22, the strongest and deadliest tornado on record struck the city of Joplin, Missouri. It was classified as an EF-5, multi-vortex tornado -- winds in excess of 200 mph and multiple funnels dipping to the earth. It traveled through the center of the city on a path that would turn out to be ten miles long and in some places two miles wide, destroying a third of the city. At this writing, 135 fatalities have been recorded. Over 230 people are still missing. The level of destruction reduced seasoned reporters to stunned silence. Photographers have compared the stormscape to photos of post-nuclear Hiroshima.
So devastating was the level of destruction and so focused was the news coverage upon the Joplin tornado that most people don't realize on that same night another tornado, an EF-3, touched down in the northern area of Minneapolis, Minnesota, killing one man, injuring a dozen others, and leaving hundreds homeless. The following night tornadoes spawned by the same weather system struck Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arkansas, killing 12 people in three states.
The Mississippi River, swollen from deep snow in the north and heavy rain in the middle of the country, is putting so much pressure on the levees and flood walls that some have had to be opened, allowing homes and farms in sparsely populated areas to be flooded in order to save the densely populated cities downstream. All the figures aren't in, yet but the Natchez Democrat reports that just over 1,600 homes were evacuated in Mississippi alone.
With all this recent weather news it's hard to believe that it was only a month ago that tornadoes ripped across Alabama, killing over 130 people in a single night.
Meanwhile, the Japanese continue digging out of the rubble that used to be their homes and businesses before the earthquake and tsunami on April 7.
While the Midwest and South struggle to deal with record rainfall, Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, and other southwestern states are suffering the effects of extreme drought and the wildfires that follow such conditions.
Enough, already!
It can seem overwhelming and not a little bit depressing just to read and hear about all of this, much less live through it.
Yet, there on the front page of the Joplin Globe is a picture of a gray-haired, bespectacled lady in pink blouse and black sweater, her arms outstretched toward the sky as she sings a hymn of praise to God . The caption under the picture says: Church member Shani Black, of Joplin, holds her hands up in praise during a community prayer service Wednesday evening, May 25, 2011, for all affected by Sunday's tornado at the Joplin Family Worship Center.
What is it with these Christians, anyway? Don't they get it? Don't they know when they're whipped? How dare they express anything like joy in the midst of such devastation, destruction, depression, and despair?
Yet that is exactly what the lectionary asks of us this Sunday: Joy.
THE WORD
The lectionary readings for Ascension Sunday (the last Sunday of Easter) would have us believe that the operative mode for post-Easter, post-Ascension Sunday would be one of joy. Before we ask about the nature of this joy, however, it might be helpful to notice what the texts do NOT say.
Nowhere do we hear that "everything happens for a reason," or that "God has his reasons that we can't understand." We are not told to "let a smile be our umbrella" or to "keep a stiff upper lip." The texts are curiously devoid of tired and meaningless clichÈs that discount or ignore the pain of genuine tragedy. Neither do Luke nor the psalmist blame God for the horrors that life sometimes visits upon us.
We are not told that our problems are a blessing in disguise, and we are not advised to adopt Scarlett O'Hara's remedy for troubles by saying, "I'll think about that tomorrow." We do not hear Bobby McFerrin singing in the background "Don't Worry, Be Happy."
Indeed, happiness is not the issue here. Vacuous laughter, exaggerated smiles, and empty positivism are out of place in this discussion. The texts are not trying to convince us that our problems aren't real, our tragedies aren't tragic.
The issue here is joy -- joy that is felt and expressed even in the midst of pain and tragedy.
Luke gives us a clue as to how we come by this joy by placing it in the context of two other things. Return to verses 52-53 and notice that "they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God." Do you see the bookends there?
Joy happens in the context of worship! Before there is joy, there is worship. After there is joy, there is worship. They worship in and out of the church. They worship God in the temple, and they worship God in the incarnate Christ. The psalm is a hymn meant to be sung in worship.
