Lemonade
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
In this week’s Old Testament passage, God -- through the prophet Jeremiah -- addresses the people of Israel as they find themselves in exile. While the Hebrews are counseled by their leaders to avoid putting down roots in the hostile environs of Babylon because God will soon deliver them from their bondage, Jeremiah conveys a markedly different message. He says that the word of the Lord is to “[b]uild houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce... seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” In other words, don’t count on God to magically change your situation -- make the best of it and find your home where you are... even if you feel alienated there. Another way to put it, as team member Dean Feldmeyer points out in this installment of The Immediate Word, is the familiar maxim “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”
Of course, that’s easier said than done -- especially for those who feel a deep sense of alienation and displacement in their lives. Recent headlines have highlighted those sentiments among immigrants and the black community, but as Dean notes, many feel a similar sense of alienation over the results of our elections. No matter where we fall on the political spectrum, there are instances where we are deeply disappointed and even outraged by the decisions voters have made -- and that’s if we can even stomach the choices offered to us in the first place. While this is certainly nothing new, the passions inflamed by this year’s presidential election offer a vivid example -- inspiring more than a little loose talk about “moving to Canada” if one’s preferred candidate loses. Of course, the reality is that’s not a realistic option in most cases, and more often it’s an idle threat that signifies the “psychology of [pre- and] post-election melodrama.”
But as Dean reminds us, rather than “opting out” (literally and/or psychologically) amidst our disappointment, God through Jeremiah tells us to get a grip and work for the welfare of our communities -- even if election results leave us feeling like we are exiles in our homeland. We are a part of our nation... and so we should pray for our leaders and for their welfare -- even if we find them distasteful. Indeed, Jeremiah’s message might even be viewed as a metaphor for the situation we Christians (who are “resident aliens” in modern culture) find ourselves in as we await the second coming: rather than closing ourselves off from secular society as we await imminent rapture, we are called to “seek the welfare of the [world] where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare [we] will find [our] welfare.”
Team member Chris Keating shares some additional thoughts on the Second Timothy text and Paul’s admonition to “avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening.” While that certainly applies to the ongoing presidential campaign (especially the debates, which are pretty much an exercise in word-wrangling), it’s also indicative of a different approach to truth than is generally characteristic in our society. We tend to be enamored with “argument” (which is primarily defined by trying to shout over one another and get in the last word) rather than genuine “debate” (which involves actual listening, and from which truth arises out of taking in and digesting opposing viewpoints while allowing them to inform our thinking). As a culture, we’ve come to assume that others will try to use words to manipulate our opinions and preferences for their own ends... and so we engage in more and more word-wrangling. Instead, Paul is telling us that real truth is a matter of transparency and character -- and Chris notes that for pastors trying to untangle the thorny knot of speaking a faithful word amidst a swirl of opposing political viewpoints, the real solution is to simply remind our people of God’s grace and faithfulness.
Lemonade
by Dean Feldmeyer
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”
That trite little aphorism has become a cliché. It’s been picked apart and examined and satirized to the point where no self-respecting preacher would dare utter it in a sermon.
Then several months ago Beyoncé revealed her new epic album -- and the title is Lemonade.
It’s a beautifully realized chronicle of the grief and heartbreak she suffered when she discovered that her husband, rapper Jay Z, was having an affair. His infidelity (or infidelities?) was the lemons. The album, and their relationship (which she says has grown and matured through the trouble), is the lemonade.
This week’s lectionary text is from a letter Jeremiah writes to the first Hebrews who were taken to Babylon to live in exile in 597 BCE. In it, he acknowledges that being forced to live in a pagan land is a bitter lemon. But rather than giving the people the encouragement they desire, rather than telling them that God is going to rescue them from their distresses, what does he tell them?
You guessed it. He tells them (and us) to make lemonade.
In the News
We hear it every four years, sometimes more often: “If that person is elected, I’m moving to Canada.”
On Election Day 2012, the website BuzzFeed.com ran 37 tweets from conservatives who must have been told that Canada’s government was even more liberal than ours -- so they vowed that if President Obama was re-elected they were moving to Australia. Either they didn’t know or they chose to ignore that Australia has a single-payer healthcare system and supported Obama nearly 20 to 1. But hey, the weather is nice, right?
This year it’s the other side’s turn.
The website Vox.com polled 2,000 American voters, and 28% said that they would be “somewhat likely” or “very likely” to move to “another country, like Canada” if Donald Trump wins the election.
Usually we chalk these threats or promises (depending on which side you’re on) up to hyperbole. They are not so much expressions of intent as they are expressions of vexation, not unlike “I’m taking my ball and leaving.”
Despite the facts that our country is on an economic upswing, the crime rate as at an all-time (or near all-time) low, the stock market is at an all-time high, and millions of people now have health insurance who didn’t have it before, people are still frightened enough that they are willing -- at least in theory -- to forfeit their citizenship.
These quadrennial threats of mass migration have not gone unnoticed by our neighbors to the north. Rolling Stone magazine reports that Canadian DJ Rob Calabrese sees American political dissatisfaction as a possible windfall for at least some parts of Canada. Calabrese works at 101.9 The Giant, a pop radio station on Cape Breton Island -- a rocky outcrop at the northern tip of Nova Scotia. The island’s population was about 136,000 in 2011, but that number has been steadily plummeting, in part because the island’s steel mill closed 15 years ago. “Our population is aging, and it’s shrinking by about 1,000 people every year,” Calabrese tells Rolling Stone. “It’s projected to do that for the next 20 years unless it can get turned around.
“There’s always a group, mostly Democrats, who threaten to move to Canada if so-and-so is elected,” Calabrese continues. “This year you may hear that more than ever, so we wanted to get out in front of it, and let those people know, ‘Hey! Here’s your chance. We will welcome you with open arms.’ ”
The volume of responses became so overwhelming that he turned it all over to the local tourism board. In the first three days, they received more than 2,000 inquires. Calabrese estimates that about 90% of them are serious -- with most coming from those who fear a Trump presidency, but a few who feel the same way about Hillary Clinton.
The reason we can laugh about this is that most of us aren’t desperate enough to pick up everything we own and move to a foreign land and start a new life. We have faith in our country and our government that the checks and balances will move into place so that no one branch of the government, no matter how incompetent, can take down the whole house. Instead of running away, we are willing to stay and make lemonade from the lemons the election brings to us.
In the Scriptures
In the late sixth century BCE the nation of Judah found itself in a tug-of-war between Egypt and Babylon. The royal court of Jerusalem was divided into two parties, one in support of Egypt and one in support of Babylon.
After Nebuchadnezzar was defeated in battle in 601 BCE by Egypt, Judah (which had been a vassal state of Babylon) revolted against Babylon, culminating in a three-month siege of Jerusalem beginning in late 598 BCE. Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, died during the siege, and was succeeded by his 18-year-old son Jeconiah. The city fell on March 16, 597 BCE, and Nebuchadnezzar pillaged Jerusalem and its Temple -- taking Jeconiah, his court, and other prominent citizens back to Babylon. Jehoiakim’s uncle Zedekiah was appointed king in his place.
Members of the pro-Egyptian party in Jerusalem were certain that it was only a brief matter of time before God would rescue the exiles from Babylon and bring them back home to God’s holy city. Egypt would, they were sure, rise again and Judah would join Egypt in making war on Babylon, liberating all those who were being held against their will.
The prophet Jeremiah, however, had a different view.
God was not going to rescue the exiles. Egypt, he said, would not march north to Judah’s defense. The Egyptians would, he was sure, rather lose Judah to Babylon than lose another battle in her defense.
In this week’s text, we see what scholars believe was probably part of a letter that he sent to the exiles telling them that no rescue was coming, that they would be in Babylon a long time, and they should make the best of it: “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (vv. 5-7).
Jeremiah is really telling them: You have been given a big sack of lemons, so you might as well make lemonade. You are going to be there a long time. The garden he tells them to plant is a symbol of permanence. No one plants a garden and then moves away. The admonition to get married and have children, and then to find wives and husbands for your children, would indicate that Jeremiah expects them to be in Babylon for at least two generations.
So they might as well pray for the welfare of Babylon -- because as Babylon goes, so will they go. As Babylon struggles, so they will struggle. As Babylon prospers, so they will prosper.
But Babylon was the enemy! You don’t pray for the welfare of your country’s enemies... do you? Wouldn’t that be tantamount to treason?
The pro-Egypt party became enraged over this message that Jeremiah was sending to the exiles in Babylon. They told Zedekiah that the prophet should be executed, or at least put in prison. The king would end up putting Jeremiah under house arrest for a while, for his own safety.
In the Sermon
Millions of years of evolution have imprinted on our psyches the response known as “fight or flight.” When we feel threatened, those are the two options our instincts telegraph to our brains: to fight for survival or to flee for safety... and usually flight wins out. When we are threatened, or even when we are just uncomfortable, our first instinct is to run away, to move on to a place that is safer, has better water and food, and is more comfortable. Only when we discover that running away is impossible does the fight response take over.
