A New Provocation
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
The voting is now over and this past week President Obama was re-elected to another four-year term. But as the dust settles and the yard signs and bumper stickers begin to disappear, the question that is foremost on many people's minds is "What happens now?" Will anything really change as a result of the election or will the bickering in our halls of power merely resume anew with a few fresh faces sprinkled into the mix? The pundits and Monday-morning quarterbacks have suggested that there will be new incentives for the parties to find compromise -- particularly in the face of dealing with the looming specter of what's being termed the "fiscal cliff" -- yet after a campaign that often resembled trench warfare, it's not surprising that both sides have been busy staking out hard negotiating positions. Politicians of all stripes have spent the last several months demonizing their opponents' motives and attempting to capitalize on "gaffes" -- so it's certainly difficult to envision them easily putting all of that aside and sitting down together. But in this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Dean Feldmeyer points out that rather than stoking anger, the lectionary's assigned epistle text for Proper 28 encourages us to reach out to one another and to find common ground... a most timely message as post-election wounds are still raw and festering for many folks.
Team member Mary Austin offers some additional thoughts on this week's gospel text and its themes of impermanence and the inevitability of change. Mary notes that change is a threatening thing for many of us -- especially when it pushes us out of our comfort zones and uproots deeply cherished notions that we have always assumed as the bedrock of our lives. Certainly the results of some ballot initiatives around the country herald changing attitudes on a number of social fronts -- and as many commentators have noted, even the composition of the electorate itself is changing in some very fundamental ways... which perhaps explains some of the hyperbole on the part of those (on both sides) who came up short in the election. While change can be very difficult to cope with, Jesus reminds us that it is a key part of God's world... and that it's the sign of something new being created. No matter how permanent we may think our great buildings and institutions are, they are always going to pass away -- only God is eternal.
A New Provocation
by Dean Feldmeyer
Hebrews 10:11-25
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another...
-- Hebrews 10:23-25
With malice toward none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
-- Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, from his second Inaugural Address
THE WORLD
Compare Lincoln's words from 1865 -- so prescient that they might have been written last week -- to those of a modern-day would-be leader (Donald Trump) who tweeted on election night: "We can't let this happen... We should march on Washington and stop this travesty... More votes equals a loss... Revolution!... Let's fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice... The world is laughing at us."
Political pundits have been scrambling to explain the outcome of last week's election. Here is some of what the conservative ones have come up with:
* The people who voted for Obama are "maggots" (Texas GOP official Peter Morrison);
* They are "not traditional Americans" because they value "stuff" over principle (Bill O'Reilly);
* America has "reached the tipping point" where the takers outnumber the makers (Ann Coulter);
* That under such circumstances Obama's win amounts to a "travesty" that calls for "a revolution" (Donald Trump);
* The only appropriate response to this win is to "buy farmland", move there, and take plenty of "ammunition" (Glenn Beck).
Rocker Ted Nugent tweeted that those who voted for Obama were "pimps, whores, welfare brats", and "soulless fools." Author and blogger Robert Stacy McCain was one of two commentators who called November 6 another "day that will go down in infamy", and a second "Pearl Harbor." Dick Morris said that the new agenda of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives should be to make sure that the president accomplishes nothing in the next four years. Former Saturday Night Live star Victoria Jackson said she couldn't stop crying because "America died."
Meanwhile, big business has pouted and showed its dismay by sending the stock market into a skid and predicting doom and destruction when we all ride headlong over the "fiscal cliff." Robert E. Murray of Ohio-based Murray Energy, the country's largest privately owned coal company, read a prayer to his employees lamenting the terrible things he is sure this election will mean for America. Then he laid off 156 of them, saying that the election gave him no choice but to stockpile as much cash as he could.
And even as conservatives throw temper tantrums and hissy fits, liberals are enjoying themselves way too much. Writing for the online magazine Slate, Katherine Goldstein points out that "Liberal Schadenfreude Is Out of Control" and tries to explain "why gloating after the election is nastier than ever." She offers examples from bloggers and tweets -- most of which are simply too obscene to print here -- as liberals dance on what they presume are the graves of their conservative counterparts. A couple of the milder examples:
* A tweeter who ironically calls him/herself "Wisdom Seeker" says: "Republicans are astounded that voters reject their racism, hate, bad policies, and myopic vision," and refers to them as a "sad, sick bunch."
* Someone named Ashtray Shotglass reports that at first she was "amused at having these old Republicans as work friends, but now I hate them. I hate them so hard."
Everyone seems to be focused upon the behavior of everyone else and what it means or may mean for the future of our country. But have any of them spent even the briefest moment examining their own behavior or their own attitudes and asking what effect they are having upon the country and those -- especially the children and youth -- who are watching them? It has never been truer than with our children today that "we get what we are."
One almost gets the feeling that some of these people will actually be happy if we leap off the fiscal cliff into another recession and higher unemployment so they can point the finger at and blame the other side. Is that how Christian people behave? Is that how sanctified believers in the Lord Jesus Christ approach people whose politics are different from their own?
THE WORD
As the liturgical year progresses it moves from indicative to imperative, from justification to sanctification. The passages and stories of the lectionary are more directive. They challenge us to reflect the good news of Jesus Christ in our behavior.
The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews makes a solid case for the justification, the purification of believer by way of Jesus' death on the cross and his subsequent resurrection. But he doesn't stop there. He is also clear that certain behavior is now expected of us as justified believers. We are called to live sanctified lives.
What does that look like? In 10:24-15 he lays some of it out for us:
1) Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.
We don't often think of the word "provoke" in a context such as this. It's an interesting choice, isn't it? Literally, it means to "call forth." And it usually is associated with anger or rage. But here the author redefines the word. Here he challenges us to call forth good things, good deeds, and acts of love from one another. Christians have a responsibility to find new ways to urge each appropriate, loving, helping behavior in one another.
2) ...not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another...
Secondly, he reminds us that we cannot provoke one another to love and good deeds from a distance. We need to be in physical proximity to each other. Physical closeness evokes emotional closeness. It is easy to resent and ridicule people from a distance, but as Christians we are called to meet together in the context of love and fellowship where it is hard to hate.