Joy, as it turns out, is that sense of reassurance, that sense of ultimate victory, that sense of triumph that comes to us when we worship God in Christ. We weep, we mourn, we grieve, yes, but we do so as those who have faith. And having faith, we have hope. And having hope, we ultimately have joy.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
The Indicative:
The text gives us an excellent opportunity to exorcise from our theology those empty axioms and clichÈs that abound in pop theology at times of great tragedy. Some of them are listed above and no doubt you have heard others. The call to joy is not a call to muddled thinking and silly, shallow moralizing.
We Christians live in the real world where real tragedies cause real pain, where we are not in control, where uncertainty hangs over us like a dark and threatening cloud. We live in a world where those things that are most precious to us can be ripped away from us in the blink of an eye.
Yet at the same time we live in the embrace of a God who loves us more than any singing of it, who gives us friends and family to nurture us and support us, and who blankets us with the promise that death and loss and grief and pain do not have the last word and that in the struggle between life and death, love and loss, life and love will always ultimately win.
This reassurance comes to us most vividly in the context of worship.
The Imperative:
As people of faith, people of hope, and people of joy, we worship God as God comes to us, incarnate in Jesus Christ. We worship God by making Jesus our focus, our example, our Lord. We hear what he said and we do as he instructed. We walk in his footsteps, even to Calvary.
We worship God as God comes to us in the gathered community. We pray aloud with our eyes open, we clap our hands and shout loud songs of joy. We kneel together at the Lord's Table, we hold each other's hands, and we dry each other's tears.
Sometimes, even in the midst of great sorrow, we -- like that lady on the front page of the Joplin Globe -- raise our hands in praise and thanksgiving.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Flabbergasted
by Ronald Love
Acts 1:6-14
Flabbergasted! I guess that's how we all were when the Rapture failed to occur on Saturday, May 21, at 6:00 p.m. in your time zone. Some were flabbergasted from disappointment; some were flabbergasted from bewilderment; some were flabbergasted from laughter.
Harold Camping, the founder of Family Radio International and the doomsday predictor, told Will Kane, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, that he was "flabbergasted" when his biblical numerology failed. Camping said he was retreating from public view until Monday morning. Family Radio changed the home page on their website from the posting for several months leading up to the predicted Rapture, which headlined the biblical verse "blow the trumpet... warn the people," to showing a globe with the new headline "Sound a New Life."
Camping, the 89-year-old civil engineer, who was not to be undone after his failed 1994 prediction, emerged on Monday morning with an update. The Rapture did happen, but it was a "spiritual" Rapture. God in his "mercy" chose to spare the world the anguish of the five-month Tribulation when the final destruction will be on October 21st. The October event would not be a "rolling" tribulation beginning at 6:00 p.m. in each time zone, but one awful cataclysmic event brought on by a worldwide earthquake. According to Camping, "It won't be a spiritual October 21st, the world is going to be destroyed all together, but it will be very quick."
Flabbergasted, but it is also profitable. Family Radio has $104 million in assets, and in 2009 received $18.3 million in donations. The broadcast and satellite TV network is sent out in 61 languages. In the last weeks of the prediction, contributions so increased for Family Radio that Camping's "prophecy" could be plastered on 5,000 billboards across the world.
Flabbergasted, but it is also pathetic. Late-night comedians had countless jokes, newspapers were filled with sarcastic editorials, and even respected network evening news broadcasters (ABC, NBC, CBS) had tongue-in-check monologues. Atheists set up collection centers to care for your family pets while you were gone. They also organized parties where they sent helium balloons skyward at the 6 o'clock hour, complete with shoes attached to the balloons to simulate those who were ascending. At midday on May 21st, the two top trends on Twitter were #endofworldconfessions and #myrapturelist.
Flabbergasted, but it is also tragic. Lyn Benedetto cut the throats of her 11- and 14-year-old daughters so they would not have to endure the time of trial. Keith Bauer quit his job as a truck driver and drove his family from Maryland to Oakland, the headquarters of Family Radio, so he could be present with Camping for the Rapture.