In fact, our DNA is imprinted so profoundly with the flight response that our bodies have developed perfectly for running and walking over long distances. Apparently, Monty Python’s call to “Run away! Run away!” is more appropriate than we realized.
In a 2009 New York Times story, Tara Parker-Pope cites several studies and a recently released book that make this case. “The scientific evidence supports the notion that humans evolved to be runners. In a 2007 paper in the journal Sports Medicine, Daniel E. Lieberman, a Harvard evolutionary biologist, and Dennis M. Bramble, a biologist at the University of Utah, wrote that several characteristics unique to humans suggested endurance running played an important role in our evolution. Most mammals can sprint faster than humans -- having four legs gives them the advantage. But when it comes to long distances, humans can outrun almost any animal. Because we cool by sweating rather than panting, we can stay cool at speeds and distances that would overheat other animals. On a hot day, the two scientists wrote, a human could even outrun a horse in a 26.2-mile marathon.”
Now Jeremiah enters the picture and brings us the “word of the Lord,” and that word is neither fight nor flight. The word of the Lord in this case is “acquiesce.” Submit quietly and without protest. Settle in and make the most of your situation.
God, it turns out, doesn’t live in Jerusalem. God lives wherever God’s people live, and we can worship God and obey God and honor God in Babylon just the same as we can in Jerusalem. We can honor, and worship, and pray to our Lord wherever we happen to be.
When the world gives us theological lemons, we can, with God’s help, make theological lemonade.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Wrangling Words and Roping Rhetoric in our Failed Efforts to Communicate
by Chris Keating
2 Timothy 2:8-15
So much to talk about -- and so little to say.
In some ways, there’s never been more to chat about around the water cooler. The sky’s the limit, or so it seems, when it comes to topics for sidebar conversations these days. Take your pick: Colin Kaepernick’s protesting, or Donald Trump’s late-night tweeting? The New York Times’ scrutiny of Trump’s taxes, or ongoing nattering about Hillary Clinton’s e-mails? Clinton’s pneumonia or Trump’s temperament?
Many times the water cooler is virtual, of course. Coworkers uncertain of face-to-face entanglements on the cubicle farm turn to Facebook or Twitter, hiding behind keyboards while slashing opponents. It’s not quite like dumping hot tar on the enemy, but the results are similar. Facebook fights are the locations of today’s Hatfield/McCoy brouhahas -- as many as 15% of adults and 22% of teens have lost friendships as the result of unfriendly social media interactions. What is said on Facebook doesn’t always stay on Facebook, either. De-friending may also mean a real-life exchange of angry words.
What we have here is failure to communicate.
Here’s a good example: last week Congress was so intent on overriding President Obama’s veto of a bill allowing victims of terrorist acts to sue countries like Saudi Arabia that it failed to consider all of the nasty ramifications of upsetting foreign countries. The Senate overrode the veto by a large margin, yet majority leader Mitch McConnell blamed most of the fiasco on the president.
Say that again?
Here’s what McConnell told reporters before Congress left Washington until after the elections: “That was a good example, it seems to me, of a failure to communicate early about the potential consequences of a piece of legislation. By the time everybody seemed to focus on some potential consequences of it, members had already basically taken a position.”
“I think it was just a ball dropped,” McConnell added. “I wish the president -- I hate to blame everything on him, and I don’t -- but it would have been helpful had he, uh, we had a discussion about this much earlier than last week.”
In other words, thanks, Mr. President. You didn’t want the bill, you vetoed it, but we overturned your veto, and that is your fault too. Got it.
Our political word-wrangling goes on and on, sort of like a rodeo at a county fair. The similarities are striking: we ride the words as long as we can, and of course, there is plenty of bull to go around.
It is a bipartisan experience. Senator Bernie Sanders noted that Hillary Clinton’s characterization of his supporters as uninformed basement-dwellers bothered him -- but that she is still his choice for president.
Our nonstop news cycles and ever-present cameras mean no remark, no matter how minor or how off the cuff, goes unexamined. There is no larger context either, as politicians must stand by their comments and opinions or be prepared to have them used against them. Just ask Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, who had another “Aleppo” moment last week when he was caught seemingly off-guard by MSNBC host Chris Matthews’ request to name a single world leader. (Here’s a few, just in case someone asks you: Pope Francis, Queen Elizabeth II, Angele Merkel, Theresa May, Xi Jinping, Alexis Tsipras, Enrique Peña Nieto...)
As Johnson knows so well, not only do we engage in wrangling over words, but sometimes we are wrangled by our words. It is true in politics, and it is also true in congregations. Presbyterians, for example, are no strangers to word-wrangling. In June, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) recommended adopting a new Directory for Worship, which makes it possible for those who are not baptized to receive communion. What some see as an obvious implication of Jesus’ ministry of inclusion, others see as false teaching.
In a similar vein, the writer of this week’s epistle reading advises church leaders to stop arguing over words. Paul, or the one writing in his name, reminds Timothy and his congregants to avoid such tussles. Paul isn’t advising acceptance of teaching that deviates from the gospel. Rather, he exhorts Timothy to avoid the mind-numbing chatter which stirs up needless -- and often endless -- controversy.
Proclaiming the gospel is indeed a struggle, notes Paul, yet engaging in pointless arguments over words becomes “senseless” (2:23) and inconsistent with the sort of constructive and determined work Timothy is called to undertake. The younger pastor is called to the hard work of discipleship -- like an athlete trained to compete, or a farmer attuned to the condition of the soil (2:5-6).
In his new commentary on 1 & 2 Timothy, Thomas Long notes that the task Paul offers to Timothy is somewhat akin to diving for pearls. Serious study of scripture, says Long, involves descending into the depths of a text, paying attention to details of grammar, structure, and meaning. “Sometimes,” he continues, “Bible students get stuck under water and don’t resurface. They get fascinated by a single verse or a single word and try to construct a whole theology perched precariously on the tiny surface of that lone insight” (Long, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus -- Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible [Westminster/John Knox Press, 2016], p. 211).
Avoid profane chatter, Paul advises. It spreads like gangrene.
Word-wranglers are riding a tired horse, says Paul. In rodeo terms, they have left the box too soon and will not be successful. What matters is the full scope of teaching, the sort of devoted discipleship that dares to recalls the promises of faith: “If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him.” Remind them of this.
Lately, I’ve been following conversation threads on Facebook where pastors are struggling to find ways of treading water in the currents of the presidential election. Pastors wonder what it means to be faithful in this political season -- especially when parishioners’ political viewpoints differ from their own. In the midst of this word-wrangling and rhetorical calf-roping, what word does the church dare to speak?
Paul’s words to Timothy stake out a possible claim: remind them of the grace we have received. In a world where interviewers lasso candidates with “gotcha” questions, where double-talk and empty promises abound, where fact-checkers churn out immediate responses and surrogates for candidates furiously detangle debates, Paul reminds the leaders of the church to proclaim God’s faithfulness. “Remind them of this.”
It’s a word we ought to consider.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Beth Herrinton-Hodge:
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Bloom Where You Are Planted
An article in the October 3, 2016, issue of Time magazine reports on the opening of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Richard Lacayo writes of the challenge museum designers faced in presenting the broad scope of African-American culture and life across history. Theirs is a story of a people who were forced into exile, endured the horrors of slavery, and embraced life in the United States -- with continued triumph and struggle. Jeremiah’s message to the exiles to build houses, plant gardens, and put down roots has been lived out by African-Americans in the U.S. Lacayo notes:
An institution that traces the narrative of African-American life for what may be as many as 4 million visitors a year has to satisfy no end of tricky agendas. It has to sift the past to rescue people from anonymity.... It has to represent not only the brutality and sheer perversity of slavery but also the resourcefulness of those who suffered it. It has to acknowledge the election of an African-American president but also the plain fact, in the era of Black Lives Matter, that America remains a work in progress.
But if it has to tell stories of pain and sacrifice, those cannot be the only ones. It can’t forget about Chuck Berry’s hilarious red Cadillac or Muhammad Ali’s headgear or the outfit Marian Anderson wore to sing in triumph from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after being barred from performing elsewhere because she was black. It can very well contain a concrete guard tower from the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, but also something much more literally uplifting, a plane used to train some of World War II’s Tuskegee Airmen, the first black American military pilots. It has to both pass through hell and point to the wild blue yonder.
*****
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Seek the Welfare of the Place Where I Sent You -- On Its Welfare You Will Find Your Welfare
On October 2, 2016, Boy Scouts from a troop in West Virginia’s capital city of Charleston banded together to help fellow scouts and community members affected by the June floods.
Earlier this summer, a Charleston hotel donated furniture to Boy Scout Troop 31 and Cub Scout Pack 31 so the scouts could redo their meeting room in the basement of the Charleston Baptist Temple. However, the hotel donated much more furniture than the troop needed.
After the floodwaters devastated parts of the neighboring communities of Clendenin and Elkview, the troop decided to donate the extra furniture to Boy Scouts in Clendenin and to other families in the community.
