Mulligan Theology
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
A major theme in this week’s lectionary texts is how faith completely redefines our lives -- changing them on multiple levels. Not only are our inner selves transformed, but our relationships with other people, with the world in general, and with God are altered as well. The Jeremiah passage provides moving imagery for our personal changes, suggesting that we are imperfect pots whom (if we repent and turn our lives around) God recasts on the potter’s wheel and reworks into better vessels. Paul’s request for Onesimus to be treated “no longer as a slave but [rather as] a beloved brother” speaks to the modifications that can occur in our social standing and relationships with other people, as do Jesus’ startling remarks about “hat[ing] father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself.” Difficult as those words may be to hear, Jesus is talking about the need to prioritize our relationship with God -- and the necessity of letting go of everything that may stand in its way. In other words, faith changes everything -- and despite our deeply held beliefs that we control our own fates, we must come to grips with the fact that we are merely “clay in the potter’s hand.” In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Dean Feldmeyer explores how we see this theme of redefined lives and relationships in our world today -- and how the second chances they offer can be compared to having “mulligans” in the cosmic game of life. And as Dean points out, there’s no limit to God’s forgiveness and grace -- we’re invited to take as many mulligans as we need.
Team member Beth Herrinton-Hodge shares some additional thoughts on Paul’s appeal to Philemon not to treat Onesimus as a slave -- and on Labor Day weekend whether that’s an apt metaphor for how we ought to view our relationship with work. All too often, especially in a depressed job market where many are lucky to have employment, we’ve become slaves to our work. Yet as we celebrate the accomplishments of the American worker, Beth reminds us, we might want to be cognizant of the need to free ourselves occasionally from its bonds -- and to think of it as a calling akin to Paul’s characterization of Onesimus as “a beloved brother.”
Mulligan Theology
by Dean Feldmeyer
Jeremiah 18:1-11; Philemon 1:1-21; Luke 14:25-33
To hear him tell it, Mr. David Mulligan, of Montreal, Canada, was one of the world’s greatest amateur golfers. Very early every morning he would play a round of golf by himself, and then upon returning to the clubhouse brag to his friends about what a great round he had just shot.
Not quite believing him but not wanting to accuse him of outright lying, his friends decided to arrive early at the course one day and play a round of golf with David. On the first tee Mulligan sliced his drive deep into the woods, shook his head, and immediately teed up another ball. When his friends questioned him about it, he said simply: “Well, you don’t expect me to play that one, do you?” (This is, of course, only one version of the “mulligan” story. For others, see the article and comments here.)
Immediately a new word entered the golf lexicon: a “mulligan.” It’s a do-over, a free shot that you take because the first one didn’t turn out the way you wanted.
And they say there are only two kinds of golfers: those who take mulligans, and liars.
This week’s lectionary readings are about what I like to call “moral mulligans.” Jeremiah uses the metaphor of the potter’s wheel to speak of God’s decision to take a mulligan and rebuild immoral Israel. Paul asks Philemon to give the runaway slave Onesimus a mulligan and take him back as a brother. And Jesus says that our relationship with him requires us to take a mulligan on our relationships with people and things.
In fact, Christian discipleship -- which reshapes every aspect of our lives -- may be the biggest mulligan of them all.
In the News and Culture
For the past couple of weeks our kids have been heading off to school, and many of us -- parents and grandparents -- have been undergoing a kind of spiritual trauma that can only be induced by waving good-bye to those to whom we have given our very lives for the past several years.
Whether our kids are going to their first day of all-day kindergarten or their first day of junior high or their first semester of college, these times are painful because we know that the relationship we have had with them is now going to change. In kindergarten they are going to start making friends that we haven’t chosen for them. In junior high they are going to face that “frumious Bandersnatch” that is puberty. In college they will become adults.
And nothing will ever be the same again.
It is only natural that our feelings at these times are a stew of anxiety, dread, and grief over the loss of what was. But these experiences also represent opportunities.
God gives to all of us occasions which represent parental mulligans. Yes, the old relationship is passing away -- but the new one is sitting there unformed, like clay on the potter’s wheel, awaiting our ministrations to become something beautiful and glorious.
Last week in Cincinnati, Ohio, there were 174 heroin overdoses in six days. The agencies that deal with these kinds of crises estimate that there are about 13,000 heroin addicts in the city of Cincinnati, maybe twice that in the Greater Cincinnati area, which includes northern Kentucky and all the suburbs in a 25-mile radius.
Unfortunately, the traditional legal system is poorly equipped to deal with the burgeoning heroin epidemic. But many localities have begun trying to combat addictions of all kinds through drug courts, where users who are first offenders, non-violent offenders, and small-quantity offenders are given a mulligan -- and instead of jail are channeled into diversion and rehabilitation programs where addiction is treated more as an illness than a crime.
In those rehab programs one of the first things patients are told is that breaking the cycle of addiction is about more than not doing something -- not taking drugs, drinking, smoking, etc. It’s about making a positive change in your life, taking it apart and putting it back together again in a new way.
You can’t go back to your old ways of living, ways that supported your addiction. You have to live in a different place, find new friends, take up new activities and pastimes. You need to take a mulligan on all of those things, a do-over that will let you reshape your life so you can stay clean and/or sober.
Mulligans aren’t exclusive to golf.
As many have noted, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is pretty generous with his moral mulligans. He has a reputation for giving more second chances to his players than any other owner in the NFL.
When linebacker Rolando McClain received a 10-game suspension for violating the league’s substance abuse policy, Jones gave him a mulligan and allowed him to remain on the team’s roster.
Jones previously faced an avalanche of criticism when the Cowboys signed defensive lineman Greg Hardy, who had been accused of domestic violence by his ex-girlfriend. He defended his decision (even after the publication of photos showing the woman’s injuries), saying he was giving Hardy “a second chance” -- which is just another name for a mulligan.
This year, the Cincinnati Reds professional baseball team is having a bad season. No, make that a rotten season. As of August 29, their record was 55 wins and 74 losses. They are in last place in the National League Central Division, and have not a chance of climbing any higher. They can hardly give away tickets.
But not to worry -- they knew it was going to be this way, or very nearly so. Last year they had a team that they thought was going to carry them all the way to the pennant... but, alas, it was not to be. The bats got cold, the pitching was unremarkable (except for Johnnie Cueto and Aroldis Chapman), and the season ended not with a bang but a fizzle.
So the owners and managers decided to take a mulligan. They let go, traded, or demoted all but a few of the team members and started rebuilding from the bottom up. Everyone is holding their breath and crossing their fingers for next year... and the year after that.
In the Scriptures
Scripture is full of mulligans, and nowhere more so than in this week’s lectionary passages.
In the book of Jeremiah we find the prophet standing outside the potter’s house, watching the artisan practice his craft. God has invited Jeremiah here because God wants to use the potter’s work as a metaphor, and he wants Jeremiah to use that metaphor in his preaching.
So as Jeremiah watches, the potter makes a mistake in throwing the current vessel and it is ruined. But he doesn’t get angry, throw the glob of clay across the room, and stomp out. He doesn’t kick his potter’s wheel and curse it for not working better. What does he do?