Scripture assumes that the world is a place of separation and estrangement. Rich are divided from poor, males are divided from females, Jews are divided from Gentiles, clean from unclean, sick from healthy, urban from rural. It is what it is -- divided and estranged.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
That we are riven is a given -- 50%-48% does not a mandate make. The country is divided.
Nothing new there. It has always been thus. Our two-party system enables and encourages separation and estrangement, division and divisiveness. And that is fine, as far as politics goes. (Make sure you are even-handed when you illustrate the depth of the division. It comes from both the right and the left.)
But as sanctified believers, followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to overcome separation, to transcend division, and to transform estrangement.
The challenge is not to unite everyone into a giant homogenous mass but to bridge the separations, to walk out onto the bridge of reconciliation even as we are building it, and to take risks for the sake of unity.
We begin doing that by coming together physically, if not ideologically, and encouraging each other in acts of love and good will.
A lot of provoking has gone on over the past few months.†Maybe now would be a good time to consider this new kind. If we can do this, then it is almost certain that "they will know we are Christians by our love."
SECOND THOUGHTS
by Mary Austin
Mark 13:1-8
In first-century Jerusalem, it must have seemed impossible to imagine a world without the temple. As a place of worship, commerce, meeting, and tourism, there was nothing quite like it. This was the temple built in the early 500s BCE, after the return of the exiles from Babylon, and rebuilt by Herod, the ruler appointed by Rome. Between 530 BCE and 130 CE, six different empires controlled Jerusalem and the worship of God continued in the temple. World powers came and went and the worship of God endured. It seemed impossible that it would ever change, but in this week's gospel text Jesus is saying that the day will come when the huge stones are scattered and the temple as a physical place is no more.
Large as it was physically, the idea and the importance of the temple were even larger. We have similar icons in our own public imagination. Mom and apple pie. Baseball. Going to the voting booth on election day to cast a ballot. The blissful newlywed couple, a man in a tux and a woman in a white dress.
Change is all around us too.
With each election, the voting booth is less and less a community gathering place or an emblem of democracy. As Ann Gearhart wrote in the Washington Post on November 5th, "[It] was inevitable that Election Day would become a relic of community solidarity. This is the year it's finally, irrefutably, finished. More than 30 million people have already cast ballots, a record in the early-voting sweepstakes. President Obama helped stick a fork in the concept of Election Day a week before Halloween, when he made history as the first U.S. President to vote early, in Chicago. (He was asked for, and produced, ID.)" Voting in Oregon and Washington happens exclusively by mail now and there are no more voting booths to be found.
And our collective image of marriage is changing, as three states affirmed the right of same-gender couples to marry, and one voted against a constitutional amendment to ban it. The blissful couple can look very different these days. An article in the online magazine Slate describes how marriage equality proponents worked to change people's minds about gay marriage in Maine and Minnesota
Research revealed that most voters didn't understand gay marriage to be an issue about love and commitment, and so they ran a voter education campaign called "Why Marriage Matters." The campaign's message was "love, commitment, family" -- there was "no mention of rights or benefits. On the surface, it look[ed] like any garden-variety public education campaign, a little vague, a little sappy. But this message was the result of several years and millions of dollars of research. It signaled a sea of change in the way gay advocates pled their case. This was a way to invite straight people to empathize with gay people, to reassure the majority that gay people wanted the same things that they did, and to shift focus from minority rights to points of commonality." Gay marriage turns out to be a lot like the marriages we know. The things that seem so different turn out to be much the same.
People upset by the results of the presidential election, the votes to legalize marijuana use, and the votes to approve gay marriage have expressed feelings evoking Jesus' words about "wars and rumors of wars." In another article in the Washington Post, writer Eli Saslow interviewed disappointed Romney supporters in Tennessee. He found Beth Cox dismantling the local campaign headquarters, and Saslow described her feelings of the future seeming bleak. Cox "could sense liberalism creeping closer, and she worried about what Red America would look like after four more years. Nashville itself had gone for Obama, and 400,000 more people in Tennessee had signed up for food stamps in the last five years to further a culture of dependency. The ACLU had sued her school board for allowing youth pastors to visit middle school cafeterias during lunch. Some of her friends had begun to wonder if the country was lost and if only God could save it." A way of life that looked like it would never change is shifting dramatically and for many people it's hard to feel hopeful about the future.
Yet change is central to the message of Jesus. One of the most repeated phrases in the Bible is "do not be afraid" -- perhaps because we are so prone to be afraid in the face of the unknown. Life holds the changes we seek, and also the ones we hate; the change we think we want, and the change that's forced on us. All of it, even the good stuff, is hard.
Jesus understands change better than anyone else I know. Central to his message is that we can't stay where we are and still be deeply engaged with God. Our connection with God inevitably leads to change, in ourselves and in the world. There is no holding on, whether it's to the temple or the voting booth or to our idea of how the world should be.
As he speaks, Jesus doesn't hold back about how hard things will be. He speaks about physical hardships, which many people also experience in our world. There's also another level of emotional distress for many people as the world shifts. All of it is in service to the birth of something new. "This is but the beginning of the birth pangs," Jesus promises. Something new is always being born in God's world. May we be able to keep up, by God's wise grace.
ILLUSTRATIONS
In Anne Lamott's novel All New People, the main character, Nanny, attends church services on and off with her mother, Marie, at a little church with wide open doors. Those open doors attract John, a mentally ill homeless man whose mannerisms, eccentricities, and person make Marie crazy. She feeds the hobos that pass through town on the train. She fights for justice and volunteers like it's her full-time job. She gives all people the benefit of the doubt... all people, that is, but John. Something about John empties her well of patience and provokes her to intolerance and meanness that is inconsistent with her faith.
Then John falls terminally ill, and James, the pastor of the little church, encourages the members to surround John at the hospital for baptism and blessing. John's need finally provokes Marie to act in love and go to be with him.