Scott Slack, a committee member for the Clendenin troop, was helping at the event with his son. “I think it’s great what they’ve done here,” Slack said. “I hope it will help a lot of families.” Slack’s home was spared, but he and his 11-year-old son thought it was important to help the community in any way they could.
*****
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Taking a Knee
People are “taking a knee” to call attention to the “welfare” of the disenfranchised in the United States, “for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7b).
There has been much discussion regarding San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and his decision to not stand for the national anthem at football games. His stance has evolved to taking a knee to symbolize his protest over racial injustice in the U.S. Others, including pee-wee, high school, college, and professional athletes, have followed suit:
“I thought a lot about it,” admits U.S. women’s soccer player Megan Rapinoe. “I know what it’s like to look at the flag and not have all your rights.”
...when Kaepernick used his perch to question whether the nation was living up to its ideals, a silent protest was primed to make a big noise....
“The worst thing I think you can do as a [professional] football player,” says [Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Malcolm] Jenkins, “is to have gotten to this stage, and had this presence that you’ve had, and leave this game as just a football player.”...
“I don’t know it they’ll use this as a stepping stone to think about other means of change in society,” says Eric Guthertz, principal of San Francisco’s Mission High School, whose football team has embraced the protests. “Maybe the ultimate impact will be just how they carry themselves in the world, and that will be beautiful.”
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From team member Mary Austin:
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Planting a Future
“Plant gardens,” the prophet Jeremiah tells the exiles, urging them to transform the place where they are located instead of longing to be somewhere else. Jonathan Bergman did just that with an abandoned property in London. Author Margaret O’Keefe says that a large urban wasteland was part of her walking route, and when she forgot to avoid it she would wonder why someone didn’t do something about it. Then one day, she says, “In the place of a trashed wasteland I was stunned to see an abundance of tulips, daffodils, roses, camellias, a pond, exquisite wooden perches, and a beautifully landscaped area perfect for small gatherings. A sign attached to the railings with ‘Welcome to the World Peace Garden’ beckoned me in. A little girl was skipping through one of the paths as her mother walked above at street level. Chimes tinkled overhead and I soon found myself sitting next to a tree with branches filled with little paper tags flickering in the breeze. Each carried a handwritten wish about‘ what I want the world to be like when I grow up.’ I later found out they had been attached by children from three local schools and that this was the ‘Tree of Hope.’ I had to tear myself away.”
She asked Bergman how the change had come about, and he told her. The property was across from his office, and he too wondered why no one was doing anything. After a conversation one day, Bergman tried to buy the property. “After three years of negotiating with owners and local councilors Jonathan bought it with the help of four others for £25k.... They set up a charity and decided to enlist the help of an architect and conceptual designer. A vertical garden screen and tree walk were proposed. After obtaining planning permission and presenting the idea to the local council, many local residents were against the design. Despite having looked at the same rubbish tip (which had been deserted for over 100 years) they complained bitterly and actually rallied against the project. As the months rolled by, the opposition became considerable.”
Ironically, the opposition was actually helpful. First, Jonathan and his partners almost gave up. “Then one Sunday, Jonathan decided to pick up the trash. ‘I simply had got sick and tired of looking at this strip of land with people throwing rubbish on it.’ ” Others came to help. Then people donated wood chips and concrete. They did things that didn’t need anyone’s approval. Bergman says: “People started to chip in and gave us furniture. It was a completely organic process. We worked the land doing stuff that didn’t require permission. And from this opposition we created this beautiful garden. If not for the opposition, it wouldn’t be what it is today.” The opposition and the delays made the garden what it is today.
*****
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Transformation
The prophet Jeremiah urges the exiles to transform their reality -- to stop longing for home and instead to settle in and change the place where they are now. Yes magazine asked what kind of people do this -- orienting themselves to work for change where they are, instead of giving up: “There are millions of citizens who refuse to succumb to what their more cynical neighbors call ‘reality,’ who insist with their lives that there has to be a better way -- and who day by day go about bringing it into being. What makes them tick? What enables them to see beneath the surface and work for the common good rather than simply for their own private welfare? What inspires people to act from their own sense of a larger integrity even when it means going contrary to the status quo? And how can these circles of compassion widen?”
They found that most people doing this transformative work decline to be called saints, instead insisting they’re just where they’re supposed to be. They also seek the kind of connections Jeremiah writes about: “In our highly individualistic culture, we tend to uphold a romantic vision of the altruistic hero, a lone, isolated individual who stands against the tide for what is right, indifferent to what others think. And yet few if any of those we studied represented this stereotype. Rather, they cared what others thought and felt, and were characterized by a particular capacity for connection, an ability to draw others around them into communities of comfort and challenge.”
Many, like the exiles from Jerusalem, have experienced great pain: “After years of beatings at the hands of his alcoholic father, Paul Chen finally left home and was rescued by a neighborhood youth worker. He subsequently became a pastor with a deep commitment to economic justice and community building. ‘There’s not a day that I’m not reminded of human connectedness because of the pain I share from my own background,’ he told us. Sometimes, as with Chen, the personal anguish is great, but more often it is of the sort that most of us experience during the course of simply living fully. The key lies not in our suffering, but in our ability to use it to connect with the pain of others. Held poorly, our torment seals us off from others or disables us; held well, awareness of our own pain enables us to resonate with that of others and work toward the healing of the whole community.”
*****
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Embedded in Community
The exiles are told to settle into new lives in Babylon and to create a community there. Parker Palmer says that life in community is important for all of us. “Whether we know it or not, like it or not, honor it or not, we are embedded in community. Whether we think of ourselves as biological creatures or spiritual beings or both, the truth remains: we were created in and for a complex ecology of relatedness, and without it we wither and die. This simple fact has critical implications: community is not a goal to be achieved but a gift to be received.” Like the prophet Jeremiah, Palmer suggests that community embraces a range of people. “My concept of community must be capacious enough to embrace everything from my relation to strangers I will never meet (e.g., the poor around the world to whom I am accountable), to people with whom I share local resources and must learn to get along (e.g., immediate neighbors), to people I am related to for the purpose of getting a job done (e.g., coworkers and colleagues). Intimacy is neither possible nor necessary across this entire range of relationships. But a capacity for connectedness is both possible and necessary if we are to inhabit the larger, and truer, community of our lives.”
Further, difficulties have a powerful impact in any community. “Hard experiences -- such as meeting the enemy within, or dealing with the conflict and betrayal that are an inevitable part of living closely with others -- are not the death knell of community: they are the gateway into the real thing. But we will never walk through that gate if we cling to a romantic image of community as the Garden of Eden. After the first flush of romance, community is less like a garden and more like a crucible. One stays in the crucible only if one is committed to being refined by fire.”
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From team member Ron Love:
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
The Fox television network is about to debut a new series called Pitch, which explores the story of the first woman to play professional baseball. Many people have asked Kylie Bunbury, the show’s lead actress and lead writer, if the series is based on true history. While it is entirely fictional, Bunbury says that one day it could be fact: “It’s already within the realm of possibility in people’s minds, which is really interesting.” Major League Baseball has endorsed the program, allowing scenes to filmed at San Diego’s Petco Park (home of MLB’s Padres), which will appear as it does during real games.
Application: Jeremiah was speaking of having hope in the future.
*****
2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c
In a Bizarro comic, Satan and God are sitting across from one another at the negotiating table. Satan is in red with wings and horns, while God is in white with a brilliant halo shining over him. Satan makes this proposal to God: “I’ll give up three dishonest politicians, a crooked TV evangelist, and a famous athlete/sexual predator to be named later, if you’ll give up the feel-good good movie of the year.” (Note: If your sanctuary has a projection screen, you may want to display this comic.)
Application: Like Naaman, we all seem to be negotiating with God.
*****
2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c; Luke 17:11-19
Actress Mia Farrow’s adopted son Thaddeus recently committed suicide. The 27-year-old was a paraplegic as a result of contracting polio as a child. Mia Farrow, who also had polio as a child, adopted Thaddeus from Kolkata, India. In the year 2000 Mia Farrow spoke at a global summit on polio eradication at the United Nations in New York City. Thaddeus was in attendance with her. During her speech Mia Farrow said: “If people could follow Thaddeus through just one day of his life and see just how hard it is for him, I think there would be no abstainees in saying ‘let there be no more polio.’ ”
Application: We need to understand the suffering of others and do everything we can to alleviate it.
*****
2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c; Luke 17:11-19
James Patterson, who is largely known for his novels about fictional psychologist Alex Cross, also has a BookShots series of short novels. As part of that series, Patterson intended to release a 150-page novel on November 1 titled The Murder of Stephen King. But Patterson recently withdrew the book from publication out of respect for the King family. The story centered on an obsessed fan who tries to murder the famous writer. When Patterson realized that Stephen King’s home had been repeatedly “disrupted” by real fans, Patterson felt it would be inappropriate to proceed with publishing the book. Patterson said: “I do not want to cause Stephen King or his family any discomfort. Out of respect for them, I have decided not to publish The Murder of Stephen King.”
Application: We need to be aware of the needs and feelings of others.