He takes a mulligan. He simply smashes the clay back into its original form and sets to making another vessel.
God tells Jeremiah, “This is a metaphor for my relationship with Israel. I molded and shaped Israel with my hands, and now it has become corrupt, ruined, and useless. Therefore I’m going to take a mulligan. I’m going to smash it, return it to its original, dependent-on-YHWH form, and start over again.”
Unless, of course, Israel changes. If she turns away from evil and turns back to YHWH, God will not do this terrible thing. So God is offering Israel the chance to take a mulligan, a do-over.
Scholars are divided over Paul’s letter to Philemon -- at 25 verses, one of the shortest books of the Bible --wherein Paul asks Philemon to give a mulligan to Onesimus. We know from verse 1 that Philemon is the leader, with a woman named Apphia and a man named Archippus, of a Christian house church.
But who is Onesimus? Tradition has it that he is a runaway slave. He has heard that Paul is under house arrest in Rome and he has fled to Paul’s side. Paul has welcomed him, and Paul and Onesimus have become friends -- indeed, Paul says that Onesiums has become like a son to him. He wants the runaway slave to stay by his side, as he has been of much comfort to Paul.
Contemporary scholarship, on the other hand, says that Onesimus is Philemon’s brother and that the two have become estranged for some reason, probably a business venture gone wrong. Paul even describes Onesimus to Philemon as his “brother both in the flesh and in the Lord” (v. 16b).
But he also asks Philemon to receive Onesimus “no longer as a slave but as a beloved brother” (v. 16a).
Whether Onesimus is an estranged brother or a runaway slave, Paul is asking Philemon for a reconciliation between the two of them -- and he offers to sweeten the deal by paying any open accounts out of his own pocket.
He could hide the fact that Onesimus is with him. He could pull rank on Philemon and order him to reconcile with Onesimus. But he does neither. He sends Onesimus back to Philemon with this letter, asking Philemon for a mulligan... because until this problem is solved, this animosity is put to rest, no ministry is going to happen in that little house church led by Philemon and his friends.
Free Onesimus, Paul requests (whether from slavery or from shame and indebtedness), and receive him as a Christian brother, then let him come back to me as a free man with your blessing, even as, in doing so, you will receive my blessing.
In the gospel lesson, Jesus speaks some of the harshest words in the gospels. He demands that those who say they want to follow him sit down and count the cost, and that cost is not cheap. It requires a complete change in our relationships: to each other, to our families, and to our possessions. Christian discipleship requires a detached posture toward those people and things that we love and value the most.
“Hate” is an unfortunate and awkward word here, and does not in Aramaic or Greek carry the emotional and psychological impact that it does in English. There is no anger or rage or animosity attached to it in this context. It is pointing to something more like radical detachment.
Consider -- in Jesus Christ, God has spoken a huge “nevertheless” over our lives. Yes, we are sinful. Yes, we are estranged. Yes, we are naturally selfish and egotistical from the moment of our birth. Yes, we make mistakes, moral mistakes that we often regret all of our lives.
Nevertheless, says God, you are accepted. You are forgiven. Your past is approved. Your future is open. You are not a slave of your possessions, or your past thoughts, words, deeds, or relationships. You can step away from them, detach yourself from them and step out into a new tomorrow.
You are being given a mulligan.
But you can’t drag all that old stuff with you. You have to forget about your score on the previous nine holes and let this be your new beginning.
In the Sermon
One of the interesting things about a mulligan is that it can be a concession: You hit a terrible shot and your golfing companions say, “Why don’t you take a mulligan?”
It can also be an assertion: You hit a terrible shot and you say, “I better take a mulligan.”
It works either way. Mulligan theology works either way too.
Sometimes it comes as a concession. As Paul Tillich said, “It is as though a light breaks into the darkness and a voice is heard to be saying, ‘You are accepted. You are accepted.... Simply accept the fact that you are accepted’ ” (from the sermon “You Are Accepted,” in The Shaking of the Foundations).
Or it comes as it came to Isaiah in the Temple. He had a vision of God sitting upon a throne and saying to him, “Your guilt is taken away and your sin is forgiven” (chapter 6). Or it comes to us as a “still, small voice,” as it did to Elijah (1 Kings 19).
Whichever way you hear it, it’s the voice of God giving us a concession, saying, “Oh, wow, you messed up. Better take a mulligan.”
But sometimes it’s an assertion.
Sometimes we see that what we are doing isn’t working.
We come to realize that our addiction -- to drugs, to alcohol, to work, to cigarettes, to junk food, etc. -- is killing us. Maybe we just wake up to that realization, or maybe someone confronts us with the fact that it’s not just killing us but those we love as well.
Sometimes we become aware that we are doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Sometimes we realize that our friends and the people we hang with are toxic, that they are poisoning our lives and our other relationships.
Sometimes we realize that all those old memories, those old recordings that keep running through our minds about how incapable we are, how stupid we are, how untalented or ugly or shallow we are, are just holding us back and creating a current against which it is nearly impossible to swim.
Sometimes one of those things happens and we make an assertion and say, “You know what? I’m going to take a mulligan.”
And whether it is God who speaks it or God who hears you speak it, the answer is always the same: “Go right ahead. As many as you need.”
SECOND THOUGHTS
by Beth Herrinton-Hodge
Philemon 1:1-21
This Sunday comes in the midst of Labor Day weekend -- when many will enjoy a day-long break from their labor. The initial vision for Labor Day included a street parade to exhibit to the public “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of workers and their families. Rest, relaxation, and celebration were the hallmarks of this September holiday.
Contemporary observance of the holiday has morphed into an end-of-summer rite as much as a celebration of the accomplishments of the American worker. Yet it’s an opportune time to examine how much we have become slaves to our work... something that seems to have only increased due to both socioeconomic and technological changes.
The August 29 issue of Time magazine published a graphic image (“Data,” p. 11) comparing the average hours in a work week for six member countries of the OECD. (The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] is a group comprised of 35 member countries and 70 non-member observers that studies economic trends and developments worldwide.) The average workweek for OECD member countries is 36.8 hours. Workers in the Netherlands clock an average of 28.9 hours per week, while Turkey leads the tally with 49.1 hours. The U.S. average is a 38.6 hour workweek.
The OECD notes a trend in the reduction of working hours within member countries. The agency cites an effort in Israel to give workers an additional six Sundays off from work to ease a demanding workweek of 40.4 hours.
This data may surprise a number of U.S. workers, who assume that a 40-hour workweek is standard. Our average falls slightly below this number. Many others, both salaried professionals and hourly wage-earners, regularly put in 50 or more hours per week. Workers who hold two or more part-time jobs may work even longer hours between their multiple jobs.
At what point do the demands of one’s work extend beyond a job to enslavement?
Using the language of giftedness and call, people seek work which allows them to use their gifts for meaningful activity in God’s world. What makes work meaningful and fulfilling varies from person to person. The work that each of us takes on varies widely as well. We are less likely to feel enslaved to our work when a job corresponds to our sense of call.