At John's memorial service, James shares a recording of John playing the piano. It turns out that John was a classically trained pianist whose gifts persisted even through his illness and his decline. Nanny says of this experience:
It was unlike anything I had ever heard in my life. The last notes hung in the air, some high like chimes, some like smoke. Everyone was crying, even my mother. James said that the music was God using John as an instrument, God playing John. The choir sang, "When I go up to Heaven I'll walk about, There's nobody there to turn me out; Deep River, my home is over Jordan." In a way I've never quite understood, the veil tore an inch for me that day, like it does every so often when in the midst of all that is mundane and day-to-day, there's suddenly a tiny tear in the veil, and you see the bigger brighter thing, and then the veil repairs itself, and the day goes on as before. (pg. 142)
When we are provoked, how do we respond? In sharp, defensive, and irritated ways or out of our faithfulness and hope? On the other side of things, how do we provoke others? How can we draw love and good deeds out of those with whom we make this journey of faith? When we encourage each other in these ways, what do we see or experience? Is the veil torn a bit? Is the approaching day that the writer of Hebrews mentions in verse 25 clearer and closer on the horizon?
* * *
In his political blog on the Esquire website, Charles P. Pierce writes about change and how our newly re-elected president is swimming in it. "Change is the force around him when he walks into the room," says Pierce.
This blogger is definitely an Obama supporter but the caricature of Obama at the top of the post is strangely bathed in inappropriate racial overtones. However, if those two speed bumps don't stop you from engaging Pierce's work, you may find that the post is full of thoughtful material on change, how we change together, and where that takes us.
Pierce argues that the business we're about in the world and so who we become is shaped by the "creative project of self-government." Us church-types might interpret that project as trying to figure out how to live well together in "the new and living way" (Hebrews 10:20) Jesus forged or "provoking one another to love and good deeds" in order to move toward the day of God that is approaching (Hebrews 10:25). However we frame it, all of this, Pierce writes, is surrounded by, immersed in, shaped through, and made possible through change.
In our passage from Mark's gospel for today, Jesus warns that change is coming, it cannot be stopped, and it won't be easy, but that it's creating something new and promising and beautiful -- like the birth pangs that bring forth new life (v. 8).
In his post, Pierce writes that the "creative project" and the ever-rolling change that comes with it (or that it is made up of) is bringing forth new life as well:
We are working on ourselves. We are incomplete. We are never finished. Elections come and go. The political commonwealth is a work in progress. We work with the tools that time and circumstance provide....
The same is true of the Christian commonwealth, the kingdom. We ride the tide of change (and wrestle with it, get choked by it, get swept off our feet by it), and we work our incomplete selves, churches, and communities into temples that will fall and be born again in some ever-unfinished but progressing way of new life, promise, and beauty in God.
* * *
What in our lives or our churches seems "too big to fail," like the temple would have seemed to the disciples? What (or maybe who) is it that looms large, exerting power and influence on the status quo? The disciples talked to Jesus about the temple's size. It must have seemed imposing and impressive to these visitors to the big city, but then Jesus tells them that all that seems unchangeable will fall to what will come in God.
Speaking of too big to fail, what happens to the GOP or even the two-party system as we have known it after an election like we just witnessed? Brand-new Senator Ted Cruz from Texas spoke about this in his interview with Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker. He traced the Republican Party's failure to win Latino voters to future elections. If Republicans continue on this road, says Cruz, they will lose Texas and its 38 electoral votes and...
"If that happens, no Republican will ever again win the White House. New York and California are for the foreseeable future unalterably Democrat. If Texas turns bright blue, the Electoral College math is simple. We won't be talking about Ohio, we won't be talking about Florida or Virginia, because it won't matter. If Texas is bright blue, you can't get to 270 electoral votes. The Republican Party would cease to exist."
And then what?
* * *
In her Dilworth neighborhood of Charlotte, North Carolina, Paula Broadwell was the perfect wife, mother, and homemaker. She served dinner by candlelight. She walked her two children to the bus stop each morning. She held backyard barbecues to greet new neighbors. She raised money for a special charity to care for the needs of wounded war veterans. Yes, for those standing on the curb she did provoke others to be family and community minded.
But to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Paula Broadwell, that perfect neighbor, was one who provoked a national security crisis when she gained access to the personal computer of CIA director David Petraeus. Paula Broadwell, the perfect wife, became the homewrecker for Holly Petraeus by having an extended affair with her husband; Paula Broadwell, the perfect soccer mom, provoked fear with threatening emails to Jill Kelley, a Petraeus family friend of five years. Yes, for those in the offices of the FBI, Paula Broadwell provoked a criminal investigation into cyber-harassment.
The gospel asks which shall we provoke -- fear or love. The gospel asks who we really are -- our public image or our private image.
* * *
Ann Romney campaigned vigorously for her husband Mitt during his presidential run. Her determination is to be admired, for she did so while battling another campaign, this one against multiple sclerosis. But in her enthusiasm, she often pushed or "provoked" her body beyond its level of endurance, collapsing early in the campaign. She said of one incident, "My body was just telling me again, 'You can't just go. Knock, knock, I'm here.' You can't do this to me."
We should be servants in helping others, but we should not push, or should we say "provoke," ourselves beyond our levels of endurance.
* * *
Black Friday will soon be upon us and this should not be confused with Good Friday. The former is a day of taking, the latter is a day of giving.
As retailers approach Black Friday, their advertising and sales strategies have been planned and ready for implementation. It is the mission of cybergroups to discover and divulge these plans to the public, allowing consumers to discover the best retail deals. But in many cases, retailers actually want their secrets to be discovered, as a way to provoke better sales that results from the consumer's joy of unveiling a supposed secret.
Details of the Black Friday special deals are leaked to the websites in one of three ways: as a cellphone photo from someone involved in production of the print advertisement; in an email sent by an employee; or most directly, through passing on the advertisement while the CEO purposely looks the other way.
Be careful about thinking that what is provoking you to a good deal may really only be a ploy to entrap you.
* * *
A family of tourists from the Midwest steps out of a yellow cab in lower Manhattan. They walk a short distance until their eyes are pulled upward by the amazing sight before them. It's a massive skyscraper, larger than any they've ever seen: one of the two towers of the World Trade Center. Its twin stands nearby, equally commanding their attention. They are so much bigger than they had imagined, those towers: broad across the base, soaring majestically in height.
Just then the tourist family hears a strident voice. "Repent!" cries the voice. "The end is near. One day soon, not one stone of these towers will be left standing upon another!"
"Just some religious fanatic," explains the husband, laughing nervously, before leading his wife and children over to ask for directions to the observation deck.