*****
2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c; Luke 17:11-19
In testimony before the House’s Oversight and Government Reform committee, Mylan CEO Heather Bresch defended the pharmaceutical company’s price increase for EpiPens -- a pen-sized device containing a hormone that can save the life of a child experiencing an allergic reaction. Since the hormone’s effectiveness expires after a year, the devices must be constantly replaced. Also, several treatments may be needed during a seizure episode. In addition, several EpiPens must be kept in various locations in the home, with a parent, and at school. The price of EpiPens has escalated 500% in the last nine years, with a two-pack of the devices now costing $608. Bresch, who has a salary of $18 million, claimed that her company -- which has sales in excess of $11 billion -- only makes $50 in profit from each EpiPen prescription. Bresch told the congressional committee, “I truly believe the story got ahead of the facts.” The lawmakers did not agree.
Application: We need to be aware of the needs, feelings, and circumstances of those who we serve.
*****
2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c; Luke 17:11-19
Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf recently appeared before a Senate committee to explain why the bank allowed thousands of false debit cards to be issued without customers’ knowledge. The bank’s employees had been doing this for several years in order to reach sales quotas set by the company’s top executives. Though the bank was aware of these practices, and over 5,000 low-level employees were fired in connection with them beginning in 2011, the abuses largely went unchecked by senior management and the bank never took action to stop the activity until it became public knowledge. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio said: “These were not magically delivered ‘unwanted products.’ This was fraud; fraud that you did not find or fix quickly enough.”
Application: We need to be aware of the needs, feelings, and circumstances of those who we serve.
*****
2 Timothy 2:8-15
In a Dennis the Menace comic, Dennis and his family are seated at a nice restaurant. As they prepare to order, Dennis turns in his chair and says to the waiter: “Can I see the dessert menu? I want to see if anything is worth finishing my vegetables for.” (Note: If your sanctuary has a projection screen, you may want to display this comic.)
Application: We serve the Lord in dedication and obedience, not because we have first seen the dessert menu.
*****
2 Timothy 2:8-15
President Obama recently recognized the recipients of the 2015 National Medals of Arts and Humanities at a White House ceremony. Among those receiving the medals were comedian Mel Brooks, actor Morgan Freeman, jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, chef Jose Andres, NPR interviewer Terry Gross, singer Audra McDonald, author Sandra Cisneros, and composer Philip Glass. During the ceremony, the president said in his remarks that we are celebrating “creators who gave every piece of themselves to their craft.”
Application: Paul calls us to give everything of ourselves in service to the Lord.
*****
2 Timothy 2:8-15
In a Hagar the Horrible comic strip, Hagar -- a strong Viking warrior who has sacked and plundered many castles -- is sitting at a bar boasting, “Nobody here knows what real pain is. I’ve got the scars to prove it!” Sitting a few chairs from him is a young lady who interrupts Hagar with this exclamation: “Excuse me! I know what pain is! And I have the stretch marks to prove it!” (Note: If your sanctuary has a projection screen, you may want to display this comic.)
Application: In service to the Lord, we can never compare one sacrifice to another.
*****
Luke 17:11-19
Tennis star Rafael Nadal was preparing to serve during an exhibition doubles match in Spain last week when he heard someone cry, “Clara!” Realizing that a young mother could not find her daughter who had wandered away, Nadal stopped the match until the child was found and returned to her mother. The crowd of 7,000 applauded.
Application: We need to be able to show gratitude.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth.
People: Sing the glory of God’s name.
Leader: How awesome are your deeds, O God!
People: All the earth worships you and sings your praises.
Leader: Come and see what God has done.
People: Bless our God and let the sound of praise be heard,
OR
Leader: Come and worship the God who dwells among us.
People: If God dwells among us, why is there so much pain?
Leader: Pain is a part of life. God is found within our pain.
People: We would rather find God in the fun parts of life.
Leader: God is there also. But God is very near in our pain.
People: We will celebrate God’s presence, even in our pain.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“O God, Our Help in Ages Past”
found in:
UMH: 117
H82: 680
AAHH: 170
NNBH: 46
NCH: 25
CH: 67
LBW: 320
ELA: 632
W&P: 84
AMEC: 61
STLT: 281
“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”
found in:
UMH: 110
H82: 687, 688
PH: 260
AAHH: 124
NNBH: 37
NCH: 139, 140
CH: 65
LBW: 228, 229
ELA: 503, 504, 505
W&P: 588
AMEC: 54
STLT: 200
“It Is Well with My Soul”
found in:
UMH: 377
AAHH: 377
NNBH: 255
NCH: 438
CH: 561
ELA: 785
W&P: 428
AMEC: 448
“Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone”
found in:
UMH: 424
AAHH: 554
NNBH: 221
AMEC: 155
“For the Healing of the Nations”
found in:
UMH: 428
NCH: 576
CH: 668
W&P: 621
“All Who Love and Serve Your City”
found in:
UMH: 433
H82: 570, 571
PH: 413
CH: 670
LBW: 436
ELA: 724
W&P: 625
“O God of Every Nation”
found in:
UMH: 435
H82: 607
PH: 289
CH: 680
LBW: 416
ELA: 713
W&P: 626
“Here, O My Lord, I See Thee”
found in:
UMH: 623
H82: 318
PH: 520
NCH: 336
CH: 416
LBW: 211
AMEC: 531
“You Are Mine”
found in:
CCB: 58
“God, You Are My God”
found in:
CCB: 60
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who entered into human life in all of its pain: Grant us the faith to find you in the midst of our troubles and to bring your salvation to all around us; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, for coming to dwell as one of us in the midst of our painful existence. Send your Spirit upon us, that we may have the faith to see you still dwelling with us in our turmoil. May we bring your salvation to those who struggle with us. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially our failure to enter into the pain of life where your salvation is found.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We want to think that, because we are your children, life will always be pleasant for us. We want to avoid all of the pain and turmoil that makes life human. And when we are overtaken by the troubles of life, we are so consumed by our problems that we totally forget about the suffering of others. Forgive us, and renew us in the Spirit of the Christ who suffered among us for the salvation of all. Amen.
Leader: God is here in the midst of our travail. Receive God’s grace and forgiveness, and share it with those you meet.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
We praise you, O God, for you have created us so that we might experience the fullness of life. To show your love for us, you came and entered into our mortal world.
(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 want to think that, because we are your children, life will always be pleasant for us. We want to avoid all of the pain and turmoil that makes life human. And when we are overtaken by the troubles of life, we are so consumed by our problems that we totally forget about the suffering of others. Forgive us, and renew us in the Spirit of the Christ who suffered among us for the salvation of all.
We thank you for all the ways in which you meet us in the midst of our lives. You come to us in the beauty of creation; in the love of family, friends, and church; and in the pain of life. You have promised to be with us always, and you have been true to your word.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need, and especially for those who are unable to pray because of the pain in the lives. As you hover over them and shelter them with your wings, may we be the visible presence of your love and care.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father . . . Amen.
(or if the Lord’s Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Here is an experience from my youth. Feel free to use it or let it bring to remembrance something similar.
I had worked and saved, and I bought my first brand-new bicycle. It had a speedometer on it, and I was pedaling down the street as fast as I could while watching how fast I was going. Unfortunately, that meant I wasn’t watching where I was going. I smacked into the back of a parked car. This was in the day of steel bumpers and I didn’t harm the car -- but the front fork of my bike was all bent. I closed my eyes and prayed really hard, but when I opened them the fork was still bent. God didn’t take away my pain, but I was able to get it home and straighten out the fork enough that I rode that bike for years. In fact, I still have it 50 years later!
CHILDREN’S SERMON
by Robin Lostetter
Luke 17:11-19; Psalm 66:1-12
Have the children act out Luke 17:11-19; discuss thankfulness.
Choose “Jesus,” a couple of “priests,” and as many “lepers” as necessary. (Ideally 10, but if you don’t have enough for 10, that’s okay; and if more than 10 want to be lepers, that’s okay too.) One leper needs to be outgoing enough to be coached to say [shout], “Come and see what God has done! Sing the glory of God’s name!” You might also prepare an adult ahead of time to go with the lepers to cue them for that and for the whole group saying “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” at the very beginning.
(Have the priests be seated in the very back of the worship space. Have Jesus and the lepers walk toward each other from different sides of the worship space [up front], but don’t let them meet.)
Lepers: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
Jesus: “Oh my, a group of lepers who want to be healed. Go! Show yourselves to the priests!”
(The lepers go to the priests, and as they go they begin to examine their hands and look happy. Then they show themselves to the priests?. All but one, who turns around before s/he gets to the priests; as soon as they start examining their hands, the one should loudly say)
Thankful Leper: “Come and see what God has done! Sing the glory of God’s name!”
(When s/he gets to Jesus, s/he falls on her/his knees and says: “Thank you.” Then Jesus asks)
Jesus: “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
(As the thankful Samaritan leper gets up to leave, they all return to the front and bow. Then they sit down with you, and you can ask how the one who said “thank you” felt. Did they think that Jesus then acted as the priest to that one, by saying s/he was healed? [The others went to the temple priests to be declared healed.] See if there are any questions. Close in prayer.)