In our current day, how many workers equate their gifts and call with their work? Following a recent economic downturn accompanied by high job loss, people holding jobs are fortunate. Any job -- whether part-time, full-time, minimum-wage, or contract work -- becomes a life raft on the stormy sea of unemployment. The unemployed haven’t had the luxury of seeking fulfillment in their job... they simply need work.
From desperate need, it’s only a quick hop to a feeling of enslavement to one’s work: “I’m stuck here.” “I can’t do anything else.” “I’ve got a family to feed, a mortgage to pay, bills piling up. There’s no way out.” Drudgery, limitation, lack of vision, resentment set in.
The Philemon text for this week allows us to raise questions about work, slavery, and freedom. Paul’s letter to Philemon is written while Paul himself is in prison. He writes on behalf of Onesimus, requesting that Philemon welcome and receive Onesimus as a brother in service to the gospel. Whatever separated Philemon and Onesimus in the past, Paul urges his friend Philemon to not be enslaved by this. Instead, Paul extends a plea for both Philemon and Onesimus to be freed from past events that enslaved them.
Whether Onesimus was actually a slave to Philemon is not the issue. Paul desires for both men to be free from what enslaves them so they are able to serve God and the gospel.
On this Labor Day Sunday, there is opportunity to explore how we have become enslaved to our work. Even work that we consider important and valuable can enslave us. Work that is so important that we can’t allow ourselves to take a break, for one day or for a whole week -- this is enslavement. Work requiring us to keep our cellphone handy or demanding that we respond to calls and texts at any hour of the day or night -- this is enslavement. Work that schedules us for a 40-hour work week, but doesn’t pay enough to cover weekly expenses -- this is enslavement.
Wouldn’t some of us love to have Paul write a letter requesting that we be set free?
Paul’s appeal to Philemon not to treat Onesimus as a slave (even if he is one) might be a metaphor for how we ought to view our relationship with work... whether we too need to be released from slavery to it and instead regard work as “a beloved brother.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Ron Love:
Jeremiah 18:1-11
The photo has been front page news and has also gone viral on social media. It is the picture of a dirty, bloody little boy, sitting in an ambulance with an emotionless stare. He was pulled out of a bombed building in Aleppo, Syria, after an airstrike, as battle continued to rage on. When he first arrived at the hospital, he was only known as patient M10 -- but it was soon learned that the 5-year-old was Omran Daqneesh, and that the rest of his family was safe. But his photograph and the video that was made of Omran have made him the poster child of the suffering civilians who endure during this civil war. (Note: If your sanctuary has a projection screen, you may want to display the image.)
Application: We are to use our clay to build something new and good.
*****
Jeremiah 18:1-11
The Gawker website is now bankrupt and no longer publishing online. Known for stories that were vulgar and lacked any kind of discretion, the publication’s final downfall came after it posted a sex tape of pro wrestler Hulk Hogan. Adam Penenberg, a professor of journalism at New York University, wrote of Gawker’s decision to publish the Hogan sex tape, “The real shame is that Gawker gave Hogan a sledgehammer with which (to) pulverize it in state court.”
Application: Our clay pot can be smashed if we are not obedient to God.
*****
Jeremiah 18:1-11
In a Peanuts comic strip, Lucy appears in the first frame with a very sad look on her face as she says, “I feel gloomy today.” In the next two frames we see Snoopy carrying two sticks, each with a marshmallow on the end, and offering one to Lucy. In the last frame Lucy and Snoopy are sitting by a fire roasting marshmallows on a stick, both with huge smiles, as Lucy says, “It’s impossible to be gloomy when you’re sitting behind a marshmallow.” (Note: If your sanctuary has a projection screen, you may want to display this comic.)
Application: As we are clay in the hands of the potter, we are to be made into vessels of joy.
*****
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
In a Dennis the Menace comic, Dennis is in his backyard, baseball bat on his shoulder poised to hit a pitched ball. Mr. Wilson and a friend are watching Dennis over the fence that separates the two yards. Mr. Wilson says of Dennis, “He’s leading the league in broken windows.” (Note: If your sanctuary has a projection screen, you may want to display this comic.)
Application: Psalm 139 assures us that no matter how many windows we break, God still does love us.
*****
Philemon 1:1-21
In the comic The Lockhorns, Leroy and Loretta seem to be an average middle-class family. Their marriage is one of love, but is not absent of criticism, which is an almost daily occurrence. It often seems that this is the best way they communicate. One evening they are at a party and Leroy says to another couple, “Loretta and I are a team... I tell a story, she corrects it.” (Note: If your sanctuary has a projection screen, you may want to display this comic.)
Application: Onesimus arrived not to correct Paul but to represent Paul.
*****
Philemon 1:1-21
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump recently apologized for some of the painful and insulting comments he has made during his presidential campaign. In defense of himself, Trump said: “Sometimes in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that.”
Application: Paul instructs us to act in a civil manner regardless of the situation we are in.
*****
Luke 14:25-33
New photos have been released detailing deplorable conditions at the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol detention facility in Tucson, Arizona. Inmates are held in extremely cold and dirty cells. In order to stay warm, men are jammed together under a single thin thermal blanket. Children crawl on the concrete floor around the bathroom. Many of the cells have no sleeping mats, forcing inmates to sleep on the concrete floor. The Border Patrol justified the conditions by saying that facility was just a temporary holding place.
Application: All aspects of discipleship require us to count the cost so that we can properly fulfill our duties.
*****
Luke 14:25-33
After 14 years Gawker is now bankrupt and no longer publishing online. The website was known for controversial stories that were vulgar and lacked any kind of discretion. Its final downfall came when it posted a sex tape of pro wrestler Hulk Hogan. Years earlier, the site had revealed that Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel was homosexual. Since then Thiel has been trying to close Gawker, and was able to do so by financing Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker. Thiel wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece: “Since cruelty and recklessness were intrinsic parts of Gawker’s business model, it seemed only a matter of time before they would try to pretend that journalism justified the very worst.”
Application: We are to always count the cost of any venture we undertake, or we may become spiritually bankrupt.
*****
Labor Day
Can anything good come out of Yaphank, New York? In 1918, Irving Berlin was an army recruit at Camp Upton in Yaphank. The commander of the base wanted to build a new community building there, but needed $35,000, in order to finance it. Berlin, already known for his musical abilities, was approached by the commander to write a play to raise the necessary money. And so in 1918 Yip! Yip! Yaphank! was performed by soldiers in the Liberty Theater on the base.
Application: We each have unique talents that can be used in the most unexpected places and the most unexpected ways to help others and to make society a nicer place for everyone.
*****
Labor Day
At 10 a.m. on December 13, 1862, the mist began to rise exposing the two opposing forces. Union General James Longstreet quietly stood next to Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. Neither man spoke as they watched an ocean of blue-clad soldiers forming ranks before them. The third day of the Battle of Fredericksburg was about to commence. With tension and concern, Longstreet asked Jackson if he were afraid of the columns of Yankees that were ready to march. Softly and self-assuredly Jackson responded, “Wait till they come a little nearer, and they shall either scare me or I’ll scare them.”