Had such a scene actually occurred on September 10, 2001, it would hardly have seemed remarkable. Street preachers are part of the life of any major city. Yet who would have taken that man seriously? Who could have known -- except perhaps for a small group of terrorists, putting the finishing touches on their dreadful conspiracy -- that the very next day, the words of that street-corner preacher would prove to be absolutely correct?
Who could have known either that Jesus' prediction about the future of the temple is absolutely correct? "Do you see these great buildings?" he asks his disciples -- especially the one who'd been walking around like a country bumpkin, gawking at the urban landscape. "Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down." To Jesus' listeners that prediction seems incredible: for what could be more permanent, more stubbornly enduring, than the temple?
-- Carlos Wilton, Lectionary Preaching Workbook [Series VIII, Cycle B] (CSS Publishing, 2006)
* * *
At the end of the movie Fiddler on the Roof, the Jewish villagers have been ordered off their lands and forced to move on to some other place. They have lost everything, even their homes and community, as each family plans to seek out family members in some other part of the world. In the midst of this great sadness and loss, one of the characters turns to the rabbi and says: "With so much violence and sadness, wouldn't this be a good time for Messiah to come?" The rabbi answers him, "We'll have to wait for him someplace else."
The disciples thought it would surely be the end of the world if the temple were destroyed. The Romans thought it was the end of the world if the barbarians entered the city. The people of Europe thought surely the plague of the Black Death was the end of the world. Jesus says to the disciples, "Just because there is violence and sadness, don't expect that the world will end."
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: Let our hearts exult in God.
People: Our strength is renewed in our God.
Leader: There is no Holy One like God.
People: There is no rock like our God.
Leader: God will judge the ends of the earth.
People: God will give strength to the Anointed One.
OR
Leader: Let us come together in the presence of God.
People: We come to provoke one another -- not to anger, but to love.
Leader: Let us encourage one another in good works.
People: We lift one another up to reflect the image of God.
Leader: In God we are all one people.
People: In Christ we are all one body.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
"We Gather Together"
found in:
UMH: 131
H82: 433
PH: 559
NNBH: 326
NCH: 421
CH: 276
"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
"Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise"
found in:
UMH: 103
H82: 423
PH: 263
NCH: 1
CH: 66
LBW: 526
ELA: 834
Renew: 46
"O God, Our Help in Ages Past"
UMH: 117
H82: 680
AAHH: 170
NNBH: 46
NCH: 25
CH: 67
LBW: 320
ELA: 632
"Blest Be the Tie That Binds"
found in:
UMH: 557
PH: 438
AAHH: 341
NNBH: 298
NCH: 398
CH: 433
LBW: 370
ELA: 656
"O Church of God, United"
found in:
UMH: 547
"All My Hope Is Firmly Grounded"
found in:
UMH: 132
H82: 665
NCH: 408
CH: 88
ELA: 757
"Seek Ye First"
found in:
UMH: 405
H82: 711
PH: 333
CH: 354
CCB: 76
"We Are One in Christ Jesus" ("Somos uno en Cristo")
found in:
CCB: 43
"Our God Reigns"
found in:
CCB: 33
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who is steadfast in your love and grace: Grant to us, your children, the faith to trust in you that we may hold to the way of Jesus amidst all the changing and turmoil around us; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We have gathered here, O God, so that we might praise you and be transformed by your Spirit. We offer ourselves to you and to our brothers and sisters that we might grow in love and service to you, to one another, and to the world. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially the sin of confusing the things of the world for the things of God.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We look around at the things that humans have made and we are in awe and wonder. We forget that they are only things. They are not the stuff that life can be built upon. We take national elections so seriously that we are willing to destroy ourselves as a people in order to "win" the day. We often act no better in our congregation. Forgive us and help us to hear you calling us back together to focus on justice, mercy, and our relationship with you so that we may truly be the Body of Christ. Amen.
Leader: God desires us to live, and to live joyfully and abundantly. Listen to God's call and remember that it is only God's realm that is forever.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord's Prayer)
We sing your praises, O God, and exult your name because you are the only true source of life. Your breath, your Spirit is all that can make us truly alive.
(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 look around at the things that humans have made and we are in awe and wonder. We forget that they are only things. They are not the stuff that life can be built upon. We take national elections so seriously that we are willing to destroy ourselves as a people in order to "win" the day. We often act no better in our congregation. Forgive us and help us to hear you calling us back together to focus on justice, mercy, and our relationship with you so that we may truly be the Body of Christ.
We give you thanks for all the blessings we have received from you. We thank you for the gathering of the faithful that lifts us up, prays for us when we cannot pray for ourselves, and guides us when we lose our way.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for your world and all your children. We pray especially for those who find it difficult to distinguish between what is true life and what is only a charade. We see so many led away by the lies of the culture that tell them that things and power are what really matter. We know how seductive those voices can be.
(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
Talk to the children about fancy buildings -- churches, hospitals, schools. Then talk about what it would be like if you saw a really fancy church (or a hospital or a school) and you went in, but it was just empty. What's important isn't how fancy the building is but what goes on inside. Jesus is telling the disciples not to get so excited about the size of the stones that made up the temple -- it is learning the ways of God that is really important. It isn't what is on the outside but what is on the inside that makes the difference.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Huge
Mark 13:1-8
Object: a building brick or block
Good morning, boys and girls! We are gathered today in a beautiful place. This church building has been here for many years. It is large and beautiful. Sometimes when I look at buildings like this, I think that they will be here forever because they are made of strong things like this brick. (hold up the brick or block)
What's the largest building you have ever seen? (let the children answer) I also have seen some large buildings. It seems like they will last forever, doesn't it?
When Jesus was living in the country of Israel about 2,000 years ago, they had a building that was really large and beautiful. It was made of giant stones that were as tall and as wide and as long as a big car. Solid stones! How they ever got such large stones into place I'll never know! The building was solid and large and very beautiful. It was the temple where the people came to worship God.
Jesus, however, was not so much interested in stone buildings. He was much more interested in people -- like you and me. One day when he and his disciples were coming out of the beautiful temple, one of them said to him, "Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!" He was impressed. But Jesus was not impressed with the large stones and huge buildings. Jesus said that the day was soon coming when not one of those large stones would be left on top of another. They would all be thrown down!
At the time that must have been hard to understand because the temple was new and it was so big. But just as Jesus said, not many years later the temple was destroyed. All the big stones were taken down and thrown into the valley!