Marie Exley sat in front of her television set to get the early 6 o'clock reports from the far end of the globe so she would be assured the rapture was rolling her way. Adrienne Martinez, pregnant, gave up medical school and used her life savings to promote Camping's prophecy. Retired New York MTA worker Robert Fitzpatrick also emptied his bank account to promote the message.
Flabbergasted, but it is also understood. Psychologists report that individuals are so dissatisfied with their lives they long for the Day of Judgment. Many so fear going to hell that they welcomed the opportunity to piously promote Camping's prophecy. This is why the movie 2012 is so popular. This is also why Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins of the Left Behind series edge out John Grisham as the most popular novelists in America.
Flabbergasted. That should also be the feeling of the institutional church for failing to biblically educate a nation and a world. When Peter quotes Jesus as saying, "It is not for you to know the times..." (Acts 1:7), he is as clear in his message as all the other biblical authors who dared not make end-time predictions. And they were not acting in isolation, as they were following the very teaching of Jesus, who said, "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
CRAFTING THE SERMON
I. Recount the end-time predictions and the events of recent weeks as they relate to Harold Camping.
II. Provide a historical review of other false end-time predictions. [For helpful resources, see Steven Gertz, "How Will It All End?" from Christianity Today and Issue 61of Christian History: "The End. A History of the Second Coming"]
III. Discuss the biblical passages that deal with the end times.
ILLUSTRATIONS
A story in the book of Numbers shows how tempting it is to give up in the face of great odds. Moses sent spies across the border of Canaan, one from each tribe, to search out the land and see what obstacles it presented. When they returned, they brought with them a bunch of grapes so large that it required two men to carry it. They described a countryside flowing with milk and honey, filled with fruits abundant in size and number.
But something spoiled the good news. The people were so giant-like and awesome they made the spies seem like grasshoppers by comparison. The report caused so much despair that it made the Israelites forget all the good possibilities that had been described. They had forgotten the source of their power, the Lord God of Israel, who had chosen his people and led them in safety to this point.
The problems of our day are overwhelming too. It would be easy to shrink from the enormity of the odds we face and simply live a quiet, passive life. But let's not forget the power that's on our side -- the power of the victorious, ascended Lord. He ascended far above all heavens and is seated at the right hand of his Father, where he rules. In the interim, between his ascension and his coming again, we live and work in the assurance that he will triumph.
* * *
I think half the troubles for which men go slouching in prayer to God are caused by their intolerable pride. Many of our cares are but a morbid way of looking at our privileges. We let our blessings get moldy, and then call them curses.
-- Henry Ward Beecher
* * *
Will many worshipers rush to church this Sunday excited because the preacher will preach on Ascension? Surely they must have been thinking about Ascension all week long, right? Wrong. Most of them won't even read the sermon topic for this Sunday in the newsletter -- and if they do they won't think much about it. They've had bigger fish to fry. Balancing their checkbook. Worried about their friend in Joplin or Tuscaloosa -- are they safe? Concerned about that visit to the doctor or worried about one of their children. Nobody here was been sitting around saying, "I just can't wait to hear what the preacher has to say about Ascension."
What's the big deal? Jesus had been warning his disciples for months that this day would come. He would leave them. He would return to the Father. But he also said, "I will not leave you orphans." In John 17 we have his farewell prayer to his disciples. I can just imagine how hard that last meeting was in that Upper Room with his best friends. He loved them one by one. He knew them. They had had ups and downs for the last three and a half years, but their time together had been good. And so, with a lump in his throat, he tried to prepare them for his leave-taking.
Luke records this whole scene in Acts 1. After he told them he would be leaving they asked a very practical question: "Lord, when will you restore the kingdom to Israel?" And weeks ago we talked about this. Jesus said, "It is not for you to know the time nor the period." Then he added, "But when you receive power..." -- and this was the promise of Pentecost. After he said those words, he left. He left the earth and moved upward, upward into the heavens -- out of sight. And they just stood there, shielding their eyes, looking up, squinting -- wondering. They were sad and more than a little afraid. What would they do now?