Application: We are taught on Labor Day the importance of staying with our assigned task for the benefit of everyone.
***************
From team member Robin Lostetter:
Philemon 1:1-21
If he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account (v. 18).
From the Washington Post:
For the past five years, the act of wearing an Islamic full-face veil in France’s public spaces has been illegal. This means that if you were a Muslim woman and you wore a niqab or a burqa and walked down the street, you ran the risk of a 150 euros ($167) fine.
This summer, some French cities have added their own local bans on the “burkini” -- a swimming garment that covers the entire body except the hands, feet, and face. If you wear the burkini on the beach in Cannes, for example, you could receive a fine of 38 euros ($43).
For the French Muslims who felt they must wear such outfits, such fines would seem like a considerable financial burden. However, it appears that thousands of these fines have been paid off by one individual -- a wealthy business executive who says that France’s laws targeting Muslim attire are “profoundly liberty-threatening.”
“I am not defending these women per se -- but defending the principle of individual civil liberties that their actions currently embody,” Rachid Nekkaz explains.
*****
Philemon 1:1-21 / Labor Day
During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump has been the poster boy for many things. And here is yet another: Mr. Trump can’t seem to take a vacation. “Mr. Trump prefers to work,” said one campaign spokesperson. Another observed, “It would bore and perhaps scare him. He needs constant activity and gratification.”
The linked article goes on to suggest that “not taking vacations may be one of the most relatable things about the billionaire. According to a recent study, a full 55% of workers took no vacations last year. When we do take them, 61% of us continue to do work.”
*****
Philemon 1:1-21 / Labor Day
Presidents’ vacations are often viewed askance by those same workers who fail to take vacations themselves, or who are unable to take vacations due to economic pressures at home. This past month, President Obama faced a natural disaster in Louisiana during his vacation, just as President Bush had some years before him. Although criticized for not cutting his vacation short and coming to the state as soon as Donald Trump, Obama followed the request of Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards and visited later with his entourage. After touring hard-hit areas, both presidential candidates made statements about how they would handle such a situation.
*****
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth (v. 15).
This little animation (with a link to “read more”) breaks down our essence, and that of everything in the known universe, into the tiniest particles -- questioning where the line is between life and non-life. It offers a fascinating discussion about the difference between “alive” and “dead” matter that goes beyond the everyday understanding of biochemistry, and it just skews my mind. Here, where all life, cells, and viruses, and the building blocks for humans, are being intricately woven in secret.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: O God, you have searched us and known us.
People: You know when we sit down and when we rise up.
Leader: You discern our thoughts from far away.
People: You search out our path and are acquainted with all our ways.
Leader: How weighty to us are your thoughts, O God!
People: How vast is the sum of them!
OR
Leader: Come to the God who is the Great Potter of Life.
People: We come to worship our Creator God.
Leader: God calls us to be the reflection of eternal glory.
People: We know we have failed to attain this.
Leader: God offers us the chance to try again.
People: With God’s help, we will change for the better.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“Now Thank We All Our God”
found in:
UMH: 102
H82: 396, 397
PH: 555
NNBH: 330
NCH: 419
CH: 715
LBW: 533, 534
ELA: 839, 840
W&P: 14
AMEC: 573
STLT: 32
“I Surrender All”
found in:
UMH: 354
AAHH: 396
NNBH: 198
W&P: 474
AMEC: 251
“How Like a Gentle Spirit”
found in:
UMH: 115
NCH: 443
CH: 69
“Amazing Grace”
found in:
UMH: 378
H82: 671
PH: 280
AAHH: 271, 272
NNBH: 161, 163
NCH: 547, 548
CH: 546
LBW: 448
ELA: 779
W&P: 422
AMEC: 226
STLT: 205, 206
Renew: 189
“This Is a Day of New Beginnings”
found in:
UMH: 383
NCH: 417
CH: 518
W&P: 355
“Spirit of the Living God”
found in:
UMH: 393
PH: 322
AAHH: 320
NNBH: 133
NCH: 283
CH: 259
W&P: 492
Renew: 90
“Breathe on Me, Breath of God”
found in:
UMH: 420
H82: 508
PH: 316
AAHH: 317
NNBH: 126
NCH: 292
CH: 254
LBW: 498
W&P: 461
AMEC: 192
“Draw Us in the Spirit’s Tether”
found in:
UMH: 632
PH: 504
NCH: 337
CH: 392
ELA: 470
“Change My Heart, O God”
found in:
CCB: 56
Renew: 143
“Take Our Bread”
found in:
CCB: 50
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
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who invites us to turn around our lives: Grant us the faith to trust that we can change and make our lives over in your image; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, for making us creatures who can change. We have often attempted to do things differently, and we have failed. Renew our faith, and help us to make our changes in your Spirit and power instead of our own. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially our failure to pay the price that change demands.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We know that we have made bad choices in our lives and that we need to change. But we don’t like change, and we really don’t like the cost of having to change. We prefer to blame others for the way things are and to stay the same ourselves. Let them change, we think, for they are worse than we are anyway. God, forgive us. Make us bold enough to own our own issues and deal with them. Amen.
Leader: God made us able to change. It isn’t easy, but we have all the resources of God at our disposal. Receive God’s Spirit and courage to make the changes you need in your life.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
We praise you, O God, for we are wondrously made. You have created us with awesome powers of mind, heart, and spirit.
(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 know that we have made bad choices in our lives and that we need to change. But we don’t like change, and we really don’t like the cost of having to change. We prefer to blame others for the way things are and to stay the same ourselves. Let them change, we think, for they are worse than we are anyway. God, forgive us. Make us bold enough to own our own issues and deal with them.
We give you thanks for your presence within all creation. Wherever we turn, we find you in our midst. Even in our worst moments, you are there to help us turn around and find a new direction for our lives.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We pray for all of us as we struggle with the things that hold us in patterns of destructive behavior. For some of us it is an addiction to drugs or alcohol or other substances. For some it is patterns of deceit and deception as we hide our true selves. For all of us it is the draw of taking the easy way, even when it turns into a very hard and dangerous road.
(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
I am going to share with the children how I was always late for school. I could not get up and get to school on time -- until they started handing out detention for being late. Suddenly I found the ability to change. Most of us have something like this in our lives. If you don’t, I give you permission to pretend you are me for one Sunday. You won’t like it!
CHILDREN’S SERMON
by Mary Austin
Jeremiah 18:1-11
Gather ahead of time: tubs of playdough -- enough for each child to have one. If you have many kids, you can pick a few to do this.
Invite the kids up, and give each one a container of playdough. (If your church is picky about messes, you may want to put a sheet or some large pieces of paper down to protect the floor.)
Tell each child that you’re going to give them 30 seconds to make an animal with the playdough. It can be a giraffe or a dog or an elephant, or anything else they want. You make an animal too -- the more awful it looks, the better.
After 30 seconds show what you made, and invite a few of them to show you their animals. Some might look great, but most will be lumpy.
Talk about how hard it is to make something with your hands, and how it takes a long time to get it right. Then share that there is one person who shapes things, and all of them have great beauty. Ask if they have any idea who that is.