Prayer: Dear God, we thank you for this story from the Bible. Help us remember it as a reminder to thank Jesus for all the good things in our lives. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, October 9, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2016 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.
Of course, that’s easier said than done -- especially for those who feel a deep sense of alienation and displacement in their lives. Recent headlines have highlighted those sentiments among immigrants and the black community, but as Dean notes, many feel a similar sense of alienation over the results of our elections. No matter where we fall on the political spectrum, there are instances where we are deeply disappointed and even outraged by the decisions voters have made -- and that’s if we can even stomach the choices offered to us in the first place. While this is certainly nothing new, the passions inflamed by this year’s presidential election offer a vivid example -- inspiring more than a little loose talk about “moving to Canada” if one’s preferred candidate loses. Of course, the reality is that’s not a realistic option in most cases, and more often it’s an idle threat that signifies the “psychology of [pre- and] post-election melodrama.”
But as Dean reminds us, rather than “opting out” (literally and/or psychologically) amidst our disappointment, God through Jeremiah tells us to get a grip and work for the welfare of our communities -- even if election results leave us feeling like we are exiles in our homeland. We are a part of our nation... and so we should pray for our leaders and for their welfare -- even if we find them distasteful. Indeed, Jeremiah’s message might even be viewed as a metaphor for the situation we Christians (who are “resident aliens” in modern culture) find ourselves in as we await the second coming: rather than closing ourselves off from secular society as we await imminent rapture, we are called to “seek the welfare of the [world] where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare [we] will find [our] welfare.”
Team member Chris Keating shares some additional thoughts on the Second Timothy text and Paul’s admonition to “avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening.” While that certainly applies to the ongoing presidential campaign (especially the debates, which are pretty much an exercise in word-wrangling), it’s also indicative of a different approach to truth than is generally characteristic in our society. We tend to be enamored with “argument” (which is primarily defined by trying to shout over one another and get in the last word) rather than genuine “debate” (which involves actual listening, and from which truth arises out of taking in and digesting opposing viewpoints while allowing them to inform our thinking). As a culture, we’ve come to assume that others will try to use words to manipulate our opinions and preferences for their own ends... and so we engage in more and more word-wrangling. Instead, Paul is telling us that real truth is a matter of transparency and character -- and Chris notes that for pastors trying to untangle the thorny knot of speaking a faithful word amidst a swirl of opposing political viewpoints, the real solution is to simply remind our people of God’s grace and faithfulness.
Lemonade
by Dean Feldmeyer
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”
That trite little aphorism has become a cliché. It’s been picked apart and examined and satirized to the point where no self-respecting preacher would dare utter it in a sermon.
Then several months ago Beyoncé revealed her new epic album -- and the title is Lemonade.
It’s a beautifully realized chronicle of the grief and heartbreak she suffered when she discovered that her husband, rapper Jay Z, was having an affair. His infidelity (or infidelities?) was the lemons. The album, and their relationship (which she says has grown and matured through the trouble), is the lemonade.
This week’s lectionary text is from a letter Jeremiah writes to the first Hebrews who were taken to Babylon to live in exile in 597 BCE. In it, he acknowledges that being forced to live in a pagan land is a bitter lemon. But rather than giving the people the encouragement they desire, rather than telling them that God is going to rescue them from their distresses, what does he tell them?
You guessed it. He tells them (and us) to make lemonade.
In the News
We hear it every four years, sometimes more often: “If that person is elected, I’m moving to Canada.”
On Election Day 2012, the website BuzzFeed.com ran 37 tweets from conservatives who must have been told that Canada’s government was even more liberal than ours -- so they vowed that if President Obama was re-elected they were moving to Australia. Either they didn’t know or they chose to ignore that Australia has a single-payer healthcare system and supported Obama nearly 20 to 1. But hey, the weather is nice, right?
This year it’s the other side’s turn.
The website Vox.com polled 2,000 American voters, and 28% said that they would be “somewhat likely” or “very likely” to move to “another country, like Canada” if Donald Trump wins the election.
Usually we chalk these threats or promises (depending on which side you’re on) up to hyperbole. They are not so much expressions of intent as they are expressions of vexation, not unlike “I’m taking my ball and leaving.”
Despite the facts that our country is on an economic upswing, the crime rate as at an all-time (or near all-time) low, the stock market is at an all-time high, and millions of people now have health insurance who didn’t have it before, people are still frightened enough that they are willing -- at least in theory -- to forfeit their citizenship.
These quadrennial threats of mass migration have not gone unnoticed by our neighbors to the north. Rolling Stone magazine reports that Canadian DJ Rob Calabrese sees American political dissatisfaction as a possible windfall for at least some parts of Canada. Calabrese works at 101.9 The Giant, a pop radio station on Cape Breton Island -- a rocky outcrop at the northern tip of Nova Scotia. The island’s population was about 136,000 in 2011, but that number has been steadily plummeting, in part because the island’s steel mill closed 15 years ago. “Our population is aging, and it’s shrinking by about 1,000 people every year,” Calabrese tells Rolling Stone. “It’s projected to do that for the next 20 years unless it can get turned around.
“There’s always a group, mostly Democrats, who threaten to move to Canada if so-and-so is elected,” Calabrese continues. “This year you may hear that more than ever, so we wanted to get out in front of it, and let those people know, ‘Hey! Here’s your chance. We will welcome you with open arms.’ ”
The volume of responses became so overwhelming that he turned it all over to the local tourism board. In the first three days, they received more than 2,000 inquires. Calabrese estimates that about 90% of them are serious -- with most coming from those who fear a Trump presidency, but a few who feel the same way about Hillary Clinton.
The reason we can laugh about this is that most of us aren’t desperate enough to pick up everything we own and move to a foreign land and start a new life. We have faith in our country and our government that the checks and balances will move into place so that no one branch of the government, no matter how incompetent, can take down the whole house. Instead of running away, we are willing to stay and make lemonade from the lemons the election brings to us.
In the Scriptures
In the late sixth century BCE the nation of Judah found itself in a tug-of-war between Egypt and Babylon. The royal court of Jerusalem was divided into two parties, one in support of Egypt and one in support of Babylon.
After Nebuchadnezzar was defeated in battle in 601 BCE by Egypt, Judah (which had been a vassal state of Babylon) revolted against Babylon, culminating in a three-month siege of Jerusalem beginning in late 598 BCE. Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, died during the siege, and was succeeded by his 18-year-old son Jeconiah. The city fell on March 16, 597 BCE, and Nebuchadnezzar pillaged Jerusalem and its Temple -- taking Jeconiah, his court, and other prominent citizens back to Babylon. Jehoiakim’s uncle Zedekiah was appointed king in his place.
Members of the pro-Egyptian party in Jerusalem were certain that it was only a brief matter of time before God would rescue the exiles from Babylon and bring them back home to God’s holy city. Egypt would, they were sure, rise again and Judah would join Egypt in making war on Babylon, liberating all those who were being held against their will.
The prophet Jeremiah, however, had a different view.
God was not going to rescue the exiles. Egypt, he said, would not march north to Judah’s defense. The Egyptians would, he was sure, rather lose Judah to Babylon than lose another battle in her defense.
In this week’s text, we see what scholars believe was probably part of a letter that he sent to the exiles telling them that no rescue was coming, that they would be in Babylon a long time, and they should make the best of it: “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (vv. 5-7).
Jeremiah is really telling them: You have been given a big sack of lemons, so you might as well make lemonade. You are going to be there a long time. The garden he tells them to plant is a symbol of permanence. No one plants a garden and then moves away. The admonition to get married and have children, and then to find wives and husbands for your children, would indicate that Jeremiah expects them to be in Babylon for at least two generations.
So they might as well pray for the welfare of Babylon -- because as Babylon goes, so will they go. As Babylon struggles, so they will struggle. As Babylon prospers, so they will prosper.
But Babylon was the enemy! You don’t pray for the welfare of your country’s enemies... do you? Wouldn’t that be tantamount to treason?
The pro-Egypt party became enraged over this message that Jeremiah was sending to the exiles in Babylon. They told Zedekiah that the prophet should be executed, or at least put in prison. The king would end up putting Jeremiah under house arrest for a while, for his own safety.
In the Sermon
Millions of years of evolution have imprinted on our psyches the response known as “fight or flight.” When we feel threatened, those are the two options our instincts telegraph to our brains: to fight for survival or to flee for safety... and usually flight wins out. When we are threatened, or even when we are just uncomfortable, our first instinct is to run away, to move on to a place that is safer, has better water and food, and is more comfortable. Only when we discover that running away is impossible does the fight response take over.
In fact, our DNA is imprinted so profoundly with the flight response that our bodies have developed perfectly for running and walking over long distances. Apparently, Monty Python’s call to “Run away! Run away!” is more appropriate than we realized.