This is Ascension. The disciples stand there looking up as Jesus departs from them. What does this mean and why did the church put it on the calendar and every year read this scripture and talk about Ascension?
What happens here is a change of focus -- a whole new way of looking at things. There is a term we've been tossing around for this the last few years: "paradigm shift." We see things differently. It was a transition and Luke says that after that event on that hillside everything changed. That's Ascension. Everything changed... and we all know that transitions are hard.
* * *
The late Episcopal priest Wayne Price wrote about some painful transitions in his own life:
Just as we struggle with the rearrangement of life in the midst of and after a tragedy, we wrestle as well with the consequences of the changes we want and pursue. Parents want their children to go to college but their absence from home leaves a great emptiness. We want those new jobs in exciting new places but we have trouble leaving behind the life we have made. We want to retire and do many things we had little time to do when we were working but we find it difficult to live without office, title, and authority. Even changes in our lives that are envied by others are often accompanied by the loss of other good things. Loss hurts.
The question is: Can a particular loss -- from whatever the hammer blows come -- ever contribute to making someone's life all right, to making a person better than before, to bringing him or her to a greater sense of God's love? What part has God in all of this, at its beginning, middle, or end? Who would dare suggest God as a source of the storm? Yet after the trial by fire comes an inevitable opportunity for refashioning the self. The heat that hardens the clay also melts the wax: each of us continues to become, emerge, and change.
-- Wayne Price, In Transition (Morehouse Publishing), p. 3
* * *
The great writer Loren Eiseley suffered a serious setback in the middle of his teaching career. He wrote in his autobiography of those moments when "the kaleidoscope through which we peer at life shifts suddenly and everything is reordered. Every now and then," he added, "there comes an experience so shaking that the kaleidoscope never quite shifts back to where it was. We must simply deny the experience or adjust our vision."
-- Loren Eiseley, All the Strange Hours, pp. 99-100
* * *
It is a lamentable fact of modern life: the auto accident. If you're driving down an interstate on a busy holiday weekend, chances are you'll see at least one traffic accident, maybe more. Chances are you'll also witness a human behavior that's the bane of the highway patrol and the cause of more tie-ups than the accident itself: "rubbernecking."
That's what they call drivers who lean out the car window, eager to witness some damage. There's something darkly fascinating about that terrible scene: the crumpled metal, the sparkling particles of windshield strewn like fallen stars across the asphalt, the dark puddle that's probably just motor oil (but could be something else).
What's so fascinating about an accident? It's probably not the circumstances of the accident itself. It's the sudden realization that the boundary between life and death is not so far away as we may think -- it's not the high, unscalable wall we imagined it to be. Suddenly, amidst the flashing ambulance lights and the sputtering emergency flares, we remember our mortality. And the thought arises from deep within, unbidden: "There, but for the grace of God, go I."
Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? Is it just rubbernecking? Or something more?
* * *
Back in the days of the American West, there used to be three classes of tickets on the old stagecoaches. No matter which ticket you held, the ride was equally bumpy and dusty -- but the real value of the ticket emerged when the stagecoach got stuck.
If you held a first-class ticket, it was your privilege to remain in the coach while the crew labored to push it out of the ditch. If you held a second-class ticket, you were expected to step down from the coach and stand off to the side. If it was a third-class ticket you held, you had to get out, roll up your sleeves, and push.
Except for those who are young, disabled, or needing the community's special care, there aren't any tickets in the church except third-class tickets. Everyone is expected to work, to use their talents to advance the mission of Jesus Christ. There's no standing around, looking up toward heaven.
* * *
We are so attuned to the spectacular and the dramatic -- Arnold Schwarzenegger, tornadoes everywhere, American Idol, the future of Medicare -- we forget that behind the scenes the real work of grace and joy goes on week after week. We don't hear much about these miracles, but they are alive and present all around us. This is what our texts from 1 Peter and John 17 are all about.