Share that there’s a scripture that says that God is like a potter, working with clay or playdough. God can make things that are always beautiful, and God is always shaping us into something better. God is always working with us to make us kinder and smarter and more loving. God keeps working on us to bring out the things that are special about us, and to make us more and more like Jesus.
(Collect the playdough again. If time is an issue, you may want to get another adult or two to help with the collecting.)
Prayer: Creator God,
we thank you that you made all of us,
you shape our lives into something beautiful,
and you continue to work on us.
Even when we don’t see it,
you’re working in our lives,
making us more and more like you.
Help us to work with you
on all that you do.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, September 4, 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.
Team member Beth Herrinton-Hodge shares some additional thoughts on Paul’s appeal to Philemon not to treat Onesimus as a slave -- and on Labor Day weekend whether that’s an apt metaphor for how we ought to view our relationship with work. All too often, especially in a depressed job market where many are lucky to have employment, we’ve become slaves to our work. Yet as we celebrate the accomplishments of the American worker, Beth reminds us, we might want to be cognizant of the need to free ourselves occasionally from its bonds -- and to think of it as a calling akin to Paul’s characterization of Onesimus as “a beloved brother.”
Mulligan Theology
by Dean Feldmeyer
Jeremiah 18:1-11; Philemon 1:1-21; Luke 14:25-33
To hear him tell it, Mr. David Mulligan, of Montreal, Canada, was one of the world’s greatest amateur golfers. Very early every morning he would play a round of golf by himself, and then upon returning to the clubhouse brag to his friends about what a great round he had just shot.
Not quite believing him but not wanting to accuse him of outright lying, his friends decided to arrive early at the course one day and play a round of golf with David. On the first tee Mulligan sliced his drive deep into the woods, shook his head, and immediately teed up another ball. When his friends questioned him about it, he said simply: “Well, you don’t expect me to play that one, do you?” (This is, of course, only one version of the “mulligan” story. For others, see the article and comments here.)
Immediately a new word entered the golf lexicon: a “mulligan.” It’s a do-over, a free shot that you take because the first one didn’t turn out the way you wanted.
And they say there are only two kinds of golfers: those who take mulligans, and liars.
This week’s lectionary readings are about what I like to call “moral mulligans.” Jeremiah uses the metaphor of the potter’s wheel to speak of God’s decision to take a mulligan and rebuild immoral Israel. Paul asks Philemon to give the runaway slave Onesimus a mulligan and take him back as a brother. And Jesus says that our relationship with him requires us to take a mulligan on our relationships with people and things.
In fact, Christian discipleship -- which reshapes every aspect of our lives -- may be the biggest mulligan of them all.
In the News and Culture
For the past couple of weeks our kids have been heading off to school, and many of us -- parents and grandparents -- have been undergoing a kind of spiritual trauma that can only be induced by waving good-bye to those to whom we have given our very lives for the past several years.
Whether our kids are going to their first day of all-day kindergarten or their first day of junior high or their first semester of college, these times are painful because we know that the relationship we have had with them is now going to change. In kindergarten they are going to start making friends that we haven’t chosen for them. In junior high they are going to face that “frumious Bandersnatch” that is puberty. In college they will become adults.
And nothing will ever be the same again.
It is only natural that our feelings at these times are a stew of anxiety, dread, and grief over the loss of what was. But these experiences also represent opportunities.
God gives to all of us occasions which represent parental mulligans. Yes, the old relationship is passing away -- but the new one is sitting there unformed, like clay on the potter’s wheel, awaiting our ministrations to become something beautiful and glorious.
Last week in Cincinnati, Ohio, there were 174 heroin overdoses in six days. The agencies that deal with these kinds of crises estimate that there are about 13,000 heroin addicts in the city of Cincinnati, maybe twice that in the Greater Cincinnati area, which includes northern Kentucky and all the suburbs in a 25-mile radius.
Unfortunately, the traditional legal system is poorly equipped to deal with the burgeoning heroin epidemic. But many localities have begun trying to combat addictions of all kinds through drug courts, where users who are first offenders, non-violent offenders, and small-quantity offenders are given a mulligan -- and instead of jail are channeled into diversion and rehabilitation programs where addiction is treated more as an illness than a crime.
In those rehab programs one of the first things patients are told is that breaking the cycle of addiction is about more than not doing something -- not taking drugs, drinking, smoking, etc. It’s about making a positive change in your life, taking it apart and putting it back together again in a new way.
You can’t go back to your old ways of living, ways that supported your addiction. You have to live in a different place, find new friends, take up new activities and pastimes. You need to take a mulligan on all of those things, a do-over that will let you reshape your life so you can stay clean and/or sober.
Mulligans aren’t exclusive to golf.
As many have noted, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is pretty generous with his moral mulligans. He has a reputation for giving more second chances to his players than any other owner in the NFL.
When linebacker Rolando McClain received a 10-game suspension for violating the league’s substance abuse policy, Jones gave him a mulligan and allowed him to remain on the team’s roster.
Jones previously faced an avalanche of criticism when the Cowboys signed defensive lineman Greg Hardy, who had been accused of domestic violence by his ex-girlfriend. He defended his decision (even after the publication of photos showing the woman’s injuries), saying he was giving Hardy “a second chance” -- which is just another name for a mulligan.
This year, the Cincinnati Reds professional baseball team is having a bad season. No, make that a rotten season. As of August 29, their record was 55 wins and 74 losses. They are in last place in the National League Central Division, and have not a chance of climbing any higher. They can hardly give away tickets.
But not to worry -- they knew it was going to be this way, or very nearly so. Last year they had a team that they thought was going to carry them all the way to the pennant... but, alas, it was not to be. The bats got cold, the pitching was unremarkable (except for Johnnie Cueto and Aroldis Chapman), and the season ended not with a bang but a fizzle.
So the owners and managers decided to take a mulligan. They let go, traded, or demoted all but a few of the team members and started rebuilding from the bottom up. Everyone is holding their breath and crossing their fingers for next year... and the year after that.
In the Scriptures
Scripture is full of mulligans, and nowhere more so than in this week’s lectionary passages.
In the book of Jeremiah we find the prophet standing outside the potter’s house, watching the artisan practice his craft. God has invited Jeremiah here because God wants to use the potter’s work as a metaphor, and he wants Jeremiah to use that metaphor in his preaching.
So as Jeremiah watches, the potter makes a mistake in throwing the current vessel and it is ruined. But he doesn’t get angry, throw the glob of clay across the room, and stomp out. He doesn’t kick his potter’s wheel and curse it for not working better. What does he do?
He takes a mulligan. He simply smashes the clay back into its original form and sets to making another vessel.
God tells Jeremiah, “This is a metaphor for my relationship with Israel. I molded and shaped Israel with my hands, and now it has become corrupt, ruined, and useless. Therefore I’m going to take a mulligan. I’m going to smash it, return it to its original, dependent-on-YHWH form, and start over again.”
Unless, of course, Israel changes. If she turns away from evil and turns back to YHWH, God will not do this terrible thing. So God is offering Israel the chance to take a mulligan, a do-over.