In a 2009 New York Times story, Tara Parker-Pope cites several studies and a recently released book that make this case. “The scientific evidence supports the notion that humans evolved to be runners. In a 2007 paper in the journal Sports Medicine, Daniel E. Lieberman, a Harvard evolutionary biologist, and Dennis M. Bramble, a biologist at the University of Utah, wrote that several characteristics unique to humans suggested endurance running played an important role in our evolution. Most mammals can sprint faster than humans -- having four legs gives them the advantage. But when it comes to long distances, humans can outrun almost any animal. Because we cool by sweating rather than panting, we can stay cool at speeds and distances that would overheat other animals. On a hot day, the two scientists wrote, a human could even outrun a horse in a 26.2-mile marathon.”
Now Jeremiah enters the picture and brings us the “word of the Lord,” and that word is neither fight nor flight. The word of the Lord in this case is “acquiesce.” Submit quietly and without protest. Settle in and make the most of your situation.
God, it turns out, doesn’t live in Jerusalem. God lives wherever God’s people live, and we can worship God and obey God and honor God in Babylon just the same as we can in Jerusalem. We can honor, and worship, and pray to our Lord wherever we happen to be.
When the world gives us theological lemons, we can, with God’s help, make theological lemonade.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Wrangling Words and Roping Rhetoric in our Failed Efforts to Communicate
by Chris Keating
2 Timothy 2:8-15
So much to talk about -- and so little to say.
In some ways, there’s never been more to chat about around the water cooler. The sky’s the limit, or so it seems, when it comes to topics for sidebar conversations these days. Take your pick: Colin Kaepernick’s protesting, or Donald Trump’s late-night tweeting? The New York Times’ scrutiny of Trump’s taxes, or ongoing nattering about Hillary Clinton’s e-mails? Clinton’s pneumonia or Trump’s temperament?
Many times the water cooler is virtual, of course. Coworkers uncertain of face-to-face entanglements on the cubicle farm turn to Facebook or Twitter, hiding behind keyboards while slashing opponents. It’s not quite like dumping hot tar on the enemy, but the results are similar. Facebook fights are the locations of today’s Hatfield/McCoy brouhahas -- as many as 15% of adults and 22% of teens have lost friendships as the result of unfriendly social media interactions. What is said on Facebook doesn’t always stay on Facebook, either. De-friending may also mean a real-life exchange of angry words.
What we have here is failure to communicate.
Here’s a good example: last week Congress was so intent on overriding President Obama’s veto of a bill allowing victims of terrorist acts to sue countries like Saudi Arabia that it failed to consider all of the nasty ramifications of upsetting foreign countries. The Senate overrode the veto by a large margin, yet majority leader Mitch McConnell blamed most of the fiasco on the president.
Say that again?
Here’s what McConnell told reporters before Congress left Washington until after the elections: “That was a good example, it seems to me, of a failure to communicate early about the potential consequences of a piece of legislation. By the time everybody seemed to focus on some potential consequences of it, members had already basically taken a position.”
“I think it was just a ball dropped,” McConnell added. “I wish the president -- I hate to blame everything on him, and I don’t -- but it would have been helpful had he, uh, we had a discussion about this much earlier than last week.”
In other words, thanks, Mr. President. You didn’t want the bill, you vetoed it, but we overturned your veto, and that is your fault too. Got it.
Our political word-wrangling goes on and on, sort of like a rodeo at a county fair. The similarities are striking: we ride the words as long as we can, and of course, there is plenty of bull to go around.
It is a bipartisan experience. Senator Bernie Sanders noted that Hillary Clinton’s characterization of his supporters as uninformed basement-dwellers bothered him -- but that she is still his choice for president.
Our nonstop news cycles and ever-present cameras mean no remark, no matter how minor or how off the cuff, goes unexamined. There is no larger context either, as politicians must stand by their comments and opinions or be prepared to have them used against them. Just ask Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, who had another “Aleppo” moment last week when he was caught seemingly off-guard by MSNBC host Chris Matthews’ request to name a single world leader. (Here’s a few, just in case someone asks you: Pope Francis, Queen Elizabeth II, Angele Merkel, Theresa May, Xi Jinping, Alexis Tsipras, Enrique Peña Nieto...)
As Johnson knows so well, not only do we engage in wrangling over words, but sometimes we are wrangled by our words. It is true in politics, and it is also true in congregations. Presbyterians, for example, are no strangers to word-wrangling. In June, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) recommended adopting a new Directory for Worship, which makes it possible for those who are not baptized to receive communion. What some see as an obvious implication of Jesus’ ministry of inclusion, others see as false teaching.
In a similar vein, the writer of this week’s epistle reading advises church leaders to stop arguing over words. Paul, or the one writing in his name, reminds Timothy and his congregants to avoid such tussles. Paul isn’t advising acceptance of teaching that deviates from the gospel. Rather, he exhorts Timothy to avoid the mind-numbing chatter which stirs up needless -- and often endless -- controversy.
Proclaiming the gospel is indeed a struggle, notes Paul, yet engaging in pointless arguments over words becomes “senseless” (2:23) and inconsistent with the sort of constructive and determined work Timothy is called to undertake. The younger pastor is called to the hard work of discipleship -- like an athlete trained to compete, or a farmer attuned to the condition of the soil (2:5-6).
In his new commentary on 1 & 2 Timothy, Thomas Long notes that the task Paul offers to Timothy is somewhat akin to diving for pearls. Serious study of scripture, says Long, involves descending into the depths of a text, paying attention to details of grammar, structure, and meaning. “Sometimes,” he continues, “Bible students get stuck under water and don’t resurface. They get fascinated by a single verse or a single word and try to construct a whole theology perched precariously on the tiny surface of that lone insight” (Long, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus -- Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible [Westminster/John Knox Press, 2016], p. 211).
Avoid profane chatter, Paul advises. It spreads like gangrene.
Word-wranglers are riding a tired horse, says Paul. In rodeo terms, they have left the box too soon and will not be successful. What matters is the full scope of teaching, the sort of devoted discipleship that dares to recalls the promises of faith: “If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him.” Remind them of this.
Lately, I’ve been following conversation threads on Facebook where pastors are struggling to find ways of treading water in the currents of the presidential election. Pastors wonder what it means to be faithful in this political season -- especially when parishioners’ political viewpoints differ from their own. In the midst of this word-wrangling and rhetorical calf-roping, what word does the church dare to speak?
Paul’s words to Timothy stake out a possible claim: remind them of the grace we have received. In a world where interviewers lasso candidates with “gotcha” questions, where double-talk and empty promises abound, where fact-checkers churn out immediate responses and surrogates for candidates furiously detangle debates, Paul reminds the leaders of the church to proclaim God’s faithfulness. “Remind them of this.”
It’s a word we ought to consider.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Beth Herrinton-Hodge:
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Bloom Where You Are Planted
An article in the October 3, 2016, issue of Time magazine reports on the opening of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Richard Lacayo writes of the challenge museum designers faced in presenting the broad scope of African-American culture and life across history. Theirs is a story of a people who were forced into exile, endured the horrors of slavery, and embraced life in the United States -- with continued triumph and struggle. Jeremiah’s message to the exiles to build houses, plant gardens, and put down roots has been lived out by African-Americans in the U.S. Lacayo notes:
An institution that traces the narrative of African-American life for what may be as many as 4 million visitors a year has to satisfy no end of tricky agendas. It has to sift the past to rescue people from anonymity.... It has to represent not only the brutality and sheer perversity of slavery but also the resourcefulness of those who suffered it. It has to acknowledge the election of an African-American president but also the plain fact, in the era of Black Lives Matter, that America remains a work in progress.
But if it has to tell stories of pain and sacrifice, those cannot be the only ones. It can’t forget about Chuck Berry’s hilarious red Cadillac or Muhammad Ali’s headgear or the outfit Marian Anderson wore to sing in triumph from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after being barred from performing elsewhere because she was black. It can very well contain a concrete guard tower from the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, but also something much more literally uplifting, a plane used to train some of World War II’s Tuskegee Airmen, the first black American military pilots. It has to both pass through hell and point to the wild blue yonder.
*****
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Seek the Welfare of the Place Where I Sent You -- On Its Welfare You Will Find Your Welfare
On October 2, 2016, Boy Scouts from a troop in West Virginia’s capital city of Charleston banded together to help fellow scouts and community members affected by the June floods.
Earlier this summer, a Charleston hotel donated furniture to Boy Scout Troop 31 and Cub Scout Pack 31 so the scouts could redo their meeting room in the basement of the Charleston Baptist Temple. However, the hotel donated much more furniture than the troop needed.
After the floodwaters devastated parts of the neighboring communities of Clendenin and Elkview, the troop decided to donate the extra furniture to Boy Scouts in Clendenin and to other families in the community.
Scott Slack, a committee member for the Clendenin troop, was helping at the event with his son. “I think it’s great what they’ve done here,” Slack said. “I hope it will help a lot of families.” Slack’s home was spared, but he and his 11-year-old son thought it was important to help the community in any way they could.
*****
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Taking a Knee
People are “taking a knee” to call attention to the “welfare” of the disenfranchised in the United States, “for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7b).