Anne Lamott makes this point powerfully in her book Traveling Mercies, as she tells why she goes to church. She started going to the St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in San Francisco early in her pregnancy. She wasn't married and her life was a mess. But she was intrigued by a little church she heard singing from as she rummaged through objects at a garage sale. The singing was so beautiful that she just stopped and listened. One Sunday she got up the courage to walk through the door and just in the foyer. But she kept going back until one Sunday they had sharing time at the end of the service. Lamott stood up, took a gulp, and confessed that she was pregnant and alone and more than a little scared. She said they began to cheer. Even people raised in Bible-thumping homes in the deep South clapped and clapped. Even the old women whose grownup boys had been in jails or prisons rejoiced with her. And they reached out their arms and adopted this pregnant woman who had no husband and was not even a member. She kept coming to church. And they brought her clothes and blankets for the new baby. They lugged in casseroles that she could freeze and later use. They kept telling her that this new baby was going to be part of their church family. And then, she said, they began to slip her money. A bent-over woman on Social Security would sidle up to her and stuff her pockets with tens and twenties. Mary Williams, way over 80, week after week brought baggies filled with dimes and held together with wire twisties.
Lamott said she brought her new baby, Sam, to church when he was five days old. The congregation stood in line and called him "our baby." In the weeks that followed they would say: "Bring me my baby -- why you trying to hold my baby so long?"
Anne said they kept her going. The people cared and reached out and prayed and loved her and saw her through her hard, hard days. She reports that Mary Williams still gives her bags of dimes even though she is doing much better financially. She says that she usually gives them to homeless people she has met. But she says, "Why do I go to church -- none of my friends go? I go to church because somebody brings me dimes." You see, when Lamott looked around her she saw the face of God. And she found God in the faces -- ordinary faces of people she met at church. No wonder she has dedicated two of her three books "To the people of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church... and her Pastor..." and "for the kids and youth at St. Andrew who taught me how to be a teacher."
* * *
First Peter talks about suffering. In Rebecca West's novel The Fountain Overflows, Cousin Jock puts down the flute he has been playing and exclaims, "What's the good of music if there's all this cancer in the world?" And Cordellia, who is shaken with sorrow, replies through her tears, "What's the harm in cancer, if there's all this music in the world?"
* * *
When Robert Louis Stevenson was nearing the end of his life his wife came in one morning and said, "I suppose in spite of all your trouble you will tell me again that it is a beautiful day."
The great writer answered, "Yes, my dear, I refuse to let that row of medicine bottles be the circumference of my horizon."
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: Clap your hands and shout to God with loud songs of joy.
People: For God, the Most High, is awesome.
Leader: Sing praises to God, sing praises.
People: For God is the ruler of all the earth.
Leader: God sits on the holy throne.
People: The God of Abraham is highly exalted.
OR
Leader: Come into God's presence with songs of joy!
People: How can we sing with joy in these times?
Leader: Joy is not about circumstances, it is about who we are.
People: Don't our circumstances tell who we are?
Leader: No! Whose we are tells who we are!
People: Thanks be to God to whom we belong. Let us sing with joy!
Hymns and Sacred Songs
"Hail Thee, Festival Day"
found in:
UMH: 324
PH: 120
NCH: 262
LBW: 142
ELA: 394
"Hail the Day that Sees Him Rise"
found in:
UMH: 312
H82: 214
NCH: 260
"The Head that Once Was Crowned"
found in:
UMH: 326
H82: 483
PH: 149
LBW: 173
ELA: 432
"All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name"
found in:
UMH: 154, 155
H82: 450, 451
PH: 142, 143
AAHH: 292, 293, 294
NNBH: 3, 5
NCH: 304
CH: 91, 92
LBW: 328, 329
ELA: 634
Renew: 45
"Jesus Shall Reign"
found in:
UMH: 157
H82: 544
PH: 423
NNBH: 10
NCH: 300
CH: 95
LBW: 530
ELA: 434
Renew: 296
"Come Christians Join to Sing"
found in:
UMH: 156
PH: 150
CH: 90
Renew: 50
"Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies"
found in:
UMH: 177
H82: 6, 7
PH: 462, 463
LBW: 265
"When Morning Gilds the Skies"
found in:
UMH: 185
H82: 427
PH: 487
AAHH: 186
NCH: 86
CH: 100
LBW: 545, 546
"We Bring the Sacrifice of Praise"
found in:
CCB: 11
Renew: 3
"This Is the Day"
found in:
CCB: 13
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who holds all creation in your hands: Give us the grace to remember that we are yours and nothing in heaven, earth, or hell can separate us from you great love; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We come to you, O God, in the midst of our turbulent lives. We are beset by troubles and difficulties, but we have come to remember and be reminded that we reside in your hand and nothing can pluck us from there. Amen.