Scholars are divided over Paul’s letter to Philemon -- at 25 verses, one of the shortest books of the Bible --wherein Paul asks Philemon to give a mulligan to Onesimus. We know from verse 1 that Philemon is the leader, with a woman named Apphia and a man named Archippus, of a Christian house church.
But who is Onesimus? Tradition has it that he is a runaway slave. He has heard that Paul is under house arrest in Rome and he has fled to Paul’s side. Paul has welcomed him, and Paul and Onesimus have become friends -- indeed, Paul says that Onesiums has become like a son to him. He wants the runaway slave to stay by his side, as he has been of much comfort to Paul.
Contemporary scholarship, on the other hand, says that Onesimus is Philemon’s brother and that the two have become estranged for some reason, probably a business venture gone wrong. Paul even describes Onesimus to Philemon as his “brother both in the flesh and in the Lord” (v. 16b).
But he also asks Philemon to receive Onesimus “no longer as a slave but as a beloved brother” (v. 16a).
Whether Onesimus is an estranged brother or a runaway slave, Paul is asking Philemon for a reconciliation between the two of them -- and he offers to sweeten the deal by paying any open accounts out of his own pocket.
He could hide the fact that Onesimus is with him. He could pull rank on Philemon and order him to reconcile with Onesimus. But he does neither. He sends Onesimus back to Philemon with this letter, asking Philemon for a mulligan... because until this problem is solved, this animosity is put to rest, no ministry is going to happen in that little house church led by Philemon and his friends.
Free Onesimus, Paul requests (whether from slavery or from shame and indebtedness), and receive him as a Christian brother, then let him come back to me as a free man with your blessing, even as, in doing so, you will receive my blessing.
In the gospel lesson, Jesus speaks some of the harshest words in the gospels. He demands that those who say they want to follow him sit down and count the cost, and that cost is not cheap. It requires a complete change in our relationships: to each other, to our families, and to our possessions. Christian discipleship requires a detached posture toward those people and things that we love and value the most.
“Hate” is an unfortunate and awkward word here, and does not in Aramaic or Greek carry the emotional and psychological impact that it does in English. There is no anger or rage or animosity attached to it in this context. It is pointing to something more like radical detachment.
Consider -- in Jesus Christ, God has spoken a huge “nevertheless” over our lives. Yes, we are sinful. Yes, we are estranged. Yes, we are naturally selfish and egotistical from the moment of our birth. Yes, we make mistakes, moral mistakes that we often regret all of our lives.
Nevertheless, says God, you are accepted. You are forgiven. Your past is approved. Your future is open. You are not a slave of your possessions, or your past thoughts, words, deeds, or relationships. You can step away from them, detach yourself from them and step out into a new tomorrow.
You are being given a mulligan.
But you can’t drag all that old stuff with you. You have to forget about your score on the previous nine holes and let this be your new beginning.
In the Sermon
One of the interesting things about a mulligan is that it can be a concession: You hit a terrible shot and your golfing companions say, “Why don’t you take a mulligan?”
It can also be an assertion: You hit a terrible shot and you say, “I better take a mulligan.”
It works either way. Mulligan theology works either way too.
Sometimes it comes as a concession. As Paul Tillich said, “It is as though a light breaks into the darkness and a voice is heard to be saying, ‘You are accepted. You are accepted.... Simply accept the fact that you are accepted’ ” (from the sermon “You Are Accepted,” in The Shaking of the Foundations).
Or it comes as it came to Isaiah in the Temple. He had a vision of God sitting upon a throne and saying to him, “Your guilt is taken away and your sin is forgiven” (chapter 6). Or it comes to us as a “still, small voice,” as it did to Elijah (1 Kings 19).
Whichever way you hear it, it’s the voice of God giving us a concession, saying, “Oh, wow, you messed up. Better take a mulligan.”
But sometimes it’s an assertion.
Sometimes we see that what we are doing isn’t working.
We come to realize that our addiction -- to drugs, to alcohol, to work, to cigarettes, to junk food, etc. -- is killing us. Maybe we just wake up to that realization, or maybe someone confronts us with the fact that it’s not just killing us but those we love as well.
Sometimes we become aware that we are doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Sometimes we realize that our friends and the people we hang with are toxic, that they are poisoning our lives and our other relationships.
Sometimes we realize that all those old memories, those old recordings that keep running through our minds about how incapable we are, how stupid we are, how untalented or ugly or shallow we are, are just holding us back and creating a current against which it is nearly impossible to swim.
Sometimes one of those things happens and we make an assertion and say, “You know what? I’m going to take a mulligan.”
And whether it is God who speaks it or God who hears you speak it, the answer is always the same: “Go right ahead. As many as you need.”
SECOND THOUGHTS
by Beth Herrinton-Hodge
Philemon 1:1-21
This Sunday comes in the midst of Labor Day weekend -- when many will enjoy a day-long break from their labor. The initial vision for Labor Day included a street parade to exhibit to the public “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of workers and their families. Rest, relaxation, and celebration were the hallmarks of this September holiday.
Contemporary observance of the holiday has morphed into an end-of-summer rite as much as a celebration of the accomplishments of the American worker. Yet it’s an opportune time to examine how much we have become slaves to our work... something that seems to have only increased due to both socioeconomic and technological changes.
The August 29 issue of Time magazine published a graphic image (“Data,” p. 11) comparing the average hours in a work week for six member countries of the OECD. (The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] is a group comprised of 35 member countries and 70 non-member observers that studies economic trends and developments worldwide.) The average workweek for OECD member countries is 36.8 hours. Workers in the Netherlands clock an average of 28.9 hours per week, while Turkey leads the tally with 49.1 hours. The U.S. average is a 38.6 hour workweek.
The OECD notes a trend in the reduction of working hours within member countries. The agency cites an effort in Israel to give workers an additional six Sundays off from work to ease a demanding workweek of 40.4 hours.
This data may surprise a number of U.S. workers, who assume that a 40-hour workweek is standard. Our average falls slightly below this number. Many others, both salaried professionals and hourly wage-earners, regularly put in 50 or more hours per week. Workers who hold two or more part-time jobs may work even longer hours between their multiple jobs.
At what point do the demands of one’s work extend beyond a job to enslavement?
Using the language of giftedness and call, people seek work which allows them to use their gifts for meaningful activity in God’s world. What makes work meaningful and fulfilling varies from person to person. The work that each of us takes on varies widely as well. We are less likely to feel enslaved to our work when a job corresponds to our sense of call.
In our current day, how many workers equate their gifts and call with their work? Following a recent economic downturn accompanied by high job loss, people holding jobs are fortunate. Any job -- whether part-time, full-time, minimum-wage, or contract work -- becomes a life raft on the stormy sea of unemployment. The unemployed haven’t had the luxury of seeking fulfillment in their job... they simply need work.
From desperate need, it’s only a quick hop to a feeling of enslavement to one’s work: “I’m stuck here.” “I can’t do anything else.” “I’ve got a family to feed, a mortgage to pay, bills piling up. There’s no way out.” Drudgery, limitation, lack of vision, resentment set in.