Our large buildings are wonderful and the beautiful mountains or oceans seem like they will be around forever. But God says that they will all pass away. Nothing that we see now will be here forever. But those who trust in Jesus will be forever. They will live forever with Jesus in heaven. That means that you and I will long outlast this building! I'm glad we have such a strong promise from Jesus!
Prayer: Dearest Lord Jesus, thank you for giving us eternal life. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, November 18, 2012, issue.
Copyright 2012 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 Mary Austin offers some additional thoughts on this week's gospel text and its themes of impermanence and the inevitability of change. Mary notes that change is a threatening thing for many of us -- especially when it pushes us out of our comfort zones and uproots deeply cherished notions that we have always assumed as the bedrock of our lives. Certainly the results of some ballot initiatives around the country herald changing attitudes on a number of social fronts -- and as many commentators have noted, even the composition of the electorate itself is changing in some very fundamental ways... which perhaps explains some of the hyperbole on the part of those (on both sides) who came up short in the election. While change can be very difficult to cope with, Jesus reminds us that it is a key part of God's world... and that it's the sign of something new being created. No matter how permanent we may think our great buildings and institutions are, they are always going to pass away -- only God is eternal.
A New Provocation
by Dean Feldmeyer
Hebrews 10:11-25
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another...
-- Hebrews 10:23-25
With malice toward none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
-- Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, from his second Inaugural Address
THE WORLD
Compare Lincoln's words from 1865 -- so prescient that they might have been written last week -- to those of a modern-day would-be leader (Donald Trump) who tweeted on election night: "We can't let this happen... We should march on Washington and stop this travesty... More votes equals a loss... Revolution!... Let's fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice... The world is laughing at us."
Political pundits have been scrambling to explain the outcome of last week's election. Here is some of what the conservative ones have come up with:
* The people who voted for Obama are "maggots" (Texas GOP official Peter Morrison);
* They are "not traditional Americans" because they value "stuff" over principle (Bill O'Reilly);
* America has "reached the tipping point" where the takers outnumber the makers (Ann Coulter);
* That under such circumstances Obama's win amounts to a "travesty" that calls for "a revolution" (Donald Trump);
* The only appropriate response to this win is to "buy farmland", move there, and take plenty of "ammunition" (Glenn Beck).
Rocker Ted Nugent tweeted that those who voted for Obama were "pimps, whores, welfare brats", and "soulless fools." Author and blogger Robert Stacy McCain was one of two commentators who called November 6 another "day that will go down in infamy", and a second "Pearl Harbor." Dick Morris said that the new agenda of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives should be to make sure that the president accomplishes nothing in the next four years. Former Saturday Night Live star Victoria Jackson said she couldn't stop crying because "America died."
Meanwhile, big business has pouted and showed its dismay by sending the stock market into a skid and predicting doom and destruction when we all ride headlong over the "fiscal cliff." Robert E. Murray of Ohio-based Murray Energy, the country's largest privately owned coal company, read a prayer to his employees lamenting the terrible things he is sure this election will mean for America. Then he laid off 156 of them, saying that the election gave him no choice but to stockpile as much cash as he could.
And even as conservatives throw temper tantrums and hissy fits, liberals are enjoying themselves way too much. Writing for the online magazine Slate, Katherine Goldstein points out that "Liberal Schadenfreude Is Out of Control" and tries to explain "why gloating after the election is nastier than ever." She offers examples from bloggers and tweets -- most of which are simply too obscene to print here -- as liberals dance on what they presume are the graves of their conservative counterparts. A couple of the milder examples:
* A tweeter who ironically calls him/herself "Wisdom Seeker" says: "Republicans are astounded that voters reject their racism, hate, bad policies, and myopic vision," and refers to them as a "sad, sick bunch."
* Someone named Ashtray Shotglass reports that at first she was "amused at having these old Republicans as work friends, but now I hate them. I hate them so hard."
Everyone seems to be focused upon the behavior of everyone else and what it means or may mean for the future of our country. But have any of them spent even the briefest moment examining their own behavior or their own attitudes and asking what effect they are having upon the country and those -- especially the children and youth -- who are watching them? It has never been truer than with our children today that "we get what we are."
One almost gets the feeling that some of these people will actually be happy if we leap off the fiscal cliff into another recession and higher unemployment so they can point the finger at and blame the other side. Is that how Christian people behave? Is that how sanctified believers in the Lord Jesus Christ approach people whose politics are different from their own?
THE WORD
As the liturgical year progresses it moves from indicative to imperative, from justification to sanctification. The passages and stories of the lectionary are more directive. They challenge us to reflect the good news of Jesus Christ in our behavior.
The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews makes a solid case for the justification, the purification of believer by way of Jesus' death on the cross and his subsequent resurrection. But he doesn't stop there. He is also clear that certain behavior is now expected of us as justified believers. We are called to live sanctified lives.
What does that look like? In 10:24-15 he lays some of it out for us:
1) Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.
We don't often think of the word "provoke" in a context such as this. It's an interesting choice, isn't it? Literally, it means to "call forth." And it usually is associated with anger or rage. But here the author redefines the word. Here he challenges us to call forth good things, good deeds, and acts of love from one another. Christians have a responsibility to find new ways to urge each appropriate, loving, helping behavior in one another.
2) ...not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another...
Secondly, he reminds us that we cannot provoke one another to love and good deeds from a distance. We need to be in physical proximity to each other. Physical closeness evokes emotional closeness. It is easy to resent and ridicule people from a distance, but as Christians we are called to meet together in the context of love and fellowship where it is hard to hate.
Scripture assumes that the world is a place of separation and estrangement. Rich are divided from poor, males are divided from females, Jews are divided from Gentiles, clean from unclean, sick from healthy, urban from rural. It is what it is -- divided and estranged.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
That we are riven is a given -- 50%-48% does not a mandate make. The country is divided.
Nothing new there. It has always been thus. Our two-party system enables and encourages separation and estrangement, division and divisiveness. And that is fine, as far as politics goes. (Make sure you are even-handed when you illustrate the depth of the division. It comes from both the right and the left.)
But as sanctified believers, followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to overcome separation, to transcend division, and to transform estrangement.