There has been much discussion regarding San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and his decision to not stand for the national anthem at football games. His stance has evolved to taking a knee to symbolize his protest over racial injustice in the U.S. Others, including pee-wee, high school, college, and professional athletes, have followed suit:
“I thought a lot about it,” admits U.S. women’s soccer player Megan Rapinoe. “I know what it’s like to look at the flag and not have all your rights.”
...when Kaepernick used his perch to question whether the nation was living up to its ideals, a silent protest was primed to make a big noise....
“The worst thing I think you can do as a [professional] football player,” says [Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Malcolm] Jenkins, “is to have gotten to this stage, and had this presence that you’ve had, and leave this game as just a football player.”...
“I don’t know it they’ll use this as a stepping stone to think about other means of change in society,” says Eric Guthertz, principal of San Francisco’s Mission High School, whose football team has embraced the protests. “Maybe the ultimate impact will be just how they carry themselves in the world, and that will be beautiful.”
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From team member Mary Austin:
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Planting a Future
“Plant gardens,” the prophet Jeremiah tells the exiles, urging them to transform the place where they are located instead of longing to be somewhere else. Jonathan Bergman did just that with an abandoned property in London. Author Margaret O’Keefe says that a large urban wasteland was part of her walking route, and when she forgot to avoid it she would wonder why someone didn’t do something about it. Then one day, she says, “In the place of a trashed wasteland I was stunned to see an abundance of tulips, daffodils, roses, camellias, a pond, exquisite wooden perches, and a beautifully landscaped area perfect for small gatherings. A sign attached to the railings with ‘Welcome to the World Peace Garden’ beckoned me in. A little girl was skipping through one of the paths as her mother walked above at street level. Chimes tinkled overhead and I soon found myself sitting next to a tree with branches filled with little paper tags flickering in the breeze. Each carried a handwritten wish about‘ what I want the world to be like when I grow up.’ I later found out they had been attached by children from three local schools and that this was the ‘Tree of Hope.’ I had to tear myself away.”
She asked Bergman how the change had come about, and he told her. The property was across from his office, and he too wondered why no one was doing anything. After a conversation one day, Bergman tried to buy the property. “After three years of negotiating with owners and local councilors Jonathan bought it with the help of four others for £25k.... They set up a charity and decided to enlist the help of an architect and conceptual designer. A vertical garden screen and tree walk were proposed. After obtaining planning permission and presenting the idea to the local council, many local residents were against the design. Despite having looked at the same rubbish tip (which had been deserted for over 100 years) they complained bitterly and actually rallied against the project. As the months rolled by, the opposition became considerable.”
Ironically, the opposition was actually helpful. First, Jonathan and his partners almost gave up. “Then one Sunday, Jonathan decided to pick up the trash. ‘I simply had got sick and tired of looking at this strip of land with people throwing rubbish on it.’ ” Others came to help. Then people donated wood chips and concrete. They did things that didn’t need anyone’s approval. Bergman says: “People started to chip in and gave us furniture. It was a completely organic process. We worked the land doing stuff that didn’t require permission. And from this opposition we created this beautiful garden. If not for the opposition, it wouldn’t be what it is today.” The opposition and the delays made the garden what it is today.
*****
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Transformation
The prophet Jeremiah urges the exiles to transform their reality -- to stop longing for home and instead to settle in and change the place where they are now. Yes magazine asked what kind of people do this -- orienting themselves to work for change where they are, instead of giving up: “There are millions of citizens who refuse to succumb to what their more cynical neighbors call ‘reality,’ who insist with their lives that there has to be a better way -- and who day by day go about bringing it into being. What makes them tick? What enables them to see beneath the surface and work for the common good rather than simply for their own private welfare? What inspires people to act from their own sense of a larger integrity even when it means going contrary to the status quo? And how can these circles of compassion widen?”
They found that most people doing this transformative work decline to be called saints, instead insisting they’re just where they’re supposed to be. They also seek the kind of connections Jeremiah writes about: “In our highly individualistic culture, we tend to uphold a romantic vision of the altruistic hero, a lone, isolated individual who stands against the tide for what is right, indifferent to what others think. And yet few if any of those we studied represented this stereotype. Rather, they cared what others thought and felt, and were characterized by a particular capacity for connection, an ability to draw others around them into communities of comfort and challenge.”
Many, like the exiles from Jerusalem, have experienced great pain: “After years of beatings at the hands of his alcoholic father, Paul Chen finally left home and was rescued by a neighborhood youth worker. He subsequently became a pastor with a deep commitment to economic justice and community building. ‘There’s not a day that I’m not reminded of human connectedness because of the pain I share from my own background,’ he told us. Sometimes, as with Chen, the personal anguish is great, but more often it is of the sort that most of us experience during the course of simply living fully. The key lies not in our suffering, but in our ability to use it to connect with the pain of others. Held poorly, our torment seals us off from others or disables us; held well, awareness of our own pain enables us to resonate with that of others and work toward the healing of the whole community.”
*****
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Embedded in Community
The exiles are told to settle into new lives in Babylon and to create a community there. Parker Palmer says that life in community is important for all of us. “Whether we know it or not, like it or not, honor it or not, we are embedded in community. Whether we think of ourselves as biological creatures or spiritual beings or both, the truth remains: we were created in and for a complex ecology of relatedness, and without it we wither and die. This simple fact has critical implications: community is not a goal to be achieved but a gift to be received.” Like the prophet Jeremiah, Palmer suggests that community embraces a range of people. “My concept of community must be capacious enough to embrace everything from my relation to strangers I will never meet (e.g., the poor around the world to whom I am accountable), to people with whom I share local resources and must learn to get along (e.g., immediate neighbors), to people I am related to for the purpose of getting a job done (e.g., coworkers and colleagues). Intimacy is neither possible nor necessary across this entire range of relationships. But a capacity for connectedness is both possible and necessary if we are to inhabit the larger, and truer, community of our lives.”
Further, difficulties have a powerful impact in any community. “Hard experiences -- such as meeting the enemy within, or dealing with the conflict and betrayal that are an inevitable part of living closely with others -- are not the death knell of community: they are the gateway into the real thing. But we will never walk through that gate if we cling to a romantic image of community as the Garden of Eden. After the first flush of romance, community is less like a garden and more like a crucible. One stays in the crucible only if one is committed to being refined by fire.”
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From team member Ron Love:
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
The Fox television network is about to debut a new series called Pitch, which explores the story of the first woman to play professional baseball. Many people have asked Kylie Bunbury, the show’s lead actress and lead writer, if the series is based on true history. While it is entirely fictional, Bunbury says that one day it could be fact: “It’s already within the realm of possibility in people’s minds, which is really interesting.” Major League Baseball has endorsed the program, allowing scenes to filmed at San Diego’s Petco Park (home of MLB’s Padres), which will appear as it does during real games.
Application: Jeremiah was speaking of having hope in the future.
*****
2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c
In a Bizarro comic, Satan and God are sitting across from one another at the negotiating table. Satan is in red with wings and horns, while God is in white with a brilliant halo shining over him. Satan makes this proposal to God: “I’ll give up three dishonest politicians, a crooked TV evangelist, and a famous athlete/sexual predator to be named later, if you’ll give up the feel-good good movie of the year.” (Note: If your sanctuary has a projection screen, you may want to display this comic.)
Application: Like Naaman, we all seem to be negotiating with God.
*****
2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c; Luke 17:11-19
Actress Mia Farrow’s adopted son Thaddeus recently committed suicide. The 27-year-old was a paraplegic as a result of contracting polio as a child. Mia Farrow, who also had polio as a child, adopted Thaddeus from Kolkata, India. In the year 2000 Mia Farrow spoke at a global summit on polio eradication at the United Nations in New York City. Thaddeus was in attendance with her. During her speech Mia Farrow said: “If people could follow Thaddeus through just one day of his life and see just how hard it is for him, I think there would be no abstainees in saying ‘let there be no more polio.’ ”
Application: We need to understand the suffering of others and do everything we can to alleviate it.
*****
2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c; Luke 17:11-19
James Patterson, who is largely known for his novels about fictional psychologist Alex Cross, also has a BookShots series of short novels. As part of that series, Patterson intended to release a 150-page novel on November 1 titled The Murder of Stephen King. But Patterson recently withdrew the book from publication out of respect for the King family. The story centered on an obsessed fan who tries to murder the famous writer. When Patterson realized that Stephen King’s home had been repeatedly “disrupted” by real fans, Patterson felt it would be inappropriate to proceed with publishing the book. Patterson said: “I do not want to cause Stephen King or his family any discomfort. Out of respect for them, I have decided not to publish The Murder of Stephen King.”
Application: We need to be aware of the needs and feelings of others.