The Philemon text for this week allows us to raise questions about work, slavery, and freedom. Paul’s letter to Philemon is written while Paul himself is in prison. He writes on behalf of Onesimus, requesting that Philemon welcome and receive Onesimus as a brother in service to the gospel. Whatever separated Philemon and Onesimus in the past, Paul urges his friend Philemon to not be enslaved by this. Instead, Paul extends a plea for both Philemon and Onesimus to be freed from past events that enslaved them.
Whether Onesimus was actually a slave to Philemon is not the issue. Paul desires for both men to be free from what enslaves them so they are able to serve God and the gospel.
On this Labor Day Sunday, there is opportunity to explore how we have become enslaved to our work. Even work that we consider important and valuable can enslave us. Work that is so important that we can’t allow ourselves to take a break, for one day or for a whole week -- this is enslavement. Work requiring us to keep our cellphone handy or demanding that we respond to calls and texts at any hour of the day or night -- this is enslavement. Work that schedules us for a 40-hour work week, but doesn’t pay enough to cover weekly expenses -- this is enslavement.
Wouldn’t some of us love to have Paul write a letter requesting that we be set free?
Paul’s appeal to Philemon not to treat Onesimus as a slave (even if he is one) might be a metaphor for how we ought to view our relationship with work... whether we too need to be released from slavery to it and instead regard work as “a beloved brother.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Ron Love:
Jeremiah 18:1-11
The photo has been front page news and has also gone viral on social media. It is the picture of a dirty, bloody little boy, sitting in an ambulance with an emotionless stare. He was pulled out of a bombed building in Aleppo, Syria, after an airstrike, as battle continued to rage on. When he first arrived at the hospital, he was only known as patient M10 -- but it was soon learned that the 5-year-old was Omran Daqneesh, and that the rest of his family was safe. But his photograph and the video that was made of Omran have made him the poster child of the suffering civilians who endure during this civil war. (Note: If your sanctuary has a projection screen, you may want to display the image.)
Application: We are to use our clay to build something new and good.
*****
Jeremiah 18:1-11
The Gawker website is now bankrupt and no longer publishing online. Known for stories that were vulgar and lacked any kind of discretion, the publication’s final downfall came after it posted a sex tape of pro wrestler Hulk Hogan. Adam Penenberg, a professor of journalism at New York University, wrote of Gawker’s decision to publish the Hogan sex tape, “The real shame is that Gawker gave Hogan a sledgehammer with which (to) pulverize it in state court.”
Application: Our clay pot can be smashed if we are not obedient to God.
*****
Jeremiah 18:1-11
In a Peanuts comic strip, Lucy appears in the first frame with a very sad look on her face as she says, “I feel gloomy today.” In the next two frames we see Snoopy carrying two sticks, each with a marshmallow on the end, and offering one to Lucy. In the last frame Lucy and Snoopy are sitting by a fire roasting marshmallows on a stick, both with huge smiles, as Lucy says, “It’s impossible to be gloomy when you’re sitting behind a marshmallow.” (Note: If your sanctuary has a projection screen, you may want to display this comic.)
Application: As we are clay in the hands of the potter, we are to be made into vessels of joy.
*****
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
In a Dennis the Menace comic, Dennis is in his backyard, baseball bat on his shoulder poised to hit a pitched ball. Mr. Wilson and a friend are watching Dennis over the fence that separates the two yards. Mr. Wilson says of Dennis, “He’s leading the league in broken windows.” (Note: If your sanctuary has a projection screen, you may want to display this comic.)
Application: Psalm 139 assures us that no matter how many windows we break, God still does love us.
*****
Philemon 1:1-21
In the comic The Lockhorns, Leroy and Loretta seem to be an average middle-class family. Their marriage is one of love, but is not absent of criticism, which is an almost daily occurrence. It often seems that this is the best way they communicate. One evening they are at a party and Leroy says to another couple, “Loretta and I are a team... I tell a story, she corrects it.” (Note: If your sanctuary has a projection screen, you may want to display this comic.)
Application: Onesimus arrived not to correct Paul but to represent Paul.
*****
Philemon 1:1-21
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump recently apologized for some of the painful and insulting comments he has made during his presidential campaign. In defense of himself, Trump said: “Sometimes in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that.”
Application: Paul instructs us to act in a civil manner regardless of the situation we are in.
*****
Luke 14:25-33
New photos have been released detailing deplorable conditions at the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol detention facility in Tucson, Arizona. Inmates are held in extremely cold and dirty cells. In order to stay warm, men are jammed together under a single thin thermal blanket. Children crawl on the concrete floor around the bathroom. Many of the cells have no sleeping mats, forcing inmates to sleep on the concrete floor. The Border Patrol justified the conditions by saying that facility was just a temporary holding place.
Application: All aspects of discipleship require us to count the cost so that we can properly fulfill our duties.
*****
Luke 14:25-33
After 14 years Gawker is now bankrupt and no longer publishing online. The website was known for controversial stories that were vulgar and lacked any kind of discretion. Its final downfall came when it posted a sex tape of pro wrestler Hulk Hogan. Years earlier, the site had revealed that Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel was homosexual. Since then Thiel has been trying to close Gawker, and was able to do so by financing Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker. Thiel wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece: “Since cruelty and recklessness were intrinsic parts of Gawker’s business model, it seemed only a matter of time before they would try to pretend that journalism justified the very worst.”
Application: We are to always count the cost of any venture we undertake, or we may become spiritually bankrupt.
*****
Labor Day
Can anything good come out of Yaphank, New York? In 1918, Irving Berlin was an army recruit at Camp Upton in Yaphank. The commander of the base wanted to build a new community building there, but needed $35,000, in order to finance it. Berlin, already known for his musical abilities, was approached by the commander to write a play to raise the necessary money. And so in 1918 Yip! Yip! Yaphank! was performed by soldiers in the Liberty Theater on the base.
Application: We each have unique talents that can be used in the most unexpected places and the most unexpected ways to help others and to make society a nicer place for everyone.
*****
Labor Day
At 10 a.m. on December 13, 1862, the mist began to rise exposing the two opposing forces. Union General James Longstreet quietly stood next to Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. Neither man spoke as they watched an ocean of blue-clad soldiers forming ranks before them. The third day of the Battle of Fredericksburg was about to commence. With tension and concern, Longstreet asked Jackson if he were afraid of the columns of Yankees that were ready to march. Softly and self-assuredly Jackson responded, “Wait till they come a little nearer, and they shall either scare me or I’ll scare them.”
Application: We are taught on Labor Day the importance of staying with our assigned task for the benefit of everyone.
***************
From team member Robin Lostetter:
Philemon 1:1-21
If he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account (v. 18).
From the Washington Post:
For the past five years, the act of wearing an Islamic full-face veil in France’s public spaces has been illegal. This means that if you were a Muslim woman and you wore a niqab or a burqa and walked down the street, you ran the risk of a 150 euros ($167) fine.
This summer, some French cities have added their own local bans on the “burkini” -- a swimming garment that covers the entire body except the hands, feet, and face. If you wear the burkini on the beach in Cannes, for example, you could receive a fine of 38 euros ($43).