The challenge is not to unite everyone into a giant homogenous mass but to bridge the separations, to walk out onto the bridge of reconciliation even as we are building it, and to take risks for the sake of unity.
We begin doing that by coming together physically, if not ideologically, and encouraging each other in acts of love and good will.
A lot of provoking has gone on over the past few months.†Maybe now would be a good time to consider this new kind. If we can do this, then it is almost certain that "they will know we are Christians by our love."
SECOND THOUGHTS
by Mary Austin
Mark 13:1-8
In first-century Jerusalem, it must have seemed impossible to imagine a world without the temple. As a place of worship, commerce, meeting, and tourism, there was nothing quite like it. This was the temple built in the early 500s BCE, after the return of the exiles from Babylon, and rebuilt by Herod, the ruler appointed by Rome. Between 530 BCE and 130 CE, six different empires controlled Jerusalem and the worship of God continued in the temple. World powers came and went and the worship of God endured. It seemed impossible that it would ever change, but in this week's gospel text Jesus is saying that the day will come when the huge stones are scattered and the temple as a physical place is no more.
Large as it was physically, the idea and the importance of the temple were even larger. We have similar icons in our own public imagination. Mom and apple pie. Baseball. Going to the voting booth on election day to cast a ballot. The blissful newlywed couple, a man in a tux and a woman in a white dress.
Change is all around us too.
With each election, the voting booth is less and less a community gathering place or an emblem of democracy. As Ann Gearhart wrote in the Washington Post on November 5th, "[It] was inevitable that Election Day would become a relic of community solidarity. This is the year it's finally, irrefutably, finished. More than 30 million people have already cast ballots, a record in the early-voting sweepstakes. President Obama helped stick a fork in the concept of Election Day a week before Halloween, when he made history as the first U.S. President to vote early, in Chicago. (He was asked for, and produced, ID.)" Voting in Oregon and Washington happens exclusively by mail now and there are no more voting booths to be found.
And our collective image of marriage is changing, as three states affirmed the right of same-gender couples to marry, and one voted against a constitutional amendment to ban it. The blissful couple can look very different these days. An article in the online magazine Slate describes how marriage equality proponents worked to change people's minds about gay marriage in Maine and Minnesota
Research revealed that most voters didn't understand gay marriage to be an issue about love and commitment, and so they ran a voter education campaign called "Why Marriage Matters." The campaign's message was "love, commitment, family" -- there was "no mention of rights or benefits. On the surface, it look[ed] like any garden-variety public education campaign, a little vague, a little sappy. But this message was the result of several years and millions of dollars of research. It signaled a sea of change in the way gay advocates pled their case. This was a way to invite straight people to empathize with gay people, to reassure the majority that gay people wanted the same things that they did, and to shift focus from minority rights to points of commonality." Gay marriage turns out to be a lot like the marriages we know. The things that seem so different turn out to be much the same.
People upset by the results of the presidential election, the votes to legalize marijuana use, and the votes to approve gay marriage have expressed feelings evoking Jesus' words about "wars and rumors of wars." In another article in the Washington Post, writer Eli Saslow interviewed disappointed Romney supporters in Tennessee. He found Beth Cox dismantling the local campaign headquarters, and Saslow described her feelings of the future seeming bleak. Cox "could sense liberalism creeping closer, and she worried about what Red America would look like after four more years. Nashville itself had gone for Obama, and 400,000 more people in Tennessee had signed up for food stamps in the last five years to further a culture of dependency. The ACLU had sued her school board for allowing youth pastors to visit middle school cafeterias during lunch. Some of her friends had begun to wonder if the country was lost and if only God could save it." A way of life that looked like it would never change is shifting dramatically and for many people it's hard to feel hopeful about the future.
Yet change is central to the message of Jesus. One of the most repeated phrases in the Bible is "do not be afraid" -- perhaps because we are so prone to be afraid in the face of the unknown. Life holds the changes we seek, and also the ones we hate; the change we think we want, and the change that's forced on us. All of it, even the good stuff, is hard.
Jesus understands change better than anyone else I know. Central to his message is that we can't stay where we are and still be deeply engaged with God. Our connection with God inevitably leads to change, in ourselves and in the world. There is no holding on, whether it's to the temple or the voting booth or to our idea of how the world should be.
As he speaks, Jesus doesn't hold back about how hard things will be. He speaks about physical hardships, which many people also experience in our world. There's also another level of emotional distress for many people as the world shifts. All of it is in service to the birth of something new. "This is but the beginning of the birth pangs," Jesus promises. Something new is always being born in God's world. May we be able to keep up, by God's wise grace.
ILLUSTRATIONS
In Anne Lamott's novel All New People, the main character, Nanny, attends church services on and off with her mother, Marie, at a little church with wide open doors. Those open doors attract John, a mentally ill homeless man whose mannerisms, eccentricities, and person make Marie crazy. She feeds the hobos that pass through town on the train. She fights for justice and volunteers like it's her full-time job. She gives all people the benefit of the doubt... all people, that is, but John. Something about John empties her well of patience and provokes her to intolerance and meanness that is inconsistent with her faith.
Then John falls terminally ill, and James, the pastor of the little church, encourages the members to surround John at the hospital for baptism and blessing. John's need finally provokes Marie to act in love and go to be with him.
At John's memorial service, James shares a recording of John playing the piano. It turns out that John was a classically trained pianist whose gifts persisted even through his illness and his decline. Nanny says of this experience:
It was unlike anything I had ever heard in my life. The last notes hung in the air, some high like chimes, some like smoke. Everyone was crying, even my mother. James said that the music was God using John as an instrument, God playing John. The choir sang, "When I go up to Heaven I'll walk about, There's nobody there to turn me out; Deep River, my home is over Jordan." In a way I've never quite understood, the veil tore an inch for me that day, like it does every so often when in the midst of all that is mundane and day-to-day, there's suddenly a tiny tear in the veil, and you see the bigger brighter thing, and then the veil repairs itself, and the day goes on as before. (pg. 142)
When we are provoked, how do we respond? In sharp, defensive, and irritated ways or out of our faithfulness and hope? On the other side of things, how do we provoke others? How can we draw love and good deeds out of those with whom we make this journey of faith? When we encourage each other in these ways, what do we see or experience? Is the veil torn a bit? Is the approaching day that the writer of Hebrews mentions in verse 25 clearer and closer on the horizon?