*****
2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c; Luke 17:11-19
In testimony before the House’s Oversight and Government Reform committee, Mylan CEO Heather Bresch defended the pharmaceutical company’s price increase for EpiPens -- a pen-sized device containing a hormone that can save the life of a child experiencing an allergic reaction. Since the hormone’s effectiveness expires after a year, the devices must be constantly replaced. Also, several treatments may be needed during a seizure episode. In addition, several EpiPens must be kept in various locations in the home, with a parent, and at school. The price of EpiPens has escalated 500% in the last nine years, with a two-pack of the devices now costing $608. Bresch, who has a salary of $18 million, claimed that her company -- which has sales in excess of $11 billion -- only makes $50 in profit from each EpiPen prescription. Bresch told the congressional committee, “I truly believe the story got ahead of the facts.” The lawmakers did not agree.
Application: We need to be aware of the needs, feelings, and circumstances of those who we serve.
*****
2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c; Luke 17:11-19
Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf recently appeared before a Senate committee to explain why the bank allowed thousands of false debit cards to be issued without customers’ knowledge. The bank’s employees had been doing this for several years in order to reach sales quotas set by the company’s top executives. Though the bank was aware of these practices, and over 5,000 low-level employees were fired in connection with them beginning in 2011, the abuses largely went unchecked by senior management and the bank never took action to stop the activity until it became public knowledge. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio said: “These were not magically delivered ‘unwanted products.’ This was fraud; fraud that you did not find or fix quickly enough.”
Application: We need to be aware of the needs, feelings, and circumstances of those who we serve.
*****
2 Timothy 2:8-15
In a Dennis the Menace comic, Dennis and his family are seated at a nice restaurant. As they prepare to order, Dennis turns in his chair and says to the waiter: “Can I see the dessert menu? I want to see if anything is worth finishing my vegetables for.” (Note: If your sanctuary has a projection screen, you may want to display this comic.)
Application: We serve the Lord in dedication and obedience, not because we have first seen the dessert menu.
*****
2 Timothy 2:8-15
President Obama recently recognized the recipients of the 2015 National Medals of Arts and Humanities at a White House ceremony. Among those receiving the medals were comedian Mel Brooks, actor Morgan Freeman, jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, chef Jose Andres, NPR interviewer Terry Gross, singer Audra McDonald, author Sandra Cisneros, and composer Philip Glass. During the ceremony, the president said in his remarks that we are celebrating “creators who gave every piece of themselves to their craft.”
Application: Paul calls us to give everything of ourselves in service to the Lord.
*****
2 Timothy 2:8-15
In a Hagar the Horrible comic strip, Hagar -- a strong Viking warrior who has sacked and plundered many castles -- is sitting at a bar boasting, “Nobody here knows what real pain is. I’ve got the scars to prove it!” Sitting a few chairs from him is a young lady who interrupts Hagar with this exclamation: “Excuse me! I know what pain is! And I have the stretch marks to prove it!” (Note: If your sanctuary has a projection screen, you may want to display this comic.)
Application: In service to the Lord, we can never compare one sacrifice to another.
*****
Luke 17:11-19
Tennis star Rafael Nadal was preparing to serve during an exhibition doubles match in Spain last week when he heard someone cry, “Clara!” Realizing that a young mother could not find her daughter who had wandered away, Nadal stopped the match until the child was found and returned to her mother. The crowd of 7,000 applauded.
Application: We need to be able to show gratitude.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth.
People: Sing the glory of God’s name.
Leader: How awesome are your deeds, O God!
People: All the earth worships you and sings your praises.
Leader: Come and see what God has done.
People: Bless our God and let the sound of praise be heard,
OR
Leader: Come and worship the God who dwells among us.
People: If God dwells among us, why is there so much pain?
Leader: Pain is a part of life. God is found within our pain.
People: We would rather find God in the fun parts of life.
Leader: God is there also. But God is very near in our pain.
People: We will celebrate God’s presence, even in our pain.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“O God, Our Help in Ages Past”
found in:
UMH: 117
H82: 680
AAHH: 170
NNBH: 46
NCH: 25
CH: 67
LBW: 320
ELA: 632
W&P: 84
AMEC: 61
STLT: 281
“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”
found in:
UMH: 110
H82: 687, 688
PH: 260
AAHH: 124
NNBH: 37
NCH: 139, 140
CH: 65
LBW: 228, 229
ELA: 503, 504, 505
W&P: 588
AMEC: 54
STLT: 200
“It Is Well with My Soul”
found in:
UMH: 377
AAHH: 377
NNBH: 255
NCH: 438
CH: 561
ELA: 785
W&P: 428
AMEC: 448
“Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone”
found in:
UMH: 424
AAHH: 554
NNBH: 221
AMEC: 155
“For the Healing of the Nations”
found in:
UMH: 428
NCH: 576
CH: 668
W&P: 621
“All Who Love and Serve Your City”
found in:
UMH: 433
H82: 570, 571
PH: 413
CH: 670
LBW: 436
ELA: 724
W&P: 625
“O God of Every Nation”
found in:
UMH: 435
H82: 607
PH: 289
CH: 680
LBW: 416
ELA: 713
W&P: 626
“Here, O My Lord, I See Thee”
found in:
UMH: 623
H82: 318
PH: 520
NCH: 336
CH: 416
LBW: 211
AMEC: 531
“You Are Mine”
found in:
CCB: 58
“God, You Are My God”
found in:
CCB: 60
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who entered into human life in all of its pain: Grant us the faith to find you in the midst of our troubles and to bring your salvation to all around us; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, for coming to dwell as one of us in the midst of our painful existence. Send your Spirit upon us, that we may have the faith to see you still dwelling with us in our turmoil. May we bring your salvation to those who struggle with us. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially our failure to enter into the pain of life where your salvation is found.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We want to think that, because we are your children, life will always be pleasant for us. We want to avoid all of the pain and turmoil that makes life human. And when we are overtaken by the troubles of life, we are so consumed by our problems that we totally forget about the suffering of others. Forgive us, and renew us in the Spirit of the Christ who suffered among us for the salvation of all. Amen.
Leader: God is here in the midst of our travail. Receive God’s grace and forgiveness, and share it with those you meet.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
We praise you, O God, for you have created us so that we might experience the fullness of life. To show your love for us, you came and entered into our mortal world.
(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 want to think that, because we are your children, life will always be pleasant for us. We want to avoid all of the pain and turmoil that makes life human. And when we are overtaken by the troubles of life, we are so consumed by our problems that we totally forget about the suffering of others. Forgive us, and renew us in the Spirit of the Christ who suffered among us for the salvation of all.
We thank you for all the ways in which you meet us in the midst of our lives. You come to us in the beauty of creation; in the love of family, friends, and church; and in the pain of life. You have promised to be with us always, and you have been true to your word.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need, and especially for those who are unable to pray because of the pain in the lives. As you hover over them and shelter them with your wings, may we be the visible presence of your love and care.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father . . . Amen.
(or if the Lord’s Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Here is an experience from my youth. Feel free to use it or let it bring to remembrance something similar.
I had worked and saved, and I bought my first brand-new bicycle. It had a speedometer on it, and I was pedaling down the street as fast as I could while watching how fast I was going. Unfortunately, that meant I wasn’t watching where I was going. I smacked into the back of a parked car. This was in the day of steel bumpers and I didn’t harm the car -- but the front fork of my bike was all bent. I closed my eyes and prayed really hard, but when I opened them the fork was still bent. God didn’t take away my pain, but I was able to get it home and straighten out the fork enough that I rode that bike for years. In fact, I still have it 50 years later!
CHILDREN’S SERMON
by Robin Lostetter
Luke 17:11-19; Psalm 66:1-12
Have the children act out Luke 17:11-19; discuss thankfulness.
Choose “Jesus,” a couple of “priests,” and as many “lepers” as necessary. (Ideally 10, but if you don’t have enough for 10, that’s okay; and if more than 10 want to be lepers, that’s okay too.) One leper needs to be outgoing enough to be coached to say [shout], “Come and see what God has done! Sing the glory of God’s name!” You might also prepare an adult ahead of time to go with the lepers to cue them for that and for the whole group saying “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” at the very beginning.
(Have the priests be seated in the very back of the worship space. Have Jesus and the lepers walk toward each other from different sides of the worship space [up front], but don’t let them meet.)
Lepers: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
Jesus: “Oh my, a group of lepers who want to be healed. Go! Show yourselves to the priests!”
(The lepers go to the priests, and as they go they begin to examine their hands and look happy. Then they show themselves to the priests?. All but one, who turns around before s/he gets to the priests; as soon as they start examining their hands, the one should loudly say)
Thankful Leper: “Come and see what God has done! Sing the glory of God’s name!”
(When s/he gets to Jesus, s/he falls on her/his knees and says: “Thank you.” Then Jesus asks)
Jesus: “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
(As the thankful Samaritan leper gets up to leave, they all return to the front and bow. Then they sit down with you, and you can ask how the one who said “thank you” felt. Did they think that Jesus then acted as the priest to that one, by saying s/he was healed? [The others went to the temple priests to be declared healed.] See if there are any questions. Close in prayer.)
Prayer: Dear God, we thank you for this story from the Bible. Help us remember it as a reminder to thank Jesus for all the good things in our lives. Amen.
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The Immediate Word, October 9, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2016 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.