For the French Muslims who felt they must wear such outfits, such fines would seem like a considerable financial burden. However, it appears that thousands of these fines have been paid off by one individual -- a wealthy business executive who says that France’s laws targeting Muslim attire are “profoundly liberty-threatening.”
“I am not defending these women per se -- but defending the principle of individual civil liberties that their actions currently embody,” Rachid Nekkaz explains.
*****
Philemon 1:1-21 / Labor Day
During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump has been the poster boy for many things. And here is yet another: Mr. Trump can’t seem to take a vacation. “Mr. Trump prefers to work,” said one campaign spokesperson. Another observed, “It would bore and perhaps scare him. He needs constant activity and gratification.”
The linked article goes on to suggest that “not taking vacations may be one of the most relatable things about the billionaire. According to a recent study, a full 55% of workers took no vacations last year. When we do take them, 61% of us continue to do work.”
*****
Philemon 1:1-21 / Labor Day
Presidents’ vacations are often viewed askance by those same workers who fail to take vacations themselves, or who are unable to take vacations due to economic pressures at home. This past month, President Obama faced a natural disaster in Louisiana during his vacation, just as President Bush had some years before him. Although criticized for not cutting his vacation short and coming to the state as soon as Donald Trump, Obama followed the request of Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards and visited later with his entourage. After touring hard-hit areas, both presidential candidates made statements about how they would handle such a situation.
*****
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth (v. 15).
This little animation (with a link to “read more”) breaks down our essence, and that of everything in the known universe, into the tiniest particles -- questioning where the line is between life and non-life. It offers a fascinating discussion about the difference between “alive” and “dead” matter that goes beyond the everyday understanding of biochemistry, and it just skews my mind. Here, where all life, cells, and viruses, and the building blocks for humans, are being intricately woven in secret.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: O God, you have searched us and known us.
People: You know when we sit down and when we rise up.
Leader: You discern our thoughts from far away.
People: You search out our path and are acquainted with all our ways.
Leader: How weighty to us are your thoughts, O God!
People: How vast is the sum of them!
OR
Leader: Come to the God who is the Great Potter of Life.
People: We come to worship our Creator God.
Leader: God calls us to be the reflection of eternal glory.
People: We know we have failed to attain this.
Leader: God offers us the chance to try again.
People: With God’s help, we will change for the better.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“Now Thank We All Our God”
found in:
UMH: 102
H82: 396, 397
PH: 555
NNBH: 330
NCH: 419
CH: 715
LBW: 533, 534
ELA: 839, 840
W&P: 14
AMEC: 573
STLT: 32
“I Surrender All”
found in:
UMH: 354
AAHH: 396
NNBH: 198
W&P: 474
AMEC: 251
“How Like a Gentle Spirit”
found in:
UMH: 115
NCH: 443
CH: 69
“Amazing Grace”
found in:
UMH: 378
H82: 671
PH: 280
AAHH: 271, 272
NNBH: 161, 163
NCH: 547, 548
CH: 546
LBW: 448
ELA: 779
W&P: 422
AMEC: 226
STLT: 205, 206
Renew: 189
“This Is a Day of New Beginnings”
found in:
UMH: 383
NCH: 417
CH: 518
W&P: 355
“Spirit of the Living God”
found in:
UMH: 393
PH: 322
AAHH: 320
NNBH: 133
NCH: 283
CH: 259
W&P: 492
Renew: 90
“Breathe on Me, Breath of God”
found in:
UMH: 420
H82: 508
PH: 316
AAHH: 317
NNBH: 126
NCH: 292
CH: 254
LBW: 498
W&P: 461
AMEC: 192
“Draw Us in the Spirit’s Tether”
found in:
UMH: 632
PH: 504
NCH: 337
CH: 392
ELA: 470
“Change My Heart, O God”
found in:
CCB: 56
Renew: 143
“Take Our Bread”
found in:
CCB: 50
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
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who invites us to turn around our lives: Grant us the faith to trust that we can change and make our lives over in your image; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, for making us creatures who can change. We have often attempted to do things differently, and we have failed. Renew our faith, and help us to make our changes in your Spirit and power instead of our own. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially our failure to pay the price that change demands.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We know that we have made bad choices in our lives and that we need to change. But we don’t like change, and we really don’t like the cost of having to change. We prefer to blame others for the way things are and to stay the same ourselves. Let them change, we think, for they are worse than we are anyway. God, forgive us. Make us bold enough to own our own issues and deal with them. Amen.
Leader: God made us able to change. It isn’t easy, but we have all the resources of God at our disposal. Receive God’s Spirit and courage to make the changes you need in your life.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
We praise you, O God, for we are wondrously made. You have created us with awesome powers of mind, heart, and spirit.
(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 know that we have made bad choices in our lives and that we need to change. But we don’t like change, and we really don’t like the cost of having to change. We prefer to blame others for the way things are and to stay the same ourselves. Let them change, we think, for they are worse than we are anyway. God, forgive us. Make us bold enough to own our own issues and deal with them.
We give you thanks for your presence within all creation. Wherever we turn, we find you in our midst. Even in our worst moments, you are there to help us turn around and find a new direction for our lives.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We pray for all of us as we struggle with the things that hold us in patterns of destructive behavior. For some of us it is an addiction to drugs or alcohol or other substances. For some it is patterns of deceit and deception as we hide our true selves. For all of us it is the draw of taking the easy way, even when it turns into a very hard and dangerous road.
(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
I am going to share with the children how I was always late for school. I could not get up and get to school on time -- until they started handing out detention for being late. Suddenly I found the ability to change. Most of us have something like this in our lives. If you don’t, I give you permission to pretend you are me for one Sunday. You won’t like it!
CHILDREN’S SERMON
by Mary Austin
Jeremiah 18:1-11
Gather ahead of time: tubs of playdough -- enough for each child to have one. If you have many kids, you can pick a few to do this.
Invite the kids up, and give each one a container of playdough. (If your church is picky about messes, you may want to put a sheet or some large pieces of paper down to protect the floor.)
Tell each child that you’re going to give them 30 seconds to make an animal with the playdough. It can be a giraffe or a dog or an elephant, or anything else they want. You make an animal too -- the more awful it looks, the better.
After 30 seconds show what you made, and invite a few of them to show you their animals. Some might look great, but most will be lumpy.
Talk about how hard it is to make something with your hands, and how it takes a long time to get it right. Then share that there is one person who shapes things, and all of them have great beauty. Ask if they have any idea who that is.
Share that there’s a scripture that says that God is like a potter, working with clay or playdough. God can make things that are always beautiful, and God is always shaping us into something better. God is always working with us to make us kinder and smarter and more loving. God keeps working on us to bring out the things that are special about us, and to make us more and more like Jesus.
(Collect the playdough again. If time is an issue, you may want to get another adult or two to help with the collecting.)
Prayer: Creator God,
we thank you that you made all of us,
you shape our lives into something beautiful,
and you continue to work on us.
Even when we don’t see it,
you’re working in our lives,
making us more and more like you.
Help us to work with you
on all that you do.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, September 4, 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.