* * *
In his political blog on the Esquire website, Charles P. Pierce writes about change and how our newly re-elected president is swimming in it. "Change is the force around him when he walks into the room," says Pierce.
This blogger is definitely an Obama supporter but the caricature of Obama at the top of the post is strangely bathed in inappropriate racial overtones. However, if those two speed bumps don't stop you from engaging Pierce's work, you may find that the post is full of thoughtful material on change, how we change together, and where that takes us.
Pierce argues that the business we're about in the world and so who we become is shaped by the "creative project of self-government." Us church-types might interpret that project as trying to figure out how to live well together in "the new and living way" (Hebrews 10:20) Jesus forged or "provoking one another to love and good deeds" in order to move toward the day of God that is approaching (Hebrews 10:25). However we frame it, all of this, Pierce writes, is surrounded by, immersed in, shaped through, and made possible through change.
In our passage from Mark's gospel for today, Jesus warns that change is coming, it cannot be stopped, and it won't be easy, but that it's creating something new and promising and beautiful -- like the birth pangs that bring forth new life (v. 8).
In his post, Pierce writes that the "creative project" and the ever-rolling change that comes with it (or that it is made up of) is bringing forth new life as well:
We are working on ourselves. We are incomplete. We are never finished. Elections come and go. The political commonwealth is a work in progress. We work with the tools that time and circumstance provide....
The same is true of the Christian commonwealth, the kingdom. We ride the tide of change (and wrestle with it, get choked by it, get swept off our feet by it), and we work our incomplete selves, churches, and communities into temples that will fall and be born again in some ever-unfinished but progressing way of new life, promise, and beauty in God.
* * *
What in our lives or our churches seems "too big to fail," like the temple would have seemed to the disciples? What (or maybe who) is it that looms large, exerting power and influence on the status quo? The disciples talked to Jesus about the temple's size. It must have seemed imposing and impressive to these visitors to the big city, but then Jesus tells them that all that seems unchangeable will fall to what will come in God.
Speaking of too big to fail, what happens to the GOP or even the two-party system as we have known it after an election like we just witnessed? Brand-new Senator Ted Cruz from Texas spoke about this in his interview with Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker. He traced the Republican Party's failure to win Latino voters to future elections. If Republicans continue on this road, says Cruz, they will lose Texas and its 38 electoral votes and...
"If that happens, no Republican will ever again win the White House. New York and California are for the foreseeable future unalterably Democrat. If Texas turns bright blue, the Electoral College math is simple. We won't be talking about Ohio, we won't be talking about Florida or Virginia, because it won't matter. If Texas is bright blue, you can't get to 270 electoral votes. The Republican Party would cease to exist."
And then what?
* * *
In her Dilworth neighborhood of Charlotte, North Carolina, Paula Broadwell was the perfect wife, mother, and homemaker. She served dinner by candlelight. She walked her two children to the bus stop each morning. She held backyard barbecues to greet new neighbors. She raised money for a special charity to care for the needs of wounded war veterans. Yes, for those standing on the curb she did provoke others to be family and community minded.
But to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Paula Broadwell, that perfect neighbor, was one who provoked a national security crisis when she gained access to the personal computer of CIA director David Petraeus. Paula Broadwell, the perfect wife, became the homewrecker for Holly Petraeus by having an extended affair with her husband; Paula Broadwell, the perfect soccer mom, provoked fear with threatening emails to Jill Kelley, a Petraeus family friend of five years. Yes, for those in the offices of the FBI, Paula Broadwell provoked a criminal investigation into cyber-harassment.
The gospel asks which shall we provoke -- fear or love. The gospel asks who we really are -- our public image or our private image.
* * *
Ann Romney campaigned vigorously for her husband Mitt during his presidential run. Her determination is to be admired, for she did so while battling another campaign, this one against multiple sclerosis. But in her enthusiasm, she often pushed or "provoked" her body beyond its level of endurance, collapsing early in the campaign. She said of one incident, "My body was just telling me again, 'You can't just go. Knock, knock, I'm here.' You can't do this to me."
We should be servants in helping others, but we should not push, or should we say "provoke," ourselves beyond our levels of endurance.
* * *
Black Friday will soon be upon us and this should not be confused with Good Friday. The former is a day of taking, the latter is a day of giving.
As retailers approach Black Friday, their advertising and sales strategies have been planned and ready for implementation. It is the mission of cybergroups to discover and divulge these plans to the public, allowing consumers to discover the best retail deals. But in many cases, retailers actually want their secrets to be discovered, as a way to provoke better sales that results from the consumer's joy of unveiling a supposed secret.
Details of the Black Friday special deals are leaked to the websites in one of three ways: as a cellphone photo from someone involved in production of the print advertisement; in an email sent by an employee; or most directly, through passing on the advertisement while the CEO purposely looks the other way.
Be careful about thinking that what is provoking you to a good deal may really only be a ploy to entrap you.
* * *
A family of tourists from the Midwest steps out of a yellow cab in lower Manhattan. They walk a short distance until their eyes are pulled upward by the amazing sight before them. It's a massive skyscraper, larger than any they've ever seen: one of the two towers of the World Trade Center. Its twin stands nearby, equally commanding their attention. They are so much bigger than they had imagined, those towers: broad across the base, soaring majestically in height.
Just then the tourist family hears a strident voice. "Repent!" cries the voice. "The end is near. One day soon, not one stone of these towers will be left standing upon another!"
"Just some religious fanatic," explains the husband, laughing nervously, before leading his wife and children over to ask for directions to the observation deck.
Had such a scene actually occurred on September 10, 2001, it would hardly have seemed remarkable. Street preachers are part of the life of any major city. Yet who would have taken that man seriously? Who could have known -- except perhaps for a small group of terrorists, putting the finishing touches on their dreadful conspiracy -- that the very next day, the words of that street-corner preacher would prove to be absolutely correct?
Who could have known either that Jesus' prediction about the future of the temple is absolutely correct? "Do you see these great buildings?" he asks his disciples -- especially the one who'd been walking around like a country bumpkin, gawking at the urban landscape. "Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down." To Jesus' listeners that prediction seems incredible: for what could be more permanent, more stubbornly enduring, than the temple?