Prayer of Illumination
Send the light of your presence upon our hearts, O God, that the truth of your word may fill our hearts and our minds. Open us to the joy of being your children that we may face the difficulties of our lives. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially the ways we let the circumstances of our lives define who we are.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. The events of our lives take center stage in our minds so easily that we forget that it is being children of the living God that defines us. We think we are okay when things go well and that we are destroyed when things go badly. Forgive us our short-sightedness and bring to our minds once more the great truth that it is your love and care that gives us meaning. Amen.
Leader: Not even our forgetting who and whose we are can destroy God's love for us. We are God's children. We are loved and forgiven by the One who names us.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord's Prayer)
We offer to you, our Creating and Redeeming God, our praises and blessings. You are the source of our being and the One who gives meaning to our lives.
(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. The events of our lives take center stage in our minds so easily that we forget that it is being children of the living God that defines us. We think we are okay when things go well and that we are destroyed when things go badly. Forgive us our short-sightedness and bring to our minds once more the great truth that it is your love and care that gives us meaning.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which your loving care is made manifest in our lives. We thank you that nothing in this world or the world to come can ever separate us from your great love. We praise you for your constant grace.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We lift up to you our brothers and sisters in their needs. We offer our prayers for their healing and wholeness and most of all that they may ever remember that you love them eternally.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father... Amen.
(or if the Lord's Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Visuals
a judge's gavel, a person swearing on the Bible, etc.
Children's Sermon Starter
Talk to the children about how in a trial the witness is a very important person. A person who will witness for you is very important to you. We are witnesses for Jesus. It is up to us to tell others about Jesus. We do that when we act like Jesus wants us to as well as when we talk about Jesus.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
He Was Lifted Up
Acts 1:1-11
Object: a helium-filled balloon with a string
Good morning, boys and girls! I brought a special balloon with me today. If I let go of my string, what will happen to my balloon? (let the children answer) My balloon will ascend into the air. How many of you have ever had a balloon like this one? (let them answer) Today is Ascension Sunday. It is the day that Christians all over the world celebrate Jesus ascending into heaven. We celebrate this day because it is the day that begins Jesus' rule over heaven and earth. It also assures us that he will return some day. We are all waiting for his return.
Our lesson today is written by a man named Luke. He is writing a letter to a friend. In his letter Luke tells his friend about the many things that Jesus did for people and taught people until the day that he was taken into heaven. Luke says that Jesus was with his disciples and was teaching them. Jesus told his disciples to wait together in Jerusalem where they would receive the power of the Holy Spirit. When he said this, as they were watching him, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.
I'm certain that the disciples were amazed at this. Then something else amazing happened. Two men in white robes stood by the disciples. These two men told the disciples that Jesus has been taken up into heaven and will return in the way that he went into heaven.
We are going to celebrate Ascension Sunday by taking our balloon outside and letting it ascend into heaven just like our lesson says that Jesus ascended. Before we go, I want you to remember Jesus the next time you see a balloon like this one. Remember that Jesus ascended into heaven. Remember too that Jesus will return to us some day. We must be ready for his return.
(Take the children outside and let the balloon ascend.)
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The Immediate Word, June 5, 2011, issue.
Copyright 2011 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.