-- Carlos Wilton, Lectionary Preaching Workbook [Series VIII, Cycle B] (CSS Publishing, 2006)
* * *
At the end of the movie Fiddler on the Roof, the Jewish villagers have been ordered off their lands and forced to move on to some other place. They have lost everything, even their homes and community, as each family plans to seek out family members in some other part of the world. In the midst of this great sadness and loss, one of the characters turns to the rabbi and says: "With so much violence and sadness, wouldn't this be a good time for Messiah to come?" The rabbi answers him, "We'll have to wait for him someplace else."
The disciples thought it would surely be the end of the world if the temple were destroyed. The Romans thought it was the end of the world if the barbarians entered the city. The people of Europe thought surely the plague of the Black Death was the end of the world. Jesus says to the disciples, "Just because there is violence and sadness, don't expect that the world will end."
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: Let our hearts exult in God.
People: Our strength is renewed in our God.
Leader: There is no Holy One like God.
People: There is no rock like our God.
Leader: God will judge the ends of the earth.
People: God will give strength to the Anointed One.
OR
Leader: Let us come together in the presence of God.
People: We come to provoke one another -- not to anger, but to love.
Leader: Let us encourage one another in good works.
People: We lift one another up to reflect the image of God.
Leader: In God we are all one people.
People: In Christ we are all one body.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
"We Gather Together"
found in:
UMH: 131
H82: 433
PH: 559
NNBH: 326
NCH: 421
CH: 276
"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
"Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise"
found in:
UMH: 103
H82: 423
PH: 263
NCH: 1
CH: 66
LBW: 526
ELA: 834
Renew: 46
"O God, Our Help in Ages Past"
UMH: 117
H82: 680
AAHH: 170
NNBH: 46
NCH: 25
CH: 67
LBW: 320
ELA: 632
"Blest Be the Tie That Binds"
found in:
UMH: 557
PH: 438
AAHH: 341
NNBH: 298
NCH: 398
CH: 433
LBW: 370
ELA: 656
"O Church of God, United"
found in:
UMH: 547
"All My Hope Is Firmly Grounded"
found in:
UMH: 132
H82: 665
NCH: 408
CH: 88
ELA: 757
"Seek Ye First"
found in:
UMH: 405
H82: 711
PH: 333
CH: 354
CCB: 76
"We Are One in Christ Jesus" ("Somos uno en Cristo")
found in:
CCB: 43
"Our God Reigns"
found in:
CCB: 33
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who is steadfast in your love and grace: Grant to us, your children, the faith to trust in you that we may hold to the way of Jesus amidst all the changing and turmoil around us; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We have gathered here, O God, so that we might praise you and be transformed by your Spirit. We offer ourselves to you and to our brothers and sisters that we might grow in love and service to you, to one another, and to the world. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially the sin of confusing the things of the world for the things of God.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We look around at the things that humans have made and we are in awe and wonder. We forget that they are only things. They are not the stuff that life can be built upon. We take national elections so seriously that we are willing to destroy ourselves as a people in order to "win" the day. We often act no better in our congregation. Forgive us and help us to hear you calling us back together to focus on justice, mercy, and our relationship with you so that we may truly be the Body of Christ. Amen.
Leader: God desires us to live, and to live joyfully and abundantly. Listen to God's call and remember that it is only God's realm that is forever.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord's Prayer)
We sing your praises, O God, and exult your name because you are the only true source of life. Your breath, your Spirit is all that can make us truly alive.
(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 look around at the things that humans have made and we are in awe and wonder. We forget that they are only things. They are not the stuff that life can be built upon. We take national elections so seriously that we are willing to destroy ourselves as a people in order to "win" the day. We often act no better in our congregation. Forgive us and help us to hear you calling us back together to focus on justice, mercy, and our relationship with you so that we may truly be the Body of Christ.
We give you thanks for all the blessings we have received from you. We thank you for the gathering of the faithful that lifts us up, prays for us when we cannot pray for ourselves, and guides us when we lose our way.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for your world and all your children. We pray especially for those who find it difficult to distinguish between what is true life and what is only a charade. We see so many led away by the lies of the culture that tell them that things and power are what really matter. We know how seductive those voices can be.
(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
Talk to the children about fancy buildings -- churches, hospitals, schools. Then talk about what it would be like if you saw a really fancy church (or a hospital or a school) and you went in, but it was just empty. What's important isn't how fancy the building is but what goes on inside. Jesus is telling the disciples not to get so excited about the size of the stones that made up the temple -- it is learning the ways of God that is really important. It isn't what is on the outside but what is on the inside that makes the difference.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Huge
Mark 13:1-8
Object: a building brick or block
Good morning, boys and girls! We are gathered today in a beautiful place. This church building has been here for many years. It is large and beautiful. Sometimes when I look at buildings like this, I think that they will be here forever because they are made of strong things like this brick. (hold up the brick or block)
What's the largest building you have ever seen? (let the children answer) I also have seen some large buildings. It seems like they will last forever, doesn't it?
When Jesus was living in the country of Israel about 2,000 years ago, they had a building that was really large and beautiful. It was made of giant stones that were as tall and as wide and as long as a big car. Solid stones! How they ever got such large stones into place I'll never know! The building was solid and large and very beautiful. It was the temple where the people came to worship God.
Jesus, however, was not so much interested in stone buildings. He was much more interested in people -- like you and me. One day when he and his disciples were coming out of the beautiful temple, one of them said to him, "Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!" He was impressed. But Jesus was not impressed with the large stones and huge buildings. Jesus said that the day was soon coming when not one of those large stones would be left on top of another. They would all be thrown down!
At the time that must have been hard to understand because the temple was new and it was so big. But just as Jesus said, not many years later the temple was destroyed. All the big stones were taken down and thrown into the valley!
Our large buildings are wonderful and the beautiful mountains or oceans seem like they will be around forever. But God says that they will all pass away. Nothing that we see now will be here forever. But those who trust in Jesus will be forever. They will live forever with Jesus in heaven. That means that you and I will long outlast this building! I'm glad we have such a strong promise from Jesus!
Prayer: Dearest Lord Jesus, thank you for giving us eternal life. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, November 18, 2012, issue.
Copyright 2012 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.
